yeah i think he was playing them the old way. he's pretty butt hurt about change.
personally i like the dex. and scarabs are very very nasty against vehs!!! almost as bad as when they first came out. they just aren't as good against troops. but with the amount of hits they get its pretty decent there too. not great but decent. thier low initative hurts them with hth against other troops.
crons are definately a very strong shooty army. more so than before. i'd say they could push tau out of thier spot.
some changes of note:
2 units of troops avail now. warriors (lost thier 3+ save to a 4+) and immortals (lost thier t5 down to t4 but kept thier 3+ save)
gauss weapons arent as killer as they used to be. still glance a veh on a 6 unless they could do it at a lower # however they no longer auto wound troops on a 6. sucks but thats how it goes.
also the immortals gauss blaster isnt assault anymore its rapid fire. thankfully immortals can change out to tesla carbines for free and those things can be really nasty. less ap (ap -) then the gauss however on a 6 to hit cause 2 additional hits automatically against the unit!
the old wbb rules are gone. i know some old necron players will complain about that but i think the new rules are actually better. 1st off you get your wbb against anything now! so no auto gone by power weapons or instand death! the roll is a 5+ now however you can improve it back to 4+ with a res orb. and you can get res orbs in each unit with a necron lord. its isnt really cheap just under 70 pts for the lord and orb so watch your points.
the old necron lord model is now like a wolfguard. they have been replaced in the Hq area by the Overlords. so you get an overlord (or named character but not destroyer lord) and you can have a royal court (basically a retinue that you can split up) of either lords or crypteks. you can mix them up but have a limit of how many of each type. at the begining of the game (at deployment) you can split any number of the court off to join a unit of either warriors, immortals, lychguard or deathmarks. only 1 may join any 1 unit so no putting 2 of them in the same unit. they are NOT independent characters so once they join thats it. basically after that they count as a sgt or similar.
ctan are similar to before but not hq anymore. they are elites and are much cheaper for base cost!! however, you do need to chose 2 options for each ctan shard you field. some options are cheap but there are some really good ones too! Writhing Worldscape is just plain awesome!!! and is right in the middle of the pack for points wise. i couldnt see fielding a ctan without that power. there are some other good options too but are pricey such as times arrow and transdimentional thunderbold.
necrons now have snipers! deathmarks are nice but i'm seriously concerned with thier sniper weapon. 24 inch sx ap5 rapid fire/sniper?
seriously?? for a sniper??? now there is a way to improve this limit to an extent......a minor extent. if you give an overlord the Phaeron upgrade the unit he joins gains the relentless rule. this would help this unit however its not clear yet if an overlord (or the named character who has phaeron) can join this unit in deep strike and take advantage of thier special deployment.....i'm gonna take a guess and say they'll faq it to say no. right now i'd probably say no myself and not do it to anyone but i definately see others trying it.
another wonderful add to the list is the ghost ark!!! holy cow batman!! warriors are good basic troops and with being much more cheaper now are a shoe in for atleast 2 troops slots in my book. put them in an ark and good luck for your opponent of getting rid of them short of a hth slaughter. each turn the ark my try to "reanimate" warriors. on a 2+ you get d3 warriors back into the unit. the limits on this is that the target unit has to be within 6 inches (and may be embarked on the veh!!) and you cannot take it above the units starting size. so if it was 10 models (to ride on the ark) no going over 10 in the unit however if the unit was on foot and the ark was in range your looking at up to 20 models in a unit. being able to keep bringing models back is very nasty to do to your opponent!.
anyways thats just a few thoughts on the crons from me. there are many more new units which i havent seen in play so not sure how well they work out. necrons got a big fluff redo and a imho much needed bulking out of unit types and options.
one last point to mention.... flayed ones still suck royal rats rear end!!! yeah they get 3 attacks, infiltrate and deepstrike...whoopity do! they are still i2 and only have a 4+ save so good luck getting them to survive to take advantage of those attacks. and they are all normal attacks no rending or entropic touch so yeah for flayed ones.....still a bunch of flunkies. they only benefit they get from anything else in the book is from the stormlord character. choose 1 unit at the begining of the game. if flayed ones deep strike within 6 inches of that unit they dont scatter. still get raped in shooting and charged in next opponents assualt phase.... so i guess they would be good to tie up a unit for a single turn most likely, 2 if youre lucky.
seriously?? for a sniper??? now there is a way to improve this limit to an extent......a minor extent. if you give an overlord the Phaeron upgrade the unit he joins gains the relentless rule. this would help this unit however its not clear yet if an overlord (or the named character who has phaeron) can join this unit in deep strike and take advantage of thier special deployment.....i'm gonna take a guess and say they'll faq it to say no. right now i'd probably say no myself and not do it to anyone but i definately see others trying it.