Necrons - The New Power in 6th Edition?

So there's no doubting that Grey Knights were the army to beat in the latter part of 5th edition but Necrons were giving them a run for their money thanks to their Night Fighting shenanigans. In the early part of 6th edition however, it seems to me that Necrons have the edge. Allow me to explain.

Gauss
This is, in my opinion, the main reason Necrons are going to be so good in early 6th edition. With most people still using 5th style builds with lots of mech gauss becomes a very viable anti-tank option. Being able to move and shoot at range with Rapid Fire means vehicles should fear Gauss. At short range your standard 5-man warrior squad should be stripping a couple of hull points each turn on anything from venoms to land raiders. Overwatch works nicely too.

Command Barges
These were already irritating in 5th but weren't too difficult to deal with once you'd scored a penetrating hit. However, with their new classification as a Chariot they've become pretty potent. They can't move as far in the movement phase to make their sweep attacks but they can still assault afterwards! Have a read of the Chariot rules and try to convince me they aren't awesome!

Couple this with the fact that warscythes are one of very few CC weapons that are AP1 and they're really laughing!

Destroyers
As many people suspected the Preferred Enemy rules now apply to both shooting and assault. This makes destroyers and lords pretty nasty. I can imagine seeing a lot more of these guys.

Night Fighting
This is where most people believe Necrons have been punished. However, the increased likelihood of the mission using Night Fighting means with Solar Pulses there's a good chance you can keep it dark for a long time. For the most part this will give you an improved cover save whilst still being able to hit things and anything sitting at range e.g. rifle/psyfleman dreads will likely be out of range.

Scarabs
These guys were nasty in 5th edition and they've only gotten better. Vehicles are easier to kill in general so it could be argued they aren't needed as much but with the changes to "to hit" rolls for vehicles they'll now never hit them on worse than a 3+. Random charge and fleet hasn't helped them but (correct me if I'm wrong cos I don't have my rulebook handy) they now move faster in the first place and can still run. The sheer volume of attacks they get, which are now more likely to hit, means that they can easily multi-charge vehicles without caring about the "disordered charge" penalty.

A single scarab base scores 3 hits on a moving vehicle and will reduce the AV by 1-2 points. Against rhinos that means AV8 on the rear and then S3 attacks should at least strip a hull point. Therefore 3 scarabs can deal with a rhino pretty easily and there's less risk of them taking hits from an explosion. They're still not going to win a combat but by that point they've probably done their job. Let's not forget Fearless isn't going to affect them as badly in combat as it did before either!

Night Scythes/Doom Scythes
At this point in time, Imperial Guard are the only army with a "Skyfire" unit in the form of the Hydra. Whilst other armies have the option of taking a fortification with a quad gun this, like the hydra, involves sacrificing some points in anti-surface firepower to deal with a flyers. This means that the only other option for dealing with flyers is to take some yourself. In my opinion the best of these at the moment is the Stormraven thanks to it's high strength weaponry, hover mode, AV12 and transport capacity. However, this comes at a premium of >200pts. For this price the Necrons can take two Night Scythes. Not only does they have decent firepower from the T-L tesla destructor but being able to still to transport upto 15 models safely into battle regardless of whether they get blown up in the process!

If they're forced to make a Jink save and only Snap Shot in the following turn, any hits they manage (with twin-linked) will still get the bonus 2 hits from rolling 6s! This means they're still dangerous even after being hit. They aren't brilliant dogfighters mind you as those flyers with Hover mode can easily get into a position where the Night Scythe can't touch them. Mind you there'll probably be another one ready to help!

The low points cost means a Necron army can feasibly field a lot of Night Scythes without hampering their plans too much. At the moment this would be a very difficult prospect for an opposing army to deal with and even if they do then they're not shooting at the other Necron units. By flying the Scythes off the table early on the Necron player can try and drop troops off in the later turns to claim objective. The only risk here is that pumping too many points into flyers means not having a lot on the table in T1/T2 and risk getting shot off the board in the new rules. However, it isn't hard to hide something long enough to get some flyers in T3.

The Doom Scythe isn't all that great mind you as the death ray can only be used against ground troops and I don't think it justifies the 75 point additional cost. However, it's there as an option for getting more fliers into your list. Now I'm not saying Necrons get best flyers, they are AV11 after all, but their low cost makes them a much more viable option than others.

Conclusion
When you consider most people are saying that 6th will be dominated by footslogging shooty armies can you honestly think of a better option than Necrons? You have to ask yourself if it's a coincidence that they're good in 6th since Matt Ward wrote Codex: Necrons whilst writing the 6th edition book!

There seems to be a lot of talk on the internet about Necrons suffering in 6th but I really don't see it. They've got several viable builds and options for dealing with anything another army can throw at them. Expect to see a lot more of these guys on a battlefield near you!

Will I be getting them? Nope. They really don't excite me and I'm waiting to see what delights the CSM book brings whenever it hits.

He Must Be Stopped!!

See what I did there?

As most of you who are coming to Blog Wars 3 will know. The first two tournaments were won by none other than Venerable Brother from the  Sons of Sanguinius blog (also known as Andy). Now I put this down to 3 things (in descending order of importance):

1. He brings competitive tournament lists to a tournament with a lot of fluffy lists (shame on him!)
2. He gets drawn against the right lists for his army (jammy get!)
3. He's not that bad a player actually (that's as generous as I'm willing to get Andy!)

Joking aside, it's very difficult to organise a 40K tournament to be purely friendly. Short of severely restricting army selection to the point where no-one will show up, you can't really make everyone bring something fluffy. Not to mention it's a tournament after all so therefore there are prizes and hence there has to be some competition. What you tend to find is that after round one the big boys go off and play on the top tables and look all serious whilst the rest of us enjoy ourselves in relaxed games at the bottom end. The problem is that first game where some poor bastard (i.e. yours truly) finds himself up against a list he hasn't a hope in hell of dealing with his "fun" list.

So with half of the field bringing something a little different that they wouldn't dare show up at other tournaments with that's already an easy ride for some of the top players. This wouldn't be a problem but for the fact that we can't let the bastard win again (as Atreides from SoS so ably put it). Funnily enough, Andy shares this viewpoint and as such he's published an article on how to beat his Necron list. Now frankly my army relies heavily on a few lucky rolls so I can't hope to think much about actual tactics but for the rest of you it wouldn't hurt to go have a read of his article so that we can give him something to think about at least!

Now I know what you're thinking (and to a small extent so am I), "who does this guy think he is? He's not only convinced he's going to win again but now he's got the stones to tell us how to beat him to make it more of a challenge!". Andy, of course, protests this but as I say, head over to Sons and read for yourselves. For those of you who read this blog and aren't going to Blog Wars 3 it's still a decent article on how to beat those pesky Necrons.

After Matt gave up using Necrons and sold them all off I've actually been thinking about getting some. Not only are they pretty cheap to buy but also they don't exactly take much painting to get them to table-top standard. Not to mention they've got some really nice models. It's just a shame I didn't think to offer to buy Matt's from him! Mind you, my current plan is to wait and see what 6th edition brings before I invest in many more models.

Necron Second Wave Pre-orders with 25% off

Just a quick post to say I got an email from Total Wargamer saying they're doing the Necron second wave with 25% off. Take a look.

This is a bit premature of them since GW havent even announced them yet! Of course we all know they're coming thanks to Beasts of War leaking White Dwarf again. Theres more details at Faeit212.

Sadly Matt sold his Necrons so I won't be seeing them on a table near me anytime soon.

Also I'm now away for 2 weeks. Hopefully I'll get round to scheduling some stuff before I go but no promises.

Necron Reanimation Protocols: My Thoughts

You'll notice this another Necron post on my Space Wolves blog. Tough luck! Get over it I'm always excited by a new codex whatever the army is! It seems the internets are too so I'm just giving the people what they want!

One of the main sticking points for people regarding the changes from previous codex was that RP is now 5+. The other problem is that the warriors have a 4+ save. However, I personally think that the warriors are better for it. Coming in at just 13 points a model I think you're getting a good deal. The only problem I have with them is I2 but that's another story and something I can sympathise with when I use my Tau! Having 4+ followed by 5+ (which you can do a few times per turn) is almost as good as 3+ anyway!

Anyway, back to RP. The big change for this new codex is that you can perform the RP roll after each phase. This means that if you lose any models to dangerous terrain in your movement phase you can attempt to get them back. If your opponent shoots a couple you can get them back before the assault. The only problem is that if you lose them in assault then you'll still get swept up before that can get back up. I think this is a great way of doing things. There are several ways you can improve your chances of getting them back such as a Res Orb giving you 4+ RP rolls or a Ghost Ark giving you D3 back per turn. This can really make those big 20 strong warrior packs hard to shift, especially with shooting. In combat you're still going to struggle but you've got WS4 and T4 (unlike my Fire Warriors) and don't forget this is from a "shooty army". A typical squad of marines won't kill more than a few and with Ld 10 you've got a good chance to stay in combat.

So why are people bitching about warriors being crap? Compare their RP to Feel No Pain. FNP is great because firstly it's 4+ and secondly it means you don't actually lose the model in the first place. With RP you do lose the guy but you can get him back on 5+. By that simple comparison FNP wins. Let's think about Blood Angels though. They pay 50pts minimum for a priest to give them FNP on top of their squad. Now OK it's a bubble but still that's a couple of points per model assuming he's giving it to 2 10 man assault squads or similar. It's pretty easy to get rid of that priest too. As soon as you get into combat he's going to be the first target and you can bet it'll be power weapons that get put on him. Now your BA are back to being 3+ armour, still better than the Necrons' 4+ but just as vulnerable to power weapons.

Now let's think about RP. You get this included with the model's base points cost. As long as your Necron Warrior has a mate stood next to him you can attempt to get him back. Doesn't matter what took him down either. Doesn't matter if it was a basic shot from a lasgun, a hit from a power weapon, a smack from a monstrous creature, a flashy nemesis force halberd or whatever, as long as he's got a friend alive he can come back. FNP doesn't have that luxury, if the model was killed by anything AP1 or 2, power weapon or anything which could cause instant death and you just don't get to roll it. That's assuming whatever killed you didn't kill the sanguinary priest/apothecary etc. Dark Eldar need to win a combat or shoot a unit to death before they get FNP. Necrons get RP as standard and for most of the units in the codex, frankly I think that's great.

Are you forgetting they got rid of Phase Out??

On a side note. I think people are expecting Necrons to be a standard 5th edition mech army now they have a troop transport but I personally think the Ghost Ark isn't going to be used as a transport in the classic sense. I think you only need one or two in your army as a utility vehicle for you warrior squads. I wouldn't bother putting the warriors inside them, just let them walk along side. This means people won't spend time firing at the Ghost Ark (unless they have sense of course) and instead will frag your warrior squads.

I'm building a Ghost Ark for Matt at the moment so I'll post up some pictures of my progress building and painting it as soon as I can.

What are your thoughts on the new Necrons?

First Impressions After Fighting Necrons

Yesterday I posted up a battle report of my Space Wolves first game against Matt's Necrons. I wanted to dedicate a full post to talking about my thoughts on the new codex. Bear in mind we only played one game and obviously not all the units from the new codex were used. There were a couple of stand out units in there and others that weren't as good as expected.

General Necrons
The main problem this army isn't going to have is it's I2. Against most armies that means it'll fold in combat. My thoughts on this are that it's just the same for Imperial Guard or Tau. I think its a good thing that the troops are a lot cheaper (obviously good for GW as well) but it means we'll be able to see much bigger armies than we did before.

The basic warriors and immortals are still excellent units and as much as people whine about it I think the larger numbers of them on the table will mean a lot more glancing hits! It was glancing hits that did my land raider in and I'd be cautious about moving it in to close to a squad of warriors now. The flayed ones are pretty weak. They're meant to be a decent combat squad but without fleet, fearless or decent initiative they're really going to struggle. 

There's been much hype about this codex hinting at 6th edition rules and I think that's why Destroyers are so expensive. They aren't particularly brilliant in their current incarnation but if Preferred Enemy becomes a shooting bonus too.....

Imotekh the Stormlord
The internet is very excited about this guy. The idea of being able to play whole games in Night Fighting and shoot lightning at everything on the table has people foaming at the lips. Needless to say Matt tried out all of his special rules and I wasn't exactly blown away! The ability to drop your Flayed Ones in without scattering sounds useful but since it's random Matt ended up with a target that would've put them right next to a rhino full of grey hunters with a heavy flamer from a land speeder looming close. In the end they came in by a normal deep strike that didn't scatter much. They promptly got annihilated by a grey hunter charge. Now I can see that if they'd got long fangs as their target then they'd have been much more useful but to be honest Imotekh doesn't really add much to them.

His staff didn't find the range to hit the terminators but I could see how deadly it could've been. If you got a good roll you could potentially cut down a couple of squads of marines. Realistically though it's unlikely to happen as the usual roll will be 6-8" and that's unlikely to get more than one unit. His 4+ Seize the Initiative could be brilliant against an unprepared opponent. Although it's still 50:50 your opponent will almost be expecting you to make it. I think the danger would be that you'd also expect to and you'd deploy too aggressively.

Onto the big one, Lord of the Storm. In Matt's case he got one turn out of it and that was it. He didn't manage to get any lightning off and the power was wasted. Now obviously this won't happen every time but it's a possibility and thats 225pts you're paying for it (well obviously not quite but you get the point). Against armies with a high unit count such as GK razorspam this could be devastating popping open transports each turn. Personally though I think the main benefit is the Night Fighting and my issue with that is that none of the Necrons have Acute Senses/Night Vision. Some enemy armies do and most SM armies will suddenly remember they've got Searchlights. This might play to the Necrons advantage but we'll see. Now don't get me wrong for an army based around Rapid Fire and potentially footslogging lists it's still going to be useful allowing you to get in close. My concern is that against assaulty armies you're playing right into their hands.

Overlord

For 160pts you can have an Overlord with a 2+/3++ save, S7 power weapon (that rolls 2D6 on vehicles) and T5. Now personally I think that's a bargain, even given his I2. Stick him in a Catacomb Command Barge and he's got great potential. The Sweep Attack rule is brilliant and can be used to snipe models from a unit if you get lucky! Fly over a land raider and hit it 3 times with a weapon that's just shy of a melta gun. Oh and still claim a 4+ cover save afterwards!

Yes he's got a pesky I2 but with a 2+/3++ save there aren't many things he won't be getting some attacks against and he'll probably kill a couple. Throw in some Mindshackle Scarabs for a bit more defense and he's got a good chance of winning the combat. He charged my Grey Hunters and lived to tell the tale (well til I shot him!). Granted Matt was very lucky with his rolls but he's still pretty reliable. In larger armies you got ditch the Sempiternal Weave and take two Overlords with 3+/3++ in barges for 450pts. I think that's pretty reasonable given the Sweep Attacks. The other advantage is you'll be able to take some Cryteks and give a couple of them Solar Pulse for some first turn Night Fighting for your opponent (or last turn as well if you had two courts).

C'Tan Shards

There was a bit of uproar amongst the Necron old school when their precious Nightbringer got nerfed. However, I think they're still pretty good. People have said that if they're hammered with enough krak missiles they'll easily be killed but in my opinion that's a turn when the long fangs etc aren't shooting something else. Not to mention that it'll be 3+ to hit, 3+ to wound and then he'll still get a 4+ save. Matt's C'Tan did well against Arjac and his terminators, killing them all off but costing him 3 wounds.

The problem with the C'Tan is choosing the powers. I love that they're like psychic powers but without a test but some are better than others. I think the Transdimensional Thunderbolt will be seen a lot as it means the C'Tan can de-mech something to assault rather than relying on shooting from elsewhere in the army. The other powers could be very situational. I like the Jaws-style single out a model and make it take an initiatve test or be removed. Alright it's going to have the same drawbacks as Jaws but worth it for the times when Draigo rolls a 6! Don't forget if you kill the C'Tan in combat your models will take an S4 AP1 hit! I think we'll see a lot of these guys and I think it'll be interesting to see what powers people choose.

Scarabs

For me these are the unit that will get whinged about the most. They are, in my humble opinion, the stand out unit of the codex! Sounds a bit ridiculous for something that's got such a poor base statline but seriously, play against an army with a few of these and things could get nasty. Yes they're vulnerable to blasts etc but you can have 30 wounds for your opponent to chew through. I think there's a beautiful synergy between them and the gauss weaponry of the warriors. There's a decent chance the gauss shots will immobilise a vehicle and then the scarabs use their 12" charge range to make a real mess of it.

As we understand it Entropic Strike means for each hit you roll a D6 and the vehicle loses a point of armour for each 4+. The scarabs can then use those same hits at their base strength and rip into the vehicle. S3 suddenly looks a lot more scary. Think of it this way, a unit of 10 scarab bases charges a land raider that move 12". 50 attacks means about 8 hits and -4 points of armour. Suddenly that land raider can be hurt by bolters! Think about that for a minute!

Thought about it? Now try and tell me you won't be scared of these guys! Against a rhino/razorback that same 10 bases will make it AV 6 on the rear and now S3 can easily penetrate it and those same scarabs are likely to do so 3 times. Against troops they'll probably be cut down but put some attacks on an independent character and there's a good chance he'll lose his armour save!!

Did I mention they're 15 points per base?? Need I say more? Actually how about your opponent having 3 swarms of them and a spyder or two spitting them out? OK now I'm done!

Battle Report: Space Wolves vs Necrons

With the codex still warm from the presses Matt and I decided to put them through their paces. Jammy get that he is, he's managed to pick up a nice Necron army on eBay for a very reasonable price. This means he's already got quite a few of the old models to play around with and he's bolstered this with a few Dark Sphere purchases. Here's our lists:

1750pts of Space Wolves
Rune Priest w/ Chooser (MH/LL)

9 Wolf Guard (2x CM/PF, 1x SB/PF, 2x TDAs w/ CM/WC, 2x TDAs w/ CP/WC, TDA w/ SS/CF) + Arjac Rockfist
Land Raider Redeemer

2x 8 Grey Hunters (Melta, MotW, WS) (Rhino & Drop Pod)
1x 7 Grey Hunters (Metla, MotW, WS) (Rhino)

Landspeeder (MM/HF)

2x 5 Long Fangs (4x ML)

1750pts of Necrons
Imotekh the Stormlord
Harbinger of Despair w/ Veil of Darkness
Overlord (Warscythe, Scarabs, Phase Shifter, Sempiternal Weave)
Catacomb Command Barge

20 Necron Warriors
9 Necron Warriors
10 Immortals (Gauss)

C'Tan Shard w/ Trans. Thunder & Gaze of Death
20x Flayed Ones

8x Scarabs

The idea behind Matt's list being the much talked about Night Fighting that will protect the footsloggers whilst you get into rapid fire range. With both my Wolves and DE having Acute Senses/Night Vision I didn't think this would bother me much after turn one.

Mission and Deployment

We randomly picked a Blog Wars 2 scenario and got the final missions with an attacker and defender and 5 fixed objectives. Matt won the roll off and elected the be that attacker deploying his 20 warriors and Imotekh (making them Relentless) in the middle of the board, C'Tan and Command Barge to their left. The Immortals went with the harbinger in some cover near the back and the 9 man warrior squad hung out on the right near one of the objectives. The flayed ones were in reserve with the Bloodswarms hopefully making them deep strike nice and close. I shoved my land raider just to the right of the middle with a rhino to its left, the other rhino on the left flank, speeder in cover and long fangs in decent firing positions.

Turn 1

With Night Fighting in effect this was never going to be a particularly bloody turn. Matt advanced forwards but found himself out of range for most things.

In my turn I advanced the land raider forward and disembarked the terminators. The plan being to blow up the command barge and then hammer (literally) the overlord in combat. The assault cannons took care of the Quantum Shielding but could only stun the barge. Arjac and the melta terminators then managed to wreck it meaning Matt could happily position his Overlord out of my charge range leaving my terminators looking very exposed. The long fangs struggled to find range but the rune priest managed to "kill" a Necron in the 20 strong pack with Hurricane. The drop pod hunters came in near the 9 man squad and put two down. All there promptly passed their RP rolls and got back up!! Meaning I'd only killed an 80pt transport despite having Acute Senses to deal with Night Fighting!


Turn 2

Imotekh failed his Night Fighting straight away much to Matt's frustration. He fired Imotekh's Staff of the Destroyer at my Land Raider in the hopes of hitting my terminators. Sadly it had a poor range and was wasted. This did mean that the 20 necron warriors could let rip with rapid fire gauss at my land raider. Matt scored an impressive number of 6s and my land raider was Stunned, Immobilised and had lost all but one of the flamestorm cannons. It was at this point I noticed the scarabs nearby! The flayed ones deep struck in near the 9 man squad to help them deal with the drop podding grey hunters. The Harbinger teleported the Immortals in front of the long fangs but they whethered the barrage of fire and two were left standing. The C'Tan killed the storm shield & chain fist terminator with his thunderbolt and then charged into combat. The terminators held up pretty well causing 2 wounds and tieing the combat. The C'Tan tried to use his Gaze of Death but failed to wound. The scarabs piled at my land raider and their Entropic Strike combined with automatic hits allowed them to literally eat it away, wrecking it without even rolling on the damage table!

In my turn one of the grey hunter packs charged at the flayed ones easily winning the combat and catching them in a Sweeping Advance to wipe them out. It was a similar story for the 9 man warrior squad leaving that side of the board safely in my hands (for now). With the lights back on the long fangs fired plenty of shots into the immortals but could only bring down a couple (despite hitting with 3/4 scatter dice rolls!). The C'tan killed another terminator but took another wound itself and failed again with it's Gaze. Elsewhere the Rune Priest failed his psychic test for Hurricane so Imotekh and co. could move safely again. With a couple of Matt's units gone I started to feel a bit more confident but there were still a lot of metal bodies to shift!

Turn 3

Imotekh's squad rapid fired the remaining drop pod grey hunters who were advancing towards them and sheer weight of fire was enough to wipe them out (thanks to Matt's jammy rolling I reckon!). The Immortals failed to kill either of the remaining two long fangs with only one wounding hit thanks to some less than jammy rolling by Matt! The scarabs charged a rhino which had the good sense to move at combat speed. This meant Entropic Strike only brought it down to armour 8 (on the rear) but that was enough for the 8 hits to penetrate and wreck it. The C'Tan and finished off the terminators after I failed to wound it.

The grey hunters emerged from their wrecked rhino and easily wiped out the scarabs in combat killing 6 bases and the rest with fearless wounds. The land speeder popped out from behind cover to remove the C'Tan's final wound with it's multi-melta. The grey hunters that had killed the flayed ones sat behind cover and with help from the long fangs tried to thin down the 20 man necron warrior pack.

Turn 4
The overlord charged in on the grey hunters and despite taking a wound managed to kill a couple of them. The immortals finished off the remaining long fangs, killing one causing the other to run off the table. Imotekh's warrirors could only shake the land speeder.

The overlord continued to be an annoyance killing off a few more grey hunters but now down to his last wound (the scarabs made the rune priest attack his own men - but he failed to wound). The grey hunters fired again at Imotekh but didn't kill many warriors. The land speeder retreated back into cover for some turn 5+ contesting.

Turn 5

At the start of the turn it was still anyone's game. Matt's Immortals had control of one objective (but with a land speeder close by), Imotekh would fight grey hunters for another and depending on the outcome of the overlord battle I might be able to get some grey hunters back onto another.

The hunters lost their fight with the overlord and fled (conveniently towards an objective) with the overlord in pursuit. Imotekh advanced towards the objective but couldn't find range and some woeful shooting didn't hurt the hunters much. The immortals clung to their objective but were out of range for any shooting.

I charged in with the grey hunters but without a standard I struggled to hurt Imotekh's squad. Some equally attrocious rolls form Matt meant the power fist won me the combat but we stayed locked. The fleeing grey hunters killed off the overlord with bolter fire (despite failing in 3 rounds of combat!!).

With one objective contested and the other in control of the immortals Matt would win if it ended here.....

Turn 6

Luckily for me we got a turn 6! The Imotekh vs. grey hunters combat dragged on with some awful rolling again from both sides to hit and wound but decent rolls to save! The power fist failed to wound this time leaving it tied. The result of that combat would determine the game.

The long fangs fired at the Immortals but barely scratched them. The landspeeder sat poised to contest their objective if we got a turn 7. I moved the rhino into difficult terrain to contest the objective near Imotekh in case the combat didn't go my way. Thanks to the wolf guard hitting with his power fist Matt lost the combat by a couple and luckily for me failed his morale check. The hunters caught them in a Sweeping Advance and only if Imotekh got up could he stop the hunters from controlling the objective. He got back up on a single wound! Luckily for me he wasn't able to contest the objective though!

Conclusion
I'm going to talk about my impressions of the new book in a separate post tomorrow so I'll keep this brief. The early stages of the battle made it seem like the Necrons would be unstoppable. The land raider being eaten made the scarabs seem scary but they were easily dealt with in combat with grey hunters. The C'Tan held up brilliantly against the terminators and a large portion of my army was gone pretty quickly. Like any shooty army the rest folded in combat nicely and that was the only thing allowing me to snatch a draw. Had we got a turn 7 I would probably have won since the now regrouped grey hunters would control an objective and the speeder would contest the Immortals' one.

I think part of the problem fighting Matt yesterday was the combination of a footlist (which I don't usually play against) and an unfamiliar codex. This made it difficult to decide what was a threat and what wasn't. Looking back I'd have kept the terminators in the land raider for another turn and let him spend time wrecking it. This would've given me some more time to shoot the C'Tan. I'm looking forward to fighting the Necrons at Blog Wars 2 now and I hope I get drawn against them.

Overall I think it seems like a good book. It's definitely got it's strengths and so far I think the weaknesses are fair. We'll be playing plenty more battles over the next few months and I think that's the only way to form an opinion. As usual with a new codex people seem to get over-excited about the new units without thinking it through. I'll discuss this more in tomorrow's post though.

Necrons at Blog Wars 2??

Tomorrow night Matt's bringing over his new Necron army for a couple of games to see how the new codex fares. If he likes them he's considering bringing them to Blog Wars 2 instead of his Blood Angels. Incidentally, anyone wishing to do the same is welcome to. With a wealth of Special Characters to chose from I'm hoping someone will take the plunge even if Matt doesn't (looking at you here Ven!).

I've always liked the Necrons and often considered getting them. It was only really the old codex stopping me but now I've gotten into DE in a big way I can't see me having the cash to do so anymore. I'll just have to settle for playing against them!Anyway, I got hold of a copy of the codex yesterday and had a bit of a read through. I have to say the first thing that hit me was the artwork. In my opinion it's some of the best we've had in a codex for a while.

I'll post up my thoughts on the codex when I can but I want to see them in action before I really draw any conclusions. I'll post up some detailed bat reps after tomorrow night's action so you can see how they got on against my Space Wolves and Dark Eldar.