Detachment Focus: Hypercrypt Legion (Updated November 25, 2025)

In this series of articles we take a deep dive into a specific detachment for a faction, covering the faction’s rules and upgrades and talking about how to build around that faction for competitive play. In this article, we’re covering the Hypercrypt Legion Detachment for the Necrons.

The Necrons have been blessed with a large number of playable Detachments, and few are more feared than the Hypercrypt Legion. Giving Necron players the ability to pick units up off the table and drop them down repeatedly and giving them access to powerful movement tools. Although its power has been reduced from the original incarnation, the Detachment still has much to offer players looking for a competitive option.

• 2025-11-25 (Current): Updated with dataslate updates and a new list
• 2024-07-13: Initial Publication

Detachment Overview

The Hypercrypt Legion detachment was one of the breakout hits from the Necron Codex, but after a few rounds of nerfs now stands as merely a solid option outclassed by some of the other more powerful Detachments the faction has access to. Necrons are known for being slow and purposeful, but the Legion turns that on its head with its potent Detachment Rule, allowing units to constantly zap around the board doing mischief/scoring points. If you want something a bit more direct, it’s also a good detachment if you just want to blast your foes off the table with big guns, as Hyperphasing mitigates the unwieldiness of larger Necron models, making it difficult for foes to hide from their well-deserved obliteration.

Unfortunately, this Detachment’s fate is heavily tied to the value of a Monolith in competitive play, and when the Monolith suffers, the Detachment suffers. Right now is a time of Suffering.

Detachment Rule: Hyperphasing

At the end of your opponent’s turn, you can pick a number of Necron units from your army that aren’t within Engagement Range of any enemy units to go back into Strategic Reserves. The number you can pick is based on the game size:

• Incursion: Up to 1 unit
• Strike Force: Up to 2 units
• Onslaught: Up to 3 units

Hyperphasing is the reason you play this detachment, turning Necrons into (mostly) Grey Knights. The original rule for this Detachment gave you up to three units in Strike Force games, and dropping that to two was a major blow, forcing you to make more considered decisions about which units you’ll be moving.

Even with the reduced count, this is a powerful ability – this means that the army can never be truly pinned down, and gives you exceptional scoring reach, especially in concert with the Cosmic Precision Stratagem, which gives you the ability to bring a unit down anywhere that’s 6” or more from the enemy instead of 9”. This also works particularly well with units with Deep Strike – note that units pulled into Strategic Reserves with Hyperphasing don’t gain Deep Strike so when they arrive they’re bound by normal limitations. What this does mean is that if you’re going second, you can pick up a unit with Deep Strike at the end of your opponent’s first turn, then immediately bring it in on the second turn. This famously lead to the dramatic conclusion of this year’s World Championship of Warhammer, where a Monolith teleported behind an Aeldari army turn one (though note that Monoliths can’t zap a unit turn 1 as-of Pariah).

This does a wide variety of things for you. First up, it means you’re exceptionally good at scoring Secondaries, as you have a deeper pool of Reserves than anyone else except Grey Knights, and better access to cheap chaff. Doing actions and being in your enemy’s Deployment Zone has never been easier.

It also means that some normally ponderous units like C’tan can adapt to battlefield situations far more effectively here than anywhere else, and makes unwieldy models like the Tesseract Vault genuinely strong. Speaking of unwieldy models, it lets you fully pop off when combined with a Monolith and a Chronomancer, setting up ways of flipping objectives and causing mayhem that outstrip almost anything else in the game.

Enhancements

The Legion’s array of Enhancements are very strong, but aren’t necessarily must-takes.

• Dimensional Overseer (25 points) – This lets you pull one additional unit with Hyperphasing each turn. Back when this was 10 points it was a must-take but now it’s more of a choice. That said, picking up three units per turn is a big deal following the dataslate changes, and if you can find the points for this, it’s worth it.
• Arisen Tyrant (25 points) – This lets the bearer’s unit re-roll 1s to hit all the time, and fully re-roll hits if the unit was set up on the Battlefield this turn. This is extremely good, and particularly useful with tesla Immortals, providing a route to fish for thirty-something hits with a Plasmancer, or on a Lokhust Lord powering up either enmitic Heavy Destroyers or a big block of regular Lokhusts. Don’t forget that “set up” also includes from a Transport, so you can combine this effectively with a Night Scythe full of Immortals. The fact that this provides re-roll 1s to hit all the time is just gravy.
• Hyperspatial Transfer Node (15 points) – This gives the bearer’s unit the ability to auto-Advance 6”. Can be fun if you have a second unit of Immortals or Warriors with a Chronomancer, but probably the most skippable of the bunch.
• Osteoclave Fulcrum (20 points) – This gives the bearer’s unit Deep Strike (and by extension, the ability to be pulled and dropped turn 1 when you go second). This sees particularly heavy use in versions of Hypercrypt that use Warrior blocks, as it adds a lot of flexibility in how you utilise them without relying on your once-per-turn usage of Cosmic Precision. Lokhust Destroyers are also good with this, as they’re generally a pain to maneuvre, and don’t rely on Arisen Tyrant for access to hit re-rolls. And don’t sleep on this with a Skorpekh block either, particularly since you can use it to Rapid Ingress them, move out and kill something, then pick back up and vanish to do it again the following turn.

Stratagems

Hypercrypt’s Stratagems are weird, in that unless you’re taking a Monolith (or occasionally a plane) fully four of them are never usable, and of the two remaining one is pretty marginal. The final Stratagem, however, is so good in combination with Hyperphasing that you’d take some variants of this detachment even if it was the only Stratagem they got.

• Cosmic Precision (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Let’s get the big one done first them – Used in your Movement phase, Cosmic Precision lets a non-MONSTER unit that’s either Deep Striking or arriving after being pulled with Hyperphasing to be set up anywhere on the Battlefield that’s more than 6” from the foe instead of the normal 9” (they cannot then charge).This used to be so insanely good it dominated the game. C’Tan deep striking 3″ away from your models and capturing your home point was hard to beat. However since then, key nerfs – restricting it to not work on MONSTER units and changing the distance from 3″ to 6″ – have really dialed it back, and that “can’t declare a charge” rider is much more stifling when you’re only getting 3″ closer.There are two big upsides here: The first is that this makes it very hard to stop you from sneaking small units into your opponent’s Deployment zone. The second is that it lets you deep strike even if you didn’t have that ability, so you can set a unit up where you need it instead of within 6″ of a board edge. This is almost a necessity for setting up a unit like a Monolith or other big unit that can be easily screened, letting you get close enough to cause problems.On that note, you can do some extremely silly things with this if you’re using either or both of a Monolith or Chronomancer (or Tomb Blades, if you prefer). You can use the Stratagem to land one of these units near an objective, then use the units’ ability to move onto it. In the case of the Chronomancer/Tomb Blades, that means post-shoot moving onto the objective to capture it, while for the Monolith that will mean pulling a unit through the Eternity gate and onto the point (the only distance restriction on the gate is that your units be outside Engagement Range).

  We’d generally recommend you play around this strategy – save a Command Point for this every single turn, as it’s easily your most powerful trick. The only thing to keep in mind with this is that you can’t use it on a unit that started the game in Strategic Reserves (and doesn’t have Deep Strike), only ones you’ve pulled in the game, so rather than starting something like a lone Lokhust in reserves, start them on the table and pull them turn 1.

• Reanimation Crypts (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – The second Stratagem that’s always available to this detachment lets you activate the Reanimation Protocols of your units that are in Reserves in your Command Phase (as long as your Warlord is alive). The threshold for wanting to use this is quite high, but it can come up in the heavy shooting or multiple C’tan builds if several have both taken damage and been pulled. The other fringe place it can be relevant is on a unit that you’ve pulled and are planning to drop on an objective (or to score an Action Secondary) that would otherwise be Below Half-Strength when set up. This normally forces a Battle-shock test on arrival, which you can’t auto-pass (because Insane Bravery is only usable in the Battle-shock step of the Command Phase), but this can provide a way around that if one of your units happens to have the perfect number of models/wounds remaining.
• Hyperphasic Recall (Strategic Ploy, 2 CP) – Used in your opponent’s Shooting phase or the Fight phase, after an enemy unit shoots or fights. One INFANTRY unit that lost a model to those attacks can leave the battlefield and set up anywhere that is wholly within 6″ of a Monolith and outside Engagement Range of enemy units.We now move on to the “please take a Monolith, oh please” section of proceedings. The good news, if you want to do that, is that while this is expensive it’s also incredibly powerful. This is very versatile and very strong. If the opponent is planning to focus down one of your units in either of their damage dealing phases, this can whisk you to safety after the first volley/swing, leaving the rest of their pathetic units shaking their fists with impotent rage. It’s even funnier if they’re about to charge with an alpha unit and smoke a model with some incidental firepower before hand (though for my money, if you’re playing with this detachment you should definitely warn your opponent about this in your pre-game chat, and I’ll usually give non-Hypercrypt players an “are you sure you want to do that?” at minimum the first time that it looks like they’ve forgotten). It also has more subtle uses around changing objective control and (occasionally) pulling a unit out of combat so that they are then eligible to be picked up with Hyperphasing. There are very few Stratagems in the game that feel like they’re worth 2CP, but this can definitely be one of them (though having to have your Monolith alive is also a steep enough requirement that I think it could cost 1CP.
• Quantum Deflection (Wargear, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s Shooting phase or the Fight phase after they pick a VEHICLE as a target. Your vehicle gets a 4+ invulnerable save until the end of the phase. Another Monolith-skewed tool here, though also good with Night Scythes and Doom Scythes, making this a decent place to use them. This doesn’t come up in shooting for Monoliths that often, because if they’re in Cover (which they frequently are) then it doesn’t make a difference against any AP up to -3, but it’s great if your opponent slams some AP-4 melee into the Monolith (which they are absolutely going to try and do), and good to protect a Scythe from enemy melta, which is otherwise a nightmare for their T9, 3+-save having frames. Notably redundant on most other vehicles, though.
• Dimensional Corridor (Strategic Ploy, 2 CP) – Used in your Charge phase to let a unit set up via the Eternity Gate from a Monolith eligible to charge, as long as the Monolith started the turn on the Battlefield. Are you taking a Monolith yet? This is another expensive trick, but it’s situationally useful either with a Wraith unit (who become Eternity-eligible thanks to the INFANTRY keyword of the Technomancer), or if you need to delay the foe with or a more dedicated melee threat like Lychguard (five with Imotekh or Trazyn is fine in this Detachment) or a Skorpekh brick (who are enormously destructive in a way that no other Necron unit really is).
• Entropic Damping (Wargear, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s shooting phase, after they pick one of your TITANIC units within 18″ as a target. The weapons equipped by models in the attacking unit gain the HAZARDOUS ability for the rest of the phase. …And finally, another Stratagem for the Monolith. Daring today aren’t we? Is this ability good? The short version is mostly no – unlike some defensive Stratagems, this only affects the specific unit you triggered it on, rather than being something that affects anything shooting your TITANIC unit for the phase, and that means the impact here will usually be minimal. The exceptions are when an enemy elite infantry unit is fully unloading on you with multiple guns each, or an enemy Monster/Vehicle is targeting you with multiple guns and they’re on <=3W remaining and it’s tactically useful if they die. Basically – if the enemy conveniently points all the guns of Allarus Custodians, bolter Aggressors or Hearthguard at a Monolith (maybe a Crisis Team with gun drones and a four-gun Commander or Scarab Occults with a Character for ~15 guns total if you’re feeling spicy/desperate), you may actually want to press the button. Otherwise, it’s not worth it, and if you look at Vashtorr’s Datasheet you can see that GW have worked out that this effect needs to be pushed far more aggressively to be worth it.

Playing This Detachment

As mentioned up top, this detachment is very diverse in the strategies it supports, but I think you can broadly group them into several sub-archetypes:

• Teleporting Heavy Shooting.
• C’tan-heavy melee.
• All-rounder Monolith-supported Immortals and C’tan.
• Monolith-supported Warriors.

That’s probably not even all of them, and you can slide up and down how closely a build cleaves to one of these and still potentially be good. One of the advantages of this detachment if you’re an established Necron player is that you can put all sorts of toys to effective work.

The first option generally combines the Silent King, Doomsday Arks and a few other hefty threats (often including a C’tan or two) to focus on smashing the foe. The King provides two great auras to pick from, and good invulnerable saves across the portfolio of threats means you’ll often come out ahead in a gunfight. Combining that with strong secondary scoring makes for a potent build

Alternatively, if you want to lean on the board control power and flexibility that having a Monolith around gives to tooled-up Infantry units with Leaders. Immortals lead by a Plasmancer with Arisen Tyrant can teleport around doing tremendous damage, while Warriors or Immortals with a Chronomancer can be used to reach out and seize objectives that your opponent thought were safe. You can also throw a unit of Wraiths into the mix to great effect – they’re not as deadly as either other option, but can be much harder to shift, and having the INFANTRY keyword via their Leader makes them eligible for zapping. They are pretty pricey these days, but one squad can still have appeal.

The problem here is the Monolith – at 400 points it’s a lot harder to justify bringing them, and without the ability to drop them 3″ away from enemy units it’s also just much harder to actually get them down onto the table. It’s fully a non-starter on more crowded tables like WTC terrain and even when you can run it, there are just better options in the Necron arsenal you can run for that many points.

Don’t sleep on Destroyers, either – your ability to pick up units combines well with the Osteoclave Fulcrum to create a unit similar to Warp Talons. Each round the Skorpekh Lord and his unit can arrive via Deep Strike and Rapid Ingress in a safe spot, then on your turn move 8″ and charge a key target, kill it, and drop back into reserves via the Hypercrypt rule, repeating the process the following round. This is a good way to spend all your extra CP if you aren’t taking a Monolith.

You generally want to support all this with some tools to do a bit more damage, which can either be one or two C’tan, various configurations of Lokhust Destroyer (also good with Arisen Tyrant if you aren’t using that on Immortals), or more recently a Skorpekh brick. You should also work in some cheap scoring units – Deathmarks and Hexmark Destroyers are great here, providing very flexible scoring pieces, but so are Tomb Blades, as they can zap in at 3” then move after shooting naturally, and with a total OC of 6 can often flip an objective from a small enemy unit. Flayed Ones also go up in value as you can pull them back from Infiltrating positions, and your Lokhusts are good as ever.

Strengths

• Movement. Being able to pick up two units per round and put them back on the board gives you a ton of flexibility.
• Enhancements. There are some legitimately great enhancements here to work with.
• Monoliths. There’s no Detachment that puts more value on the Monolith than this one. If you want to run a Monolith, here’s where you’ll do it.

Weaknesses

• CP Costs. There are multiple 2-CP Stratagems here, and they’re effects you generally want to use.
• Non-Monolith Buffs. You’d generally want to see more buffs on non-Monolith units here, to give the detachment a bit more play when Monoliths are bad.
• Monoliths. The value of this list is heavily tied to the strength and value of a single unit, and that unit is pretty hard to play.

Sample Lists

Although once a scourge of the meta, Hypercrypt lifts have fallen off hard as a result of multiple nerfs to both the Detachment rules and the Necron Monolith. There’s still some play here, but successful lists primarily operate without a Monolith, instead opting to just use the Detachment’s powerful core ability. We haven’t seen much true success recently with this Detachment, but there have been some 4-1 lists which popped up in September and are still perfectly legal in current tournaments.

Shreyash Pandey’s List

Shreyash took this list to a 4-1, 6th place finish at the Iron Cage event in mid-September, beating Astra Militarum, Chaos Knights, World Eaters, and Deathwatch. I

Shreyash's List - click to expand

This is very much a melee list, running three C’Tan and a big brick of Skorpekh Destroyers led by a Lord with the Fulcrum who can act in a similar fashion to Warp Talons, arriving via Rapid Ingress, charging and killing something on their turn, then vanishing back into reserves over and over. Given there’s no Monolith, it’s a good spot to spend the extra CP you accumulate. This is all supported by teleporting Lokhust Destroyers and a trio of Doomsday Arks.

Kyle PIaray’s List

Kyle took this list toa  4-1, 6th place finish at the SA Nationals 2025 event in late September, beating Custodes, Space Wolves, Astra Militarum, and Imperial Knights.

Kyle's list - Click to expand

This is also more of a melee list, though the stars here are two full-size bricks of Canoptek Wraiths attached to Technomancers. THey’re supported by a trio of Doomsday Arks, teleporting Lokhust heavy destroyers, and a 20-man brick of Warriors supported Orikan the Diviner.

Final Thoughts

Hypercrypt gives Necrons a play style unlike anything they’d had in the last few editions, but it’s currently measured by the value of the Monolith. We’re hopeful the Monolith will come back down in price at some point and make more builds here viable, but currently Hypercrypt is a reasonably strong – but not super competitive – detachment option for the faction.

Still one of the most fun, though.

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