hello and welcome back to 2040k back from vacation we've got another video for you today
now i wanted to get this video out a little bit sooner than i have done however better late than
never so we're gonna be talking about the balance update today and how it affects the necron codex
now there's lots of effects that are going to happen to the codex some of them are more subtle
than others they might not be as obvious but we're going to go through some of the changes
and some of the effects it's going to have on the codex today so to begin the video we
should probably go through the main features of this balance update and then we'll talk about
the good and the bad afterwards so the first one is an ability called armor of contempt
now it relates to space marine units chaos space moon units grey knight units and the sisters of
battle so there's four key factions there that it's going to relate to and basically if you're
targeting any units within those factions you're going to worsen your ap of your weapon
by one so if you're using a ghost flare for example which is minus one ipa usually it will
go down to a zero ap weapon against those certain four factions so that's the main gist of armor of
contempt there are some little bullet points that relate to their storm shields and things like that
but we don't really really need to go into that the main thing to remember here though if you're
going against those units you're gonna worsen your ap by one now the second main ability here is the
bodyguard ability now in the necron codex we've got three bodyguard units the first is the lich
guard which bodyguard nobles the second one is the crypto thralls which bodyguard the kryptek models
and the third is from the soutec code which is vargon oberon who bodyguards nemesis and wreck now
all three of those are gonna have slight changes to their bodyguarding abilities now previously
you just simply could not fire your range attacks against those units if you've got that bodyguard
unit within three inches of that character model so if you've got lich guard that within three
inches of the noble model you couldn't fire any ranged attacks against our noble model whatsoever
now this has changed now it says the character can use the lookout sir ability even if there's
only one model within that three inch bubble so this has drastically changed a lot of things so
we're going to be talking about that later in this video the good things to that as well as the bad
now there are some more balance updates with other factions astro militarium had some codex changes
custodia says some changes we'll probably talk about one or two of them at the end of this video
but for now let's talk about the good and bad points about those two main abilities we spoke
about already armor contempt and bodyguard so armor of contempt as we already mentioned
it's gonna worsen our ap by one so your ghost flares are going down to zero ap weapons the gauss
reapers are going down to minus one ap weapons as opposed to minus two ap weapons and you can pretty
much get the picture throughout the entire codex everything's going down by one ap against those
fractions now there's a few key things to consider when we're talking about this kind of stuff the
first one is how the ghost weapons compare to the tesla weapons now previously the ghost weapons
were slightly better it says the weapons usually get more hits but because of the lack of ap
they tended to not do as much damage against the more elite factions space marine being an obvious
example the ghost weapons are just an easy option to take when you're going against space marines
when you're going against factions that got a low armor save that was when you bring out the tesla
now in fact it's almost equal and the reason for this is as follows and i'm just going to
use a very standard example here there's lots of different other examples that will go either way
but for this i'm going to take space marines so let's take 10 immortals going up against a
standard toughness 4 space marine unit so if you're 10 immortals using the ghost blasters
within rapid fire range so that's 20 shots you can expect 2.2 dead space marines from that
gauss blaster array and that's simply because it's gone down to -1 ap as opposed to -2 ap
now if you're using the tesla carbines with those guys that's again going to be 20 shots
you're going to get more hits this time you can't worse than the ap cause it's already on zero so
it can't be any worse and you're going to get around roughly the same amount of dead models
you're going to get 2.2 dead space marines which is identical to the ghost blasters whereas if
those gauze blasters actually kept their minus two ap then you're roughly getting around three
dead space marines as opposed to 2.2 so it was slightly better than the actual tesla carbines
but only just now it's identical and bear in mind that's when they're firing within rapid fire range
if they're not within rapid fire range then the tether carbines are actually better there's plenty
more examples within the codex that you can consider but tesla now isn't the worst option
it used to be pretty bad against space marines in particular now it's actually the same now
there are ways within our codex to negate this new ability and one of them is from the dynasty
codes now if you're playing the metric dynasty or the novot dynasty both of them have an ability
where it's an extra minus one ap so if you're within the metric dynasty if you're shooting
within half range you get the extra minus 1ap that way or from the novak code in the first fighting
round they also get the extra ap there so that will effectively negate that worsening of the ap
from our weapons now you could argue that that's also a bad point because that's their party trick
having the extra bit of ap now being redundant but if you do take the other codes you can have that
worsened ap anyway so it is a way of negating it i think the novak code fares slightly better than
the metric code in this situation because they know about dynasty they want to get the charge off
they want to get close and personal where's the method dynasty okay they can fire at half range
but they do they want to be firing a half range that isn't always the case it's gonna be bringing
your models closer to your opponent's units and therefore maybe trapping your guys in combat which
is not where you want to be if you're playing the metric dynasty now another way of assisting this
is from the stratos image which is solar pulse now this isn't a direct way of dealing with it
because solar pulse actually removes light cover now you've got to bear in mind that this armor of
contempt can also stack with light cover so they can actually take off two ap from your weapons by
doing that so one of the ways of removing one of those stackable options by using solar poles for
one command point from the stratagems list to at least be able to remove that light cover side of
things and again if you're playing the metric code or the nova code you can remove the other side so
it'll effectively be same as it used to be okay so that's everything i want to talk about in terms
of the armor contempt ability there's probably more things in the collection let me know in the
comments below if you picked up anything else that relates to our codex in terms of the armor
of content rule now we're going to move on to the new bodyguard ability so in our codex we've
got three bodyguard units so the litch guard the crypto throttles and valguard oberon of course
so all three of those units are slightly taking a nerf with this balance update now with the lich
guard we used to like taking them with some of the noble models to protect the noble from being fired
at range now they simply provide a lookout server bubble even if there's only one model within the
unit now with lich card you're normally taking at least five of them so it kind of doesn't matter
too much for them unless you've got some of them removed from the battlefield so they still get
the effects of that in that sense however it now means that snipers can still target your
noble model regardless of how many litch guards you've got within three inches of the noble model
now this also applies with vulgar oberon and more importantly to the crypto trolls now the reason
you bring crypto throws with your cryptex is for that very reason to protect them from ranged
attacks regardless whether they're snipers or not now snipers can do the job irrespective of whether
you've got cryptophiles there and this has given crits roles in general a massive nerf because
when the new chapter approved book came out the 2022 chapter approved they got massively slapped
around because a lot of the secondary objectives now weren't able to be done by the cryptic roles
because you either had to have three or more models within the unit and of course
troop controls only have two all you had to be a troop selection to get it within the same turn
or you had to roll less than the amount of models within the unit and again when you've only got two
it's kind of hard to do that so they become kind of useless at doing secondary objectives
or some of them anyway but now they become even more useless because their main ability isn't now
sniper proof now snipers weren't the biggest thing of the game don't get me wrong but in
previous editions eliminators for example they could do a massive job against your character
models especially cryptic models because it's only the chronomancer that actually has an inbound save
the others don't have an m1 save so you don't want sniper models attacking your cryptex and that was
the whole point of bringing kryptos roles now even though the cryptos have taken a bit of a nerf here
there is something that's taken a little bit of a buff although it is indirectly it's one of the
kryptekakana pieces and i'll have to get this up because i can't pronounce this it's the prismatic
off huge catron if i've got that right and it's where the bearer cannot be targeted by ranged
attacks unless it's the closest eligible model now this used to compete with the kryptofrolls the
flows were 40 points for the two models with that ability with the bodyguard ability and this arcana
even though it was only 20 points you can't target the kryptek unless it's the nearest eligible model
but you didn't get the two crypto throws that could do the actions and carry the pistols and
whatnot they were pretty good both within 12 inch range and in melee they were pretty decent but
now it's made this piece of ikana actually usable again because they can't target our kryptek unless
it's the closest electrical model of course so even if you've got one of your units that's
at the other side of the board if that's the closest eligible model even to the sniper rifles
the kryptek cannot be targeted so it makes this arcana slightly better now this does work
both ways we've also got a sniper unit within our necron codex and it's the death marks now they've
probably taken the biggest buff within all of this which the fact that their weapons ignore
the lookout sure ability with their synaptic disintegrators so that means any body guards that
are protecting enemy characters can now be got out with our death marks so it's kind of swings around
about so we've all got snipers in our codexes we've all got bodyguards within our codexes but
it has boosted our snipers and slightly nerfed our bodyguard units so that's the bodyguard abilities
dealt with i just wanted to touch on a few other things within this balance update that you may
have not spotted so the first one being from the astra militarium section they've got the
new ability hammer of the emperor this is where if they're all within the same regiment if they hit
on a roll of a six they automatically wound the target now you might not see this as a massive
deal but if you consider a 30-man conscript squad from the extra militarium codex they will carry
last guns which are rapid fire 1 shrimp 3 no p1 damage so within 12 inches that will be 60 shots
now it is only shrimp three but it doesn't matter if they get sixes to hit they're automatically
wounding now if they're firing at our vehicles with a quantum shield abilities it's not going
to matter because they've automatically wounded the model so those conscripts are going to have 60
shots 10 of which are automatically going to wound on average with sixes then they got further chance
of hitting and wounding because they hit on fives then they're gonna win on sixes they're not gonna
get that many more hits and wounds basic squad of conscripts can be taking a lot of wounds off our
quantum shield vehicles so guys that's all i've got for you today in terms of the balance update
you'll have to let me know below if you found anything that's of use for an econ community
whether it's directly affecting us or indirectly affecting us put it down in the comments below
i had to sort of rush this video out because as mentioned at the start of the video i've just got
back from vacation so i wanted to get this video out as soon as i could so i may have missed a few
things but let me know in the comments below if you've spotted anything also remember guys like
and subscribe and all that good stuff thank you all for watching i'll see you next time
you