Necrons

Why Necrons

Here's another tournament army!

Hmmm, from the outside it looks like I'm quite a tournament player. I'm really not. We just like playing them as a group, and I like to take advantage of the deadline and have an excuse to work on a new army. Probably also has something to do with the fact that I generally get more painted for a tournament army because of the deadlines.

I'd had Necrons for a while, since their 6th ed upgrade I think. I know its unpopular, but GW changing them from murderbots to space tomb kings was the move that clinched them for me and drove me to start a small force. I really liked the megalomaniac style of cartoon villain aspect of these, the ones that harness suns to power weapons. That kind of ridiculousness of scale seems so at odds with a lot of 40k. I know 40k is a large scale entity, dealing with systems and planets that have a singular population and enormous hive cities. But necrons are next level.

So I started a Mephrit dynasty force for our 8th ed 40k Tournament. Mephrit jumped out at me mainly because they took the insane techno-sorcery to the next level, and had that incredible ambition to control the galaxy. I wanted it to look buggy/spidery/insecty and menacing. I also like the wave of tireless necrons that don't stay down.

For the basing, I wanted something simple and bright. Something that would make the bright pink pop a little more, and contrast well against the dark green/blue - that something was snow. Snow has always been a favourite basing scheme for me, mainly because it's simple and I've got a snow gaming mat. The recipe is simple, make a paste out of PVA glue, bicarb soda and some water, slop that over the base, then dust with bicarb for that crisp powdery look. I then used an extra Necron foot to stomp in some footprints to show the army is on the move.

The tournament was good fun, we had some great moments, and I wasn't completely walloped.

The models so far

WIP

The models I'm working on at the moment include a C'tan using the Alarielle model (I haven't worked out what kind of C'Tan she'll be, and she needs a more necron-y look too), my Destroyer Lord, and eventually the Indomitus box necrons. I'd love to add a Monolith at some point too, the updated model looks great. I've also got plans to use all the leftover wraith bits to create some Ophydian Destroyers. I was always a fan of the old school wraith models, so its nice to see them back in the book

The Tournament

Below are some images from the tournament these necrons were built and painted for. I didn't go too badly for me. The Knights player was the winner, and this was a really tough game. Those knights were so much quicker than I expected and I was on the back foot early. The game against the Death Guard was fun, two unstoppable forces grinding their way through each other. While the game against the Alpha Legion was really interesting, a lot of stuff happened on many fronts with the frontline changing directions many times as I tried to deal with all the chaos threats.

Game 1 - Vs Knights

Game 2 - Vs Alpha Legion

Game 3 - Vs Death Guard

The Awakening - Crusade

Lord Ezandrakh awoke to a scene of entropy. The once lustrous walls of the tomb complex were now cracked, haunted and crumbling. The glow nodes that lit his personal chamber with a warm pink glow were now dulled and flickered intermittently. Further investigation of the room found himself on a slab of pure black granzite with his legs detached from his body. Moments later a soft humming noise in the corridor announced the arrival of one of the canoptek creatures tasked with maintaining the tomb. As it drifted closer towards the lord's severed body, Ezandrakh lashed out with his will. Even though he’d been asleep for aeons, he remembered his life before the order to sleep was given. He relished in the memories of the war in heaven and his roles in bringing the C’Tan to heel, for who could stand opposed to the greatest peoples the galaxy had ever seen. While Ezandrakh was reminiscing, the canoptek spider set about its work of reattaching the lord's legs to his torso. As the fabricator claws made contact though, the shock pulled Ezandrakh from his reverie. With a speed the lord would never have been capable of prior to biotransference the lord lashed out and grabbed the spyder. As his mind returned to the present he tried to perceive how the tomb could have fallen into such disrepair. His engrammic circuitry began computing the possible causes and kept hitting a block, it seemed a particular part of his neurocircuitry had also been damaged in his slumber. Again and again he hit the block and was incapable of continuing his line of thought. As the block kept holding his thoughts, the lord's mind became enraged until finally he snapped. Like a recoiling band the neuro circuitry responsible for deep thought and contemplation broke, shattering the section of code.

All of this happened in mere moments, and no sooner had he grabbed the canoptek spyder, he had ripped its head from its body in his rage.

Like a whip crack, the lord’s mind struck out to the now headless spyder, and controlling its fabricator claws fashioned himself atop it, fusing his torso to its mighty form. Ezandrakh was reborn, and the destroyer lord was not one to take the desolation of his Tomb World lightly.

16/3/21

So I've been sitting on 40k since 9th dropped being super keen to get into some crusadin' and growing some story. I've been treading water a bit in the hobby space in general. While here in Adelaide we were pretty lucky with Covid and weren't overly affected, our group still hasn't played many games over the past year. Trying to find the time to play amongst our busy lives is getting harder and harder, and there's lots of different games we want to play. Some of the group play DnD, I'm keen for Legion, some of us are in a Mordheim campaign and then there's 40k and Fantasy we're still keen to play too. With not many of us being on the same page at any particular time makes planning games a little tough.

But, we managed to play on the weekend. 2000pts of Deathwatch vs 1000pts each of Necrons and Grey Knights. It was fun enough without being great. I think I'm finding 40k pushing too far onto the competitive side with the introduction of turn scoring and secondaries. Its a nice move for the game, but not what I'm looking to get out of 40k at the moment.

But I am keen to play games, and especially to play Crusade.

I know I've said several times on here that Custodes will be my 9th ed army, then I started work on the Raven Guard successors. I should really finish off my Blood Angels, and T'au and Guard are still waiting in the background for some game time. But I don't really want to play things that don't have a 9th codex yet. there's too much book bloat, and to have to buy the recent 8th ed codex, the relevant psychic awakening book and all the FAQ/Errata to bring them up to 9th is very unappealing.

So that leaves me with Blood Angels or Necrons. I'm going with necrons, mostly because its a mini protest about having to buy the Marine and Blood Angels codex and cards just to play them.

So here we go, lets get these Necrons crusading.

Crusade Order of Battle

The basic theme I've got for this is an old Mephrit Tomb World that has been awakened suddenly. The Overlord is the first to awaken, and in doing so fries his circuitry and succumbs to the destroyer curse. He rips apart the tomb spyder that was waking him and transplants himself onto it. Stalking, or I guess floating, through the tomb he awakens his guards who also fall to the same curse. In his anger and frustration he deigns to wake the whole tomb world and create an army of angry necrons, but a cryptek delays him long enough to awaken another Overlord correctly. He wakes in total control and a power struggle ensues between the two, each with their own coterie of warriors. While they eventually come to terms of peace, they are still looking to overthrow the other.