Time for another leak and rumor compilation, this time we have Warhammer 40k Necrons 9th edition codex, rumors, leaks, previews. As with the other compilations the A running compilation of rumors, leaks, sneak peaks for Necrons 9th edition codex. With new rules, point adjustments, stratagems and units. Compilation will feature both Games Workshop community info and any Internet leaks and rumors as they come!

Check back everyday as new leaks and rumors for Warhammer 40k Necrons 9th edition codex will be added, without notification.

Pre-orders: October 5th 2020 Release Date: October 12th 2020 

• Necrons 9th edition codex: $50
• Lokhust Heavy Destroyer: $40
• Canoptek Doomstalker: $35
• Silent King: $150
• Cards: $25
• Dice: $35

Codex is out catch up with all the rules at the 9th edition Necron Compendium 

9th Edition Necron Compendium

Warhammer Community Sneak Peeks

It’s not just the Space Marines getting shiny new rules, either. As we mentioned in The Codex Show, Necrons players will also be able to grant their Crypteks powerful items of Arkana at a cost in points or Power, so you’ll have some new tricks of your own to look forward to. 

Battle Tactic Stratagems

First up are the Battle Tactic Stratagems. Along with a return of some of the classics such as Dimensional Corridor and Extermination Protocols, comes the incredibly deadly Techno-oracular Targeting.

Use this when firing the transdimensional beamers from your Canoptek Wraiths at high-Toughness enemies and take advantage of that sweet -3 AP and 3 Damage.

Epic Deed Stratagems

If you were the Space Wolves, these Epic Deeds would each get a song sung in their praise. Necrons don’t have time for singing, they’re too busy reclaiming the galaxy using Stratagems such as The Deathless Arise.

Play this when your Reanimation Protocols haven’t been as successful as you would have liked. Just when your opponent thinks they have an advantage, your dead Necrons return to the fray.

Requisition Stratagems

These are Stratagems that you use before a battle begins. Ever wanted to upgrade your Overlord to be the adjutant of their dynasty’s supreme ruler? 

Use this on an Overlord before the battle and ensure that they always have two nearby units so you can give them both that bonus to their attack rolls. Don’t forget that, since it lasts until the next Command phase, it will affect both shooting and close-combat attacks!

Strategic Ploy Stratagems

Just in case all of the others weren’t quite strategic enough, there are the Strategic Ploy Stratagems. Fans of Canoptek Scarab Swarms (and frankly, who doesn’t love the little critters?) will be itching to use the Self-destruction Stratagem.

Play this Stratagem when your Scarabs are outnumbered and outclassed in combat, and you want to take some of your enemies down with you.

Alternatively, if you want to disrupt your opponent’s tactics with some disappearing and reappearing Ophydian Destroyers, use Burrowing Nightmares.

Employ this Stratagem when you need a late-game objective grab. It’s also great for eliciting a real double-take from your opponent. Yes, that unit was right there, and now it isn’t, where’s it going to be next?

Wargear Stratagems

Want to improve your wargear during a battle? Well, the Crypteks have thought of that with the Wargear Stratagems, such as Malevolent Arcing.

Use this when your enemy has clustered all of their forces together to give them a real shock.

Dynastic Stratagems

There is also a Stratagem for each of the six Necrons dynasties in the codex. Anyone who chooses to follow the Silent King and pledge allegiance to the Szarekhan can use the Empyric Damping Wargear Stratagem.

Implement this Stratagem when you wish to dismiss warp-spawned powers with the same contempt that the Silent King himself would.

The Silent King officially returns this weekend, and he’s bringing the new Codex: Necrons with him. We snuck off with it when he wasn’t looking so that we could bring you more information on the Dynastic Codes – including how you can even build your own using the rules in the codex!

The Great Dynasties

The Necrons once ruled the stars, and did so through the strength of their dynasties. The new codex features the six dynasties that were foremost among them, and provides powerful abilities for each, called Dynastic Codes, that help to bring their nuances to life on the battlefield. Here’s a sneak peek at each one.

As the dynasty of the Silent King himself, the Szarekhan have swiftly risen to pre-eminence since the return of the ancestral ruler of the Necrons – even though some phaerons have sought to contest their meteoric rise. The Szarekhan Dynasty wield potent artefacts and weaponry dating back to the zenith of the Necron empire.

Choose this dynasty if… You’re looking to field the ancestral dynasty of the Silent King. Their resistance to mortal wounds makes them especially effective against psyker-heavy armies, while their handy re-rolls when shooting or fighting ensure your deadliest weapons will strike true.

The largest and most aggressively expansionist dynasty is that of the Sautekh. Ruled by the legendary phaeron Imotekh the Stormlord, the Sautekh have long been considered the greatest of the Necron dynasties – a status quo challenged only by the recent surge in power enjoyed by the Szarekhan in the wake of the Silent King’s return.

Choose this dynasty if… You prefer to annihilate your enemies at medium range. Their extended Rapid Fire range and near immunity to Morale tests makes for an incredibly reliable metal backbone of Necron Warriors and Immortals.

Once used by the Silent Kings of old as the executioners of worlds, the Mephrit Dynasty’s history is steeped in the blood of those who would dare oppose the might of the Necrons. To face the Mephrit in battle is to welcome annihilation at their hand.

Choose this dynasty if… You love close-ranged firepower but wish you didn’t have to get quite so… close! To that end, Necron Warriors equipped with the gauss reapers will prove especially devastating with the Mephrit’s improvements to both Range and Armour Penetration.

To witness the fury of the Novokh in battle is to see blood-soaked fury made manifest. Their methods are more akin to industrial slaughter than war. Once battle is joined, the Novokh cut down their foes with mechanical efficiency, carving through the enemy lines without mercy until naught but a charnel house of dismembered meat remains.

Choose this dynasty if… You want to tear your opponent to piec–… ahem, your opponent’s army to pieces in close combat rather than obliterating them from afar. Skorpekh Destroyers will certainly feel at home with the Novokh!

The Nephrekh bask in the light of their crownworld’s trinary stars, absorbing their solar energies with which to fuel the dynasty’s great works. Their phalanxes march to war in gilded bodies of living metagold – a dazzling sight to behold, but one which is soon cut short by deadly volleys of brilliant light.

Choose this dynasty if… You like the idea of a notoriously tough army being even tougher with a 6+ invulnerable save! And who doesn’t like the idea of instant translocation?

Upon awakening from the Great Sleep, the Nihilakh found much of their ancient territory had been plundered. Yet all was not lost, and the dynasty has since regained much of its former power, aided immeasurably by prescience gleaned from the preserved head of the Yth Seer. The Nihilakh remain on the warpath, and will not rest until their fallen realm is fully restored.

Choose this dynasty if… You’re looking for a significant edge in matched play with widespread access to Objective Secured.

Birth of a New Dynasty

One of the many cool features of the new codex is that it includes rules for creating your own Dynastic Code, so if you’ve been painting up your gleaming phalanx in your own colour scheme, you can support it with bespoke rules too! All you need to do is pick one option from the available Dynastic Traditions and one from the Circumstances of Awakening list to form your own hybrid Dynastic Code. Here’s an example to whet your appetite.

Warhammer Community’s Rhu has been building his own Necron force, dubbing his warriors the Khuenaten Dynasty.

Dynastic Tradition: Immovable Phalanx

Circumstances of Awakening: Interplanetary Invaders

Rule Them All

The new codex features Dynastic Codes for six Necron empires, including the Szarekhan Dynasty for the first time, along with options to create your own.* We’ll be taking a closer look at those rules tomorrow.

Today, we’re focussing on the range of rules and army-wide abilities that benefit your force regardless of which dynasty they belong to. For example, Reanimation Protocols have always been a huge part in the way that Necron armies play and they have undergone a slight change in the new codex. Your Necrons can still come back from wounds that would take any other warrior out of action, but now you roll when models are destroyed rather than at the beginning of your turn.

This change means that if your opponent wants to prevent you from making any Reanimation Protocols rolls, they’ll have to wipe out your unit in a single attack, which for most Necrons units is easier said than done!

Something brand-new for Necron Overlords to unleash upon the galaxy are command protocols. Before a game starts, you secretly assign one of the six protocols to each of the first five battle rounds. Then, when you reach the relevant battle round, you choose from one of the two directives associated with the protocol to be active for that round and any unit within 6 inches of a Necron Character can benefit from it.

For example, you could select Protocol of the Sudden Storm to be active in Battle Round 4, which you could then use to make a last-minute dash to claim an objective or perform an action AND still use your ranged weapons.

The command protocols offer some exciting tactical options to your Necrons army, and they’re flexible enough to ensure that there will always be a directive that you can take advantage of.

Robotic Reinforcements

It’s not just been the Overlords coming up with new schemes to reclaim their rightful domain – the Crypteks have also clearly been busy, as there are tomb-loads of new units for your Necrons army.

They say that quantity has a quality of its own and that’s especially true when you come armed with six(!) guns. Hexmark Destroyers were once Deathmarks, but now go into battle carrying multiple enmitic disintegrator pistols. 

As if six shots isn’t enough, they get to fire more when they take out an enemy model.

We hear that the Kelermorph has asked to postpone its planned duel with the Hexmark Destroyer…

While not technically a new unit, the Monolith is getting a new model and has had enough of an improvement that Overlords will almost see it as new. Not only does it have an additional four wounds, but its weapons have also undergone an upgrade, and there is even a new option – the death ray – which you can take in place of the gauss flux arc.

Enemy units won’t want to go anywhere near these fearsome floating pyramids.

It’s not every day that an actual god (or at least the shard of one) takes to the battlefields of the 41st Millennium. With the addition of the C’tan Shard of the Void Dragon to Necron forces, there’s a massive shift in the galaxy’s power dynamics. As you’d expect from the fragment of a Star God, the C’tan Shard of the Void Dragon has impressive characteristics.

When you combine that profile with the power granted by the Spear of the Void Dragon, this C’tan Shard will be easily cutting its way through enemy units in the name of its Necron enslavers.

The C’tan Shard of the Void Dragon also has two abilities that make it extremely difficult to kill. Its Necrodermis lets it shrug off god-killing levels of punishment.

Meanwhile, its Matter Absorption rule means that this fearsome entity can devour the very essence of destroyed enemy vehicles to keep itself fighting.

With devastating attacking power and incredible defensive abilities, the C’tan Shard of the Void Dragon is a perfect fit for almost every Necron army.

Warhammer 40,000: Indomitus introduced a number of brand-new units for the Necrons, two of which belonged to the Destroyer Cult – the Skorpekh Lord and Skorpekh Destroyers. With more Destroyers on their way soon with the new codex, we thought it was the perfect time to investigate more about the nature of the Destroyer Cult, and why some Necrons fear it to be a curse that will ultimately doom them all. Oh, go on, then – we’ll show you some new rules too!

Rise of the Destroyer Cult

The Necrons of the Destroyer Cult are hate-fuelled harvesters of the living, obsessed with the eradication of all sentient beings. The murderous insanity of the Destroyers drives their every thought. They task the Crypteks with modifying their bodies to turn themselves into optimised killing machines.

Quite what first caused some Necrons to show the defining degradation of psyche upon reawakening from their slumber, none can truly say. However, considering that Destroyer Cults have emerged on seemingly every Tomb World, it appears to be a common flaw – and disturbingly so. Worse still, its touch is spreading faster through Necron society than ever before, and some who never previously showed any signs are now succumbing to the affliction.

Destroyers stand apart from the Necron phalanxes who are so unquestioningly obedient to the Necron nobility, for their madness is such that they answer to no-one. On the battlefield, Destroyers are utilised as brutal shock troops, not so much commanded by the noble in charge as unleashed upon their prey. Yet even this act is not done so lightly, for once all their organic victims lie slain, who then will the Destroyers turn their insatiable murder-lust upon?

Destroyer Sub-cults

In the new codex, the Destroyer Cult has branched out into four distinct types – the blade-wielding Skorpekhs, the subterranean, segmented Ophydians, the gunfighting Hexmarks, and the floating weapons platforms that are the Lokhust. As you’d expect from a mass-murder machine, each form of Destroyer is brutally effective in its chosen form of death-dealing, though they also share a common ability that gives them an additional edge when making attacks.

What’s more, the damage output of Destroyer units is even more consistent when in range of their alphas – the fallen nobles that are Skorpekh Lords and Lokhust Lords – thanks to the United in Destruction aura ability.

If you picked up a copy of Indomitus, or the Elite or Command Edition Starter Sets, you’ll no doubt be very familiar with the devastating killing power of Skorpekh Destroyers. And if you saw our mega preview, The Codex Show, you’ll also have seen the datasheet for the Ophydian Destroyers. BUT, you’ve yet to see the grievously powerful weaponry with which the souped-up Lokhust Heavy Destroyer will be decimating its hapless prey!

Well, here you go – these things kick out some serious firepower!

Destroyers in Crusade

The faction-specific Crusade rules in the upcoming edition of Codex: Necrons include some fantastic examples of the impact that the Destroyer Cult is having on the dynasties. It’s even possible for a Necron Lord or Overlord to permanently succumb to the Destroyer curse with this unique Requisition.

Another wonderfully thematic addition is the Mindless Reaper Battle Scar, which sees a Destroyer Cult unit descend even further into ultra-violent psychosis, which is both a blessing and a curse.

RULES

Speaking of the Szerakhan, they’ll be receiving their own Dynastic Code, Uncanny Artificers, which provides them with a significant edge (or three, to be precise!) in the battle. The codex even includes rules for creating your own Dynastic Code, too!

But what’s all this talk of ‘command protocols’? Well, consider it one of the perks of biotransference which enables Necrons of high status to impose their will upon those who serve them. It may sound harsh, but don’t worry – for you, this is definitely a good thing! Here’s how it works…

If your army of Necrons all hails from the same dynasty and is led by a Character with the Noble keyword, then at the start of the game, you can secretly assign one of six command protocols to utilise during each battle round. After revealing your selected command protocol, you’ll need to choose which directive you will activate. Any of your units within 6? of your Characters will then benefit from that directive. With careful strategy and forethought, command protocols can really throw off your opponent while giving you a massive advantage. 

The mysterious Crypteks are about to bring another string to your tachyon bow – OK, so a tachyon arrow doesn’t need a bow to fire, but you catch our drift! In fact, they’re about to bring four strings! There are now four, fully fledged varieties of Cryptek, divided according to their hypertechnological specialisation, and each benefits from their own datasheet replete with a plethora of thematic rules. The Plasmancer that made its debut in Indomitus was just the start!

Furthermore, they can be given an item of Cryptek Arkana for a nominal cost in Power or points, representing the wondrously esoteric techno-magic of the ancient Necron empire. Not only can these items be very handy in a tight spot, but they offer a versatile way to top up or round out your army list. As a master of temporal manipulation, a Chronomancer, for example, can be equipped with a means to slow your enemies to a crawl at crucial moments – but more on them later!

NECRONS ON CRUSADE

One of the most exciting features of Warhammer 40,000’s newest and best-ever edition is the narrative-driven Crusade campaign system. The awesome thing is that every new codex is going to have a section dedicated to providing that faction with loads of new and wonderfully thematic options just for Crusade. We defy anyone to read this section of their codex and not immediately want to start a Crusade campaign – seriously!

You can look forward to faction-specific Agendas, Requisitions, Battle Traits, Crusade Relics and, in the case of the Necrons, even Dynastic Epithets – bespoke titles that offer unique upgrades or abilities. Here’s one such example, The Slow Decay of the Self Requisition, which represents a Character succumbing to the mindless lust for violence embraced by the Destroyer Cult.

If like us, you thought the basic Crusade rules in the Warhammer 40,000 Core Book were already pretty rad, you’re gonna love all the extra narrative goodness in the new codexes!

We mentioned the Silent King earlier, and unless you’ve been slumbering in a tomb world for countless aeons, you’ll no doubt have seen the jaw-dropping model of Szarekh that’s coming soon.

You’ve probably been chomping at the bit to find out what he’s actually like on the battlefield, and we can’t blame you. Well, suffice it to say he’s utterly terrifying. But then, he is the leader of the entire Necron race, is accompanied by two other Phaerons (completing the Triarch) and has the limitless power of a bound C’tan (the Enchained) at his disposal, so that’s fair enough, really! However, we will treat you to a few highlights…

That’s a pretty hefty stat line and no mistake. What’s more, it’s backed up with a whole swathe of special rules, including aura abilities to buff your troops and hamper the opponent’s units. They can also help you destroy your enemies in a variety of ways, improve the Silent King’s durability, and generally make him perhaps the most formidable Character in all of Warhammer 40,000!