First Necron list + battle report

I have, through some rather shady canals, gotten hold of the new Necron Codex - no more rumour mongering for me, just the bare truth from the author himself!

I really like the codex, it doesn't appear to be overly powerful, nor utterly craptastic - a nice, balanced look at first glance, and playthrough.

Special mentions should go out to Trazyn the Infinite with Lychguard, since he's, well, infinite. Another combo is Orikan the Diviner, who makes all enemy movement during first turn count as moving through difficult terrain, coupled with a C'Tan that makes all difficult terrain count as dangerous - could potentially hurt a car park ALOT!

My first list was 1500 points, but alas I couldn't get all the minis assembled before I had to play - so I went for a quick 1000 point game against some Grey Knights.

Here goes (sorry guys, no point values):

Necron Overlord
 - Resurrection Orb
 - Warscythe

Royal Court
 - Cryptek, Harbinger of Destruction, Solar Pulse, Gaze of Flame

5 Lychguards w. Warscythes

5 Immortals w. Tesla Carbines

10 Warriors

10 Warriors

2 Destroyers

Annihilation Barge

Annihilation Barge

The overlord goes with the Lychguards and the Cryptek joins one unit of Warriors.

Since it was just a silly game to see what the Necrons felt like, but not really play totally competitively, we went for the Battle Missions and rolled a marine one, the 'All-out Defense', in which the Grey Knights were defending a center objective which made them fearless, but surrounded on all sides by the attackers - in this case, the Necrons!

Already by my first turn (he started) the battle was going sour for the Grey Knights. The combined shooting wrecked a Razorback; shook, immobilized and weapon-destroyed a Land Raider Redeemer, killed four terminators and two Purgation squad members. By turn four the game was over, the last Grey Knights killed in melee by the Lychguard. My Overlord had died from a Librarian in melee, and couldn't get up to fight again.

So, here's some impressions:

The Codex is fun. Really, it is - coming from dabbling with Daemons and Tyranids, I really like getting back to 40K with some good, shooty fun and hardcore models - in nice plasticky details!

The Destroyers are only one wound each - I'm not entirely convinced that they're worth it.

The Lychguard hit hard but die rather easily to e.g. Grey Knights, the Initiative value of 2 really hurts. I think I'll have to re-equip them with the shields...gah, decisions, decisions!

The Annihilation Barge is really, really good. Ya rly.

The Reanimation Protocol is alot more powerful than first anticipated, I wasn't expecting that.

The Resurrection Orb has a major rules mismatch...what happens when a guy has joined a unit with a Ressurection Orb, and he and some other dudes in the unit end up dead? Do the Orb work for the character only then, or does it only work while he's still alive - and can you 'separate the rolls' then? What gives? It's troublesome that Mat Ward didn't really foresee such a simple situation, unfortunately.

That aside, we ended up playing it so he rolled first, if he made it the other rolls were done at 4+, else they were done at 5+. It's probably not the right solution, I'll study the Codex a bit further but for now it's a bit unresolved...

Oh, and the barges are not Fast Skimmers - bummer, I thought they were.

I think I'll reconsider the Destroyers and instead go for a squad of Deathmarks. They seem great, really. And I'm not so certain about that Cryptek with Solar Pulse, but he stays for now.

Also, the Overlord I'm not sure should join Lychguard like mine did - he'll end up dead against some dedicated melee dude, not worth it unless I also give him a 3+ invul save. I think I'll keep him as a support-guy for my next game, with the Warscythe and Resurrection Orb still but also with the Tachyon Arrow for a good one-shot thing, and perhaps a Cryptek for rerolling it.

Oh, and not sure I should post pictures, so I didn't grab any. I can tell you that the Annihilation Barge is awesome, and the Doomsday Ark is enourmous!

Tomorrow I'll assemble the rest and hopefully get another game in, otherwise I might start to paint some of the minis up.

Thanks for reading!