We shouldn't penelize the portals to much like what Atension points towards.

It's not always so that you want to send your monoliths portals forward. I have moved to hide behind buildings or other cover to move out of shooting. Loosing that possbility is what I think is a bit to harsh.

cheers

Well this is a more reasonable objection IMO, but it's not what atension was saying.

For this reason I'd rather it just be that the portal doesn't work when broken.

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A problem that I see from this is that changes to the Portal for, effectively, the Monoliths will just push the aggressive player more towards using the Portal carrying Night Scythe as the way to deliver troops.

Rather than discussing a known mechanism I would prefer to first look at the new units that seem very powerful first. Then we can bottom out Living Metal and if the list is still too powerful we can then look at the main advantage of the list over other armies.

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No it is surprisingly easy to break monolith formations. You only need statistically four hits to do it or anything with disrupt. It would lock down the formation in a less than advantageous spot. They would likely only have a 50% chance of rallying if your opponent knows what their doing. That means there is a good chance that they could do nothing for the rest of the game. In a 3000 point list you only have 2 possibly 3 monolith formations. You have to understand that necrons are only effective in assaults. Their shooting and movement otherwise is attrocious. If you really think about how they work removing any withdraw move would severely cripple the list especially the Sautekh list as there is no phase out.. It's not an overexageration in the least.

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Agree...broken Monoliths being effective is annoying, but if they aren't the Necrons will be crippled. It will make the Raiders list unplayable.

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Yes it is possible to break monoliths (if it wasn't, such a change would be irrelevant). But it's not that easy to do in a single activation, which given the target needs to move out of the way as well in a separate activation is all you are likely to get. Try not to look at it in isolation though. When ever you concentrate your efforts towards achieving something in a game of Epic, you always give up the potential to do something else. Your opponent does not have infinite activations, nor can he activate them all before you. If I dedicate 3 activations to breaking a formation of monoliths and moving out of their engagement range it seems obvious that a) that's a pretty reasonable price to pay and b) by then at least one of your other assaults has already come down on a formation that gave up its chance to do something first.

I'm not saying this is the solution, but there is a general point here that does not seem to be getting through: t'd be nice to get to a point where the necrons' opponent feels like they can block some of those assaults by using his own units, but is still never going to be able to stop -all- of them. I can still very easily lose the game, but at least it felt like something I did was not a waste of time and the units I paid for were not a waste of points. It's been said many times on this thread already but the same straw man keeps being torn down so perhaps it's worth restating: this is not about people being unable to win vs necrons, it's about necrons not being fun. We have to take into account what contributes to a player's sense of "fairness". Currently Living Metal and some aspects of portals fail that test because they make the player largely helpless to do anything about them.

You are looking at this like a straight nerf, "OMG necrons only get 3 formations of monoliths if you break one the sky falls". But there's a flip side of every coin. Maybe there'd be more monoliths now? Maybe the list would have other strengths? Nobody wants to create a list that is underpowered - it's not about nerfing necrons, it's about making them more enjoyable. That's what people are looking for and it's going to need some considered reflection on the part of necron players to figure out how to make that happen. Making the necrons, including their portals, more "counter-able" is IMO a priority for this list (and BTW I am assuming something will be done about the flyers, the introduction of which is a backwards step in that regard). Personally I don't think that's really possible without accepting fairly substantive changes to portals, but that's my opinion and of course it would come with a boost elsewhere to compensate. At the moment it feels like we are a long way of, the raiders list reads as a litany of superlatives which I think brumbaer emphasises quite eloquently, and the sauthekh list IMO only addresses some of those and then only incompletely.

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Kyrt you are missing my point. As mentioned you can statistically break a group of three monoliths with just 4 hits. One activation can easily accomplish this. Necrons usually loose the initiative roll so an army fielding less than 3 groups would be at a sever disadvantage even assuming they would drop all three formation in the first turn. It doesn't take three full activations to break a group of monoliths generally less than 2. I have played dozens of games with necrons and all monolith formations being broken the turn they come out generally before they active iouts generally a given. I have play tested both indomitable and non indomitable and there is a significant impact already with the lack of the double withdraw move. Them bring unable to move would be too much.
As I said before I have no problem play testing if something is a generally agreed change and will even try broken portals not working but I know it will disastrous to the list. Especially since monolith formations are so limited in size. If you want portals to stop working then the unit sizes will have to grow.

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Broken portals not working is not something I'm considering. What I think we should playtest i the next list version is what has been suggested previously in this thread. A phalanx going through a broken portal gains a blast marker. At the same time I will reintroduce that monolith formations may be more than just 3 units like in raiders

No, I'm really not. I may disagree on what I consider "easy" (I had a run through my most recent list and only 1 formation could do it with a greater than 50% chance, broadsides in orca), but it's not even relevant to what I'm saying. As in, your concerns can be totally valid but still completely irrelevant because you're talking about the current list, not what the list can be. I've said it several times now but you don't seem to be seeing it as your replies ignore it: the point is to make it possible to counter them, or at least for your actions to have an impact against them. It is NOT to make that easy to do.

To use this saga of breaking units of 3 as an example: to say "breaking them is too easy and I need this unit so let's make breaking them not matter" is completely arse backwards. It should be just harder to break them. Again, IMO there are lots of ways of introducing this fairness back and I am not wedded to any solution but all of them require that you accept some changes. If some of those changes are nerfs then there will be other changes that are boosts to counter balance them. The sky is not falling.

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Sigh... Kyrt, as I mention in nearly every post I am willing to test anything, I just don't think yout suggestion is the right solution to make the list more enjoyable to face. We really aren't talking about ballance as the list win/ loss is about 50%. Raiders finish mid pack in most tournaments and the Sautekh I've played 9 games and had 4 wins 5 losses. Most of the reports are posted. There are other options that are being worked on that don't drastically afftect the flavour/uniqueness of the necron force. See Borka's post on broken portals. This was where I was planning on going next. If you play necrons or your opponent does, please feel free to try your proposed changes and post them. We have to shape the current list in small steps, it's not generally advantageous to make major changes all at once. If we take away portaling from broken units with portals and change nothing else it will be disaster. If we then changeseveral things to compensate it will be a completely new list. I pretty sure Borkas vision is not to deviate too drastically from the original approved list. You need not convince me but him as I play test all his changes if I agree or not.

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I know you're feeling frustrated but seriously it's not necessary. Take a step back, re-read the posts and you'll realise I am not trying to do to your army what you think I am. I'm trying to ease your concerns, not argue against you. Honest!


That's fine. It isn't my suggestion. It's not even one I am particularly behind.. My objection is to proposed changes being characterised as issues of balance in general. Not just by you, I don't really want to single you out. Too many straw men are being torn down on this thread - arguing against points that nobody is making - and once we all realise that we can be more constructive.

Exactly! I'm not talking about altering balance either! This is what I keep saying For the record, I have had no problems winning against Necrons, they just haven't been as fun as they could be. There is consensus that they have an image problem, not a balance problem. It should therefore be obvious that if there are to be new negatives for necrons, they will be accompanied by new positives, but for some reason this seems not to be obvious to everyone and this issue of OMG THAT'S A NERF is recurring. Thus discussion is being sidetracked by understandable but misplaced fears that necrons will become unable to win. It'd be more productive to discuss the real issues (like - "hey, that's going to take a lot of effort to balance").

Agreed. Again, they are not my proposed changes and I am happy to test what Borka puts forward. I don't own necrons so if I can do so, my comments will likely be focussed on whether the list felt fairer to play against than Raiders.

Aha, now this is a valid issue. Agreed, it may well require substantive changes if they lose portaling from broken formations ("a completely different list"? maybe, maybe not but yes - other changes). Clearly the fewer changes the better as it's much easier to develop that way. Whether large changes are the right thing to do will bear out in testing and listening to opponents' feedback. Personally I think broken portals feel unfair for Eldar and feel unfair for Necrons, but IMO it is gaining too much focus and is just one of many possible areas to look at. If other solutions work to mitigate it then all is well. I have my own opinions on how far we are down the path, but I know the AC and I have the same end goal so I'm perfectly happy to get behind him and see how things develop. If it's come across as anything else I can only apologise.

Now, let's get back to our regular scheduled programme!

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Just to confirm: for the blast markers, do the warriors get the BM after they activate, or before they try? If the former, to they only get it if they succeed to move through, or do they also get it if they fail?

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Hi I'm new to the Necrons in Epic and I'm just wondering what the general aim towards the feel of the army is concerned.
When I see lists of Necrons, they feel really Popcorny to me, and hit and run. Is this what you guys are aiming for?

Cause when i envision Necrons its a slow advance with large infantry formations that gets up again if shot. Destroyers and flyers harassing the enemy up until the point where the necron infantry is in range and lets loose. Almost a Napoleonesq feel, rather than the fluid battleline of Helicopter borne infantry of Vietnam.

Here are some thoughts I had on the list:
I would have thought regeneration on the SH's would have been a given, scarabs crawling around repairing stuff on the go.

Here's a fluffy thought on living metal and gauss weaponry. The way Gauss weapons work in 40k is to make even the lowliest gun capable of penetrating armour. My thought was that instead of giving Necrons better AP/AT values, why not give them - save? For instance a MW type weapon would instead reduce armour by -1 (a Land raider would get 5+ RA instead of a single 4+ save, a slight reduction in power). A TK weapon would make it -2 save (the same Land Raider would get 6+ RA instead of none, also an improvement for the land raider). The same idea could be applied to living metal. Changing the way MW and TK interact with necron vehicles. Anyway it would be a way to make Necrons unique without breaking the game.

Pondorous - squats have the same kind of rule they also may only make one withdrawal move (but for Squats this is also capped at 15cm regardless of actual move value). Seeing as all the vehicles having ponderous also have fearless, I see no problem making ponderous mean 0 withdrawal move.

Portals - Seems to be the crux of what makes Necrons disliked. I would have tried to make the infantry part of the same formation as the portal. this would give both monolith formations and infantry a bit more staying power but without the possibilities of shenanigans. And just like transport (X) decides how many could be transported, a portal (X) could denote the the number of units that could exit through a portal? (depending upon the direction you would like to go, a formation that lost all it's transports would either not be able to enter the game at all, or use some sort of communal portal, either on some SH or the tomb complex.

Don't know if the eternity gate rule is really needed but a use could be to allow a monolith to instantly pick up "its" infantry regardless of range, but only It's own. (see my portal suggestion above)

Wraiths/praetorians/archantrites - Seem really similar to me, are all infantry types needed? Feels repetitive.

Commanders - Some formations are allowerd to take both types of formations, seems over the top for (for instance) 4 deathmarks to also have 2 commanders.

Triarch maniple - almost seem more like a phalanx the way it's allowed a plethora of upgrades. Either make it a phalanx or remove some upgrades?

Arcanthrite Swarm - is tat supposed to be scarabs? I'm unable to find any pictures of arcanthrites.

There will most likely be more thoughts from me. But thats the first impressions do with them what you like.

^ interesting idea ^
I'm not a fan of special rules that negate your rules. Such path lays to way of madness that 40k fell to. The above is more logical perhaps. Not sure on the workability, needs more discussion but worth said discussion.


I think the single with a cap'd X cm is a good one. The X value being debatable.


Yes. The idea of Portal(x) working similar to how transport(x) works is a great one. X can be a large value but lends itself to have a more tactical edge to the game then. If the portal in on broken formation adds a BM (yay my idea from like forever ago has legs! ) I'd expect that the portal out would to, no? I wouldn't make them part of the same formation hwoever.


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