The Regroup, as an option, is a significant boost in a reavers "ability to claim objectives" likewise, the fact is, if faced with a scary amount of AT firepower, a reaver can be cautious, and still provide a significant in game effect. an Abattoir, however, cannot afford to not be doubling towards the enemy centre mass any time it's not engaging. And, once it gets it's engagement, except against the very limited mobility armies, it will be unlikely to get a second. an abattoir will almost certainly get into an assault. it will if it's lucky, get into close combat during that assault. if it's very lucky, it will get into two assaults. a Reaver is: A: faster when it needs to be, B: more effective at impacting on the battle in every turn except the assault, and C: still pretty good in assault.
I don't think the abattoir needs a point deduction, and infact, I don't believe thats what i've suggested. what it needs, is the ability to be a supreme commander, while pylons should be available without using support slots, and a lighter AA unit and Supcom character upgrade should be available for non-warengines. I've said it before. If you include an AA option on, say, a tomb spyder, and a necron overlord infantry option, you would suddenly relieve pressure on the war engine allocation, while simultaneously encouraging necron units to actually stay on the table instead of portaling back off immediately. this would encourage them to take larger infantry formations (that are otherwise hampered by the regroup portal move) and coupled with the "broken portals add a blast marker" you've suddenly opened up a whole range of competitive options for necrons, reduced the effectiveness of monoliths while retaining their central aspect, and all without making them worse than they already are.
Living Metal is an iconic and well tested rule, it provides survivability ONLY against higher end specialist weaponry, and not against hte majority of what actually kills tanks in game (which is massed AT firepower)
Monoliths, while incredibly hard to kill, are not nearly as effective in themselves as their equivalent MBTs (russ and raiders) and while they look scary, and put off people who can't do the differentials, they're largely irrelevant to beating necrons.
my experience with necrons is as follows:
when people havent experienced them, and havent put thought into how to defeat them, and thus, treat them like a normal army, they usually win. and they usually win by a pretty good margin when people have played against them or watched someone else play against them and actually thought about the results instead of curling up in a ball and crying "overpowered" they almost always lose, and usually by a pretty absurd margin
I took necrons to a tournament. I won my first game. I won my second game. My third game was against an opponent who recieved advice from both my earlier opponents, and myself, and had one of the better armies to deal with it. as a result he won. It was a close game, and if i'd had another turn or two, i probably would have been able to turn it. but in the end, I lost. In losing, i gave up a significant wad of VP (because the phase out rule basically gives your opponents free VP) but i still topped the tournament charts.
afterwards, I had people complain about how scary necrons were, and how on earth do you beat them. I told them for the most part, the relatively easy tricks to doing so.
next year, i went to the tournament, and i took the same list (or something very similar) and i lost all three games. quite significantly. at the end of the day, i came i believe second last on the tables, and gave up a good two thirds of my VP every game.
since then, I have not won a single game with my necrons. I've played against people who did not follow my Simple Plan, and beat my army the hard way, using massed firepower to kill my monoliths, and they succeeded.
Necrons win big against unprepared armies. Against prepared armies, they lose, massively. no other army in the game gives as many VP out in a draw as necrons do. in one game, my opponent only killed about 400vp worth of models. at countback, he got 2300 or so VP. because of phase out. Necrons haemorrhage VP. Necrons need to win, and they need to win big, because if they dont, they lose big. Necrons Are Not A Reliable Army
now, not every army has the reliability in their firepower to kill monoliths, and that can be scary, but in most instances, a monolith is no more difficult to kill than an expensive but fearless leman russ with poor ranged ability. Living Metal Does Not Need A Change
_________________ ~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~
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