Hot Take: The Necron Geomancer and Canoptek Tomb Crawlers

In addition to yesterday's Deathwatch and Drukhari updates, Games Workshop also dropped an update for Necrons, bringing their new Kill Team models into the fold. These went live in the app, but weren't added to the faction pack until today. This update saw the addition of three units, specifically:

Geomancer
Canoptek Tomb Crawlers
Canoptek Macrocytes

These units bring some interesting possibilities to the Necrons army and it's worth looking at how they fit into the strategies for not just Canoptek Court but also Hypercrypt Legion and other detachments - let's talk about them!

Credit: Dan "Swiftblade" Richardson

Geomancer

The newest addition to the Cryptek family, the Geomancer boasts a similar statline - 8" movement, T4, 4+ save, 4 wounds - and can be assigned to lead a unit of Macrocytes, Immortals, or Warriors. He can also be double-attached with a Royal Warden or other Noble unit, and if you attach him to a unit of Macrocytes, he gains the Scouts 8" ability, allowing him to move with them before the battle begins. They check in at a cost of 75pts.

The Geomancer has two abilities:

Tectonic Reverberations - In your Movement phase you can pick a visible enemy unit within 18" and that unit becomes pinned until your next Movement phase, getting -2 to its Move characteristic and -2 to charge rolls. This is pretty great as an ability, and it's made even better by the timing - occurring in the Movement phase means you can fire it off either before or after your move, and that means you can pull off tricks like Scouting forward before your turn starts, pinning an enemy unit, then moving out of line of sight. Or if you're playing in Hypercrypt Legion, you can move forward aggressively, pin an enemy unit, then pick up at the end of the turn. You can also do this on a unit that arrived via Rapid Ingress if they make the mistake of being visible.
Obelisk Node Control: While this model is within range of an objective you control, enemy units can't be set up from reserves within 12" of this model. This is also crazy good, again especially in Hypercrypt, where you can dump this model on an objective by himself without having to worry about pesky deep strikers coming in and charging that same turn - and if they drop in your line of sight, you can pin them or just pick up and leave.

The Geomancer comes with a Tremorglaive, which is more or less a mediocre power fist (2 attacks, WS 4+) in melee. In shooting, it's not bad, giving you either an 18" D6+2 shot flamer mode, or a 2-shot Melta option that's BS4+, S8 AP-2, 2 damage with [MELTA 2]. Which isn't bad, but you're not taking this guy for his damage output.

If you're taking this guy, the right play seems to be as either a solo model or leading a unit of Macrocytes, where the value is having him as an annoying piece who can Scout forward and hold an objective solo fairly effectively, rather than as part of a big unit of Warriors or Immortals. The abilities on the Macrocytes work very well with the Geomancer's, and in a pinch he won't mind the +1 WS and giving enemy units -1 to hit if they close the gap to reach his unit.

Wings: The big deal on this guy is that an anti-Deep Strike bubble is not something Necrons currently have access to, so given the price isn't outrageous, there are metagames where you'd consider taking one on that basis alone. The combination with Macrocytes improves that further, and on some map packs like UKTC, I can see plenty of value in Scouting that unit up to control a No Man's Land objective very effectively. The debuff is also nice, though needing visibility makes it a bit risky to use sometimes (though as Rob points out, being able to drop it then move helps), and outside the context of Macrocytes this model will always be in fairly heavy contention with Chronomancers, Plasmancers and Orikan, all of whom do a lot more to boost up their units. Fundamentally, however, this is adding a new capability to the army, so it's good news for the faction.

Credit: Dan "Swiftblade" Richardson

Canoptek Macrocytes

Macrocytes come in units of five models, and while they're not much in terms of firepower or durability - T3, 4+ save, 1 wound - they more than make up for that in utility. They cost 85pts for a squad of 5. Macrocytes are FLYING BEASTS with the Scouts 8" rule and three abilities:

Harassment Swarm (Aura) gives non-VEHICLE/MONSTER enemy units within 3" -1 to their hit rolls.
Accelerator Mandible lets them pick a friendly CANOPTEK unit within 3" at the start of the Fight phase, and you improve their WS by 1 until the end of the phase.
Nanoscarab Projector lets you once per Battle Round reanimate 1 additional wound on a unit within 3".

These are amazing abilities, and together they make the Macrocytes a near must-take for Canoptek Court armies, simultaneously making Wraiths even more durable in melee and fixing their one biggest weakness - their WS 4+ profile. Anyone who's ever watched their Wraths flail harmlessly against Death Guard giving them -1 to hit will immediately see the value here. The big challenge you'll have is just keeping this unit alive, so be sure to keep them out of sight and position them well so they can apply their Aura to key enemy targets. Otherwise they have a lot less value.

Wings: So - all of this is good, and as mentioned above there's a potential home for these plus a Geomancer as an objective piece, but I also cannot stress enough how cluttered the Necron utility/objective unit space is, and most of the existing options are slightly cheaper than this. I already look at most lists I build and wistfully wish I could upgrade some Deathmarks to Tomb Blades, or whatever, and these are 10pts more than those, and distressingly fragile. They have enough cool effects that I'm still not dismissing them out of hand, and providing another stackable Reanimation buff is cool, but outside setting up with a Geomancer as a great objective piece, you may find these don't quite get there. Being able to 18" Lone Op them in Canoptek Court is plausibly the exception - it gives them considerably elevated utility, and I'll certainly be trying to find a slot for them next time I take that detachment out.

Credit: Dan "Swiftblade" Richardson

Canoptek Tomb Crawlers

Tomb Crawlers come in units of two models and offer more or less a smaller version of the Canoptek Spider, sporting the same 5" move but with T4, a 3+ save, and 3 wounds, all for 50pts for the pair. They come with your choice of Twin Gauss Reaper or Transdimensional Isolator as ranged weapons and both are fine. The real value here comes from attaching these models to other units - their Canoptek Retinue ability lets them attach to any unit being led by a CRYPTEK model (you can't double attach Crawlers and you can't have Crawlers and Cryptothralls in the same unit). Then if it does, they count as being part of the bodyguard unit, and its starting strength increases accordingly.

Ok on its own, this is fine but not amazing - the Weapon Sentinels ability lets the Crawlers' unit ignore modifiers to BS, hit rolls, or wound rolls against targets within 12" on ranged attacks, which is neat. And they give you two durable bodies to take wounds against without losing ranged output. But the real value here is that they have the CANOPTEK keyword. This means that you can add them to a unit of Warriors or Immortals and boom - suddenly you have a brand new Canoptek unit to work with in your Canoptek Court Detachment. Warriors who re-roll hit rolls of 1 or Warriors/Immortals who can use Countertemporal Shift to be untargetable outside 18" give you some nasty options to consider.

Wings: I'd probably say these are most likely to make a splash. For starters, they are 10pts cheaper than Cryptothralls for adding the same number of wounds and better offence to a unit, and I've happily run Cryptothralls in Immortals in Court lists. People setting up full tarpit Wraith squads will also love these, ~~as the ability to ignore Hit Modifiers is legitmately really good on them,~~ Edit: No, only shooting so not as good on these, though the extra footprint might be slightly annoying.

The big juice, however, is that unlike Cryptothralls, these have the CANOPTEK Keyword, and that's a huge deal for Court. Switching the 6" Reactive Move, 18" Lone Operative, or Charge reactive Reanimate on for Warriors or Immortals is huge, and I will be 100% taking my Court build back out with some Immortals packing these as soon as possible (unless this gets changed - not being able to do this with Cryptothralls seems sufficiently deliberate that this might just be an oversight).

Final Thoughts

Rob: Welp, Canoptek Court lists are going to love this.

Wings: Yeah, plenty of juice here - all three are things you will actively consider in Necron lists, and actively quite exciting for Canoptek Court, though that's strictly mid in the power rankings right now (if not in my heart). Immortals with the Crawlers seem exceptionally legit, and the flexibility to (for example) drop them into your Infiltrating Wraith unit instead if you're up against hit modifiers is very neat. This is all great news for me, personally, basically.

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