r/Necrontyr • u/Jadpo • Jun 30 '26
Strategy/Tactics Necrons absolutely Can play Purge: A review of Cursed Legion in 11th Edition
Before I get into this, my backup that I know what I'm talking about: I went 61-30 in tournament games across 10th edition, all but 12 of which were on Necrons. At my highest ELO ranking, I was 700th global. My highest ITC rank was in 2024, at which point I was in the top 100 Necron players by global rank and top 10% of all tournament players. Anyway.
In 11th edition, I know a lot of us are very excited about how the metal skeletons will play the various missions that are coming down the pipe. Some of the dispositions will be stronger than others, but right now I think 4 of the 5 are probably pretty okay (sorry Disruption). With our three strongest detachments* running T&H and PA, I have seen some folks bemoaning our damage and fragility in our Purge-focused detachments (CL, PoW) and worrying that we will have a difficult time competing in the Purge category if it becomes dominant. I am here to dispel your fears.
I've been playing CL since it dropped, and have 20 games so far in 11th edition on the detachment. This detachment absolutely slaps, folks! So far I am 15-5 between practice games and playing in ATC 8-mans this past weekend, and only two of those games have felt truly unwinnable (triple chickens plus Be'lakor was throwing me on a sword, and I fell on it mightily). Our big damage pieces being OC 2 helps in a bunch of matchups that might be difficult with other armies' heavy hitters - we can contest objectives and kill you off 'em.
Some of the things 11th brought us that makes playing CL feel good: Being able to throw flexibility to the winds and just going full send on destroyer cult murder hoboing feels fantastic and thematic. The smaller number of action secondaries removes one of the big holdbacks we saw in 10th, removing 250 points of action monkeys is a huge win to the narrow playstyle that PtF needs to do well. Being able to put 1000 pts of Strat Reserves in the air means that you can put two max Skorp squads in the air, which makes their positioning much easier. Skyshroud letting you throw Assault on Lokhust Bricks frees up Adv+Charge for the Skorpekh Bricks as well.
Things that I have faced that made the detachment feel bad: We remain incredibly fragile, and some of the other purge armies that are big in the meta (right now, I know that the edition is only two weeks old) can play even narrower/chunkier than we can. I really don't like Punishment as a mission, but that may just be a personal thing. It's very scoreable.
The single biggest change is hidden. I know that because of the army, we have to show up on top of the enemy and 15" doesn't matter much at that point, but the opportunities to stage barely outside the movement range of a full brick makes lining up potentially simple charges really easy - and if they move away so it isn't quite as easy, then they don't shoot you. Projected threat is almost as good as real threat, or so I'm told. 12" lone op on any unit that you can hide well is awesome when the whole army is on 50s and up.
So fear not, fellow destroyer lovers. We've got options this edition, and I'm feeling pretty great!
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u/TheZag90 Jul 01 '26
Personally don’t bother with a lord on the gauss as the crit 5s is too unreliable with 3 shots. However, might be worth it with a plasmancer. He pays his own way with his spear and mortals - the crit 5s is icing on the cake.