On to part 3, the final part of the codex review which will look at the detachments, formations and supplemental material.
Decurion detachment:
A new and interesting concept
introduced here is the decurion detachment. What this allows is for the Necron
player to have an additional way of organising their army in addition to the
methods found in the main rulebook. (unbound, combined arms, allied).
Effectively, you make up a detachment comprising formations (more on them
below). This has the benefit of you being able to keep both the detachment
benefits and in addition you get the individual formation benefits. There are
restrictions within the detachment and, of course, the usual restrictions
within the individual formations. The core formation here is the reclamation
legion, which allows you to in turn take 0-1 royal court and 1-10 of any of the
other detachments. For every legion you take, you can then add in the same.
It's a really nice concept and obviously those who don't like it don't have to
use it. The other added benefit is a shedload of formations added into the
book. The command benefit gained from
taking a decurion is ever-living, granting a +1 to reanimation protocols and
allowing models with living metal to ignore stunned and shaken - this is across
the whole army and so is of great benefit if you can organise your army this
way. Note that the Star God, Flayed ones and Deathmarks entries are simply
chosen from the datasheets and are not a formation in themselves.
Reclamation Legion:
The core of the Decurion, the
Legion formation grants the models within it move through cover and relentless,
as well as allowing the Overlord and units within 12" of him to reroll
reanimation protocol rolls of 1. The formation consists of 1 Overlord (or
Zahndrekh, Trazyn, Anrakyr or a Command barge), 0-2 Lychguard, 1-4 Immortals,
2-8 Warriors, 1-3 Tomb blades and 0-3 Monoliths. This is a great flexible core
to any army and a seemingly obvious sales plug for tomb blades by making them
1-3, though with the new rules chances are you'll want some anyway.
Royal Court:
No Longer a standard option in
the army list, the court is now a formation consisting of a single Overlord (or
one of the alternatives mentioned above), 1-3 Lords (Or Obyron) and 1-3
Crypteks (or Orikan/Szeras) as a single unit, and as independent characters they may split off and join other squads. They gain move through cover and relentless as with the
Reclamation legion, but in addition the Overlord may reroll warlod traits if it
is the Warlord.
Judicator Battalion:
Consisting of one unit of
stalkers and 2 units of Praetorians, the battalion not only grants move through
cover to the units but also target designated, which allows the player to
nominate a single unit in line of sight to a stalker. All units in the
formation can then reroll to hit, wound or penetrate vs this target until the
end of the shooting phase. Potentially devastating if a priority target
presents itself.
Destroyer Cult:
One destroyer Lord, 3 units of
destroyers (3+ models each) and 0-1 heavy destroyer units. They gain move
through cover and also can reroll warlord traits if chosen as a primary
detachment. In addition to their preferred enemy, extermination protocols allows
all models in the formation to re-roll failed to wound and armour penetration
rolls in the shooting phase. Nice.
Deathbringer flight:
A formation of 2-4 doom scythes
which allows you to add 2 to your BS when firing death rays at the same target
for each preceding death ray shot. Also, enemy units within 12" or 2+ doom
scythes have -1 leadership.
Living Tomb:
Consisting of an obelisk and 0-2
monoliths, the tomb requires all units to start in deep strike reserve. The
Obelisk automatically arrives on the second turn and allows any monoliths
arriving to not scatter if placed within 12". The tomb nexus rule grants
monoliths the ability to immediately relocate a single infantry unit from
reserves to disermbark at the same time the monolith arrives. A good way of
getting an additional Lord of war onto the table and also stopping your
monoliths from mishapping as well as getting units in from reserve fairly
reliably.
Annihilation Nexus:
A doomsday ark and 2 annihilation
barges make up the nexus. The quantum deflection rule allows you to sacrifice a
barges quantum shielding to reactivate the doomsday arks. Not that great to be
honest as the barges are themselves an asset not to be easily sacrificed.
Canoptek Harvest:
This formation is composed of a
single canoptek spyder, 1 unit of wraiths and one unit of scarabs. They all
gain move through cover and relentless, but also get adaptive subroutines. This
allows you to give the spyder and any units from the formation within 12"
one of the following rules per turn: shred, fleet and reanimation protocols.
Certainly the last one will be useful in keeping already durable units alive
that extra bit longer to make it into combat.
Mephrit Dynasty Warlord traits and relics of the war in heaven:
Not technically a formation but I
thought I would mention these items here while going over the Mephrit Dynasty
(hate the paint scheme) formations from WD and exterminatus.
1 - Eternal will - warlord has
eternal warrior
2 - Override protocols - warlords
melee weapons have haywire USR
3 - Immortal arrogance - warlord
and friendly necrons in 12" can reroll failed morale, pinning and fear
tests.
4 - Mental Subroutines - Warlord
has admantium will.
5 - Scorn of the ages - Warlord
and his unit have hatred.
6 - Repair nanoscarabs - Warlord
has it will not die USR.
The God shackle (cryptek only) -
as long as the Cryptek remains alive a nominated C'tan shard gains +1 S/T.
Edge of eternity (Overlord only)
- a warscythe with precision strikes.
Solar thermasite -
(Overlord/Cryptek) - can reroll failed saves of 1 and gains +1S to
ranged/melee.
Mephrit Dynasty Cohort
Effectively a Necron detachment
if you wanted one as an alternative to the decurion. Essentially the same as a
combined arms detachment just with 3-8 troops. Perks include rerolling for
Mephrit Warlord traits and rerolling reanimation protocol rolls of 1 for
troops. Note that you cannot take tesseract vaults.
Conclave of the burning one
This chap is the C'tan shard
mentioned in Exterminatus and the formation consists of a C'tan Shard with 2
Crypteks which form a unit together - they can't be joined by any other
characters but benefit from using the Shards toughness. While the Crypteks are
alive the Shard gets feel no pain 5+, 6+ if only one is alive. This would seem
to work well with the God Shackle, but as these rules were released before the
Codex it's not quite clear if you have to take a Shard (Nightbringer/Deceiver)
or if you can take a transcendent C'tan - the Burning one is clearly the
Transcendent C'tan model just with the old Shard rules, but now the Shards all
have disinct rules it's a bit unclear.
Zarathusa's Royal Decurion
The first of 3 mini-decurions,
this one grants one of the following rules to the non-vehicle units in the
formation: crusader, counter-attack, fearless, monster hunters. The overlord
must be alive to benefit from it and you can change the rule at the beginning
of each turn to suit the situation. The requirements are rather specific
though, consisting of 1 overlord / immortals / ghost ark / stalker / deathmarks
/ doom scythe / praetorians and 2 units of warriors / wraiths.
Anrakyr's strategic decurion
The benefits of this formation
are rerolling to seize the initiative and being able to re-roll reserves as
long as Anrakyr is alive. It consists of Anrakyr, 2 units of warriors and one
of each immortals, ghost ark, doom scythe and deathmarks.
The Guardians of Perdita
One of the formations made up of
formations found in Exterminatus, this one is basically all 3 of the above
formations combined (for larger games obviously) which in addition to their
individual perks all benefit from Zarathusa's command benefits so long as he is
still alive.
Mephrit Dynasty resurgence decurion
This mini WD formation is 2 units
of warriors, 2 units of immortals and a monolith, which has the locus of
resurrection rule. This allows the monolith to repair fallen models from the
formation at the beginning of the movement phase. All units of warriors within
6"roll a D6 and all units of immortals a D3. Add this many models to the
unit so long as it doesn't exceed starting size. This is a great formation if
you aren't using a decurion as it allows a solid firebase which will continue
to resurrect itself so long as the monolith remains alive.
Conclusion
Overall I think the Necron Codex
is a very good effort on GWs parts. The book itself is extensive and packed
full of pictures and datasheets. They've done a very good job of balancing out
a controversial codex and as a result have made it so that while the army is
still strong, it doesn't have so many auto-include units any more. Highlights
include the decurion detachment style of organisation, while areas which fell a
bit short of the mark include the simplistic squad markings section, loss of variety amongst Crypteks and the
random nature of the C'Tan powers. Overall though very impressed with this
release. Cheers.
