Necron Rules ~ Overview

Yes, I've mixed up the title a little from previous articles. I feel this way works better.

Well the first questions regarding an army is what makes it unique and how does it play? In this case Necrons special rules have always made the army highly unique and memorable, while as mentioned before the army plays using mass overwhelming firepower and shoiting.
As such I'll start with the rules and then go to weapons & wargear in the next article.

Well firstly, Phase Out is gone. No matter how much of the army is cut down, they'll fight on until defeated of until their mission is complete or unable to be completed.

We'll Be Back has also disappeared, although its replacement Reanimation Protocols provides a virtually identical role, and despite rumours to the contrary it does not apply to vehicles, C'tan, Wraths, Scarabs or Spyders. It does for all the Necron-looking models however (No Pariah-like unit this time, in fact Pariahs themselves don't exist!).
Anyway, Reanimation Protocols has a few major differences compared to We'll Be Back. The most important of which is that it is done at the end of the phase when the Necrons were slain, no more waiting until your next turn. This makes wiping out units a little harder as you can't shoot & assault to build up kills and you will want to wipe units out as Reanimation Protocols cannot be used if the unit is wiped out, whether their are similar Necron units nearby or not. Lastly Reanimation Protocols require a 5+ roll instead of a 4+.
You can of course gain a little extra movement by placing the returning models in a different position from where they died (removing models from the back of the unit and placing them back at the front for example).

Some models, characters in particular have another rule which allows them to return even if their unit is wiped out. This can be overcome however by placing units so there is no space within 3" of where they died that isn't within 1" of an opposing model, assuming of course it didn't die in a combat which is still ongoing.

The two other special rules are Entropic Strike and Living Metal.

Living Metal is not as good as it once was in my opinion, no longer does it prevent Melta weapons or Monstrous Creatures from making holes in your Monolith but now they act as the Necron answer to Crew Shaken/Stunned, granting a 2+/4+ save against such results. Unfortunately, unlike the Grey Knights Fortitude power this is not done at the start of their turn, nor is it taken at the end of the phase like Reanimation Protocols. Instead it is taken at the moment the result would be applied, meaning that if you can apply multiple results the chances are the Necrons will fail a save.
I'm also disappointed that the Crew Stunned save doesn't have a third possibility where it reduces the result to Crew Shaken (similar to extra armour).

Entropic Strike however is quite lovely and totally unique and new. Scarabs have all got this rule and it can be given to a few other units through wargear or special abilities.
If a creature takes an unsaved wound from an Entropic Strike attack and survives (by virtue of having multiple wounds), its armour save is change to '-', no matter what it was before. Vehicles hit by this rule have the armour values on all facings permanently reduce by 1 for the game (being reduced to zero is the same as the wrecked result).
Unfortunately, it is hard to say whether Feel No Pain counts as saving the wound as its not technically a save. Also whether Entropic Strike takes place before or after penetration rolls and whether vehicles saves (Flickerfields, Shield of Faith etc) apply will likely become subject of heavy internet debate.