Games Workshop - Warhammer 40,000 - Necrons Canoptek Doomstalker

Product Information

Times Arrow: Instantly deletes a model if you roll against the unit’s wounds characteric. Now tests against the lowest characteristic rather than the highest, helping in a few fringe cases. Emergency Invasion Beam – No longer needed because of changes to how the Night Scythe and Monolith work.

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 . Need something blown up? Chances are, the Canoptek Doomstalker is the construct for the job! This towering sentry will make short work of your enemies, blasting them to bits with its terrifying doomsday blaster. It's also an incredible defensive choice, laying down covering fire when its neighbouring units are fired upon. 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 Relentlessly Expansionist: At the start of the first battle round, before the first turn, units with this code can make a Normal Move of up to 6″.

Collecting Your Army

First up for new(ish) relics is the Voltaic Staff. This has been moved out from Mephrit to be a generic relic staff of light, and it’s basically just really good – it fire lots of AP-2 D2 shots at range, and is +1S and D2 in melee as well. One of the huge gaps in the old relic list was a way of tuning a character for range and melee, and this immediately closes that gap and I think becomes one of the faction’s best relics. I expect to take this on my Catacomb Command Barge (the ideal wielder) pretty much every game. The other new toy is more of a comedy option, being a relic Tachyon Arrow. You can still only fire it once a game, but when you do it’s S16 AP-5 and flat damage 6. Is it worth your slot? Probably not. Is it the funniest possible thing to do to a random character who’s strayed away from LoSir? Absolutely.

from Hungry Void. This is substantially above the curve compared to all the other offensive buffs here, and if you time it right this can be horrific. Canoptek: There are a lot of abilities that work on Canoptek units, giving you a second category of things with access to powerful buff options.If that unit contains one or more models with fewer than their starting number of wounds remaining, select one of those models; that model regains one lost wound. With the new book in play, Necrons play pretty much how you’d expect just from looking at them. Legions of durable infantry lumber up the board, surrounded by a panoply of strange and terrible damage dealers, whether they be viciously be-clawed constructs, robot space wizards wielding arcane relics, imprisoned star gods or looming ancient war machines. Your core forces are extremely durable, while your specialist units are exceedingly effective when deployed in the right situations. The tradeoff for all of this is that you have to think ahead. Many units are relatively ponderous, while the powerful Command Protocols have to be planned out before battle is even joined. Get your strategy right and you can grind your foes before you. Get it wrong, and the pesty galactic usurpers will run rings around you, forcing you to make a tactical withdrawl to your tomb world rather than be undone. Imotekh gives you an extra CP each turn and has decent shooting and melee, plus a once-per-game Mortal AoE. He doesn’t buff his unit at all though, which feels like it might pull counter to what the army is trying to do. Those are the ones I’ll be looking at with most interest as I try and figure out how to really optimise this effect. Immortal Pride gets re-written and is, sadly, way less good. It now gives the model a 5+++ against Mortal Wounds and gives CORE units nearby immunity to combat attrition modifiers. A substantial downgrade on both halves sadly, and probably not that great. Finally, Implacable Conquerer (re-roll charge aura) also gets the CORE treatment, making it way less useful as it can’t be comboed with Ophydians or Flayed Ones, both of whom want this effect a lot.

There are plenty of small, elite units that are priced to move now, so it feels like there are places to take the Szarekhan – but as above, expect to see some of it on the table a lot as the Silent King flexes his considerable muscles. Nephrekh You only get one shot but at S10 -4AP and 3D3 damage, it hits almost like a Castellan volcano lance. If you want to go for screen-killing, you can also throw on the enmitic exterminator for 3d3 S7 -1 AP shots. Just taking a complete shot in the dark on this one…but we feel like the gauss destructor is going to be wildly more popular. If you do take a squad of 2-3, it also says that any number can take whichever weapon (they can be mixed). In case you want an all-around decent firebase, you could do something like two gauss destructors and one enmitic exterminator. Next is the one that we will be seeing on almost every table, the Sempiternal Weave. This is a simple, amazing upgrade that can be put on any Necron character that provides them with a 4+ Feel No Pain ability. This has a ton of applications for it, especially when we are taking into account the d3 minimum heal, and is particularly strong on the Command Barge C’tan are terrifying! C’tan get a gigantic power boost (and, to be fair, cost hikes to match) making the star gods the absolute monsters they should be. Especially the NIghtbringer. Oh we’ll get to the Nightbringer.Spotted on Imgur, we’ve got a snapshot of how the Canoptek Doomstalker and Lokhust Heavy Destroyer will play. These models first appeared on the army-wide picture showcasing all of the Necron support that’s coming. Let’s go over the details on each one. Can only set up within Engagement Range of enemy units that are already within Engagement Range of the Reanimated model's unit. C ryptothralls: The little trashcan velociraptors that could. Seriously Play some games with them. They are astounding. Quantum Shielding: Rewritten completely, this now functions as both a 5++ and a permanent transhuman (can only ever be wounded on 4+). I do think we’ll see less Sautekh than we used to simply (ironically) because of how much better this book is now. Previously, the Sautekh warlord trait and some of the characters were duct tape desperately trying to hold together a terrible faction – now it might turn out you simply have better options. There is still stuff to like here though, so expect to see them tried. Custom Dynasties

Mobility is lower: The one sad point – everything is just that little bit slower, so you need to be careful to either plan ahead or include buffs to counter it. 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 Chronomancer ( Orikan the Diviner) • Plasmancer • Psychomancer • Technomancer ( Illuminor Szeras) • Apprentek

Wrap-up

Warriors • Immortals ( Despotek • Guardian) • Pariahs • Deathmarks • Lychguards • Triarch Praetorians • Flayed Ones • Cryptothrall OK, cool robot time. We’re going to go through each battlefield role and look at the units within it – what’s new, what’s changed and what’s good. 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