I get it, Necrons have already been getting plenty of press. Still wanted to throw my hat into the ring.
First of all this was the faction I was looking forward to most. And it is absolutely painful the way they are right now. Not horrifically under-powered as some might claim. But the only reason they do manage to stay in the race is their Star Bomb tactic. And centering a faction around a single ability makes for poor play. Could you imagine the Necron Campaign being just point click Star Bomb until complete? You'd get bored quick. So my proposed changes, broken into armor, damage, morale, and maneuver:
ARMOR:
Necrons are infamous for their unbelievable tenacity. They never really die, and bringing them to a stop is next to impossible. This is not represented. While their armor values are adequate, their two biggest problems are that regenerating hull points rarely has any significant effect on the outcome and their hull points are far too low. For a faction without shields, which is already nonsense considering they invented quantum shielding, they need to have the hull points to endure.
- Hull points increase to be similar to that of Ork Ships. Note that Ork ships are cheaper, and have regenerating shields.
- Regen Value massively increased to 3 HP per second, reducing max HP by 2 per second. This is a significant buff, but one that I propose a counter nerf to in the morale section. Stance doubles both values.
DAMAGE:
People currently lean entirely on Starpulse Wave for their damage. And while a solid alpha strike can make this work, if it misses you might as well pack it up and go home. Especially if you used your jump to get in range to do it. Plus, it's a boring way to play. Leaning exclusively on a single ability and not the capabilities of your faction.
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Starpulse Wave no longer deals damage to Line Ships. It still deals 100 damage to escorts, and the faction upgrade makes it possible to deal 100 damage to Line Ships as well instead of outright doubling the damage. It still instantly clears torpedoes and fighters/bombers, but clearing fighters and bombers becomes most of its focus. CD reduced to 40 seconds.
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Lightning Arcs gain a new effect, Tesla Linked Array. Each Lightning Arc (per Lightning Arc) within the detection radius of the ship increases the damage of the lightning arc array by 2%. This effect can be daisy chained together. So if a Cairn has only a single escort with 4 Lightning Arcs in its detection radius, but that escort has a BC with 6 Lightning Arcs in its detection radius, they all link together for a 40% damage increase to all three ships. 10 Arcs on the Cairn, 4 on the E, 6 on the BC, for a total of 20 Arcs multiplied by 2%. Base damage of Tesla Arcs drop to 25 from 30 on the bigger ships. Smaller ships drop to 14 from 15. This makes their damage relatively unchanged on their own, but gets stronger as they link together.
MORALE:
Why the hell do Necrons Mutiny? This is not a thing. Necrons do not possess the free will necessary to suffer the effects of a mutiny. However, they are inevitably driven to self preservation to some extent, and if they feel like they stand to suffer more damage than would be prudent, they phase out back home for repairs. To that extent I purpose a change to their Morale. Note this is kind of a mixed nerf/buff.
- Necrons base morale doubled to 2000. It will never recover under any circumstances. If their morale hits zero, they will immediately disengage the fight with no chance of recovery. Note that the 2000 morale is a flexible number. May be too low. But the idea is to make it so that mutiny and morale loss isn't something you worry about as merely a combat condition, but is a win or loss condition. Part of this is a counterbalance in case they do get the above endurance buffs. Killing off the crew or phasing out the Necrons becomes more reliable then outright blowing up the Necron ship.
MANEUVER:
Fun fact, Necron ships aren't slow. No Necron vehicle is. Man to robot they may be methodical and particular in their approach, but their vehicles do not reflect this. Necron Vehicles are actually fairly quick in game already. Being tied with Space Marines and Chaos. But they could still use just a little bump to their movement to drive home the fact that these ships are not ponderous. Ever so slightly quicker than almost any of their counterparts, save Eldar. Even though they technically are faster than Elder on TT, it wouldn't transfer well in game.
- Necrons base movement speed increased by 20 for all ships. Ever so slightly quicker.
- Necrons rotation rate increased by 2 for all ships. This one actually is kind of important. The reason increasing their rotation rate is so important is that it helps them align their weapons directly following a jump. They don't get to burn retros for a turn, but their basic turn rate should be better than the rest.