I have been playing Necrons for a little while now and I think that how the units have been designed and implimented in the game is excellent. Despite this I feel that it is lacking a few units that are intrinsically Necron to me. In the past I have seen a few reasons for not including these specific units and I am in no doubt that I have missed alot of discussion on the topic but they are things I would like to have in my army, even if only to be included for casual games.

This is more a thread for working out the points and development of units rather than a debate about why the should or shouldnt be in the list.




Wraith Formations 250pts
4 Wraiths

Upgrades
up to 4 wraiths at 50pts each

Type_____Speed___Armour__Close Combat___Fire Fight
_Inf______30cm_____4+_________3+______________-

Weapons______Range________Firepower_______Notes
_Claws____(Base Contact)__Assault weapons_______-

Notes: Necron, Jump Pack, First strike, Invulnreble Save


I would really like to see wraiths in the army. Personally one of my favourite bits of Necron fluff is to do with the How wraiths will attack seemingly well defended key locations with no warning, severing command lines and taking out strategic targets before dissapearing.

At first I thought that it would be nice to have them teleporting in so they could appear on the battlefield without a portal allow them to access the battlefield. This may overlap with the Flayed ones too much and make one or the other redundant in the list.








Scarab Swarms 200pts
6 Scarab swarms

Upgrades
Up to 6 additional Scarab swarms at 25pts each
Up to 3 tomb spiders at 50pts each

Type_____Speed___Armour____Close Combat_____Fire Fight
_Inf______20cm_____5+__________4+_______________6+

Weapons________Range_______Firepower______Notes
Swarm attack____(15cm)_________Swarm___________-
Self Destruct__(Base Contact)__Explosive charges_____- Macro Weapon 4+, Each successful attack removes one scarab swarm (This does not count as a casulty for the necrons combat resolution)

Notes: Necron, Invulnreble Save



When I was first playing 40k when I was a kid I loved using my suicide scarabs to take out my (rich) friends tank company. These were one of the units that got me into playing the game when I was ounger and have always loved the kamakazi robot insect vibe ever since.

In gaming terms I would like to see horde of insects flying across the battlefield. The reason that they have a fire fight attack is due to the nature of the swarm. A base of scarabs is going to be a more abstract representation of a unit than a unit of marines, there are ment to be hundreds of scarabs filling the air. The fire fight attack is to do with the weight of numbers and the more dispersed chaotic attacks. The invlunreble save is also due to shooting at a swarm is going to be very different to shooting at single targets.

As for the kamakazi attack I wasnt sure if it would be too overpowered. I wasnt sure if they should die if they attempt the attack or die on a successful attack (the latter made more sense to me). I think it represents the kamakzi attack pretty well.

I can see this unit will raise objections, it fills a niche in the Necron army by provided a ready supply of Macro Weapon attacks. From what I gather was something that necrons were ment to go without. Oh well...



I would be interested to get some feedback concerning points values or any other issues to do with the units. As far as I can see the units dont look too broken, then again I have never really made any units before and I havent played that much Epic....

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Got Cubes?

Wraiths are in the list alreay, and something as small as scarabs works best as a weapon at this scale.

I think the Scarab Swarms are an interesting idea and Chroma has already tinkered with the idea (although I have no idea how good they are).

There are a lot of 'holes' in the Necron list, most notably because there was extreme pressure to keep the list as close to canon as possible. The Abbatoir and Aeonic Orb were accepted largely because Jervis okay'd them. We introduced one unit (the Warbarque) and it met with moderate resistance. Had we introduced another and another, we would have undoubtedly alienated a lot of players.

With that said, the fact that the Necron fought for millennia against the Old Ones tells me they probably had a wide variety of weapons and vehicles available to them. Big things, little things, and everything in between.

The Wraith formation was tried out and we removed it mainly because it wasn't being playtested and the playtests that we had showed them underpowered. The list reverted back to the previous iteration regarding those units. Now I have no problem with a variant list including an all Wraith formation.

My own thoughts are that a Tomb World list would include lots of wraiths, scarab swarms, not a lot of Monoliths, little-to-no Obelisks, fixed portals, giant tomb guardians, and that weird segmented thing that Otterman is working on. I know there is already an experimental Tomb World list but I'm not keen on it just because IMO it doesn't do enough to distinguish itself, especially in light of the many inventions being put out right now.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I'm sure if there was more then just me play testing the tomb world list, it would get more love and idea's. But the thing is right now, with the new necron codex (in theory) out some time this year, its hard to get new idea's with out any thing to base it on. I even been holding back some of my own opinions till the new dex comes out, even though I really think they would help now.

Probably wise, although I don't think there is anything wrong with tinkering with some ideas. Also, proxies are being made regardless of what is coming out in the Codex. I don't think that -for a variant list- we need to be as careful as we would for the core list.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I see... well I'll "play around" with the list when I get to now with this in mind. But one thing I was wondering is if any one had any plans or what ever, with regards to the new centipede thing F.W. just released? stats,were it should go, points? any thing? from your above post it sounds like you want it to go into the tomb list, kinda to replace the obelisks that you think should not be in the list.

I'd be happy with the centipedes going anywhere. The problem I see with them is their usefulness as it relates to other units. Despite their cool factor, I think there are (too) many ways to bring the fight to the enemy with the given list. Why spend the points on a centipede formation? It is a big unknown. One of my motivating factors for reducing or removing Monoliths and Obelisks in a variant list is to give players an incentive to play new units and use the Necrons in ways they would normally not do in a standard game. Necrons on the defensive strikes me as very interesting, and the centipedes and tomb guardians would be defenders of the complexes from which they reside.

Fluff wise this makes perfect sense to me. By the time Necrons were building tombs, they were winning the war and the goal was to sleep and wake up to a banquet. Their focus was different so why would their combat posture be the same? Anyway, that's just a peak behind my brain.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I see where your going with this defensive idea... i think, and I like it, i think. Has the idea of fixed teleport positions ever been discussed? - ie, the idea that, since the army is just waking up, they are not just teleporting to just were ever they want, but in fact where they need to defend? and were they need to defend is in fact the tomb complexes that link the caves deep below the crust, to the surface of the planet (ie how they get out). Could we some how make that a part of the defensive list? (I have a idea for this but i kinda wana see how others would interrupt it)

Or what about what units that would be the equivalent to necron excavation units? (but being necron, far from just tanks with drills on them, but in fact massive boring lasers that are used to vaporize holes into the crust for the tombs)

meh? maybe? maybe not? but like i said above, just some of MANY idea's that are building up.

Well, the Tomb Stalker (the giant WE that everybody is goo-goo eyed about) is in my mind a perfect unit to apply function to. I had discussed it previously as a guardian that not only can protect the dormant Necrons from enemies but from cave ins, power failures, etc.

Imagine a railroad car sized cell in which the Necrons sleep. The Tomb Stalker (or whatever it is called) could lift it up, carry it over to a new section of cave, reattach it to the main power supply, and move on.

My ideas for the fixed portals were exactly what you mentioned: points where the Necron are exiting the tomb. I was poking at this list for years but got distracted with [everything else]. Several of us toyed with the idea of somehow attaching these fixed portals to the objective markers, but nothing concrete was ever decided upon. Heh, maybe I'll try putting something together since I'm thinking about it. Perhaps this weekend. Keep throwing out ideas though.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

ya, the stalker err(giant MEGA thing) is what i see to replace the orb and abattoir for the tomb world list, the kinda warlock titan to the revanent, in terms of it to the sphynx (a bigger up gunned, more hit points version).

Note* - that these are just IDEA's, some thing that might sound good, not some thing that I think has to be in the list, so please dont egg me if you dont like em.

In terms of the teleport thing, i was thinking of some kinda rule that forces porting units to HAVE to appear within X amount of CM to a objective on the necron half of the table. while if the player had replaced them with tomb complexes, this range would increase. say, no farther then 15cm max porting range from objectives with no complex and 30cm from objectives that do have complexes on them (by on them i mean that were replaced with them). This would mean that necron formations coming on would be forced to appear by the objectives, and in tern make it seem like they are just starting to roll out of the tomb. Now... This rule is a harsh one if any thing, and I can see people not liking it as is, so there would need to be some tweaking and testing to balance it out, but I think it would help make the tomb world list more characterful and more different from the other lists to be worth taking a look.

O and another thing is I think the list needs some kinda other version of AA. The only thing in the list that can shoot AA is 400 points, counts towards your war engine limit, is not that hard to take out, or at least sub due, and is not that appealing of a choice.(at least to me, but hey, that's me) The only thing I can think of is to brake up the unit (but i understand that's not really a option) or to make a AA version of another unit. and on that front the only obvious options (to me) is a AA obelisk variant, or a necron flier, cus they don't have any of those either.

any for that centipede thing, I was thinking to put them in as a unit upgrade for the custodian phalanx. this will at least make me want to take the formation ,cus right now I think its kinda, meh ...and I want to make sure every unit in the list at least "looks" good and or reasonable, and what better a spot!?!?

ok I ranted long enough 4 now. ur turn!

I checked this thread hoping everyone was hot for scarab swarms...


I like the Tomb list idea for Necrons, expecially with next to no mobile portals to hop out of. It would change the list around alot but you would need to add a few pieces to compensate. There would be a big traffic jam of units all trying to hop out of portals each turn, Unless more than one unit can come out of a portal much more of the army will need to be deployed from the very start. You are going to spend less points on Monliths and Obelisks which will free up lots of points for portal using units such as phalanxes and Gaurdians.


As for AA how about some kind of Tomb spyder variation? Nothing too excessive like a 5+ AA with 15cm Range or 6+ AA with 30cm range to replace its existing weapon. It would mean that you dont have to create a new unit and it would fit in with the backgroud pretty well.

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Got Cubes?

Just add some scarabs onto your warrior bases or proxy a few stands per formation with scarabs rather than the normal unit?

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AFK with real life, still checking PMs

Its not the same


Also to be honest if I have much more proxied stuff in my army its going to cause too much confusion.

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Got Cubes?

Well, take a look at the Scarab Swarms in the NetEA Necron Doc in this forum and let us know what you think!


Not sure why a Tomb World still wouldn't be using Pylons for anti-air defence, why would a new AA unit be needed?

only thing in the list that can shoot AA is 400 points, counts towards your war engine limit, is not that hard to take out, or at least sub due, and is not that appealing of a choice. that's why.

AA tomb spyders? hmm.. I like that idea, another reason to take them! maybe some thing like the falcons in that you can switch out the regular ones for the AA ones. probably have to do some thing to balance it out at bit like lose the leader on the AA ones or some thing but still, I think its a good idea.

The current NetEA cron scarabs are good , granted I only got to use them in 4 games so far and they died in all of em, but that's what they are suppose to do so... right?