The Necrons are an ancient civilisation who ruled the galaxy millions of years before humans first walked Terra. In order to claim victory in an epic – and apocryphal – war against their ancient rivals, they used advanced technology to transfer the consciousness of their entire race into mechanical bodies. They then sealed themselves away, planning to awaken in the far future of a galaxy ripe for conquest.
Now, as they awake from their slumber, the Necrons find that instead of rolling over and dying out as expected, many other races have emerged to lay claim to large chunks of their galaxy – and the Tyranids have even arrived from another galaxy entirely!
Overview
Necrons have long been an army of implacable, silent warriors, marching forwards in an unstoppable phalanx of flesh-stripping gauss fire. This is still true, but now many larger constructs – such as the Canoptek Doomstalker, Triarch Stalker, Canoptek Spyders, and Ghost Ark follow the trend of much-increased Toughness. Combined with the reduction in Armour Penetration, your army will feel like a truly indestructible force of living metal.
Faction Rules
Necron armies can field a wide variety of units, from humble Canoptek Scarabs to shards of fallen Star Gods. In between these two extremes, they have reliable foot soldiers such as Immortals, tunnelling ambushers like Ophydian Destroyers, and technology-bending Crypteks like the Psychomancers, Chronomancers, and Technomancers.
Reanimation Protocols are the one thing these mechanical marauders all have in common – an army rule that grants Necron models the ability to recover from even lethal damage.
This ability is an old friend to Necron players, but it’s now simpler and more reliable than ever. There’s nothing better for any self-respecting Overlord than the look on an opponent’s face when limbs re-attach, smashed skulls rejoin sundered torsos, and the Necrons stand back up, ready to fight again.
Even the most durable Necron chassis pales in comparison to the indomitable will of their nobility. The Awakened Dynasty Detachment rule is Command Protocols, which makes your units even more accurate when a Leader is around to impose their deathless dominion, and helps keep your units above half strength to avoid Battleshock tests..
This is on top of any other abilities that your Leaders give their Bodyguards – you’ll want to make sure that you’ve got plenty of CHARACTERS hanging out with some metal minions to really make the most of this.
Unit Spotlight
Did you think the Space Marines had hit the jackpot with the Land Raider – a tank AND a transport? Well, anything Arkhan Land can do, the Necrons can do better – check out the new stats for the Monolith.
A spray of anti-matter from the particle whip will remove whole handfuls of Space Marines from the table, and an assemblage of gauss flux arcs can chew through a truly worrying amount of infantry – or you can swap them out for the appropriately-named death rays, which have the stats to kill pretty much anything.
With an Objective Control value of 8, the Monolith is great for sticking on a vital objective in the middle of the board, where you can use its Eternity Gate to call in your INFANTRY units from Strategic Reserves – or from right across the battlefield.
The best candidates for teleporting around in such a way are the humble Necron Warriors. They’re little more than mindless automatons, but what these robotic regiments lack in initiative, they more than make up for in utter relentlessness.
Their Number is Legion makes the most of Reanimation Protocols – they’ll just keep coming, forcing your opponent to wipe them out entirely or contend with them all game. And all that effort that’s going into your Necron Warriors isn’t going into the rest of your army.
Weapon Spotlight
The Necron Warriors will kill a lot of enemies with their gauss flayers and reapers through sheer weight of firepower. But if you really need to obliterate something absolutely right now, might we recommend the doomsday cannon?
This impossibly-advanced energy weapon delivers a mighty Strength 15 Blast that will tear through even the improved Toughness of most vehicles like so much paper. Plus, if your Doomsday Ark stays stationary, the doomsday cannon gains the Devastating Wounds ability, allowing it to toss out mortal wounds that bypass invulnerable saves and spread its Damage around. It really is doomsday for anything you point this at.
If you still need a little extra help with enemy vehicles, it’s time to call on the C’tan Shard of the Void Dragon. Its particle-splitting spear makes the lightest work of tanks and other fighting vehicles with Anti-Vehicle 2+, and its sweep profile will melt infantry too.
That’s just what you’d expect when you unleash a shard of a Star God on anyone foolish enough to stand in your way.
Stratagem Spotlight
As with the other forces in the new edition of Warhammer 40,000, the Necrons have six Detachment-specific Stratagems. The Protocol of the Hungry Void Stratagem is your go-to for slicing your way through the galaxy’s younger races.
This is perfect for dedicated close-combat units such as Flayed Ones or Skorpekh Destroyers – especially if they’re led by a Skorpekh Lord. It just goes to show that while Necrons might have emotionless faces, they are more than capable of getting angry.
The Word from the Studio
“We wanted to capture the feeling that you are facing a slow, creeping, unending legion of deathless foes”, explains Robin from the Warhammer Studio. “Their Reanimation Protocols will, given enough time, regenerate every unit to full strength. We also wanted to instil the idea that the massed ranks are under the control of immortal leaders, by whose will and command their legions fight with such unnerving coordination and lethality. Command Protocols and CHARACTERS are therefore the main theme behind the Awakened Legions Detachment.
“We are excited to see what players make of the new datasheets for Necrons – their ancient and deadly technologies have been represented by a variety of special abilities.”
Black Library
Learn more about two iconic Necron antiheroes – Trazyn the Infinite and Orikan the Diviner – in Robert Rath’s cracking The Infinite and the Divine. It’s a tale told across millions of years, as two obsessive nobles enter a petulant game of cat-and-mouse that ends civilisations, reshapes timelines, and changes both of them forever.
You can also follow the adventures of Necron Lord Oltyx in a pair of books by Nate Crowley – The Twice-dead King: Ruin and The Twice-dead King: Reign. Can Oltyx claim the crown that has long been his by right, and can he manage to save his people if he does claim it?
Younger readers can also get in on the fun with the Warhammer Adventures books Attack of the Necron and Tomb of the Necron.
There’ll be another faction focus on Monday – a look at the armoured might of the Astra Militarum. In the meantime, if you’re looking to start a Necrons army for the new edition of Warhammer 40,000, pick up a unit of Necron Warriors – these skeletal robots are the bedrock of any Overlord’s army.