[Review] Codex: Necrons | Tenth Edition

 It's here...

Now. I'm going to do The Thing here. You know The Thing. It's The Thing bloggers do where they tell you their bloody life story before they get to the content they've promised in the title. I pinky-promise that this is relevant: it helps to know where a reviewer is coming from, their investment and awareness in and of the material, the shape of the lens through which they read and respond.

I'm also going to review the whole book, i.e. not skip to the rules and pretend the rest of it doesn't exist. Someone has to.

Visual handholds have been provided via Warhammer Community, utterly without permission, y'know how it do be.

Autobiography

I've been at this for a while. The original metal Necron Raiders appeared during my second year in the hobby, and I loved them. Mysterious, mutilating, robot skeletons from the dawn of time, appearing out of nowhere and disappearing once their inscrutable objectives were met? "I'll be back" rendering them nigh indestructible? Exploding insect droids that chewed tanks to death? Hell to the yes.

I just missed the boat on third edition Necrons. They came out during an interregnum when I wasn't actively collecting and playing due to exams. I came back a couple of months later with the 3.5 Codex for Chaos Space Marines and Eye of Terror on the horizon and I was all about the Word and the Bearing thereof. Had I been back a few months earlier? Green plastic rods for days. 

The 2002 Codex Necrons is a masterpiece of information flow, drip-feeding the atmosphere and the concept of the Necrons through in-universe reportage and speculation, reports on Imperial conspiracies and analyses of Eldar mythology, and final didactism when the C'tan appeared on the scene. Put it all together and the awful truth was revealed: the Imperium had the pieces of a puzzle that only the Eldar knew existed, and there were two more C'tan out there, waiting for the call.

Dawn of War: Dark Crusade only cemented my dormant love for the Necrons: a ponderous, unstoppable wall of death and metal with a haunting, spectral, face-wrecking Grim Reaper giant on call. Hell to the yes, again.

I was front and centre for fifth edition Necrons. I'd been out of 40K for a while, but a clubmate was selling his off dirt cheap and some generous friends bought me a motor pool to go with them. The pivot into "Tomb Kings In Space" was a design decision I defended, and still do. 2012's revamp lacks the raw haunting atmosphere and revelatory craftsmanship of the original Codex; it is not as good a book. As an army list, though? As a range of toy soldiers? It's a lot more interesting than the "I might get to choose wargear for two figures and buy disruption fields for my Warriors" non-choices of the original. More or less every kit and more or less every unit had multiple options included, and more or less every option felt worth fielding.

And I was there when the strength of development editors failed. I was there when the Decurion detachment dropped. I could see the writing on the wall: nobody was going to have a good time playing into Necrons, and I'd be catching hands for my choice in army, and... they didn't really match anyway, it was really obvious that I'd painted everything but the Monolith and infantry and someone else had done those. So that was the end of the story... until I came back to 40K last year.

Ninth edition's Necrons looked great and they were in the starter boxes and everything, but half an hour's reading around convinced me I'd be better off with Chaos Space Marines. See, if you hadn't 40K'd for a whole and entire decade, the Protocols army rule was really... deterring. You offer me six pairs of buff abilities. I have to choose one to discard entirely, and half of each pair to have operating in each turn, ahead of the fact, except for one pair where I can have both halves, and that may have a bearing on the colourscheme and associated army-wide bonuses and wargear and character trait options? Necrons have pseudo-Chapters now? And as originally released, the battlefield effectiveness of all this is contingent on the number of characters I have and their proximity to units, and if the characters die I get nothing? There's... a lot of system mastery contingent in there, ability to read ahead of a game, and if you're rusty as hell or, god forbid, new, that's a recipe for crippling decision paralysis and rule-picker's remorse. 

I started building my Necrons under ninth, but I was holding out for the new edition opening the gates for them - or keeping them as a strictly "new school models old school rules" project, or playing Grimdark Future. The army had to demand significantly fewer brain wrinkles to be enjoyable, and the book had to bring me up to speed on the decade of background developments I'd missed. 

I almost exclusively play Incursion games, rather than the tournament standard Strike Force. I have played two such games with the Index rules and lost them both, largely due to choices I made rather than any fault of the army's. So: I'm looking for rules that will be fun to use in smaller, swingier games, and I'm not especially concerned with preserving the win rate of one solved-game meta-tuned photocopy special army list that's been defined as The Best by the power of Internet groupthink.

So, that's my expectations. How does the Codex shape up?

Background

I will be dead and cold in my tomb of long millennia before I unironically call it "lore."

My overall impression here is "good, but unspectacular." The two-page flavour text spreads make the case for the experience of being a Necron noble, burdened by fragments of memory you don't allow yourself to remember; the internal politics of the dynasties and the kind of mega-tech gambits these people can pull on each other; and the horror of witnessing a Tomb World awaken (although this last rings hollow - it's no 2002 Codex and this sort of affect really needs more space to breathe and build). 

Woven in between them is a history of the Necrons which, new-to-me, includes the activities of the Silent King. I'm not a fan of this "great men of history" narrative (see also: why I don't Horus Heresy) but it's nice to see how he fits in, and to be brought up on what a Pariah Nexus is and why it warrants a three part (and very atmospheric) web original animation.

Talking of which, I like the two-page spread on the Nephilim Sector. This is the kind of microcosmic view of the galaxy that shows-not-tells how conflicts scale down from Faction vs Faction to Your Dudes vs My Dudes: good stuff. It has also... changed everything for me. 

See, there's a planet in the Nephilim Sector called Kavadah. The core musical touchstone for this army, the reference I hung my original Necron backstory around, is Fields of the Nephilim. I stole the planet Kadavah from my favourite bit of second edition flavour text, Dark Communion. I've ummed and ahhed and hemmed and hawed about my Necrons and where their sense of protagonism is going to come from and how they're not just going to be on the defensive forever and now I know - they're trying to get home. That's what's going on between my Necrons and Garbutt's Marines - two exiles whose paths have crossed in the darkness of the Sector Maledicta, with the legacy of a previous conflict hanging between them.

Showcase

Feels weirdly spartan compared to the Codices of yore, but the ranges are bigger than they used to be and there's more rules-type stuff that needs to go into books these days... I'm not going to complain, it does the job, it shows what the dynasties' colour schemes look like and that pairs nicely with the writeups each receives in the background section.

On that note, something to get out of the way before the rules: I really like how tenth edition in general is disconnecting suites of special rules from colourschemes, as it was so easy to give yourself brain worms over liking the Nihilakh colourscheme but the Mephrit rules or whatever, and while there were rules-based outs to excuse this with client dynasties, that had a systemic impact on the other options available. Better by far to divest the two concepts entirely. Paint your guys how you want, choose the rules that serve the troops you want to field, allow narrative to emerge.

Combat Patrol

I wasn't expecting the Combat Patrols to be as integrated as they are. There's a really nice two page spread walking you through the keywords on units and weapons, and the impact those are going to have on how you use the units; same for the options that Overlord Amonhotekh has built in. The game mode introduces Stratagems, Enhancements and Secondary Objectives through simple reduced-option choices, which... would have been really good for me trying to get my head around the more complex scoring structure of modern 40K when I came back. If I hadn't already painted 1500 points of Necrons based on the old Combat Patrol, I'd be starting out here for sure. And there's a painting guide! Proper old school 'eavy metal business, between two and four steps for each element of the figure, and if you've no idea how paintjobs is formed this'll start you off.

Forces of the Necrons

Detachments

With the proviso that I'm an Incursion gremlin, just a lil' games guy, a lil' birthday boi and so on: I don't think Annihilation Legion is awful. It doesn't do anything for Lokhust Destroyers and that's sad, but I think they're there to damage units at range and trigger all the rules that key off melee targets being below starting or half strength. That said, rerolling charge distances with Skorpekh and Ophydian units still seems strong to me, and at the scale where I play, a big unit of Skorpekh fighting on death or locking opponents in melee could be critical. The thing I don't like is the two Stratagems that force you to move units closer to enemy units on their turn, i.e. on their terms, i.e. into range for Rapid Fire, Torrent, getting Charged, otherwise pulverised. If it was a charge, if it was "roll 2d6 and see if you can stay in melee," I wouldn't be whinging.

I don't think I'll be playing Canoptek Court any time soon - I only own a handful of Scarabs and most of my kill-stuff is Skorpekhs or Immortals. I'm much more likely to lean into Obeisance Phalanx, which favours Triarch units and vehicles, i.e. my beloved Stalker, as well as units led by Overlords (and I have multiple Overlord figures kicking around). The background for this one - Necron nobility reaching out to teach a lesson in honourable conduct and merciless eradication - also tickles me the most out of all the detachments.

However, the one I'm really excited about is Hypercrypt Legion. It's not picky about which units you use, except "at least one Monolith," and it's all movement and placement shenanigans. I love movement and placement shenanigans with Necrons; my successes in fifth edition turned on Night Scythes depositing units in positions where a new lane of attack was opened up, forcing opponents to turn around and deal with them and take their eyes off the primary phalanx. In this iteration, charging Skorpekhs out of a Monolith's portal fills me with what I can only describe as malicious glee.

Datasheets

Not going to do a full walkthrough - I haven't played most of them in just over a decade - but I will say I'm taken with the new Overlord with Translocation Shroud, and also with the Resurrection Orb becoming a once per game thing. I was lukewarm about this when it was previewed, but it feels more like the impactful emergency button it was in Dawn of War, and also it makes the Tachyon Arrow more attractive as an alternative, as a once per game offensive ability. I love the idea of Tachyon Arrows, and I want to build a duellist/assassin type Overlord using one.

I want to play the Nightbringer and the Deceiver. The Deceiver has finally arrived at a sweet spot where it's not just an expensive deployment gimmick - it has a ranged attack for sniping characters by driving them INSANE and its unarmed attacks are still strong enough to batter a Gravis armoured Space Marine into post Space Marine paste. It does things in the important "killing stuff" stage of the game now. The Nightbringer is a monster. A wrecking ball. Slightly lower damage on its sweep attack, so it's going to struggle into those three wound elite units, but it's going to mulch regular Tacticus (Tacticus?) armoured Astartes and vehicles.

Tenth edition may (finally) be the Deathmarks' chance to shine. Unit leaders are so important in this edition, so is getting into place on objectives, and a unit of Deep Striking snipers that can deter other Deep Striking units and is dirt cheap seems like such an asset in those circumstances.

The Canoptek Reanimator is not the beast it was but it's still useful - pick a couple of your units to hang with it and enjoy their Reanimation being a bell curve rather than a linear probability event. 2d3 is more reliable than 1d6. At the very least I want one to wander along behind my Warriors - 2d3 models coming back per turn, with a reroll, should still be fairly hard to shift.

Six shots on the Triarch Stalker's gauss array makes me want to break mine out again - I don't think it's as useful as the heat ray, but it looks like a reliable Marine-killer that can start the ball rolling in a shooting phase. I've also got to be braver about putting it into melee - it actually has a decent number of attacks that yield decent damage.

Night Scythes have become more efficient, able to arrive on the first turn regardless of mission rules. This pleases me - takes the "play 400 points down" aspect out of my first turn. Still can't charge out of the portal, but that's what Hyperphase Monoliths are for.

God help me but I'm vaguely interested in the Convergence of Dominion. It's cover and a Feel No Pain save that I get to place where I want. Not one for small games... but for big games... maybe?

Crusade Rules

Here we go. Here's the grist to my particular mill. I love the idea of Crusade. Granted, it works better if you win more of your games than I did the last time I tried it, but in theory the stringing together of games to form an army history that transcends the actual lists you're using is very much how my Narrative Forge likes to be fuelled.

This time round, the Necron Crusade rules are hinged around awakening your Tomb World, selecting Agendas that activate Awakening points allocated to your planetary systems, unlocking passive in game bonuses - and being expendable on powerful active abilities that consume those points and demand that they be reallocated by completing Agendas again. It sits parallel to the existing Requisition points, which mostly deal with the manipulation of army lists between games, so it shouldn't be too mind-boggling to work with.

Of the three systems available, I think Reanimation is going to be the easiest one to work with, as it'll tick along nicely during games while you're making Reanimation Protocols rolls. The Agenda, Immortal Servitude, might be attainable in as few as four of those, but it'll continue rewarding you in experience terms indefinitely. Command systems... if you're using your Warlord aggressively and get your order of operations down, it shouldn't be too hard, but the Warlord's unit having to deal three deathblows to enemy units during the game is... not guaranteed. I trust my Immortals to do the work, though. Probably. Translocation systems are fun, but they're going to be a faff to unlock outside of Hyperphase Legion since getting Necrons into the enemy deployment zone isn't... something that's happened for me, so far. Insult to injury, their Master System is the one I like most, picking up either the Deceiver's redeployment or Hyperphase's redeployment once per battle.

Cute little photocopy-permitted page for counting all of this. Urge to laminate: strong.

Of the other Agendas, I really like Inescapable Retribution for building up that herohammer factor - 4 XP and a Crusade Relic for standing on a point and gritting your metal teeth for a turn seems pretty fancy. I also like the two Requisitions for turning Battle Scarred Warriors, Immortals and Noble characters into Flayed Ones and honourary Destroyers. Given my track record of accumulating crippling Battle Scars on my characters, riding the wave for three games and getting to hit the recycle button is... well, it'll keep me going when the inevitable occurs.

Traits? Endless Legion on characters, there's a lovely feedback loop with Inescapable Retribution and Immortal Servitude, turning experience into requisition and maintaining momentum between games. The Will To Serve on infantry - just say no to Battle Scars - although they're all pretty good. No immediately strong feelings about vehicles or Canoptek units, because I haven't really played them yet.

Battle Scars? I like these. I like that they have drawbacks and advantages; units get a little better at something but at a drastic cost to baseline functionality. My favourite is Mindless Reaper for Destroyer units - they're not going to stand still and hold points anyway, so wind them up and let them enjoy their hit rerolls.

Relics? Tachyon Field Phase Inducer (which would be great on a character scarred with Creeping Madness, lovely killing machine there), and Orb of Eternity (guaranteeing three wounds instead of d3 on Reanimation Protocols rolls) are my favourites, both in the Antiquity tier.

I don't know what Crusade Badges are for and I don't know why this page doesn't have Dynastic Epithets on it. At least there's still a name generator. I shall henceforth be known as... Kopesh the Shrouded?

 

So. Where do I stand? I think, for my scale of gameplay, book good. I didn't expect to engage with the new background to the extent that I have, but it's handed me one of the same serendipities that gave rise to my arch-rivals the Sworn being a thing. I am really, really looking forward to getting my teeth into Crusade again. It's contingent on two things: the release of Pariah Nexus, with the core Crusade rules and some Necron-facing missions, and the total reassessment of my collection's backstory. You'll see what I mean later in the week.