This is the first of a multi-part review for the new necrons codex, just a brief overview of the book and general necron special rules!
Power?
Firstly let me just say that I have the following view when it comes to ‘’over-powered codices’’. At present all of the 5th edition codices are balanced with one another, I do agree that as the game changes out of date books will suffer disadvantages with each new book that gets released. But in warfare you have to adapt in order to survive. So to conclude this brief introduction, I will not be assessing whether or not the new Necron codex is ‘’over-powered’’.
The physical book
The book is pretty standard these days for GW, nice quality paper back, close to 100 pages, not full colour yet but not the end of the world. The colour section is 16 pages which is nice and includes a cool double page spread. Overall it feels like you get what you pay for!
Necron special rules
The general special rules of the Necrons have changed significantly from the last edition, the most notable of which being the removal of ‘’phase out’’ from the book. This was the greatest weakness of the old codex and no longer haunts Necron players! So what are the changes to the old rules?
We will be back!
Now known as reanimation protocols, the rule has basically changed to a 5+ roll at the end of the phase in which the Necron died. So although the roll needed is one higher than before, now it is no longer ignored or cancelled out by power weapons and weapons that ignore armour saves etc. So in this way is a big plus!
Ever living!
The rule for characters, more or less just to do with the placing of the model if it comes back to life, no advantage over reanimation protocols as they still require the 5+, however there is the possibility for the character to join different units depending on coherency.
Living metal!
Arguably has been negatively affected with the change to the rules, as it is now affected by lance and melta weapons, however has the ability to ignore stunned and shaken results on rolls of 2+ and 4+ respectively. However as we shall see later there are new rules to certain armour elements that make up for this loss!
Entropic Strike
This is a very interesting new rule, against characters with multiple wounds and monstrous creatures it will be very effective (sorry nidzilla players). Mostly though this will affect vehicles as there is still a great deal of mech in the game right now! Basically if a model suffers an unsaved wound they lose their armour save for the rest of the game, for vehicles each hit the suffer on a D6 roll of a 4+ they lose a single point to the armour value (all facings!!!) for the remainder of the game! Obviously this rule is rare in the codex, however scarab swarms do have it!
So this is the beginning of the review, next time I will be looking into the troop choices and HQ!
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