Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Necrons (section)

==Why Play Necrons?==

From the perspective of the lore the Necrons present a tale of faustian pacts, the cost of immortality and the challenge of Singularity. Once a short-lived and cancer-ridden race, the necrontyr were lead by their last [[Silent King]], Szarekh, to make a deal with the [[C'tan]], the Star Gods devoured their essences while imprinting an echo of their personalities into nigh indestructible android bodies, the newborn Necrons eventually defeated the [[Old Ones]] and then, on revenge for their lies, shattered and enslaved the C'tan, but such feats took a terrible toil upon reality itself and Szarekh, seeing the emerging power of the Aeldari and their mastery over the Warp, ordered what Dynasties remained of his expended Empire to hide and enter into hibernation until entropy itself took care of the then rising race, then, he left in self-exile. With the [[Fall of the Eldar]] and the subsequent [[Horus Heresy]] the Necron Dynasties are awakening into a devastated galaxy, [[Eldar|their rivals]] [[Imperium of Man|ruined by the Warp]] [[Emperor|they sought to control]] [[Orks|and reduced to mockeries]] [[Dark Age of Technology|of their former might]], [[Necron Destroyer|even while they themselves have suffered the curse of the aeons]] [[Flayed Ones|and the malediction of dead gods]]. At first through raids but soon deploying entire armies capable to lie waste to civilizations the Necrons have become increasingly active, each year new warmachines and specialized mechanoids joining this new age of war, and now, the Silent King, having discovered an [[Tyranids|extragalactic threat]] which would devour any chance for recovering their former existences of flesh, is back.

In terms of visual design the Necrons are highly reminiscent of the fantastic portrait of ancient Egypt, the undead horror and the skeletal frames and horrifying endurance of the Terminators, with more than a fair share of the Machines from the Matrix through their Canoptek constructs, all while still holding an echo of the lovecrafian horror which characterized them in the Third Edition. These elements make an army which is both incredibly easy to paint with the appropriate use of metalics, shades and drybrush but also offers solid models for those who want to show off their non-metallic metals and alternate eldritch schemes.

When it comes to play style this is a faction which at first looks deceptively simple and straightforward yet offers increasing complexity thanks to their menagerie of characters, the traits of their different Dynasties and Command Protocols without becoming as overwhelming in options as the [[Adeptus Astartes]], in this edition the Necrons are a mid-ranged army, with a solid roster of Elite and Fast Attack melee units and ways to circumvent their default low mobility, just remember, your main strength will always be your endurance, while you can punch decently enough, it's your capability to capture objectives and absorb damage what will win you most of your battles.


====Pros====
*Necrons have Doctrines now! They are called Command Protocols; you assign one protocol to each round before the battle begins (no repeats, unless your warlord is the Silent King, who has Voice of the Triarch), require a {{W40kKeyword|character}} on the field, and one of those you didn't pick (usually just one) is active for the whole game. 
*Between large models with a lot of wounds, Living Metal to get those wounds back, and troops that can [[Awesome|literally stand back up]], it's a durable army that can hit hard and take just as much. 
*This is Objectivehammer 40k, and with dynastic traits capable to bring you Objective Secure to ''all'' your units you will have a huge advantage over other armies in terms of sheer amount of VPs earned by controlling Primary Objectives.
*Quantum Shielding makes any enemy attack at S6 AP-2 or higher completely irrelevant against units with this ability.
*All {{W40kKeyword|NOBLE}} units get Relentless March which bumps up the lackluster Movement characteristic of 5" for your nearby {{W40kKeyword|CORE}} to the more average 6". 
*Crypteks are back in style! Now with 4 classes and a dozen wargear options, you can customize your court to your heart's content!
*The Necron equivalent of psychic powers (Powers of the C'tan) can't be blocked by "Deny the Witch" or suffer Perils of the Warp because they're not actually psychic powers. Nor are they affected by things like the Culexus Assassin. 
*The army has a lot of interesting, fun, and fluffy characters to bring to your games and now that custom Relics and Warlord traits cost for all 40k factions they may look suddenly more interesting.
*Aside from the normal Astartes pandering, Necrons are the pride and joy of 9th edition with a multitude of new models and units, with designs simple in form yet usually elegant in design
*Despite being a slow army, we have a couple of tricks to make our murderbots jump around the map, such as the Veil of Darkness and the Night Scythe, which holds twice as many models as the pathetic Rhino and can be used as a mobile teleportation beacon.
*The entire army has Leadership 10, and with mostly only warriors reaching above 10 units you will not really worry much (but just in case remember the Insane Bravery Stratagem).
*[[Silent King|THE SILENT KING]] IS BACK! AND WITH THE MOST RECENT UPDATES HE HAS BECOME THE ULTIMATE (mechanical) LIFEFORM!
*The Szarekhan Dynasty absolutely counters psykers.
*This is an army that can build up an incredible amount of synergy among its elements, making it very rewarding if you take the time to learn how each unit interacts with each other.
*Necrons are arguably the easiest race to paint in the entire franchise. Grab your favorite metallic paint, some nuln oil, and an accent color and you're good to go!

====C(r)ons====
*New Models are push-fit. The new hotness units in 9th like Skorpekh Destroyers are all push-fit, so you can't really do much about the posing either unless you want to go with the knife.
**Most units have barely any toys to customize [[your dudes]]. 
*Army is very Synergy Heavy - lot of mental load getting things to work together. Lots of auras to remember, lots of layered rules.
**Command Protocols does lots of cool stuff, but their order has to be picked in list creation and it's a lot of different effects.
**Reanimation Protocols, another one, cool stuff, but lots of text and lots of different units buff it in various ways.
**The Silent King is a nightmare of rules...with rules that are lost at various stages of how much damage he takes (and rules gotten back if you heal him).
*Limited options on units and in unit types.
**No Troops melee option.
**No secondary weapons (like pistols or grenades) on most units. Even has a unit with pistols, but no other weapons.
**No heavy weapons to embed in squads other than a single Heavy Destroyer in each Destroyer Squad, Destroyers already being fairly elite. This means that you have to take dedicated squads to get any real firepower, meaning your opponent can quickly take out all your anti-vehicle firepower if they have the right units.
***Str 5 ap2 shooting on troops, with command protocol option to increase AP by 1 on 6s...There's no dedicated anti-tank, but basic troops work just fine against tanks. At range, anyway.
**Armour of Contempt's six month reign of terror was a brutal object lesson in just how dependent Necrons are on making AP-1 and AP-2 attacks stick and how screwed they are if the enemy has rules or stratagems that interfere with that.
*No Psykers means the psychic phase "seems" really hurtful, especially since reanimation protocols doesn't trigger in the psychic phase. Compared to basic Space Marines, Necrons have similar access to psychic power denial/resistance through Gloom Prisms (deny 1/turn) (canoptek spyders and some of the big Forge world Canoptek), The Silent King (deny 1/turn) and the Szarekhan Dynasty (static 5+ ignore mortal wound, and 4+ deny stratagem).
**Aside from focused fire removing whole units, necrons are pretty resistant to mortal wounds due to their impressive ability to heal damage. Every multi-wound model has Living Metal (heals every turn). Lots of options to get models back (such as resurrection orb). The "supposed" necron weakness to mortal wounds is more with regards to focused mortal wounds eliminating entire units. 
**The Silent King can be taken in any army due to the Dynastic Agent trait, and further grants access to the Szarekhan Dynasty stratagem (see errata/FAQ) to any army, regardless of their dynasty.
**Compared to marines, most necron units are pretty cheap.
*Army lacks high "reliable" high Damage options. With only a few exceptions, your maximum damage stat is 3 (without rolling randomly). Lots of D3 and D6 effects. The Silent King and Seraptek Heavy Construct have options for high flat damage, but just those. 
*Very "updated" faction. Make sure to check all the latest updates and Chapter Approved books, at the time of this edit Warzone Nephilim and the Q3 2022 Dataslate Update have given the Necrons some very needed discounts, buffs and updated mechanics.