Putting the new Necrons to work

Alright, so the internet is all abuzz with the newly leaked Necron pictures, which I'll put here in my article, courtesy of Warseer.  So as you may know, I'm not really in love with 40k right now, but I do love playing my Necrons, so I may have to step back into the 40k world and enslave the usurpers of my transdimensional empire.

Canoptek Spyder

Unless you've been living under a rock, on Mars, you've probably heard about the glory that is the Scarab Farm (thanks Reese!).  This army basically consists of a bunch of Canoptek Spyders and some Canoptek Scarabs, which you increase to gargantuan sizes and overwhelm the enemy in metal insects.  I'm not here to talk about that today though, there has been plenty of discussion elsewhere.

The Canoptek Spyder actually has a few other uses, first of all, they can take a Fabricator Claw Array which allows them to repair vehicles, much like a Techmarine.  When you're making an army with Triarch Stalkers and Annihilation Barges, you'll quickly realize that all it takes is one glancing hit to neutralize the vehicle, either immobilizing it or destroying it's only weapon.  You can also take a Gloom Prism, which offers psychic protection to any unit within 3".  While the range is very limited, if you know you're facing someone with a lot of nasty offensive psychic powers, this is probably a very important upgrade, and since it is pretty cheap, it's not a bad one to take all the time.  Their last option is the twin-linked particle beamer, which unfortunately, is just plain too expensive.

Tomb Blades

This is the unit that I'm probably most interested in of the new releases.  The Tomb Blade is a fairly inexpensive jet bike, with a good sized gun that can be upgraded in may ways.  The squad size is really small, just 1-5 per unit, but those may each be equipped either with a twin Glauss Blaster, twin Tesla Carbine or Particle Beamer, giving it access to a S6 AP5 blast weapon.  On top of that, they can gain Stealth, +1 armor or +1 BS.  Personally, I'd never leave home without the Particle Beamers, and either one of the survivability upgrades.  The +1 armor save is useful when not turbo boosting, but when you are going flat out, having stealth means a 2+ cover save, which is just nasty.  In the end, with particle beamers and one of those upgrades, you're looking at 200 points for a unit of 5, but it's still totally worthwhile in my book.

Canoptek Wraiths

The Wraiths have undergone a lot of changes since the previous incarnation, but they are still deadly.  They are still jump infantry that can ignore terrain when moving, each having several high strength rending attacks, perfect for shredding vehicles and infantry alike.  Sadly the upgrades for Wraiths are mostly lacklustre though.  They can take a Particle Caster, which is a S6 pistol, but since they do not have any hand weapons, they cannot combine this for an extra attack, instead, they can take a Transdimensional beamer, which sounds impressive, but is actually a very short ranged heavy weapon, meaning your enemy has to be willing to let you shoot their face off.  Lastly, there is the only upgrade I think is worthwhile, the Whip Coils, which give your Wraiths the ability to strip your opponent down to I1, meaning your wraiths will have the chance to go first.

Triarch Stalker

Last on my list today is the new Triarch Stalker.  This lumbering beast has some interesting rules which make it a very interesting option.  It's 3 weapon options are either a Heat Ray (think heavy 2 multi-melta, which can also be fired like a heavy flamer), a twin-linked heavy gauss canon, or a Particle Shredded (medium ranged, S7 large blast).  And while those are all interesting, the real fun comes through it's Targeting Relay, which means any unit hit by it's ranged attacks is marked for destruction and any other unit in your army firing at that target counts their weapons as twin-linked.  At first, I thought the implications would be strictly anti-tank, allowing your heavy destroyers to fire at the vehicle with more accuracy, should the Stalker not finish the job, but now that I think of it... Tesla Carbines.  If you take the Particle Shredder, you're probably going to cause at least one hit on the target, if not hits on multiple units, then you back this up by firing all your Tesla Carbine armed Immortals, re-rolling hits, which gives many more chances for those 6's... Yeah, that's going to be gross for anti-infantry.

I'm glad that they're almost done flushing out the Necron line, now I just wish they'd give me the damn flyer!