Originally Posted by
Yakface
Crypteks vs. (basic) Lords in the 'Royal Court': both have more like squad leader stats then character stats (1 wound each for example) with both of their base points are in the exact same range as an IG Commissar, for example. However, all of the upgrades for these guys clock in the 5 to 45 point range (each option) with probably a 15 point median for their gear, so you can imagine that these guys will very quickly eat up your points if you give them many (or any) upgrades.
The Lords have access to 4 Weapon upgrade options (Warschythe, Gauntlet of Fire, Hyperphase Sword & Voidblade) and 5 wargear-esque options (Sempirternal Weaev, Mindshackle Scarabs, Tesseract labyrinth, Ressurection Orb & Phase Shifter). Of all those weapons and upgrades only the Rez Orb benefits the unit. The rest of the upgrades just give the Lord extra benefits in combat or armor save.
So really, if you're looking to make the Lord improve a unit by leading it, besides adding some CC punch to the unit your only real choice is the Rez Orb and the Rez Orb is on the high end of the points scale for their wargear so it isn't exactly a steal to get a Rez Orb into a unit (which for those who aren't keeping up boosts their Resurrection Protocols to a 4+).
Crypteks can be taken plain jane if you wanted (with only a Staff of Light), but if you want to upgrade them at all, then you have to select a 'discipline' that they follow. There are five disciplines to pick from and each one costs some amount of points to take, with the only benefit being that you get an upgraded weapon instead of the staff of light that fits into that discipline's role.
The 5 Disciplines are: Harbinger of Destruction (described as 'plasmancers', weapon is Eldritch Lance, wargear choices are Gaze of Flame & Solar Pulse), Harbinger of Eternity (able to read the future, weapon is Aeonstave, weargear choices are Chronometron & Timesplinter Cloak), Harbinger of Transmogrification (described as 'geomancers', weapon is Harp of Dissonance, options are Seismic Cruicble & Tremorstave), Harbringer of the Storm (described as 'ethermancers', weapon is Voltaic Staff, options are Ether Crystal & Lightning Field) & Harbringer of Despair (described as 'psychomancers', weapon is Abyssal Staff, options are Nightmare Shroud & Veil of Darkness).
Now, once you've chosen a discipline to upgrade to, you're allowed to give the Cryptek one (or both) of the listed wargear options. HOWEVER, the rules state that 'each of the wargear options can only be chosen once in each Royal Court'. So the only way you're going to get more than one Veil of Death (for example) is to take a second Royal Court and even then you're only getting a second one. So it does not look like you will be able to spam these items.
Although there are some exceptions, for the most part these wargear options tend to benefit the unit they're leading, or affect enemy units that are trying to do something to the unit. Like giving the unit assault and defensive grenades (Gaze of Flame), you already know about Solar Pulse if you've been reading my posts closely, causing damage on enemy units Deep Striking near or assaulting that Necron unit (Ether Crystal & Lightning Field respectively), reducing one enemy unit's assault move against that Necron unit by D3" (Seismic Crucible), etc. And all of the upgraded Cryptek weapons are ranged weapons.
So in general I think the basic Lord is what you take if you're trying to give the Royal Court some CC punch (or give a unit some CC punch)...besides the obvious Rez Orb choice, of course! Instead, if you're wanting to upgrade your unit to have some unique abilities and a specialty shooting weapon in it, then the Cryptek is the way to go.
C'Tan Shards: Just to be clear (someone asked), the Necrons do not have any kind of 'deal' worked out with the C'Tan shards. It doesn't state how, but they are able to control them somehow (using their super-tech) to basically point them at the enemy and get them to do what they want, but of course in game terms this isn't represented, there's no special 'rage' rule or anything forcing you to play a C'Tan a certain way.
The fluff says that the Necrons are constantly hunting down missing C'Tan shards and trying to imprison them in pocket dimensional prisons. They know that they can never fully destroy a C'Tan (only break them into shards and keep them from forming back together), but of course their fear is that the C'Tans will be able to reform and then take revenge back against the Necrons.
Every indication I get from the codex is that you'll just use the existing models to represent C'Tan shards, because if you think about how they're described now, a 'shard' is really much closer to what the old codex's power-level was for a C'Tan.
As for the 2 'Manifestations of Power' each shard must take, they each cost a different point value (between 10 & 50 points) and you can only have one of each choice in the army no matter how many C'Tan shards you take. There is a wide variety of different things that can be chosen, from powers that are roughly equivalent to some of the special rules that the Deceiver & Nightbringer had access to in the last codex and plenty of new impressive rules as well (such as making all difficult terrain on the table dangerous for the enemy or making one enemy model in base contact have to pass an Initiative test or be removed from the table). 3 of them are shooting attack choices, each obviously quite a different kind of attack than the others.
As awesome as some of this suonds, you have to temper that with the fact that shards are nearly 200 points with no options, and once you factor in the two manifestation upgrades, you're talking about a unit that is somewhere between 200-300 points (depending on which two manifestations you take).
Darnok
The ongoing thread on Heresy Online can be found here.
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