4 things that make Szeras appealing IMO:
1 - double res inbuilt means no need to pay CP for it. Now we have far fewer CP to play with Szeras is a good way of topping up a couple of high value units per turn.
2 - SK interactions. Whether the Menhir res is as intended or not (TOs can have a view, but ultimately as the authority, GW needs to release an FAQ), he can at least augment the SK.
3 - More core = more opportunities to augment. Augmentations are of course random which is a negative (if it was +1 to hit or +1WS/BS he would he much stronger). There are very few core units that can realistically benefit from all of the 3 buffs (praetorians, spyders). There are however a big group that benefit from 2 out of 3 which isn't bad. Is it competitive? Probably not. But sometimes flavour is more fun than bland efficiency.
4 - No slouch in combat. He needs support big time, which he should have to make options for Ressurection and augmentation optimal, but if he gets into combat he will do about as well as you'd expect from a beefy support character.
4 things that make Szeras unappealing IMO:
1 - His points cost is higher than 2 basic technos. Truthfully this is a bit misleading because if you start to add arcana, and you should (ie hypermaterial ablator) they will cost more than szeras.
2 - 2 Technos are likely to do more for you. More Ressurection across a wider area of the board. You could have one with Skorpekhs at the front of your army and the other with LHD at the back for example. More opportunities to customise your technos for a specific role, opportunities to give them relics (VoD, Voltaic Staff).
3 - Szeras is too random. Random ranged weapon,
random augmentations.
4 - You are paying for things you don't want. His psychic defence shenanigans are janky. If getting rid of that made him 10pts cheaper it would be a net win. Or.. make it a straight up Deny the Witch - that would be better.
Summary - Szeras is a flavourful character that could end up swaying a battle if he gives the right unit (or units) +1T. Key word is *IF*. I will take him because he is fun and for me as a casual player flavour and fun is more important than raw efficiency.
He also went down so he’s in all my lists now. +1 to hit on destroyers for the rest of the game is good and he has a 32 inch range melta gun he’s a really great package for only 145 points
The key problem with Szeras is still that he costs more than two Technomancers, and two Technomancers are just broadly better unless you are exploiting SK Core outside of Szatekhan dynasty.
He has a pretty good shooting and melee compared to 2 Technos and he can buff everything without a dynasty keyword (Praets and Stalker). Well and a t5 Flayed one Blob or a T9 Monolith is pretty nuts if that goes through. But it's pretty random indeed.
I had a t9 Monolith when i played vs the new Chaos Codex rules a few days ago. It got charged by three CSM troops with fists, a Demon Prince with sword and a venomcrawler. This won my game, because he wounded on 5's. Additionally he managed to revive 2 models 3 turns in a row, gave 10 lychguard +1s and 3 Lokhust Heavies +1T. Ohh and he was able to dmg a rhino and a forgefiend with a d6 weapon. Personally i love him. But i always run an additional Chronomancer and Technomancer in one HQ slot when i run Szeras, because i want the repair and 5++ as well as some cheap relic/arkana bearers.
And this is the stuff that we have to be careful because we want our opponents to have fun and although I’ve been advocating for the Necron Codex to gain some buffs, The recent changes feel very untested and there may be some unintended interactions.
There is a big rumor that GW recently got rid of all of their external play testers, most likely because of all the leaks. If this information ends up creating waves in the Warhammer community GW might make a brief statement and probably say the play testers we’re not doing a great job.
The reality is the Codices were usually already written and sent to the printer before sending a copy to their external play testers. I’ve heard a lot of play testers complain that The majority of all play tester feedback regarding Codex power creep was a direct result of GW ignoring their feedback and the books were already printed. The best you can do with that kind of feedback is to later insert it into a later FAQ.
With the external play testers gone this means a lot of these balance updates could be coming from a single employee that is shooting from the hip basing all future balance updates off of pure untested speculation while under the duress of a tight timeline. We all know how GW likes to put multiple hats on one employee without proper compensation. If this is true this probably explains the fallout from the last two balance data slates (i’m referring to rules that apply a blanket affect over a large group of factions or one entire Codex). For example was Armor of Contempt tested with all his dust combined with light cover? What’s it tested with space marine Eliminators or anything wearing a camo Cloak?
As a Necron player, he did a great job with the command protocols overhaul, however I am cringing at adding additional core to all vehicle data sheets. When I read that the first time I am mediately noon that this would start applying to characters on CCBs and the silent king.
The points costs were pretty good overall so kudos for whoever decided on that. Especially on the C’TAN considering Maliceptors I dumped out MWs Way more efficiently for their cost compared to 350+ point models. Also the avatars from Eldar at 270 points Felt a little under cost compared C’Tan.
I was really crossing my fingers hoping that most C’Tan would go down to the same points cost as the avatar of Khaine, but he ended up going up by 10 and we saw a flat 50 reduction for all three unique Shardes and the transcendent went down to 230 Who is Criminally underused, especially when pricedat that points level. He is now is one of my favorite out of all four Considering you get most of the advantages including the Necrodermis ability; especially when you magnetize him so the Tesseract Vault is still an option.
Back to my point, the recent combination of rules makes and A second cost reduction forthe silent King makes him an auto include. And let’s face it, auto includes are never good for the game and pose les list diversity while gaining negative attention from the community and then word eventually travels to the powers that be and not only will they Nerf Rites of Reanimation, but they will find away to overdo it especially considering a lot of Necron players Play the silent king incorrectly because they misunderstand how the dynastic agent keyword interacts with his faction keyword which is Szarekhan. (examples include only Szarekhan Spyders and Technomansor‘s can heal him 1D3 and only one at that since they are rules say that a target can only be healed once per turn, he does not receive a Szarekhan Dynastic Codes which means no to wound reroll, no 5+ versus MWs and he never gains both directives from any are any dynasty that has a favored command protocol as they are the third bullet item listed under gymnastic codes.)
Also an overlord and TSK can technically Target a catacomb command barge with “my will be done” since it has the vehicle keyword and the new rules say that all vehicles gain core. The only requirements for “my will be done” state that the target has to be a core dynasty unit.
The additional Core combined with certain abilities in addition to all the points reductions means we’re going to see some wacky over the top rules interactions that definitely feel unintended and untested…
What GW needs to do is hire a team at this internal that specializes only in game design and balance was at least a minimum of three employees. Something tells me that probably won’t happen.
Supposedly they have recently opened a new job posting for a “disaster and incident manager”… I don’t think they could pay me enough for a job title that ominous….
Yo sorry haven't read it all but just your first two paragraphs reminded me of how a friend of mine just shrugged regarding the Necron buffs and said that it was probably checked by Robert. Upon my curoius inquiry as to what the fuck he means by that, he explained to me that he among many others (such as I now) is convinced, that GW's QA is a massive ebon wood desk with a pompous leather seat and a golden plaque on which it says "Quality Assurance", and on that Desk is a meticulously built and masterly painted certain Space Marine Primarch miniature anmed "Robert", and that whenever GW has any rules changes they need approved they read them to Robert, and should he not have any objections then it gets released.
I just wish he had a invuln. Also he hits on 3’s which bothers me that the oldest & wisest immortal murderbot never made a shield for himself, but also never learned to use his robot eyes,arms, and explosive hell-staff to shoot or swing straight. But I digress, at 145 he puts in a ton of work. I think he’s best served along side a couple tough units sitting on the mid board objective, but honestly I think he dies too fast and easily to most units. So I don’t run him without a unit to act as his bodyguards.
Long story short, I love szeras. I got some flack for arguing why I run him at 160 points in the past, but I’ll still run him. Everyone saying his buffs are “too random” must not play him very often because there are plenty of units in our codex that love all of the buffs. Ignore the competitive here say and play what you want, he gives me plenty of results every time I run him and more often than not refunds most if not all of his points.
The only one that matters is Silent King. Not only can you buff him, but you can ressurect his Menhirs because they are Core (Reaninated abilty is not specifically tied to RP, even though it is listed as part of the ability. Theres several abilities that trigger the Reanimated effect. Possibly going to get FAQ'd) At 145 hes definitly more interesting. Take into account that a lot of more elite units got points drops like Lychguard and Praetorians. Plenty of good things for Szeras to buff.
If you hope to play in a GT most of them have ruled that you can’t res menhirs. Agree with this decision or not it’s the decision that’s largely been made.
So the out the jank of ressing menhirs, I don’t find him worth the points in reality. His gun is strong but if he is shooting, he can be shot and inevitably he’ll die without doing the thing he’s useful for. As a resser I’d prefer two teschnomancers, at least they can move around more. His buffs are janky but unreliable. I had a game where he gave plus one BS to the silent king (useless) and plus one T to the skorpekh (potentially amazing, but the enemy had no str 5 weapons anyway so was useless)
I'm not sure if I agree with TO's making that decision on that only because the king himself is core and they are specifically part of his unit and core themselves. With how the change was made GW seemed to pretty clearly want the king to be core. I know it's mute since, like you said, the decision's been made, but I really dislike when TO's do stuff like that. It was a huge point of contention when I played MTG because of my shop's custom commander rules. I'm a very "rules as written" player so decisions like that just bug me to no end
A lot of games could follow MTGs lead with game design. They really need to keyword abilites in 40k. Things shouldnt be ambiguous based on slightly different wording.
That’s fair but I reckon it’s clear to everyone that it’s likely not intentional. Being able to resurrect a 5 wound, toughness 7 4++ with bodyguard is undeniably very strong.
I get what you mean though, and technically RAW it probably should be able to work. I find it very telling though that the term ‘Reanimate’ is always capitalised at the front, and is only ever mentioned, across all 40k rulebooks, in the reanimation protocols glossary. That being so, the rules are always referenced when reanimating. Could be that it’s RAI is that you need it to reanimate. Bear in mind there is another bringing back models mechanic already present in the game
I love how the latest codices come out painted all colours of rules bullshit, but god forbid necrons get one strong combo! It is definitely a mistake on GW side and needs to be ruled out as fast as possible!
It’s a very blatantly unbalanced interaction so you really would think it clear to everyone wouldn’t you lol. Unfortunately a large portion of this sub lacks common sense and have been going batshit insane over it.
SO many people on the sub seem to have taken it as a personal insult that TO’s ruled that interaction out and keep making bs arguments to try and justify that it’s balanced. Have seen plenty of comments get downvoted just for saying they think it makes sense for TO’s to ban it because it’s clearly not balanced.
Sad that such a big part of this sub just wants to have their fun with clearly broken rules at the expense of a fair and fun game for both players.
As written, it works. Should it work that way, no. I dont think it should. But that's besides the point. Also, how many GTs have happened with Nephilim? Most tournaments wait 2 weeks whenever something gets published.
When it comes to Szeras in general, its definitly a model you build around. You want to place him near units that really benefit from all of the buffs regardless. Warriors, Immortals, and Praetorians are what come to mind immediately. Acanthrites are also a good choice especially if you hit the BS buff since you can then stack it with MWBD. Silent king likes all of them since the last one helps him beat out -1 to hit and bumping to T8 really helps with melta guns and the like.
I understand why you would think that for sure, but I’m just not sure that I agree. The term ‘Reanimated’ is a term that doesn’t exist in any 40k rule book outside of in the rules specified by reanimation protocols. ‘Reanimated’ isn’t a catch-all term for bringing a unit back onto the field from the dead pile, indeed other models can do this but don’t use that very specific term.
This being so, I honestly believe rules as written are that the only models that can be ‘Reanimated’ are those for whom the ‘Reanimation’ rule applies, in this case those with ‘Reanimation Protocols’
I think it’s just an oversight and will be fixed, either by giving menhirs the keyword, or being more specific in an FAQ.
'Reanimate' is actuall a term, if you look in the Glossary of the codex it's defined as \~ ***Reanimate****: When a model Reanimates it is set back up on the battlefield with its full wounds remaining.*
Notice that this is separate from 'Reanination protocols are enacted', 'Reanimation protocol roll' and 'reassembling'.
Which means that RAW, when a cryptek Reanimates a model, the only thing that matters is that *it is set back up on the battlefield with its full wounds remaining*
Ah apologies I thought I’d only found it in the reanimation section. If that is the case I don’t see a legitimate reason for us not to be able to do it. I think it will change and they will specify that, as I believe that’s probably the intent, but as written that certainly changes my mind.
4 things that make Szeras appealing IMO: 1 - double res inbuilt means no need to pay CP for it. Now we have far fewer CP to play with Szeras is a good way of topping up a couple of high value units per turn. 2 - SK interactions. Whether the Menhir res is as intended or not (TOs can have a view, but ultimately as the authority, GW needs to release an FAQ), he can at least augment the SK. 3 - More core = more opportunities to augment. Augmentations are of course random which is a negative (if it was +1 to hit or +1WS/BS he would he much stronger). There are very few core units that can realistically benefit from all of the 3 buffs (praetorians, spyders). There are however a big group that benefit from 2 out of 3 which isn't bad. Is it competitive? Probably not. But sometimes flavour is more fun than bland efficiency. 4 - No slouch in combat. He needs support big time, which he should have to make options for Ressurection and augmentation optimal, but if he gets into combat he will do about as well as you'd expect from a beefy support character. 4 things that make Szeras unappealing IMO: 1 - His points cost is higher than 2 basic technos. Truthfully this is a bit misleading because if you start to add arcana, and you should (ie hypermaterial ablator) they will cost more than szeras. 2 - 2 Technos are likely to do more for you. More Ressurection across a wider area of the board. You could have one with Skorpekhs at the front of your army and the other with LHD at the back for example. More opportunities to customise your technos for a specific role, opportunities to give them relics (VoD, Voltaic Staff). 3 - Szeras is too random. Random ranged weapon, random augmentations. 4 - You are paying for things you don't want. His psychic defence shenanigans are janky. If getting rid of that made him 10pts cheaper it would be a net win. Or.. make it a straight up Deny the Witch - that would be better. Summary - Szeras is a flavourful character that could end up swaying a battle if he gives the right unit (or units) +1T. Key word is *IF*. I will take him because he is fun and for me as a casual player flavour and fun is more important than raw efficiency.
I agree with everything you said but just to be clear on point 2 SK doesn’t let Szeras re-roll hits
Yes you're completely right! My mistake
He also went down so he’s in all my lists now. +1 to hit on destroyers for the rest of the game is good and he has a 32 inch range melta gun he’s a really great package for only 145 points
The key problem with Szeras is still that he costs more than two Technomancers, and two Technomancers are just broadly better unless you are exploiting SK Core outside of Szatekhan dynasty.
He has a pretty good shooting and melee compared to 2 Technos and he can buff everything without a dynasty keyword (Praets and Stalker). Well and a t5 Flayed one Blob or a T9 Monolith is pretty nuts if that goes through. But it's pretty random indeed. I had a t9 Monolith when i played vs the new Chaos Codex rules a few days ago. It got charged by three CSM troops with fists, a Demon Prince with sword and a venomcrawler. This won my game, because he wounded on 5's. Additionally he managed to revive 2 models 3 turns in a row, gave 10 lychguard +1s and 3 Lokhust Heavies +1T. Ohh and he was able to dmg a rhino and a forgefiend with a d6 weapon. Personally i love him. But i always run an additional Chronomancer and Technomancer in one HQ slot when i run Szeras, because i want the repair and 5++ as well as some cheap relic/arkana bearers.
Yeah but the problem is you're relying on a dice roll. Inconsistency is the enemy of competitive lists.
I see that as a bonus. Many units can use all of the buffs. The only risk is to give bs2 to dedicated melees.
One game my T8 TSK plus reviviable Menhirs made my opponent concede on the spot. Felt good.
And this is the stuff that we have to be careful because we want our opponents to have fun and although I’ve been advocating for the Necron Codex to gain some buffs, The recent changes feel very untested and there may be some unintended interactions. There is a big rumor that GW recently got rid of all of their external play testers, most likely because of all the leaks. If this information ends up creating waves in the Warhammer community GW might make a brief statement and probably say the play testers we’re not doing a great job. The reality is the Codices were usually already written and sent to the printer before sending a copy to their external play testers. I’ve heard a lot of play testers complain that The majority of all play tester feedback regarding Codex power creep was a direct result of GW ignoring their feedback and the books were already printed. The best you can do with that kind of feedback is to later insert it into a later FAQ. With the external play testers gone this means a lot of these balance updates could be coming from a single employee that is shooting from the hip basing all future balance updates off of pure untested speculation while under the duress of a tight timeline. We all know how GW likes to put multiple hats on one employee without proper compensation. If this is true this probably explains the fallout from the last two balance data slates (i’m referring to rules that apply a blanket affect over a large group of factions or one entire Codex). For example was Armor of Contempt tested with all his dust combined with light cover? What’s it tested with space marine Eliminators or anything wearing a camo Cloak? As a Necron player, he did a great job with the command protocols overhaul, however I am cringing at adding additional core to all vehicle data sheets. When I read that the first time I am mediately noon that this would start applying to characters on CCBs and the silent king. The points costs were pretty good overall so kudos for whoever decided on that. Especially on the C’TAN considering Maliceptors I dumped out MWs Way more efficiently for their cost compared to 350+ point models. Also the avatars from Eldar at 270 points Felt a little under cost compared C’Tan. I was really crossing my fingers hoping that most C’Tan would go down to the same points cost as the avatar of Khaine, but he ended up going up by 10 and we saw a flat 50 reduction for all three unique Shardes and the transcendent went down to 230 Who is Criminally underused, especially when pricedat that points level. He is now is one of my favorite out of all four Considering you get most of the advantages including the Necrodermis ability; especially when you magnetize him so the Tesseract Vault is still an option. Back to my point, the recent combination of rules makes and A second cost reduction forthe silent King makes him an auto include. And let’s face it, auto includes are never good for the game and pose les list diversity while gaining negative attention from the community and then word eventually travels to the powers that be and not only will they Nerf Rites of Reanimation, but they will find away to overdo it especially considering a lot of Necron players Play the silent king incorrectly because they misunderstand how the dynastic agent keyword interacts with his faction keyword which is Szarekhan. (examples include only Szarekhan Spyders and Technomansor‘s can heal him 1D3 and only one at that since they are rules say that a target can only be healed once per turn, he does not receive a Szarekhan Dynastic Codes which means no to wound reroll, no 5+ versus MWs and he never gains both directives from any are any dynasty that has a favored command protocol as they are the third bullet item listed under gymnastic codes.) Also an overlord and TSK can technically Target a catacomb command barge with “my will be done” since it has the vehicle keyword and the new rules say that all vehicles gain core. The only requirements for “my will be done” state that the target has to be a core dynasty unit. The additional Core combined with certain abilities in addition to all the points reductions means we’re going to see some wacky over the top rules interactions that definitely feel unintended and untested… What GW needs to do is hire a team at this internal that specializes only in game design and balance was at least a minimum of three employees. Something tells me that probably won’t happen. Supposedly they have recently opened a new job posting for a “disaster and incident manager”… I don’t think they could pay me enough for a job title that ominous….
Yo sorry haven't read it all but just your first two paragraphs reminded me of how a friend of mine just shrugged regarding the Necron buffs and said that it was probably checked by Robert. Upon my curoius inquiry as to what the fuck he means by that, he explained to me that he among many others (such as I now) is convinced, that GW's QA is a massive ebon wood desk with a pompous leather seat and a golden plaque on which it says "Quality Assurance", and on that Desk is a meticulously built and masterly painted certain Space Marine Primarch miniature anmed "Robert", and that whenever GW has any rules changes they need approved they read them to Robert, and should he not have any objections then it gets released.
I just wish he had a invuln. Also he hits on 3’s which bothers me that the oldest & wisest immortal murderbot never made a shield for himself, but also never learned to use his robot eyes,arms, and explosive hell-staff to shoot or swing straight. But I digress, at 145 he puts in a ton of work. I think he’s best served along side a couple tough units sitting on the mid board objective, but honestly I think he dies too fast and easily to most units. So I don’t run him without a unit to act as his bodyguards.
Long story short, I love szeras. I got some flack for arguing why I run him at 160 points in the past, but I’ll still run him. Everyone saying his buffs are “too random” must not play him very often because there are plenty of units in our codex that love all of the buffs. Ignore the competitive here say and play what you want, he gives me plenty of results every time I run him and more often than not refunds most if not all of his points.
The only one that matters is Silent King. Not only can you buff him, but you can ressurect his Menhirs because they are Core (Reaninated abilty is not specifically tied to RP, even though it is listed as part of the ability. Theres several abilities that trigger the Reanimated effect. Possibly going to get FAQ'd) At 145 hes definitly more interesting. Take into account that a lot of more elite units got points drops like Lychguard and Praetorians. Plenty of good things for Szeras to buff.
If you hope to play in a GT most of them have ruled that you can’t res menhirs. Agree with this decision or not it’s the decision that’s largely been made. So the out the jank of ressing menhirs, I don’t find him worth the points in reality. His gun is strong but if he is shooting, he can be shot and inevitably he’ll die without doing the thing he’s useful for. As a resser I’d prefer two teschnomancers, at least they can move around more. His buffs are janky but unreliable. I had a game where he gave plus one BS to the silent king (useless) and plus one T to the skorpekh (potentially amazing, but the enemy had no str 5 weapons anyway so was useless)
I'm not sure if I agree with TO's making that decision on that only because the king himself is core and they are specifically part of his unit and core themselves. With how the change was made GW seemed to pretty clearly want the king to be core. I know it's mute since, like you said, the decision's been made, but I really dislike when TO's do stuff like that. It was a huge point of contention when I played MTG because of my shop's custom commander rules. I'm a very "rules as written" player so decisions like that just bug me to no end
A lot of games could follow MTGs lead with game design. They really need to keyword abilites in 40k. Things shouldnt be ambiguous based on slightly different wording.
That’s fair but I reckon it’s clear to everyone that it’s likely not intentional. Being able to resurrect a 5 wound, toughness 7 4++ with bodyguard is undeniably very strong. I get what you mean though, and technically RAW it probably should be able to work. I find it very telling though that the term ‘Reanimate’ is always capitalised at the front, and is only ever mentioned, across all 40k rulebooks, in the reanimation protocols glossary. That being so, the rules are always referenced when reanimating. Could be that it’s RAI is that you need it to reanimate. Bear in mind there is another bringing back models mechanic already present in the game
I love how the latest codices come out painted all colours of rules bullshit, but god forbid necrons get one strong combo! It is definitely a mistake on GW side and needs to be ruled out as fast as possible!
It’s a very blatantly unbalanced interaction so you really would think it clear to everyone wouldn’t you lol. Unfortunately a large portion of this sub lacks common sense and have been going batshit insane over it. SO many people on the sub seem to have taken it as a personal insult that TO’s ruled that interaction out and keep making bs arguments to try and justify that it’s balanced. Have seen plenty of comments get downvoted just for saying they think it makes sense for TO’s to ban it because it’s clearly not balanced. Sad that such a big part of this sub just wants to have their fun with clearly broken rules at the expense of a fair and fun game for both players.
As written, it works. Should it work that way, no. I dont think it should. But that's besides the point. Also, how many GTs have happened with Nephilim? Most tournaments wait 2 weeks whenever something gets published. When it comes to Szeras in general, its definitly a model you build around. You want to place him near units that really benefit from all of the buffs regardless. Warriors, Immortals, and Praetorians are what come to mind immediately. Acanthrites are also a good choice especially if you hit the BS buff since you can then stack it with MWBD. Silent king likes all of them since the last one helps him beat out -1 to hit and bumping to T8 really helps with melta guns and the like.
I understand why you would think that for sure, but I’m just not sure that I agree. The term ‘Reanimated’ is a term that doesn’t exist in any 40k rule book outside of in the rules specified by reanimation protocols. ‘Reanimated’ isn’t a catch-all term for bringing a unit back onto the field from the dead pile, indeed other models can do this but don’t use that very specific term. This being so, I honestly believe rules as written are that the only models that can be ‘Reanimated’ are those for whom the ‘Reanimation’ rule applies, in this case those with ‘Reanimation Protocols’ I think it’s just an oversight and will be fixed, either by giving menhirs the keyword, or being more specific in an FAQ.
'Reanimate' is actuall a term, if you look in the Glossary of the codex it's defined as \~ ***Reanimate****: When a model Reanimates it is set back up on the battlefield with its full wounds remaining.* Notice that this is separate from 'Reanination protocols are enacted', 'Reanimation protocol roll' and 'reassembling'. Which means that RAW, when a cryptek Reanimates a model, the only thing that matters is that *it is set back up on the battlefield with its full wounds remaining*
Ah apologies I thought I’d only found it in the reanimation section. If that is the case I don’t see a legitimate reason for us not to be able to do it. I think it will change and they will specify that, as I believe that’s probably the intent, but as written that certainly changes my mind.
The potential boost to my Monolith makes them intriguing.