8th Edition Begins! Necrons vs Thousand Sons

June 29, 2017

8th Edition Begins! Necrons vs Thousand Sons

Welcome to a golden age, as 8^th edition kicks off here at the Maelstrom! Today the Necrons and the Thousand Sons come out to play, dusting off a few new units as they stretch their legs against the new rules. One thing is certain – from the moment our objective was determined in Only War, this one was guaranteed to be bloody!

The Armies

Seekers of Knowledge

Chaos Space Marines – 133

Spearhead Detachment

Demon Prince of Tzeentch

HEAVY SUPPORT

3x Obliterators

Forgefiend

Battalion Detachment

Ahriman

Exalted Sorcerer

TROOPS

9x Rubricae

10x Tzaangors

ELITES

5x Scarab Occult Terminators

FAST ATTACK

5x Chaos Spawn

DEDICATED TRANSPORTS

Rhino

Dagon Dynasty

Necrons – 133

Battalion Detachment

Overlord: Warscythe, Resurrection Orb

Illuminor Szeras

TROOPS

20x Necron Warriors

10x Immortals: Gauss Blasters

ELITES

10x Deathmarks

5x Lychguard: Hyperphase Swords and Dispersion Shields

FAST ATTACK

3x Destroyers

HEAVY SUPPORT

3x Heavy Destroyers

C’tan Shard: Time’s Arrow

Monolith

FLYERS

Night Scythe

After Action Review

The Necrons have emerged triumphant! This game proved to be incredibly short, due to a few list-building choices and a few setup decisions that went horribly wrong. We both underestimated just how fast the damage would pile up, and it quickly left the Thousand Sons reeling, with little hope of moving forward to recover the objective.

I'm blown away by both the new Reanimation Protocols rule AND the insane short-range firepower of the Necrons. Immortals are in contention for the best Troops unit in the game, in my opinion. I think we will see a lot of them over the coming years, as I'm already looking to add twenty more to my collection for a more elite Necron approach.

In hindsight, I think the Thousand Sons are going to suffer for a while when they go sorcerer-heavy. While their infantry seem much, much more useful than they were in 7th, the sorcerers really felt like dead weight in the army list. Smite is decent, but the inability to target distant units couples poorly with the Chaos Marines psychic powers, which I feel to be very sub-par. That said, I think some list changes can bring the Thousand Sons right back where they want to be.

Stay tuned, we have plenty of armies we're excited to showcase as 8th edition comes into its own!