As some of you may or may not know, my first 40k army was actually Necrons. I started playing them late 4th edition because I loved the fluff and how the fit into the Grimdark that is the 40k Universe. Needless to say, I got kinda fed up with how well they actually performed and moved onto the Eldar. A recent conversation with a friend, however, got me to thinking what we can expect/hope from the next update of the Codex.
1) Price cuts across the board - everything is much more expensive and not as effective as the equivalents in other armies. When it gets to the point where so called "elite" armies are starting to outnumber the Crons, we have a problem.
2) Effective close combat unit(s) or reducing the impact of CC - the army is particularly vulnerable to assault simply because Necron Warriors just can't compete with other units in assault - heck, even the Tactical Marine laughs at us. This can be solved by allowing smaller squad sizes for Warriors (to reduce the loss of a sweeping advance), making our current 'cc' units effective (Wraiths, Flayed Ones namely - no power weapons? Wtf?) or by just outright making us harder to kill in CC. On another note - I'd like to see Pariahs gain the Necron rule. The pinnacle of alien technology and it can't self-repair? Laaammmeee.
3) More varieties in the HQ slots rather than a 300+ point C'tan or plain Jane Necron Lord. I personally would like (in addition to the Necron Lord) options that change up the FOC - seeing as that seems to be very 'in' with codices as of late. I have concepts of the Flayed Lord (allows Flayed Ones as troops choices) or the Pariah Lord (Pariahs as troops choices) in my head as well as things like Machine Lords which make the entire army more durable.
4) Ways to get from point A to B quickly. 5th ed. being such a objective focused game, movement becomes even more important and footslogging it across the field/floating six inches a turn doesn't work well at all. APC's don't make much sense for the Necrons, who should be using something a little more mysterious in nature. Thus, I envisioned something that I call the "Gauss Gate". Imagine something the size of a Drop Pod Deep Striking in. Once it arrives, units coming in from Reserve may treat a Gauss Gate as your table edge. Units may 'enter' a Gauss Gate in the same fashion as boarding a vehicle or entering a building. The unit is removed from play and return the next turn from any Gauss Gate they choose and may reroll any of their failed WBB saves. Think of this mechanic like the Monolith (whose gate will also be considered a Gauss Gate). These things will cost a pretty penny in points and will also be somewhat fragile compared to the rest of the army.
5) Removal of phase out. No, it isn't a balancing factor seeing as how you can wipe everything off the board and be victorious. It's easier to kill stuff than to keep stuff alive.
6) Overall streamlining of the rules. WBB turns to FNP (and the Resurrection Orb negates the negators of FNP), Gauss becoming more efficient (wounds models with a toughness value on a 6 and count as rending vs Vehicles, maybe?).
7) Cost efficient, effective anti-tank. With Gauss being unreliable now, there has to be an effective way to field some heavy weapons without paying half the army for it.
Those are pretty much my main points. I know there are other things that can be improved, but this would be a great start if GW got on this *hint*hint*nudge*nudge*.
C&C welcome, as always.
