Its time for my first official 'Rant Post' of 2014.

o/

Yay.

We pick up about a dozen Necrons for use as an allied contingent, or possibly the beginnings of a second army for my girlfriend, and less than two weeks in I'm already annoyed with them. What? You say. What did they do wrong?

Such a glorious piece of artwork, no idea as to whom to give credit for it though. Gee, thanks for that Google...

Well, nothing actually.

No my annoyance stems from their #1 cheerleader (locally anyways) as his comments read like the typical: OMG CRONS R UNSTOPPABLE!!! sales pitch. I was going to reply to Edwin's last comment in my prior post, but it kept turning into a long-winded rant. How typical of me. Then I figured, its been awhile since I made a rant post which generally seem to amuse a goodly portion of my readership. So here it (the 'it' being some serious douchebaggery on my part) comes…

First I'll recap:



…sigh…

Where to start..I guess I'll just pick out the various points from within the list of Edwin's comments.

First off, Necrons play like Magic the Gathering?

 Ooh, now that's appealing. lol, Magic…isn't that the card game that thinks of itself as a competitive sport? Yet (according to the stereotype) is primarily played by those who are too far out of shape to actually play a sport? About the only amusement that I have ever gotten out of Magic was a recent gallery (WARNING folks, that link is probably not work appropriate) where a guy went to various Magic tourneys and had his photo taken with as many exposed butt cracks as he could find…so much for the aforementioned stereotype I guess.

Onto the Crons themselves…Let's see they have '0 risk', meaning you will always win…right? Uh huh. My counter arguments to this and the following highlights of the Necron Codex will be made via my GF's Tau army. So, let's see how Matt fucking Ward's robot death army stacks up against the Greater Good shall we?

Reanimation protocols now ignore instant death and low AP weapons, yet still doesn't happen if the unit runs away/is wiped out. If they do get to roll, unless there's a Res. Orb in the unit, the reanimation has been knocked back to a 5+, sounds like a wash to me at best.

'Gauss got more dumb.' How so? There's no more auto-wounding on a roll of a 6, and glancing vehicles into oblivion has been a Necron trademark since the last codex. Yawn.

Solar pulse? lol, lets pause for a moment whilst the the Dark Eldar players have a good laugh, as once again their prey confuse darkness with safety. While not having that army, all Tau suits come standard with blacksun filters, giving them night vision. On top of that, all of their vehicles and Pathfinder Sushi's (yes that's what I call them) can get them for 1 point a piece. Oh good, you've stymied the Fire warriors and Kroot at least for a little while. Well done.

Ah yes, then we have the lord who will wipe out everyone with his T5, 2+/3++ and 3 wounds. Well, ALL Tau guns will need a minimum of a 4+ to hurt that (and don't forget those Kroot snipers!), As Bob's DW Thundernators found out last weekend, sheer weight of fire will make short work of the 2+/3++ save. I'll get to the command barge in a second…

Mindshackle Scarabs? lolz, this is the Tau we're talking about here! We do have a single Onager gauntlet though if you're interested I guess…but that model explodes when killed in HTH, so be wary.

'If they can pick and choose their fights, they win almost hands down.'

This^^^ describes EVERY 40k army, and is thus meaningless.

Mobility is very frustrating? You can deep strike and have transports? Yay, so does everyone else, welcome to the club! Of course this would be where the vaunted 'Necron-Air' comes into conversation. Against most comers yes, this is still the unstoppable stupidity that the interwebz was raging at not too far back. However its sudden rise to preeminence came to just as sudden of a stop when the Tau codex was released.

Now EVERY suit has the option for Skyfire (though to be honest, its both dumb and cost prohibitive for stealth suits, so don't bother). Better yet they can choose to not use it when shooting at ground targets. On Commanders, Riptides, Broadsides and Crises suits (if you don't mind sacrificing some firepower) you can even get interceptor on all of them (broadsides will sacrifice sky fire for that though, so again, don't bother)! Combined with missile pods and the calliope Broadsides, the Tau will actually look like an anime movie with countless missiles streaking skyward! Then there's Skyrays, Aegis quad guns…etc., no we've not heard much about Cron-air since now have we?

As for their other transports and vehicles, there is little that a Hammerhead's railgun cannot kill with contemptuous ease. Indeed the first time I saw a monolith used when it was first released, a railgun took it out with a single shot. Living metal has been nerfed hard and quantum shielding are of little concern for rail guns unless of course the Tau's dice go into 'fuck you buddy' mode (sadly, an all too frequent occurrence).

So there we have it. The idea that the Crons are the ultimate army has once more been silenced by the inevitable march of codex creep. As for my personal collection of armies, Edwin's arguments may carry far more weight than vs. my GF's Tau army. Since currently, due to an erosion of forces my CSMs are in a shambles and my IG is virtually nonexistent. Thus reducing them to little, if any threat to anyone. My SMs and Exodites have little defense against eternal night fight and Cron-air, except for their 'Battle Brother Tau Allies' (rather convenient that is). Lastly, my beloved Orks struggle against virtually every opponent barring other Orks (a rare occurrence unfortunately), but will be out in force this weekend anyways...so: WAAAAUGH!!!

As for my Dozen Crons…I still need to finish painting the lord, but haven't touched him/her/it this week. Mainly as being told that they'll beat everyone just like a 'Blue Deck' has (as you now already know) annoyed the absolute shit out of me.

So thanks buddy. Now go away and leave me and my new toys alone.