Necron Dynasties

[Zelnik]

Guy, guys, please, please.... continue. 

Hey, so long as you are listening, it helps.

I'm not quite ready to write up a rule set til I've got a few things nailed down in my head.

Eldar/advanced tech: There is so much to say so I'll be as brief as possible.
They need 2 movements because of the sunward movement.
They turn imediately because of their minute mass (in comparison to other ships).
They are really advanced but have very different tech to most other races, and Necrons are the same, not only is is more advanced but it is different.

Glad you agree.

Themed scenarios/fairness: As this is a competetive game you can't just have a fleet that always wins because in the background it should. Otherwise you wouldn't bother with a points system at all. It's not perfectly fair, that would be imposible with such diverse fleets (unless you had seperate points against each fleet!!) but it is a starting point to play relatively competetive games. If you want themed scenarios that see Necrons winning most of the time there is nothing stopping you from doing that, just increase their points limit.

I am not saying they win all the time, but they still have an advantage. Being older and more advanced then anyone else gives you a significant boost. Think of the Shadows in Babylon 5.  A gigantic fleet of younger races attacked a relatively small attack fleet of Shadows.  While the shadows were forced to retreat, they still destroyed 3 for every 1 ship they lost. That was the feel the original devs were going for. (in my opinion at least). 

Shields: I think I made a mistake upscaling the quantum shielding in the manner I did. It is perhaps too abstract. The rules mechanic is a little foriegn to BFG's rules set. Any suggestions that don't include saves?

What is wrong with saves? giving them normal shields puts them in the "imperial navy+" category and is the wrong way we should be taking this. The way things are now have both advantages and disadvantages unique to the necrons.  I have yet to see a good reason to change the current mechanic aside from "i don't like rolling dice".

Lightning arcs: I'm definately not keen on the hits jumping to nearby ships, well maybe if they were in base contact. Nah, there is just too much of a ship to hit initially to want to jump so far away. I would definately be in support of kill AC on CAP!

I am not entirely -against- changing the rules on this, but what is the purpose of doing so? they are currently the best batteries in the game (ignoring holofields entirely). Attacking CAP is insignificant since the necrons have no attack craft (and will have very little overall if changes go through)

New idea for Lighning arcs: I know this is a little abstract but I've become fond of the idea of lightning arcs being able to hit the weakest armour value of a ship. I just like the idea of lighning reaching across the hull looking for weak spots. Is this too powerful? It might be okay if there were gauss batteries as well, but I also have them ignoring armour only hitting on 6's.
Well they don't truely ignore armour, and we could also modify the gunnery modifier to moving away if hitting the aft. Actually that could work.

The fluff supports this, but I would argue that the system does not. Most ships in the game have a universal armor (space marines, necrons, chaos, nids, all eldar,) or minor changes (Navy, Tau).  Only the Orks suffer this the hardest because of the 4 up armor in the rear. Effectively turning the lightning arc into a 'bomber battery' is making them just a little TOO powerful, even if they are badass already.

Cheers,

RayB


***Minimum movement before turning: all this talk of inertia reminded me of a house rule we used to play that had your minimum move before turning being equal to your starting damage converted into cm. So a 8 hit cruiser would have to move 8cm before turning and a 6 hit light cruiser only 6cm until its turn. This proved slightly annoying for escorts but on the whole it felt good even if everything else had a sharper turning circle.

That would pretty much trash the 5 cm increment rule that the game is based on. A nifty idea, but it will make the game more complex. Again, I want to hear a good reason for changing the rules on the inertialess drive, aside from "I don't like it".  I use it a great deal with the escorts to great effect, and even the other ships when I am in a poor tactical situation. 

[commander]

Guy, guys, please, please.... continue. 

I'm not quite ready to write up a rule set til I've got a few things nailed down in my head.

Eldar/advanced tech: There is so much to say so I'll be as brief as possible.
They need 2 movements because of the sunward movement.
They turn imediately because of their minute mass (in comparison to other ships).
They are really advanced but have very different tech to most other races, and Necrons are the same, not only is is more advanced but it is different.

I never said that they may not be (very) advanced. Simply put, they can have 'nifty movement stuff' in the normal movement phase.
Minute mass (of light cruisers and up) is not the same as no momentum (IMO).
I 'scale' from the most advanced tech you can have in the game downwards to the tech of the 'younger races'.
But in the end, I'll go with whatever the community decides upon.

Themed scenarios/fairness: As this is a competetive game you can't just have a fleet that always wins because in the background it should. Otherwise you wouldn't bother with a points system at all. It's not perfectly fair, that would be imposible with such diverse fleets (unless you had seperate points against each fleet!!) but it is a starting point to play relatively competetive games. If you want themed scenarios that see Necrons winning most of the time there is nothing stopping you from doing that, just increase their points limit.

Agreed

Shields: I think I made a mistake upscaling the quantum shielding in the manner I did. It is perhaps too abstract. The rules mechanic is a little foriegn to BFG's rules set. Any suggestions that don't include saves?

At the present, the only things that come to mind are:
- (invulnerable) saves
- re-roll hits
- negative modifiers (column shifts and penalties to hit)

Lightning arcs: I'm definately not keen on the hits jumping to nearby ships, well maybe if they were in base contact. Nah, there is just too much of a ship to hit initially to want to jump so far away. I would definately be in support of kill AC on CAP!

If ships are in a squadron, do you mean that you can only target one ship or the whole squadron (as per normal WB)?

New idea for Lighning arcs: I know this is a little abstract but I've become fond of the idea of lightning arcs being able to hit the weakest armour value of a ship. I just like the idea of lighning reaching across the hull looking for weak spots. Is this too powerful? It might be okay if there were gauss batteries as well, but I also have them ignoring armour only hitting on 6's.
Well they don't truely ignore armour, and we could also modify the gunnery modifier to moving away if hitting the aft. Actually that could work.

Cheers,

RayB


***Minimum movement before turning: all this talk of inertia reminded me of a house rule we used to play that had your minimum move before turning being equal to your starting damage converted into cm. So a 8 hit cruiser would have to move 8cm before turning and a 6 hit light cruiser only 6cm until its turn. This proved slightly annoying for escorts but on the whole it felt good even if everything else had a sharper turning circle.

[AndrewChristlieb]

I don't think anyone has actually tried to take away the necrons saving throws. The ideas put forward so far have either attempted to incorporate the save with the shields (current base save, 4+, 5+, 6+ on shields then no saves once shields are gone unless BFI which reverts to 2+) or incorporating an armor boost into the shields instead of the basic armor boost inferred by the sentient metal when not on BFI. The saves need to remain in place as one of their main differences from other fleets. Really adding shields is pretty unnecessary fluff wise, let's not forget the eldar were created to combat the necons and even they don't have shields in the traditional sense. In a round about fashion you could say that holofields are the eldars attempt to recreate the effects of living metal (free saving throw against most attacks like necrons and a hindrance to gunnery chart weps similar to the sentient metal being 6+ when not on BFI).

I am also pro keeping the AAF the same, its a solid mechanic. I do still believe that they should have 0 min movement, mainly due to the inertialess drives fluff and because their escorts min move distance is as fast as most escorts max and that's just uncalled for for such an advanced race.

[commander]

In the v1.6 by Plaxor, Eldar (MMS) have now armour 5 and shields IIRC.

[Zelnik]

MMS is not supported by the whole community (in fact, it's even a little divisive in the community). 

A better example is the craftworld eldar, who have 5+ normally, and the dark eldar, who have 5+ normally.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Yes from what I gathered about mms the shields were an attempt to correct the issue with blast markers and gas/dust clouds etc along with boosting they're survival, which wasn't needed in msm due to the difficulty of hitting them at all. Really mms works well, but I rather liked the original as it made them much more interesting. They should still ignore movement/ damage effects of bm and clouds period imo.

[commander]

If saves have to go, the 'official' Eldar are 'involved' too.
It's for two races that a sollution has to be found.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Why should they lose their saves tho?

[Zelnik]

Then the saves are going nowhere. This is about necrons, not eldar.

Until someone gives me a good reason to not just change the name of the effect, the mechanic should stay in place.

[commander]

Problem with replacing the saves is that this mechanic is more versatile than re-rolls and/or modifiers.

[Zelnik]

so... lets not replace it then.

[AndrewChristlieb]

So the Necrons are going to be armor 4, super fast, no saves but have shields, right shift on weapons batteries... this sounds an awful lot like mms Eldar. And on that note I think Im a little sick .

 Their save mechanic is just fine the way it is and taking it away takes away too much of their personality as a fleet. Adding shields is not necessary but can be done simply once again by combining their armor value with their shields. They currently have armor 6 and armor 4 when braced, so you can add shield and have armor 6 when shields are up and armor 4 when they are down (or 5 even and then keep the switch to 4 for when they are braced). Maybe give them a bonus against lances when their shields are up also? Lances only hit on a 5+ instead of 4+ when shields are up. Keep they're current saves (braced and not braced exactly the same). This allows the Necrons to keep their personality and it doesn't make them any less powerful.

The AC matter is still up in the air with portals some like the idea others do not. the simplest way to do this would be to remove portals entirely and just give all Necron vessels a single teleport attack that rolls 2D6 on the critical hits chart instead of a hit and run. Raiders can still only target 6 hp or less. Then add Eternity Gates to the Tomb and the Scythe 3 on the Tomb and 2 on the Scythe. Attack craft are a resilient fighter 35/40cm move and a resilient bomber 25/30cm move

Keep the Sepulcher but reword its fluff, maybe the Tomb ship attempts to hack the ships computer instead of a psychic attack. No ordnance is attacked in this way.

Remove the Starpulse or change it to only hit on a 6+ against everything.

Lightning arc are already pretty awesome. They should be unable to target anything other than the closest ship first, ignoring ordnance. As far as lightning arcs hitting ordnance tho you could go with something like the Armageddon gun on the pk. Draw a straight line between the Nercon ship and its target, follow this line with the nova template, any ordnance the template touches (enemy or friendly!) is destroyed on a D6 roll of 6 as it is struck by smaller arcs. In theory with this, if there are no ships in range of the fire arc you could fire out to 30cm through a mass of ordnance also.

Particle whip works great as is, penetrating shields when it beats armor may be a bit over kill.

Critical hits table I can live with, definitely can if they conform to standard disengagement rules.

reactive hulls, covered under shields, retains all saves as standard loses 6+armor (5+ standard 4+when on BFI) retains their ability to repair criticals on a 4+.

Inertialess Drive is another in contention. I still think there's nothing wrong with +1D6x10cm extra movement instead of +4D6 with a turn for every 20cm of movement. I do believe that this should also allow them to "park" and that they should have no minimum movement before they can turn. All ships can use CTNH special orders. Remove Burn Retors special orders.

Remove all references to Necrons giving away higher victory points. Instead of this give them a more definitive nerf, im thinking some thing like: After Deciding on a points level for the battle the Necron player must choose his fleet with a 10% handicap. For example in a 1500 point battle the necrons opponent can bring up to 1500 points, the necron player however can bring only 1350 points worth of ships. Eh never mind that sounds crappy already.

 Maybe a percentage of the necron fleet will always be held in reserve: As the Necrons believe all races to be inferior they will not commit forces they deem unnecessary. After deciding on a points level for the battle the Necron player must choose at least 10% of their fleet to held in reserve. For example in a 1500 point battle the necrons opponent can bring up to 1500 points, the necron player however can bring only 1350 points worth of ships. The remaining 150 (or more) is held in reserve for D3 turns. The Reserves are represented by a contact marker which is place on a randomly rolled table edge on the necron players first turn within the following restrictions: The marker may not be placed within 60cm of any enemy ships. If there are friendly ships within 30cm of the table edge the marker must be placed within 30cm of them (unless that would put them within 60 of the enemy in which case the marker is placed as close to the friendly ship as possible while remaining at least 60cm away for the enemy ship). The contact marker may be moved along the table edge by up to the speed of the slowest ship in reserves. At the beginning of the turn rolled the reserves will come into play anywhere within 10cm of the contact marker, alternatively if there is a Tomb ship on the table they may come onto the table within 10 cm of the Tomb ship either way this counts as their move.
Could also go with something like the instinctive behavior chart instead of a point based penalty to represent their programming, but with each ship having its own leadership to override programming.

Adding fleet commanders shouldn't be too hard just make them somewhat similar to the other races. 50 pts for ld 8, 75 for ld9 let the Sepulcher remain the only way to buy ld 10.

For campaigns have standard bonuses for leadership/rerolls with maybe some cryptechy bonuses thrown in

How about seeing these guys finally able to field activated blackstones btw? Is there anyone out there that still doesnt think these are necron constructs? Maybe even having a couple different variants.

[commander]

So the Necrons are going to be armor 4, super fast, no saves but have shields, right shift on weapons batteries... this sounds an awful lot like mms Eldar. And on that note I think Im a little sick .

Was about to try and find an 'new' approach but this came first.
Why right shifts? Necrons don't mess with your targeter array, they simply phase out that part of the hull that is in risk of being damaged.

 Their save mechanic is just fine the way it is and taking it away takes away too much of their personality as a fleet. Adding shields is not necessary but can be done simply once again by combining their armor value with their shields. They currently have armor 6 and armor 4 when braced, so you can add shield and have armor 6 when shields are up and armor 4 when they are down (or 5 even and then keep the switch to 4 for when they are braced). Maybe give them a bonus against lances when their shields are up also? Lances only hit on a 5+ instead of 4+ when shields are up. Keep they're current saves (braced and not braced exactly the same). This allows the Necrons to keep their personality and it doesn't make them any less powerful.

The AC matter is still up in the air with portals some like the idea others do not. the simplest way to do this would be to remove portals entirely and just give all Necron vessels a single teleport attack that rolls 2D6 on the critical hits chart instead of a hit and run. Raiders can still only target 6 hp or less. Then add Eternity Gates to the Tomb and the Scythe 3 on the Tomb and 2 on the Scythe. Attack craft are a resilient fighter 35/40cm move and a resilient bomber 25/30cm move

Keep the Sepulcher but reword its fluff, maybe the Tomb ship attempts to hack the ships computer instead of a psychic attack. No ordnance is attacked in this way.

Remove the Starpulse or change it to only hit on a 6+ against everything.

Lightning arc are already pretty awesome. They should be unable to target anything other than the closest ship first, ignoring ordnance. As far as lightning arcs hitting ordnance tho you could go with something like the Armageddon gun on the pk. Draw a straight line between the Nercon ship and its target, follow this line with the nova template, any ordnance the template touches (enemy or friendly!) is destroyed on a D6 roll of 6 as it is struck by smaller arcs. In theory with this, if there are no ships in range of the fire arc you could fire out to 30cm through a mass of ordnance also.

Particle whip works great as is, penetrating shields when it beats armor may be a bit over kill.

Critical hits table I can live with, definitely can if they conform to standard disengagement rules.

reactive hulls, covered under shields, retains all saves as standard loses 6+armor (5+ standard 4+when on BFI) retains their ability to repair criticals on a 4+.

Inertialess Drive is another in contention. I still think there's nothing wrong with +1D6x10cm extra movement instead of +4D6 with a turn for every 20cm of movement. I do believe that this should also allow them to "park" and that they should have no minimum movement before they can turn. All ships can use CTNH special orders. Remove Burn Retors special orders.

Remove all references to Necrons giving away higher victory points. Instead of this give them a more definitive nerf, im thinking some thing like: After Deciding on a points level for the battle the Necron player must choose his fleet with a 10% handicap. For example in a 1500 point battle the necrons opponent can bring up to 1500 points, the necron player however can bring only 1350 points worth of ships. Eh never mind that sounds crappy already.

 Maybe a percentage of the necron fleet will always be held in reserve: As the Necrons believe all races to be inferior they will not commit forces they deem unnecessary. After deciding on a points level for the battle the Necron player must choose at least 10% of their fleet to held in reserve. For example in a 1500 point battle the necrons opponent can bring up to 1500 points, the necron player however can bring only 1350 points worth of ships. The remaining 150 (or more) is held in reserve for D3 turns. The Reserves are represented by a contact marker which is place on a randomly rolled table edge on the necron players first turn within the following restrictions: The marker may not be placed within 60cm of any enemy ships. If there are friendly ships within 30cm of the table edge the marker must be placed within 30cm of them (unless that would put them within 60 of the enemy in which case the marker is placed as close to the friendly ship as possible while remaining at least 60cm away for the enemy ship). The contact marker may be moved along the table edge by up to the speed of the slowest ship in reserves. At the beginning of the turn rolled the reserves will come into play anywhere within 10cm of the contact marker, alternatively if there is a Tomb ship on the table they may come onto the table within 10 cm of the Tomb ship either way this counts as their move.
Could also go with something like the instinctive behavior chart instead of a point based penalty to represent their programming, but with each ship having its own leadership to override programming.

Adding fleet commanders shouldn't be too hard just make them somewhat similar to the other races. 50 pts for ld 8, 75 for ld9 let the Sepulcher remain the only way to buy ld 10.

For campaigns have standard bonuses for leadership/rerolls with maybe some cryptechy bonuses thrown in

How about seeing these guys finally able to field activated blackstones btw? Is there anyone out there that still doesnt think these are necron constructs? Maybe even having a couple different variants.

Blackstones tap into the Warp. Necrons don't do that, they use real space technology to counter the warp.

[RayB HA]

Hi Guys,

AndrewChristlieb, Blackstones are prefall Eldar! Due to the half thought necron retcon they mean alot less than they did before. As they were C'tan killers! Not so important now.

Anyways back to general points.

Saves: 'I' would prefer these not to exist for a multitude of reasons. I realise Eldar have holofield saves against everything but wb's and area weapons, and I can't say I'm happy with that either. (Holofields should be re-roll successful hits!   )
I'm not a keen on adding another 'stage' to shooting which slows it down and in some cases is ignored requiring FAQ.
Varing saves are also weird when you have a blanket increase of the save to 2+ from 4+/5+ or 6+.
6+ saves are too unpredictable for my tastes, and too crap.

Inertialess drive and armour reduction: As I really do want the Necrons to feel different, not DE on steroids or SMs.. on steroids.... I think the inertialess drive is the factor to key onto across the fleet (I think portals/ac should be a great character weapon/ability aswell).
Firstly I want to make it clear that Necrons will have 'naturally' fast ships and tighter turning circles.
*Righty, so what I'm suggesting is that when you go on special orders involving movement (AAF, CTNH, BR) your firepower doesn't get reduced but your armour is reduced from 6+ to 5+. If you BFI your armour would be restored as you lose the offending special order. 
In addition the special orders have extra effects:
AAF, +5D6cm (instead of 4D6cm), you may move upto the distance travelled. (note: you can still declare a ram, then BFI to regain your 6+ armour.)
CTNH, you may make the extra turn at any point in your movement. (BB's can CTNH)
BR, You may reverse!

I HATE 1D6x10cm AAF because its so bloody random! Also too clunky, there's no smoothness to the increase its all in 10's rather than 1's.

Lightning arcs and Gauss Batteries: I like the idea of having 2 types of gunnery weapon. LArcs being the BC and Gauss Batteries being the weaker of the 2.
LArcs: As a 'bomber' weapons battery does only affect IN, Tau and Orks it might be a bit too specific, however so do bombers! 
*Always hitting the closest target (ignoring ordy), you must choose to hit the weakest armour value counting it as the arc hit, so if hitting the prow it is closing, if the aft it is moving away and if the broadsides were the weakest abeam. Lightning Arcs are always LFR but never exceed 30cm range.
Gauss Batteries: Only hit on 6's always count enemy as closing. The batteries will have a relatively high number, may exceed 30cm range and are exclusive to one arc per battery. (As they only hit on 6's anyway they will be quite effective against high armoured targets and ordy, and will be brutal when on Lock-on). (I see these as being an alternative to the broadside portals to allow more classes).

Sepulchre Upgrades: I think it would be far less confusing to have the exact same upgrades for the Tombship and the Shroud.
Pocket dimensioning in a Tombship is most likely too powerful, perhaps a points limit for what can be in a pocket dimension, say 300pts or so. Also this should be specific to a ship.
Canoptic Swarms should cause a fire crit to represent the scarab swarms eating through the hull and replicating.

Criticals: Just to reaffirm where I stand.
Normal critical table.
No additional damage can be caused by critical results. (Immunity to fire, bulkhead and hullbreach, no effect takes place)
When repairing criticals you have a reroll. (A 6+ reroll isn't statistically as good as a 4+ but there is something about rerolls that just makes the dice feel reliable and working harder). 

Cheers,

RayB HA

[AndrewChristlieb]

Interesting where is it that the black stones are eldar constructs? They have what I thought were obvious necron design cues along with the fact that there's no way I can see eldar just letting the humans hold on to them for so long and not just take them away. I can't see them just forgetting that they built some super powerful star killing weapons either. The fluff I remember about them had the eldar more scared of them than anything else, like it was something they had seen before and didn't want to see again.