Sunday 6 November 2011

Necron Common Weapons and Wargear ~ Overview

Necrons have quite a lot more weapons than they did before, many of their more powerful ones are specific to one unit so I'll note them when I do those units rather than here.
One limited select-ability weapon of real interest however is the Tachyon Arrow, which despite being one shot with a high cost have unlimited range, Str10 and Ap1!
Another of mild interest is the Gauntlet of Fire which as well as shooting as a Flamer allows you to re-roll to hit & wound in combat.


Gauss
Gauss weapons are still similar to before, although they are no longer capable of wounding Tgh8+ creatures (Wraithlords really need changing). Gauss Blasters changed from Assault 2 to Rapid Fire and Gauss Cannon got a reduced range & strength, but better ap(24", Str5, Ap3) and both cannon and heavy cannon became assault (little importance but covers that destroyers no longer have relentless).
Looking at the codex I feel these will remain the mainstay of the army.

Tesla
Tesla is a new series of weapons available to the Necrons, they are moderate ranged with decent strength but are all Ap-. Their main feature is the new 'Tesla' rule which means every roll of 6 to hit causes an additional 2 hits, interesting but unpredictable.
The Tesla Destructor (the most powerful Tesla weapon) also has a rule where it can hit other units (friend or foe) within 6" of the target, which potentially may have a huge effect on deployment and movement for their opponents.
Apart from the Destructor I'm unsure how often we'll be seeing these, the other Tesla weapons are always interchangeable with equivalent Gauss weapons and since Gauss weapons have strong Ap values I expect these to be favoured over the Tesla's slight chance of additional hits.

There are a few others with decent stats but no striking abilities, all the other really interesting ranged weapons are limited to certain unit types, so I'll be leaving the such weapons including the interesting Heat Ray and aptly named Death Ray. I will note that while their shooting ability remains the same, Staffs of Light can no longer be used in combat.

Combat Weapons
Warscythe's are still potent, while they have lost their ability to cut through invulnerable saves they still allow 2D6 armour penetration and now also grant +2 Str while being power weapons.
Voidblades are a new combat weapon, which grant both the Rending and Entropic special rule. How these will work out its hard to say, quite potent but with Lords at least I expect Warscythes to be more preferable.
Lastly is the Hyperphase sword, which is simply a power weapon.

Quantum Shielding
The only wargear widely available (and built-in for everything that can have it) is Quantum Shielding. This applies for every Necron vehicles apart from the Monolith and their new supersonic vehicles.
This means the vehicle counts its front & side armour values as 2 points higher until it takes its first penetrating hit, since all Necron vehicles (except the Monolith) are armour 11 on all sides this takes many of their vehicles up to 13 / 13 / 11 for the first stages of the game.

2 comments:

  1. i see necron only markers with a symbol on it depicting they have lost there shielding :P

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  2. *laughs* At least as important if not moreso than the markers we use for vehicle damage results etc.

    Technically you're supposed to use markers now for dead Necrons awaiting Reanimation Protocol rolls instead of lying down the dead models.

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