Imotekheck no!

So there has been a lot of people ranting and raving over how uber teh Imotekh the Stormlord is, and frankly, I don't understand it.

Lets have a little back story, shall we?

I bought Imotekh for my Necrons right when everything came out, because how amazing does he sound on paper?!  Night fight, zapping stuff with lighting?  All sorts of awesome (except his fluff is awful).  Quickly, I rushed to get him built so that he can vapourize his enemies in blasts of iridescent lightning, or so I thought.

So what's the deal?

My first issue with Imotekh is simply to be good, you have to roll 6's.  Now, I know there are averages and all that nonsense that can be used to get an idea of what your odds are of rolling a 6 after rolling a dice a set number of times.  The problem that most people realize is that those statistics are often misapplied and mean very little.  If I roll for a unit, there is a 1/6 chance of zapping them.  Those odds are not dependent at all on what I rolled before it, and it wont affect what I roll after it.  In the real world, you simply have a 1/6 chance of lightning (and a 20% chance of rain).  So, what does that mean?  When your enemy has 12 units, you don't have a guaranteed 2 lightning strikes, you simply have a probable outcome of two, but with an entirely possible outcome of 12, or 0 (which is much more likely than 12).

I know there are plenty of battle reports out there of people getting 18 6's in a row and annihilating someone in a storm of lightning and luck, but that doesn't make him good, it makes him unreliable.

Now lets talk about his Night Fight.  First of all, it screws you up too, which already makes me sad.  Necrons don't have searchlights, and can only mitigate Nightfight itself through the use of Solar Pulses.  Now, you've got an army that is predominantly a 24" fire fight army, so the protection is nice early on, but once you're in range to reliably see at night, your enemy will be ready for you.  Since you have to roll OVER the turn number for Nightfight to continue, on turn 3, you only have a 50% chance to continue, to counter that, you need to spend another 40 points to get a Harbinger of Eternity with a Chronometreon.

Next up is his utility.  He doesn't have a resurrection orb, so you can't really use him to help make a unit tougher.  Imotekh also doesn't come with a Warscythe, so he isn't going to be any good on a Catacomb Command Barge (or Douche Canoe, courtesy of BBF).  So what can he offer the rest of your army?  He's a Phearon, so that requires that either he teams up with some Gauss Immortals, or a block of Warriors.  He also has those fancy blood scarabs, which are only good if you're running one of the worst units in the book, Flayed Ones.  So lets say you stick him with Immortals or Warriors, if you still want to give them a Rez Orb, your Royal Court member is already assigned to that unit with the ChronoTek, so you'll need a second Overlord either with a rez orb, or with a royal court containing a Necron Lord with rez orb.

I can't read...

For 265 points, you get a character that has a 1/6 chance to hurt a unit with D6 hits that don't ignore armour, or if you're lucky, could hurt a light vehicle.  You're also suffering from Nightfight every turn that this goes on, while simultaneously taking a character has very little to offer you list besides these unreliable rules.

Well, what could you get instead?

ANYTHING!  Lets face it, a normal Lord on Command Barge is, plus a Cryptek with Solar Pulse is 30 points cheaper than Imotekh.  If you're taking a second lord anyhow, then you can still get a second Solar Pulse to get Night Fight protection about as long as you need it to get into range and position, while rocking a couple lords who are much more likely to ruin a vehicle every turn.

Need another option?  How about the Traveller on Command Barge?  He's 5 points cheaper than the Stormlord and his obligatory ChronoTek.  Fly over a vehicle, hit it and kill it, disembark, take over a vehicle nearby to shoot and kill another, then charge the one you took over... That's seriously the potential for 3 vehicles in a turn if you really need it!  Otherwise, he's happy flying around, taking over vehicles, and hitting things with his love stick.

But the internet said!

Do I look like I care about what the internet says?!

kittens!