Detachment Focus: Cursed Legion

As the struggle for the 500 Worlds hots up, Necrons receive three new Detachments that provide new ways to strike terror into the heart of mortals. This guide covers the Cursed Legion Detachment.

Nekrosor Ammentar’s Cursed Legion of Destroyers and corrupted Necrons are one of the big new threats in the 41st Millennium, and if you’ve been patiently/furiously waiting for rules for Destroyer armies (good ones, that is), this is finally the Detachment for you. If you want to maximise the power of your frenzied killers, or spread the Destroyer virus to new vectors, read on.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for Review purposes. Please note that any of these rules are subject to change until the App and WarCom update with the full details.

Detachment Overview

Unsurprisingly, the Cursed Legion is about applying melee pressure and killing stuff, using a mixture of Destroyers and other Necron units inspired to terrible bloodshed by their antics. It provides the strongest support for slicing stuff up in melee, but the Detachment rule helps amp up Lokhusts and (sometimes) other shooting threats as well, and you can definitely muster an effective combined arms force here.

Detachment Rule: Cold Fervour

All DESTROYER CULT models in your army get +2 to the S of all their weapons. Each turn, if a DESTROYER CULT unit makes attacks that either destroy an enemy unit or reduce one below Half Strength, then after they finish their attacks, all other Necron models (except Monsters and TITANIC units) also get +2 to S till the end of the turn.

This is a very powerful rule, albeit one that’s most effective when used with careful forward planning, which I’m not totally sure fits the vibe of the Detachment. The flat +2S for Destroyers is just good - Ammentar (who is a 1000% auto-take in this Detachment) and Skorpekh Lords pick up huge value from going to S12, Ophydians can actually kill a few Marines (!) now, and S9 rather than S7 on Skorpekh makes them appreciably more reliable at dicing up elite Infantry.

Necron Lokhust Heavy Destroyer. Credit: Colin Ward

Lokhusts and Enmitic Heavy Lokhusts also do really well from this - S7 rather than S5 is a massive deal for the regulars, as it suddenly means they’re wounding on 5s into “real” armour, so might actually do something (especially as it’s easy to get Sustained here), while enmitics being S8 with re-roll 1s against small targets is a big jump in reliability. You might actually consider a big six stack of regulars with a Lord as a damage dealer in this Detachment, because popping off with lethal and sustained at 5+ is quite exciting, even if the unit is still unwieldy. I like both threes of regular Lokhusts and solo enmitics more though - the buff suddenly means that these units can kill something while being dirt cheap, which is neat.

If you can set up the wider buff, some of the other stuff this Detachment encourages benefit heavily as well. For reasons we’ll get to in a sec, Lychguard and Wraiths are both incentivised here, and both do well in the Fight Phase from +2S, which gives you a decent amount of time to set them up. If you’re feeling bolder, Immortals like the jump in the Shooting Phase, but that’s way harder to trigger reliably given the units you’ll be packing. I don’t think I’d ever want to rely on setting this up in the shooting phase for something to be good, but Fight Phase synergies are very much on the table.

Necron Lokhust Lord

Enhancements

The Enhancements are critical to this Detachment’s power - you get not one but two ways to share the DESTROYER CULT Keyword more widely. Note that both only give the model the Keyword, which is enough to make the whole unit eligible for some Stratagems (the important bit), but doesn’t automatically spread the +2S to the rest of the unit, so you do still need to plan to activate this.

• Destroyer Ankh (TBC pts): Gives an Overlord or Canoptek Command Barge the Destroyer Cult keyword, +2A, and +2” Movement to their unit. Exciting stuff - the obvious way to use this is to take it on a Translocation Shroud Overlord and stick them with some Lychguard, as their automatic 6” Advance goes great with the Advance/Charge Stratagem in this Detachment. There is also some argument for taking a regular flavour Overlord, as though less mobile they’re much harder to Precision out thanks to Damage Reduction, and the +2A and S14 on a Voidscythe is pretty hilarious. In our test game I ran this with Translocation and shield Lychguard, but you could legitimately try going all-in with warscythes as well. You could also put together a fairly nifty squad of Immortals if you combined this with a Cryptek and some Crawlers/Thralls, but that ends up eating a massive chunk of points, whereas the whole package for Lychguard is relatively lean. Very good to actually have a reason to take Overlords and Lychguard for a change!
• Murdermind (TBC pts): The Cryptek version of the above - a Cryptek gains +3” Movement, the Destroyer Cult Keyword, and can be attached to a non-Character Destroyer Cult if you want. If you attach them to a Destroyer Cult unit, the unit cannot contain any non-Destroyer Cult models, so no Cryptothralls etc. This sounds super exciting, but if you do a skim through of your options for running with Destroyers, they’re actually deeply mid. A Technomancer with a big Destroyer unit is neat but it’s a lot of points to not add any damage output. However, that does not mean this is useless - the restriction about non-Destroyer models only applies if you choose to attach to a Destroyer unit, so what you can instead do is just use this to give the Destroyer Cult keyword to a Wraith unit, and add a random 13” move model to the setup to help trigger their movement Mortals and add reach. This is very good for you, and something you’ll happily throw in most lists.
• Mark of the Nekrosor (TBC pts): Destroyer Cult only, +1 to hit for the bearer’s unit. Skippable unless you want a heavy Lokhust/Lord block, fine if you have floating points there.
• Cursed Circlet (TBC pts): Gives a Destroyer Cult unit a d6” Blood Surge. Obviously this goes on a Skorpekh Lord with six buddies, and it’s decent there - they’re still vulnerable to getting smoked in a single volley, but they also have a huge footprint to use with this. It also combos with Unnatural Aggression - if your opponent triggers this, and you don’t reach them then they ignore you, it might still have put you in a spot to declare a Charge!

Stratagems

A great Stratagem suite rounds out this Detachment, providing lots of pressure and force multiplication, and not just for your Destroyers.

• Methodical Murder (1CP): Gives any non-Vehicle/Monster Necron unit Sustained Hits 1 in the Shooting or Fight Phase. Good clean fun for when something needs to die, and especially great if you can set up re-rolls or 5+ Critical Hits.
• Image of Death (1CP): Gives a Destroyer Cult unit -1 to be Hit for the Shooting or Fight phase after being targeted. Fine for making Skorpekh a little less fragile, good for helping Lychguard or Wraiths who have picked up the keyword from an Enhancement even tankier.
• Mortis Protocols (1CP): Can only be activated the first time a Destroyer Cult unit destroys an enemy unit in a turn, and allows a friendly non-Vehicle/Monster Necron unit within 9” to immediately Reanimate. Kind of clunky, rarely relevant right up until it suddenly wins you a game when it perfectly flips an objective (or reduces a Charge distance), so good to have in the pocket!
• Driven to Butchery (1CP): Activate once per turn in your Shooting/Charge phase to give a Destroyer Cult unit Advance/Shoot/Charge (it lasts till end of turn, so if you use it in Shooting you get both). Obviously excellent, and nice that you don’t even have to activate it till the Charge Phase if you spike your shooting and leave no targets.
• Spreading Madness (1CP): Use in your Charge Phase on a non-Monster/Vehicle unit that has not yet declared a Charge. Until the end of the phase, if they charge a target that’s already in Engagement Range of one or more friendly units, they get +2” to the roll. This is more useful in practice than I thought it would be on paper - it’s particularly helpful to have in your pocket if you need to bring Ammentar in from Deep Strike, and can also help land a big multi-charge. Only one of the targets of the charge needs to be in Engagement for it to work (and it doesn’t stop you picking other targets), so if you need to slingshot Skorpekh into something, it’s helpful.
• Unnatural Aggression (2CP): At the end of your opponent’s Charge Phase, one non-Monster/Vehicle unit can declare a charge against one or more enemy units that are within 6” (with the standard no Charge Bonus if they succeed rider these always have). Super exciting - makes ignoring your units way harder, and is especially strong with Skorpekh as you’ll get the impact Mortals from the Lord and their full re-rolls.

Skorpekh Lord. Credit: Wings

Playing This Detachment

This Detachment is a classic one for staging up and then projecting threat. It’s quite hard for enemies to engage with pro-actively thanks to the durability of some of the units, and gets a lot of reach from staging positions thanks to Advance/Charge and the speed boosts it hands out. The boost to S on Destroyer shooting also means it has access to very cost effective tools to nudge foes into action - three-model regular Lokhust units are great harassment pieces, and even solo enmitics can legitimately lift small screening units by themselves. Goad the foe with these, then try and push out and neutralise/tie up anything that’s a real threat to Skorpekh. If you can protect those in this Detachment, the momentum they have should see you through to victory, and other threats can hold positions very effectively.

Strengths

• Strong threat projection and momentum.
• Good depth of list options thanks to toolbox enhancements.
• Solid and cheap harassment shooting.

Weaknesses

• Can crumble fast if it loses key units.
• No access to re-rolls outside of Datasheet rules, so vulnerable to modifiers.
• CP hungry, but also very hard to slot Imotekh into.

A Sample List

The joys of preparing this over the holidays means that I have actually been able to put physical new models down on the table against my nemesis (Corrode) to see what this army can do. I ran the following:



We played Take and Hold on GW map 1, and this played pretty much as I hoped. The longer reach on the C’tan let him hang back and still threaten the central objective, while everything else could get staged up ready to punch in whatever direction was needed. Corrode was running Daemonic Incursion, and on a go turn the Skorpekh hit the Bloodthirster, while the Lychguard and Wraiths tarpitted a bunch of the other big Daemons on the other flank, and the C’tan moved to the central objective.

This was enough pressure (with me on the play) to get me over the line of victory, despite a bit of a dice wobble the turn after that. In particular, having all of a Blood Surge, Advance/Charge and the counter-charge Stratagem means that if you can get the Skorpekh operating in a space where there’s nothing that can punch back into them, they have far more momentum than previously. The small Lokhust units also seemed super solid at their higher S. Finally, Ammentar…this wasn’t really the matchup for him, but he did carve some wounds off a turkey, and briefly looked like he might tank the shooting back thanks to his anti-Psychic Feel No Pain. I ended up winning 86-80, and enjoyed the list enough that I’ll definitely give it some more goes, even though Pantheon is calling to me like a siren.

Final Thoughts

The Cursed Legion feels like a big win - it both provides Necron players with a good Destroyer Detachment at last, and also powers up some other options via the Enhancements. A great addition to the Necron arsenal.

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