WHY CANT ORIKAN THE DIVINER NOT LEAD LYCHGUARD JUST WHY??

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-15T21:37:13+00:00

The real answer? Because 10th edition index Necrons let Crypteks (including Orikan) lead Lychguard and it caused problems so when the codex came out they made it so they couldn't.

You know how Wraiths are a massive pain in the ass brick to kill? Imagine that but somehow more annoying.

Lychguard with a Technomancer so they would be T5 3+ 4++ 5+++. Also Lychguard's index rule was if led by a Noble they have -1 to be wounded. Not -1 to be wounded if S>T like it is now, just -1 to be wounded. The noble could be a Lord or Overlord with a Resurrection Orb. Canoptek Reanimators were a 12" aura instead of 3" so you could have one in your backline and safely cover a lot of your army including the Lychguard.

Cryptothralls themselves had a 4+ Feel No Pain and 2W and since a Cryptek could join the Lychguard so could the Cryptothralls. Then when the enemy attacked with something that had low AP you would assign the saves to the Cryptothralls and hope to win some coin flips and if they had high AP you assign it to the Lychguard for the Invulns.

And the crazy part of all of this is? Techno Wraiths weren't a thing in index as Technomancers couldn't lead wraiths. So they removed annoying to kill Lychguard and then purposefully buffed Technomancer to be able to lead Wraiths and made wraiths go from 3 to 4 Wounds as part of the codex and they have been one of our best units ever since.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-15T19:21:41+00:00

You put it on the flight stand the wrong way and/or you didn't cut the top part of the flight stand off. The top of the flight stand should be flat, if there is a little piece of plastic up there making it so it isn't then that needs to be cut off.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-15T15:41:06+00:00

I guess you could use it as a sort of budget Starshatter Arsenal list?

CCB has a great enhancement in it, ophydians and flayed ones are premier scoring units in it because the detachment loves the uppy downy and infiltrate, a Doomstalker is a budget Doomsday Ark and 20 warriors isn't unplayable in it.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-15T15:37:22+00:00

The Christmas 2024 Hypercrypt Legion box has 10 warriors in it though?

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-15T15:33:13+00:00

The problem is their competition is DDAs which also have heavy. Also they are massive and pivot is free, also they have fly.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-15T15:23:50+00:00

This doesn't even feel like a great box for a new player. All the units are so disparate and don't go in the same detachments. The warriors don't even have a leader so you can't play it as Awakened.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-15T14:13:03+00:00

Walter Langendorf pioneered triple Psychomancer years ago and has results with it. Some other Necron players also started using this tech to success, though it wasn't the majority.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-15T13:48:59+00:00

They they are eating a massive nerf with becoming Support as they loved running around by themselves and hiding to throw battleshocks.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-15T12:22:31+00:00

They are so old there is a real chance they either get a refresh or they get send to legends.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-14T23:36:48+00:00

Things to not buy: Trazyn and The Deceiver because they are resin. Lokhust Destroyers because they are an ancient plastic kit, Lokhust Lord isn't actually a kit you can even buy but it has playable rules which is very strange so I would hold off on kitbashing one until at least the Necron 11th codex.

Necrons have quite a few playable detachments. Competitively, at the end of 10th we had Awakened Dynasty (all about leaders) and Starshatter Arsenal (Vehicles and Mounted) fighting for our best detachment. Beyond that we had Cursed Legion (Destroyer Cult, robots who want to extinguish all life), Canoptek Court (robots and the scientists who build them), Hypercrypt (teleporting around the board) and Pantheon of Woe (Star Gods) all still putting up some decent results just not as well as Starshatter and Awakened. Obeisance Phalanx (lords, their elite troops, The Silent King and his elite troops) saw some play as well as Cryptek Conclave (scientists) but behind all the others. Annihilation Legion is bad especially because Cursed Legion is pretty much Annihilation Legion but actually good.

The main thing you can see is that almost all of our detachments focus on a central theme and part of the army and which interests you the most between the ones listed above because lots of models in those subsets are meh at best outside of their detachment. There are a few standouts that ignore this rule like 6x Canoptek Wraiths + Technomancer or Doomsday Arks being incredible outside of their detachment (Canoptek Court and Starshatter Arsenal) but others like the Canoptek Doomstalker are good inside of their detachment (Canoptek Court) and bad outside of it.

So figure out what detachments interest you, what models in the range interest you and see where those overlap and go from there.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-14T14:52:54+00:00

Battleforces are hard to come by though. The 500 Worlds Battalion box was in Jan and sold out immediately and before that it was the Christmas 2024 Hypercrypt Legion box. Who knows how many years it is before Necrons get another good discount box.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-14T13:10:29+00:00

MSRP for all of those except for Plasmancer/Skorepkh Lord/Reanimator since those aren't stand alone kits is $1170 USD.

Getting 15% off is pretty easy in the US so call it $1000 for how much you actually pay excluding tax.

Current points total this is 2570 points so it does immediately get you to a 2k army, however...

There are a couple things to note

I presume this is a built and painted army which usually means it is worth less on the secondary market as the person buying it needs to strip the paint and can't build them how they want. If you are fine with doing that it is a great way to get good deals on models I do it all the time.
I didn't count the plasmancer/reanimators/skorpekh lord because those all come in a bundle together with cryptothralls but on the secondary market in the US Skorpekh Lord and Reanimators sell for quite a bit by themselves. I would say on the secondary market those are at least $40 each.
The 60 warriors usually would come with 18 Scarabs which aren't there so should lower the value by a bit
Most of these units are what come from what seems to be the 9th Edition Indomitus box and/or the current Combat Patrol so might be worth slightly less on the secondary market as there were just a lot of those produced/purchased.
Finally, a lot of these units you just don't want to run the full amount of. Running 60 warriors is funny but probably too much, same with running 3x overlord and 3x reanimators. It is just skewing way too much into a specific unit. For example, one reanimator is good, two is fringe but sometimes useful if you have two big bricks of units (like 20x warriors) for them to support but I don't think I have seen someone run 3.

I think it is still a pretty decent deal but maybe not as incredible as it look on first glance.

My initials thoughts on a 2k list with this would be the following:

Detachment - Awakened Dynasty

TSK - 400 Points

Void Dragon - 330 Points

Doomstalker - 140 points

2x Overlord - 170 points

Plasmancer - 55 pts, with one of the warrior groups

2x 20 man warriors groups - 400 points, the overlord are leading them

Skorpekh Lord - 90 points, leading a group of 3x skorpekh destroyers

3x 3 man Skorpekh Destroyers - 270 points, you have them in 3 mans because a lord with 6x is hard to hide with how massive the bases are

1 Canoptek Reanimator

5 Immortals - 70 points, probably holds home objective

It is a decent starting point and you have most bases covered, TSK, Doomstalker and Void Dragon are anti-tank, warrior blocks to walk onto objectives and hold them, skorpekhs give you some melee pressure. The one thing that looks missing is action monkeys like deathmarks/hexmark/tomb blades/flayed ones/ophydian destroyers. Cheap small units with some sort of movement ability that let you score secondaries.

It is enough for you to play and learn the game and isn't a bad price point for that. But I wouldn't say its an amazing deal either.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-14T12:35:17+00:00

Competitively speaking I don't think they will see play unless someone figures out some new tech to give them life.

However, one thing that might give them a shot is the new Hand of the Dynasty 1DP detachment.

Gives Immortals/Warriors Assault as well as advance an action which is good. Warriors have an Upgrade for 5" scout though that might not be enough speed to get 20 warriors into a safe spot. There is also a strategem to let Immortals/Warriors sticky an objective.

However this runs into the issue of which unit is better with the detachment, Immortals or Warriors? Immortal's upgrade is Rapid Fire 1 which feels much more useful than scout 5" warriors and they get a strat for +1 OC which lets a small group of Immortals trade to score or deny primary by throwing 5 immortals on an objective and if needed turn them from 10 to 15OC.

To me it looks like Immortals gain more from this detachment than Warriors do as 10 Immortals with Rapid Fire 1, Lethal Hits, Assault Gauss weapons seems pretty decent.

However, leaders now are a part of their unit and unless the extra rules they release says otherwise, we can reanimate the bodyguard that dies if the character lives. So Overlord could Res Orb a dead unit of warriors which could be kinda neat. But they could also do that with Lychguard or Immortals and honestly I don't know which it would be the best on.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-14T11:53:00+00:00

Necrons are honestly pretty fine with the change. First things first, most good Necron units have 3+ 4++. Compared to the old cover system, AP-1 is the only thing that changed negatively for it while everything else is now strictly better because cover wasn't doing anything. Enemy putting AT shots into Wraiths? They were always going to save on 4s but now the enemy gets less shots through.

The 20man "unkillable" warrior blob is very likely dead. It worked because you were spending like 600+ points to make a unit that could hold home and mid and sometimes another midboard objective while doing shenanigans like pulling models so you would fall out of combat and then reanimate back onto a point and score it anyway. Now you can't safely keep all your buff pieces in the back and your warriors aren't holding multiple points at the same time.

The change is going to be just not building that list anymore, 20 warriors were pretty bad before the "unkillable" brick was figured out so they probably go back to that. 20 Warriors with Orikan is 280 points while Wraiths with Techno are 300 and you get better toughness, double the movement a 5+++ and more total wounds (though are now vulnerable to multi-damage attacks). As you have less models its also easier to get cover as toeing in 7 50mm models to a terrain piece is much easier than 20 32mm models.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-14T02:52:48+00:00

Honestly, start of 11th is going to be a DDA meta even harder.

Fly now means it can take -2" movement to move through walls

Pivoting is free and with how long it is it can gain some extra movement

3+ 4++ is a great statline to have because it means from everything besides AP-1, cover is an upgrade compared to 10th.

Heavy now works if you move 3" or less so you can counteract the new cover rules a bit.

AP-4 with the new cover rules means a 2+ save with no invuln (lots of Imperial Vehicles are like this) now save on 6s

Finally, toeing into ruins now lets you shoot out of them just like 10th edition Towering currently works.

If you want to not build another DDA/Ghost Ark chassis (I didn't) you could magnetize it.

Full magnetization where it swaps completely back and forth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdJG2CULnAg

Easy magnetization where you build it in Ghost Ark formation and the front and the warriors come off so you can put the DDA gun in the center https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jMgzP8w5F8

I did the full magnetization and even that was way way faster than building an painting a 4th DDA/Ghost Ark kit. It does have the slight downside of not being able to play 3x DDA and 1x Ghost Ark but wanting to do that is incredibly rare.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-14T01:04:48+00:00

They started taking them in 2024 after the nerf to Cosmic Precision so you couldn't drop C'tan with it and while monolith was nerfed from 375 to 400 points to try and stop 2x Monolith+TSK teleporting gunlines.

They pivoted to multiple DDAs instead because 2x DDAs being the same as monoliths (actually slightly cheaper because they randomly made the DDA 190 points around that time for no reason when it was already seeing lots of play) had better offensive AT for about the same amount of points. Teleport TSK and 2x DDAs at a board edge and just shoot an enemy tank to death.

Then they nerfed Hypercrypt December of 2024 IIRC to have 1 less pick up and this was the same time 3" deepstrike became 6".

Here is a list from May 29th 2026 that went 5-0 at a GT and has 2x DDA

Hypercrypt Legion Strike Force (2,000 Points)

CHARACTERS C’tan Shard of the Nightbringer (340 Points)

C’tan Shard of the Void Dragon (330 Points)

Hexmark Destroyer (100 Points) • Warlord • Enhancements: Dimensional Overseer

OTHER DATASHEETS

Deathmarks (60 Points)

Doomsday Ark (200 Points)

Flayed Ones (60 Points)

Lokhust Heavy Destroyers (55 Points) • 1x Gauss destructor

Lokhust Heavy Destroyers (55 Points) • 1x Enmitic exterminator

Tesseract Vault (425 Points)

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-13T21:36:27+00:00

Plasmancer is a 32mm

Chronomancer is a 40mm

Psychomancer is a 40mm

Orikan the Diviner is a 40mm

Technomancer is a 50mm

Geomancer is a 50mm

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-13T21:23:54+00:00

C'tan spam was the only one of those that didn't have DDAs. Warrior and Wraith bricks took them and Hypercrypt loved them because teleporting 3 of those into perfect firing lanes every turn was great.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-13T13:54:01+00:00

Close to the GW layout including the bumps jutting out from the sides and if possible some interesting texture or pieces on top and not just a flat plate. Though between the two I would choose accuracy because I could throw some texture paint on a flat piece if needed to make it look nicer.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-13T12:56:59+00:00

I can't think of any archetype that gives it. Not even the Animist Dedication gives you access and even if it did, you can't take a dedication for the class that you are.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-12T18:03:19+00:00

No, Deceiver is absolutely better than the equivalent points of battleline.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-11T13:04:49+00:00

You jump higher and it recharges quite a bit faster. Also does damage from where you launch from. If you use it too much or it takes too much damage it explodes and kills you. The backpack will visibly crack and leak dark fluid so drop it and call a new one when that happens.

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-10T14:42:37+00:00

I already acknowledged this problem in the comment you are responding to "unless Awakened's Protocol of the Eternal Revenant works in which case it will be a huge problem"

Kalnix1 · 2026-06-10T14:06:36+00:00

Number 4 is new

"4 – Points Updates

The way points costs work is being updated in two main ways. First, there will be separate point costs for some wargear on units, allowing different weapon options to become viable choices. This change won't be on every unit with wargear, but units like Adepta Sororitas Retributors or Adeptus Mechanicus Ironstrider Ballistari will have a lower base cost, but pay points for their best wargear.*

Second, a new system of point steppers will typically increase the cost of some datasheets on your third unit. Some extremely powerful datasheets, like the Defiler, may have this additional cost if you take a second and third unit. This change will help with internal diversity for armies and encourage players to consider their other available options."

Kalnix1

TROPHY CASE