So which, and why? Personally I'll always be a fan of the oldcrons myself. They were a lot more terrifying and had a much more intense and interesting lore than the new ones, also to be frank the old models are a lot nicer than the new ones, especially the flayed ones. The pariahs were a bit meh though.
Both have good and bad aspects. New necrons seem pretty weak und unnecessary to me. They are fractured, arrogant and next to Eldar and the Imperium just another bunch of stupid warmongers that want to bring their empire to old strength. New Necrons aren't even an old evil anymore, they pale in comparison to Chaos, they side with the imperium against tyranids and they lose to Orks like everybody. They are somewhere between the real bad guys (chaos, DE, Tyranids) and the just a little less bad guys (Imperium).
Old necrons seemed like a much stronger force but in that they were of course similar to Tyranids. Unknown numbers of faceless robots that wake up everywhere, can't be destroyed and don't talk to you. They were even worse than Chaos, as they destroyed the galaxy before it was cool.
Newcrons at their best are better than Oldcrons. While there's definitely a lot of bad lore for Newcrons, it does meet the goal of making the Necrons themselves the relevant characters and leadership of the faction. For me, I did not get into this faction because I like the C'tan; quite the opposite in fact, I detest their aesthetics and generally find them uninteresting. Since what I like is the evil robo-undead I prefer the evil robo-undead to be the decision makers.
The modern form of Necrons largely falls apart when they compromise on their superiority to the other races; there's nothing wrong with Overlords in a speaking role as long as they consider humans to be at best slaves or test subjects.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: Both have good and bad aspects. New necrons seem pretty weak und unnecessary to me. They are fractured, arrogant and next to Eldar and the Imperium just another bunch of stupid warmongers that want to bring their empire to old strength. New Necrons aren't even an old evil anymore, they pale in comparison to Chaos, they side with the imperium against tyranids and they lose to Orks like everybody. They are somewhere between the real bad guys (chaos, DE, Tyranids) and the just a little less bad guys (Imperium).
Old necrons seemed like a much stronger force but in that they were of course similar to Tyranids. Unknown numbers of faceless robots that wake up everywhere, can't be destroyed and don't talk to you. They were even worse than Chaos, as they destroyed the galaxy before it was cool.
This sums up my feelings on the subject pretty well. Exalted.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You're asking the ultimate forum of no fluff changes/progress how they feel on a drastic fluff change.
What ?
We don't mine good fluff, but the new fluff and retcons are almost always bad and not as good and mysterious as the old one. I am not responsible if they don't know how to writte cool stuff anymore.
It is like in the movie industry, look at the old predator and the new one. Or aliens and covenant. Or Star Wars V and VIII
etc
I don't mind new fluff: I like the new black stone fortress for example, but I hate the 13th black crusade retcon.
I like the Oldcrons a lot more. They felt really sinister and terrifying as a race. They sound downright unstoppable in Dark Crusade.
The Newcrons just don't feel threatening to me. Some great characters now, but they're just a footnote Xenos race now and I always expect them to lose when they appear in the fluff.
I prefer the Old version. They felt a lot more alien and sinister. The reason why there was such "little" fluff was intentional; it was being told from a human point of view, and was building on the horror of the unknown.
You don't get that much mystery now; its told from the necrons point of view, and they come across as metal humans rather than alien. If I wanted metal humans, I would have started Iron Hands, as Ad Mech didn't exist in 2004.
OldCrons for sure.
Darker, more menacing, Terminator style feel - cant be bargained with, cant be reasoned with. Their purpose was also unknown which made them one of the few races that made you think "what are these guys up to / aiming for in the long term".
All that went out the window with Newcrons, talking, happy go lucky lords with "quirky" personalities, their purpose now explicitly (read: tediously) stated and no undermining sense of brooding left.
Having said all that, parts of the Newcron fluff is decent. Just not as an overall faction / theme.
The Oldcron fluff was massively superior. Unfathomably ancient cosmic horror beats Tomb Kings In Space every time.
But hardly anyone wanted to collect and play them. Their sales figues were abysmal. When I worked for GW in the 3rd/4th edition days, I don't think I encountered anyone who denied that the Necron fluff was awesome, but nobody I knew actually played them as an army. There was no real room for thematic customisation, since the entire faction had exactly two properly sapient characters that you could include in your army. You either played the Deceiver's mindless puppets, or the Nightbringer's mindless puppets, or just a bunch of mindless puppets out on their own for some reason. And the people who didn't mind playing an army of mindless puppets already had perfectly good Tyranid armies. The old Necrons and C'tan were fantastic as part of the setting's background. They utterly failed as a playable faction.
GW didn't change the Necron/C'tan fluff because people disliked the old fluff. They changed it because the old fluff didn't encourage people to collect and play Necrons. And that's the only reaason for fluff to exist, as far as GW is concerned. It's just marketing for the minis.
Newcron fluff is naff. It's as lame as if GW had actually gone ahead and introduced the Hrud as just Skaven In Space (as they briefly flirted with in 3rd edition before thinking better of it). But at least it works as the background for a playable army. It therefore better fits GW's purposes than the old version.
The hilarious irony is that the new fluff ended up making the Necrons more popular than the fantasy army they had ripped off. You could almost say that the Necrons killed the Tomb Kings and took their stuff.
Necrons. I admire them for how they dealt with the C'Tan.
Humans: "Out gods treat us badly so we get down on our knees and praise them and tell them how awesome they are and grovel at their feet and praise them for treating us badly so they won't treat us worse. "
Necrons: "Our gods treated us badly. Once. So we attacked them, shattered them into shards, enslaved them and turned them into our permanent bitches."
As an old BFG player who had a large Necron rivalry, I hated what they did to their FTL. The Dolmen gates were nonsense. Did they ever retcon the retcon and give Necrons back proper FTL? Can't say I have kept up with Necron fluff.
FTL travel is the most important part of 40k empire building. Look at Tau. It doesn't matter how powerful their armies are, without decent FTL they are a joke race on the galactic scale.
I'm biased. I started with Newcrons, so I don't have much experience with the Old.
But I feel that Newcrons are generally better, since "Galactic extermination menace" is kinda what the Nids are. Personality helps. Plus, you still HAVE genocidal Crons.
I dunno... Again, biased, but Newcrons just seem more fun.
As someone who got into 40k briefly in third then properly at the tail end of 6th, both times collecting necrons to start with, this is a misleading question at best. There’s little to no difference other than more of a light shone on the aristocracy who still have minds, a disappointing lack of pariahs and a bit of a clash between monolith style vehicles and boat vehicles.
The -real- retcon was on the C’tan, and whilst they went a bit far with it in my opinion, having more actual characters to focus on than just having the deceiver show is a plus.
In conclusion, oldcrons and newcrons are the same thing, pariahs should come back and my ideal stance on the C’tan would be to find a middle ground between their two incarnations.
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Trickstick wrote: As an old BFG player who had a large Necron rivalry, I hated what they did to their FTL. The Dolmen gates were nonsense. Did they ever retcon the retcon and give Necrons back proper FTL? Can't say I have kept up with Necron fluff.
FTL travel is the most important part of 40k empire building. Look at Tau. It doesn't matter how powerful their armies are, without decent FTL they are a joke race on the galactic scale.
Yes, the Inertialess Drive is back, it getting briefly retconned out was the result of some guy in the lore department who was trying to push for there being no non-warp way to break the speed of light.
They still have the dolmen gates too though, for the convenience of hacking into the webway when they were hunting down the Old Ones.
Oldcron fluff might have been cooler as an adversarial Xenos race, but (personally) Newcron fluff is better when you collect the army, and don't have to bend over backwards to make Your Guys fit the wider lore without coming off as hacky fanfiction.
TBH, the only significant changes were the addition of sentient court members for your Warlord to bark at, and the personality being moved to the Overlord from the C'Tan.
Phaeron Gukk wrote: Oldcron fluff might have been cooler as an adversarial Xenos race, but (personally) Newcron fluff is better when you collect the army, and don't have to bend over backwards to make Your Guys fit the wider lore without coming off as hacky fanfiction.
TBH, the only significant changes were the addition of sentient court members for your Warlord to bark at, and the personality being moved to the Overlord from the C'Tan.
I agree with you on that point. The old Necron fluff trapped them in a purely adverserial Xenos role. They were basically lesser Tyranids. They couldn't have the numbers and were, ironically, much younger and much less alien. They did well to give them some personality.
Old necrons didn't have any point or purpose, just another faceless, mindless baddy doing pointless bad things for unexplained reasons of badness, with extra-bad gods.
The current version could still use some work, but at least they've got some legs now, rather than watered-down chaos or tyranids without the tentacles.
Oldcrons for sure. It's an ancient horror, that's going to farm you for eternity and are anti magic backed up by gods versus weird old people/tomb kings, pokemon and psykerless psykers with handwaving tech they don't use.
Coming from a fiction-writing background, New is far and away the best in terms of character and scope. Old was certainly tighter, but it's difficult to have lore issues with a race whose only concern is getting from A to B and reducing everything between that point into very very small little bits, preferably without missing a step. There's so much more you can do with Newcrons, even if the official lore is now more spotty and inconsistent as a result.
Oldcrons. Not just for the lore but also the tabletop representation of the Warriors, Flayed Ones and Immortals. Aka, their basic Warrior was beefier than a Space marine.
Insectum7 wrote: Oldcrons. Not just for the lore but also the tabletop representation of the Warriors, Flayed Ones and Immortals. Aka, their basic Warrior was beefier than a Space marine.
If I'm not mistaken Immortals are still beefier than Space Marines, but now, regular warriors are smaller.
Insectum7 wrote: Oldcrons. Not just for the lore but also the tabletop representation of the Warriors, Flayed Ones and Immortals. Aka, their basic Warrior was beefier than a Space marine.
If I'm not mistaken Immortals are still beefier than Space Marines, but now, regular warriors are smaller.
From a background perspective, I much preferred Oldcrons. Outside of Trazyn, the new lore just doesn't interest me at all.
Mechanically, my favourite Necron book was probably the one in 5th edition. Much as I liked Oldcrons for fluff they were a very shallow army with very little choice or customisation.
And while I dislike quite a bit of what 5th added to Necrons, I did appreciate many of the new units and wargear/options. I also preferred their RP mechanics (though I thought We'll Be Back was a better name for them), which didn't make the army evaporate when reduced to 25%.
Unfortunately, 7th basically made them into Death Guard, with their resurrection abilities reduced to boring FNP saves, and 8th removed RP from characters entirely and made it easy to make it irrelevant on units by wiping them out entirely.
5th was also the best edition for my favourite Necron - the Destroyer Lord. 7th made him into Jet Infantry and 8th has just rendered him garbage.
The one thing I did really hate about the new books was the sidelining of Necron Lords. I would have been fine with them adding a new unit underneath them, but I really dislike the fact that they were just completely sidelined in favour of Overlords. I much preferred the simple elegance of Necron Lords to the bulky, overly-elaborate Overlords that look like coral reefs on legs. I much preferred the ragged cloth capes of the Necron lords to the bead-curtains worn by every Overlord.
Arachnofiend wrote: For me, I did not get into this faction because I like the C'tan; quite the opposite in fact, I detest their aesthetics and generally find them uninteresting. Since what I like is the evil robo-undead I prefer the evil robo-undead to be the decision makers.
Much as I liked Oldcrons, I very much agree with this point. I don't mind C'tan being the overall leaders, but I wish they'd been made more distant, with Necron Lords having more authority and generally running things. Quite honestly, I think it was a mistake to have the C'tan as actual models. They're supposed to be literal gods and their stats really don't do a good job of reflecting that.
But hardly anyone wanted to collect and play them. Their sales figues were abysmal. When I worked for GW in the 3rd/4th edition days, I don't think I encountered anyone who denied that the Necron fluff was awesome, but nobody I knew actually played them as an army. There was no real room for thematic customisation, since the entire faction had exactly two properly sapient characters that you could include in your army. You either played the Deceiver's mindless puppets, or the Nightbringer's mindless puppets, or just a bunch of mindless puppets out on their own for some reason. And the people who didn't mind playing an army of mindless puppets already had perfectly good Tyranid armies. The old Necrons and C'tan were fantastic as part of the setting's background. They utterly failed as a playable faction.
Do you think the issue might have been less with their fluff and more with their mechanics? Their model range was tiny and they had virtually no customisation (1 HQ choice, 1 Troop choice, basically no wargear outside of the Necron Lord), they were so ludicrously expensive that most of your points were gone by the time you'd bought your mandatory troops and HQ, and they could never make any sort of last stand because their army just vanished if they lost too many models.
Avatar 720 wrote: Coming from a fiction-writing background, New is far and away the best in terms of character and scope. Old was certainly tighter, but it's difficult to have lore issues with a race whose only concern is getting from A to B and reducing everything between that point into very very small little bits, preferably without missing a step. There's so much more you can do with Newcrons, even if the official lore is now more spotty and inconsistent as a result.
I'll half disagree. I like that there is the availability for personality between lords, although I'd argue there was room for that in Oldcron lore. I find the Newcron personalities disappointingly anthropomorphic and comic-bookey.
Oldcrons all the way. For pretty much all the reasons so far.
The best analogue i can give is to compare oldcrons and new crons to the Borg in Star Trek TNG and Voyager.
In TNG, the Borg were terrifying. Unstoppable, a genuine threat to everyone and it was only through sheer plot armour that anyone came through but even then, main characters were getting wrecked and permanently scarred in every way.
Their strength was that they were not individual, they were a collective, the sum of all knowledge of everyone assimilated into it and thats what made them strong.
In Voyager....ugh...we have the Borg Queen. Not a collective, but an individual. A named face. Problem here, individuals are flawed and they can be beaten. Voyager didnt face the terrifying unrelenting Borg; they faced a single person. All the strength of the Borg and terror, stripped away for an understandable and beatable face.
This is newcrons. All the terror and mystery stripped away in favour of completely not alien aliens with flawed characters and individuals that can be beaten. Theyre not a threat.
But hardly anyone wanted to collect and play them. Their sales figues were abysmal. When I worked for GW in the 3rd/4th edition days, I don't think I encountered anyone who denied that the Necron fluff was awesome, but nobody I knew actually played them as an army. There was no real room for thematic customisation, since the entire faction had exactly two properly sapient characters that you could include in your army. You either played the Deceiver's mindless puppets, or the Nightbringer's mindless puppets, or just a bunch of mindless puppets out on their own for some reason. And the people who didn't mind playing an army of mindless puppets already had perfectly good Tyranid armies. The old Necrons and C'tan were fantastic as part of the setting's background. They utterly failed as a playable faction.
Do you think the issue might have been less with their fluff and more with their mechanics? Their model range was tiny and they had virtually no customisation (1 HQ choice, 1 Troop choice, basically no wargear outside of the Necron Lord), they were so ludicrously expensive that most of your points were gone by the time you'd bought your mandatory troops and HQ, and they could never make any sort of last stand because their army just vanished if they lost too many models.
Was about to say the same thing. That was the problem I always saw on Sunday beginners- Necrons didn't get interesting up until big (well, big for beginners) games of 1000pts+. By the time you'd bought your HQ and 2 troops for the usual 500pt game that was the norm at the time, Necrons had a paltry 40pts to spend on other stuff. Compared to everyone else Necron players seemed like they got left behind a bit.
I love the Oldcrons and consider Xenology to be canon and everything post 5th Ed noncanon.
changemod wrote: As someone who got into 40k briefly in third then properly at the tail end of 6th, both times collecting necrons to start with, this is a misleading question at best. There’s little to no difference other than more of a light shone on the aristocracy who still have minds, a disappointing lack of pariahs and a bit of a clash between monolith style vehicles and boat vehicles.
The -real- retcon was on the C’tan, and whilst they went a bit far with it in my opinion, having more actual characters to focus on than just having the deceiver show is a plus.
In conclusion, oldcrons and newcrons are the same thing, pariahs should come back and my ideal stance on the C’tan would be to find a middle ground between their two incarnations.
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Trickstick wrote: As an old BFG player who had a large Necron rivalry, I hated what they did to their FTL. The Dolmen gates were nonsense. Did they ever retcon the retcon and give Necrons back proper FTL? Can't say I have kept up with Necron fluff.
FTL travel is the most important part of 40k empire building. Look at Tau. It doesn't matter how powerful their armies are, without decent FTL they are a joke race on the galactic scale.
Yes, the Inertialess Drive is back, it getting briefly retconned out was the result of some guy in the lore department who was trying to push for there being no non-warp way to break the speed of light.
They still have the dolmen gates too though, for the convenience of hacking into the webway when they were hunting down the Old Ones.
No non-warp ftl travel? But 5th was the same edition that introduced the Tyranid Narvhal, a non-warp ftl. So the advanced super-science robots had to use warp travel and the psykic warp-based hive mind had to use non-psykic super science for FTL. Sigh.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You're asking the ultimate forum of no fluff changes/progress how they feel on a drastic fluff change.
Here's a 'no fluff change' opinion: they should have never added the Necrons. They butchered the Eldar lore and shoehorned a boring, contrived robot faction in the setting. If they wanted a robot faction, there would have been a perfect, already existing, hook in the setting for that, the Men of Iron!
Before the Oldcron codex, the Eldar were like Season 1 Minbari, haughty space elves which appealed to few people. The Oldcron Codex enriched the Eldar like the injection of Shadow and Vorlons lore improved the Minbari through the rest of the series; directly, they put the Minbari down a peg and made them seem relatively smaller, but at the same time integrated them into a much larger and more satisfying story with a rich background that transformed a collection of Sci Fi tropes into a classic, beloved setting.
That...doesn't jive with anything I remember. Eldar pirates were boring, but the Craftworlds background made them interesting.
The fanon mindcaulking around the few tiny pieces of necron 'background' didn't make the eldar more interesting, it made them less. Just another gun in the hands of the non-entities that were the 'Old Ones'. (Who were more interesting in 40k and Fantasy when they were Slaan)
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You're asking the ultimate forum of no fluff changes/progress how they feel on a drastic fluff change.
Here's a 'no fluff change' opinion: they should have never added the Necrons. They butchered the Eldar lore and shoehorned a boring, contrived robot faction in the setting. If they wanted a robot faction, there would have been a perfect, already existing, hook in the setting for that, the Men of Iron!
Bold of you to claim that the Necrons are the boring faction and not Eldar.
Duskweaver wrote: The Oldcron fluff was massively superior. Unfathomably ancient cosmic horror beats Tomb Kings In Space every time.
But hardly anyone wanted to collect and play them. Their sales figues were abysmal. When I worked for GW in the 3rd/4th edition days, I don't think I encountered anyone who denied that the Necron fluff was awesome, but nobody I knew actually played them as an army. There was no real room for thematic customisation, since the entire faction had exactly two properly sapient characters that you could include in your army. You either played the Deceiver's mindless puppets, or the Nightbringer's mindless puppets, or just a bunch of mindless puppets out on their own for some reason. And the people who didn't mind playing an army of mindless puppets already had perfectly good Tyranid armies. The old Necrons and C'tan were fantastic as part of the setting's background. They utterly failed as a playable faction.
GW didn't change the Necron/C'tan fluff because people disliked the old fluff. They changed it because the old fluff didn't encourage people to collect and play Necrons. And that's the only reaason for fluff to exist, as far as GW is concerned. It's just marketing for the minis.
Newcron fluff is naff. It's as lame as if GW had actually gone ahead and introduced the Hrud as just Skaven In Space (as they briefly flirted with in 3rd edition before thinking better of it). But at least it works as the background for a playable army. It therefore better fits GW's purposes than the old version.
The hilarious irony is that the new fluff ended up making the Necrons more popular than the fantasy army they had ripped off. You could almost say that the Necrons killed the Tomb Kings and took their stuff.
Exactly this. I liked Oldcrons much more but Newcrons give people more reasons to play them
Yeah, as to necrons being boring. Well, rev up the chainaxes and get ready to scream in rage but personally I think the 4 chaos gods are generally boring, and the most boring ones are the khorne followers. Khorne is the most boring force in the universe. "BLOOD THIS! BLOOD THAT! BLOOD THIS! BLOOD THAT! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! "
Yawww-aaaawn.
Other chaos god forces can be not as boring but monotonous enough. With all the "Decay disease rot! Rape torture Rape! All according to plan. " Yeah Tzeentch can be surprising in the hands of a clever writer.
.
In general I ind the chaos gods kinda boring but I do run a chaos undivided army with some surprising motives. When the alpha legion cries "For the emperor! " in battle is it really mockery? They might just want you to think that...
My chaos undivided army does have a unit of blood letters it views as a field deployable fire 'n forget weapon system to be used and discarded. They see chaos gods as powerful bit dangerous resources to be used for their own ends. Just like their daemons.
Necrons are kinda cool in that they are varied in motivations and attitudes. Also they can be kind of funny at times. That one who can't remember he's a machine and that he's not fighting other necrons kinda reminds me of Commander McBragg if you ever saw those cartoons in reruns. They're not as boring as khorne boys for certain.
My answer is both or neither. Oldcrons were sues and were thematically just robot-tyranids. NewCrons have much more character, but swung too far in the opposite direction with Necron Lords basically being mustache-twirling bond villains who literally talk like English noblemen.
I think what a lot of people who are fans of the OldCrons don't appreciate is that OldCrons were basically Slaugth/H'rud tier. They're fine as NPC bad guys that you read about in brief paragraph-long blurbs on the bottom of a codex every now and again, but they were ass as a Your Dudes type force with customization and player-expression.
As someone who has played Necrons since third I say newcrons. The personality given to the lords gives them so much macabre flavor. They are still unknowable, but I just love the average lord's arrogance is often matched by their skill and power but with level of insanity. These are truly the galaxy's rightful rulers rather than what I found very boring faceless horde.
Why the hate for newcrons I don't understand as the old fluff still exists as cannon. Indeed, beyond the fact you can still play your army as a mindless horde fluffwise all that still exists in the books and codexes. Newcrons improved the quality of the threat IMHO as the idea of enemy having reasons and animus for their nefarious acts is so much more powerful than just "kill all humans." (no offense to Bender of course)
Also, if you want a flavor for how wonderful the newcrons are as villains, play the new Mechanicus game.
A lot of you are arguing that there was no room for customisation and personality. Both of these are incorrect. I've seen some very nicely customized oldcrons and as for personality the lords were explicitly explained as still having a personality so there was plenty of room to expand them in that direction.
Vague anecdotes like "they were nicely customized" and "they had personalities" with no examples given to quantify those statements isn't very meaningful.
The "Newcrons" just come off as a lazy copypasta of Tomb Kings in Space to me, and vested all the personality they have into a small handful of all-too-human characters and renders them far too knowable and mundane, and in too many instances they just come off as generic mustache-twirling mad scientist types in egyptian-themed robot bodies. It was a really wasted opportunity that I have zero interest in.
The "oldcron" stuff was much more interesting, if far more vague. There was a lot more they could have done there.
BlaxicanX wrote: Vague anecdotes like "they were nicely customized" and "they had personalities" with no examples given to quantify those statements isn't very meaningful.
I voted for newcrons, but my real answer would be why not both? I mean C'tan worshipping necrons who somehow never escaped the command codes would be a cool subfaction. Without the newcrons disgust for the lesser races, they could be practicing transference on the mortal races of today to boost their numbers. Which would be a cool way to bring back pariahs, and add a few new units to the roster. The piece de resistance would be a full powered C'tan leading them whose ultimate goal is to eat the now bite sized C'Tan shards and become an unstoppable power.
It would hit all of the notes of the old crons, a growing threat, cosmic horror, and forced assimilation. If the C'Tan in question is the void dragon, it can even take over the old fluff of having infiltrated the adeptus mechanicus and officio assassinorum. It also enhances the newcrons by giving them a reason they haven't taken over the galaxy with their absurdly superior technology, they are in the midst of a civil war, and probably one that is not going terribly well.
BlaxicanX wrote: Vague anecdotes like "they were nicely customized" and "they had personalities" with no examples given to quantify those statements isn't very meaningful.
We have a winner!
Oh sure, like he needs to give proof for everything he claims but nobody else has to.
What if he's referring to some local players and cant give any "examples?" You want me to fax a reference sheet for you?
Avatar 720 wrote: Coming from a fiction-writing background, New is far and away the best in terms of character and scope. Old was certainly tighter, but it's difficult to have lore issues with a race whose only concern is getting from A to B and reducing everything between that point into very very small little bits, preferably without missing a step. There's so much more you can do with Newcrons, even if the official lore is now more spotty and inconsistent as a result.
I'll half disagree. I like that there is the availability for personality between lords, although I'd argue there was room for that in Oldcron lore. I find the Newcron personalities disappointingly anthropomorphic and comic-bookey.
Most races in 40k, sans tyranids, are aranthropomorphic. Eldar are arrogant aristocrats, Orks are violent thugs, tau are essentially humans indoctrinated to accept the state as the greater good, etc.
Oldcrons all the way. For pretty much all the reasons so far.
The best analogue i can give is to compare oldcrons and new crons to the Borg in Star Trek TNG and Voyager.
In TNG, the Borg were terrifying. Unstoppable, a genuine threat to everyone and it was only through sheer plot armour that anyone came through but even then, main characters were getting wrecked and permanently scarred in every way.
Their strength was that they were not individual, they were a collective, the sum of all knowledge of everyone assimilated into it and thats what made them strong.
In Voyager....ugh...we have the Borg Queen. Not a collective, but an individual. A named face. Problem here, individuals are flawed and they can be beaten. Voyager didnt face the terrifying unrelenting Borg; they faced a single person. All the strength of the Borg and terror, stripped away for an understandable and beatable face.
This is newcrons. All the terror and mystery stripped away in favour of completely not alien aliens with flawed characters and individuals that can be beaten. Theyre not a threat.
I disliked Oldcrons for the reasons other people seem to like them.
They were initially fine. A strange menace far, far away. A threat - but a hidden one.
Then slowly but surely the fluff got developed and became stupid. The C'Tan were built up to be ludicrously powerful and were behind almost everything - to the point where they were probably more fluff important than the Chaos Gods. Now I don't mind people saying the Chaos gods are boring - I wax and wane on that - but for 2nd ed at least they were the setting. These quiet retcons to insert the Necrons into everything grated on me.
It would be like if GW brought out the H'rud and then had to explain how they were secretly behind the Horus Heresy because you know, these guys are cool, buy them, go on, pls.
I agree though that Newcrons have arguably gone too far the otherway. At a fundamental level they are not alien enough. Most of the talking Necrons - stripping out the accents - could easily be human, Eldar, Tau or even Orks. Their ambitions just amount to "I like stuff". This is often a problem with the Xenos races but it comes across really clearly here given the "alieness" of the physiology and society which should inform their world view. On the analogy with the Borg Queen - its not so much that this figure can be "beaten", its just that its like all the other star trek aliens that amount to humans with some slightly different forehead bumps to the 20+ other races we met before. In TNG these were clearly a level up over what had been encountered before. By Voyager (or really mid-way through First Contact) they weren't. They were being gunned down like everything else.
BlaxicanX wrote: Vague anecdotes like "they were nicely customized" and "they had personalities" with no examples given to quantify those statements isn't very meaningful.
In Xenology you had a necron lord who spoke, and in the 3rd codex its implied that necron lords had some of their personality left.
Its subtle though, and isn't at all like post 5th ed's "Oooh look how quirky I have! Look at me charge windmills and steal gak! I have so much personality"
As for customization...its possible, but only if you really worked at it. I personally never bothered.
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buddha wrote: As someone who has played Necrons since third I say newcrons. The personality given to the lords gives them so much macabre flavor. They are still unknowable, but I just love the average lord's arrogance is often matched by their skill and power but with level of insanity. These are truly the galaxy's rightful rulers rather than what I found very boring faceless horde.
Why the hate for newcrons I don't understand as the old fluff still exists as cannon. Indeed, beyond the fact you can still play your army as a mindless horde fluffwise all that still exists in the books and codexes. Newcrons improved the quality of the threat IMHO as the idea of enemy having reasons and animus for their nefarious acts is so much more powerful than just "kill all humans." (no offense to Bender of course)
Also, if you want a flavor for how wonderful the newcrons are as villains, play the new Mechanicus game.
Its probably because most of the focus is on the quirky lords and the dynasties. There was a nice bit of fluff about the Empire of the Severed which is supposed to be a serious threat, but they never expanded on it.
Which is a pity, because that Empire sounds great.
Avatar 720 wrote: Coming from a fiction-writing background, New is far and away the best in terms of character and scope. Old was certainly tighter, but it's difficult to have lore issues with a race whose only concern is getting from A to B and reducing everything between that point into very very small little bits, preferably without missing a step. There's so much more you can do with Newcrons, even if the official lore is now more spotty and inconsistent as a result.
I'll half disagree. I like that there is the availability for personality between lords, although I'd argue there was room for that in Oldcron lore. I find the Newcron personalities disappointingly anthropomorphic and comic-bookey.
Most races in 40k, sans tyranids, are aranthropomorphic. Eldar are arrogant aristocrats, Orks are violent thugs, tau are essentially humans indoctrinated to accept the state as the greater good, etc.
They were initially fine. A strange menace far, far away. A threat - but a hidden one.
Then slowly but surely the fluff got developed and became stupid. The C'Tan were built up to be ludicrously powerful and were behind almost everything - to the point where they were probably more fluff important than the Chaos Gods. Now I don't mind people saying the Chaos gods are boring - I wax and wane on that - but for 2nd ed at least they were the setting. These quiet retcons to insert the Necrons into everything grated on me.
It would be like if GW brought out the H'rud and then had to explain how they were secretly behind the Horus Heresy because you know, these guys are cool, buy them, go on, pls.
Yeah, this is a big part of why I dislike them being shoehorned in the setting.
I liked the general concept of the Oldcrons better, being an obscure menace with unknown motivations.
Newcrons got some nice characters and designs, but just as much - if not more - terrible stuff. The general aesthetic shift towards an emphasis on oriental designs is hit and miss, and some units just look plain silly (Tomb Blades, both Barges with their silly little pilots).
Lore-wise, Newcrons ruined all the mystery the Necrons once had and turned them into a fairly generic "former galactic overlords fallen from grace" kind of deal. I appreciate the characterization for some of their special characters and I think they would have been enough to keep the balance between providing more context and keeping the ominous nature of the Necrons.
"I don't like the new fluff, but if they were to change them back I'd keep the one character who most epitomizes everything they changed about the fluff because he's awesome".
"I don't like the new fluff, but if they were to change them back I'd keep the one character who most epitomizes everything they changed about the fluff because he's awesome".
I keep reading that people liked the Oldcron lore because of the "Unfathomable, cosmic horror" aspect, and I thought that was the most limiting (read: not worst) parts of the lore. Any interaction with Oldcrons in the lore borderline-necessitated their enemies be Mary Sues/clad in Plot Armour, because of how much the lore hyped them up. Simultaneously, there's a reason why Lovecraft's stories always end the same way. While the interactions of others with them may differ a multitude of ways, there's genuinely not a lot you can do with these types of characters in of themselves.
Phaeron Gukk wrote: I keep reading that people liked the Oldcron lore because of the "Unfathomable, cosmic horror" aspect, and I thought that was the most limiting (read: not worst) parts of the lore. Any interaction with Oldcrons in the lore borderline-necessitated their enemies be Mary Sues/clad in Plot Armour, because of how much the lore hyped them up. Simultaneously, there's a reason why Lovecraft's stories always end the same way. While the interactions of others with them may differ a multitude of ways, there's genuinely not a lot you can do with these types of characters in of themselves.
How's that changed? When they can time travel for lolz there's no reason for them to lose now either.
"I don't like the new fluff, but if they were to change them back I'd keep the one character who most epitomizes everything they changed about the fluff because he's awesome".
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The new Necron fluff works at least though, where you have the Lords with their own motives, and some still under the impression they're slaves to the CTan.
As well, no matter how you feel, Trazyn is like the best piece of fluff to exist in this game and anyone that disagrees is wrong.
I've always found Trazyn to be really stupid and the liking for him just goes over my head. But then I like Space Wolves so apparently I'm weird.
He has been memed to death somewhat but he is definitely an interesting character that fits well with the Necrons, both old and new. He is preserving history (or as he puts it "collecting time"), the grand curator of the galaxy's most significant events and individuals preserved for all time by him.
This is great with the unknowable foe of the Oldcrons as I suspect we would get no greater insight as to why he is on this quest? To appease his C'tan masters? Because his programming said so? Some more sinister reason? So the Oldcrons are harvesting you atom by atom, but there's this one guy who wants one specific person. Why? The horror element that can come from that is wonderful
As for the Newcrons. The same. But he has a certain... majesty about him that his quest is somewhat noble in his own head. He is preserving all this for the benefit of his own species, for when they all finally reawaken. His meeting with Bile in Clonelord highlights the horror element again. Trazyn appears to study his targets for some time before "preserving" them. Bile even in a way calls out the meme
“Madness,’ he said flatly. ‘All of this – madness. You boast of power, but you are nothing more than a thief. And perhaps not even that.’
Trazyn stiffened.
‘Are you the being you were, before you were poured into the metal sarcophagus, or are you merely the ghost of who and what you once were?’ Fabius turned slowly, keeping the pacing metal figure in sight.
‘The same might be said of you – are you even yourself, or are you merely a copy of a copy of a copy, the faded imprint of a thing long dead?’ Trazyn said.
Fabius froze.”
That seems a little terrifying to me, an eccentric; somewhat unstoppable alien being that has intel on his target well before he goes in. How long has he been watching you for?
Don't get your background from gakky Youtube shows and 1D4chan. Trazyn is more than a meme and can fit the Oldcrons to a T.
I've looked at it as Oldcrons was from the 3rd Edition fluff, and almost all of 3rd Ed codices was written from the perspective of the Imperium. In 5th Edition, they started writing the codices from the perspective of the faction itself, as if you were the member of the faction getting your historical primer. Nothing is lost except innocence.
Oldcron fluff is not superior to Newcron fluff, nor is it inferior. They are just from a different perspective. Everyone loves hot dogs until they learn how they are made. Oldcron fluff was bare-boned, that is not superior as it requires the reader to fill it in. Newcron fluff is deemed inferior because it shows an aspect of a horror that isn't really that horrifying.
Duskweaver wrote: The Oldcron fluff was massively superior. Unfathomably ancient cosmic horror beats Tomb Kings In Space every time.
But hardly anyone wanted to collect and play them. Their sales figues were abysmal. When I worked for GW in the 3rd/4th edition days, I don't think I encountered anyone who denied that the Necron fluff was awesome, but nobody I knew actually played them as an army. There was no real room for thematic customisation, since the entire faction had exactly two properly sapient characters that you could include in your army. You either played the Deceiver's mindless puppets, or the Nightbringer's mindless puppets, or just a bunch of mindless puppets out on their own for some reason. And the people who didn't mind playing an army of mindless puppets already had perfectly good Tyranid armies. The old Necrons and C'tan were fantastic as part of the setting's background. They utterly failed as a playable faction.
GW didn't change the Necron/C'tan fluff because people disliked the old fluff. They changed it because the old fluff didn't encourage people to collect and play Necrons. And that's the only reaason for fluff to exist, as far as GW is concerned. It's just marketing for the minis.
Not true. The actual statement would be that the Oldcron fluff didn't encourage anyone to collect and play them despite their mechanical deficiencies. If they had released the 5th Edition codex without changing the perspective of the fluff (which would chop out about 90% of the fluff there), but kept the mechanics, you would have seen the same rise in popularity as they experienced. If the fluff of the 5th Edition Necrons was available in 3rd Edition, they still would have been as sparsely seen.
The 3rd Ed Necron's mechanics were extremely strong, but severely limited by a lack of customization outside of the Lords and one single rule: Phase Out. Aside from the Lords, the only customization in the army was to basically give melee gauss to a couple of units or for Destroyers to include a Heavy Destroyer in the unit (which was a Destroyer with a heavier gun). With the Phase Out rule, if you added a powerful C'tan, Monolith, or Pariahs, you made your army much easier to defeat. If you added another, you were even easier to defeat. As someone pointed out, you only had to kill 75% of the NECRON models, of which the C'tan, Monolith, and Pariahs were not.
So, no. Fluff had little to do with the lack of Necron players or their increase. It was all about the customization and the mechanics. At the most, the only new fluff that affected customization was the introduction of the Dynasties and their various colour schemes. Since this is already a game which encouraged you to paint your way, that was a minor consideration.
JNAProductions wrote: And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.
At least they have a lot more options than they used to, even if customization within those options are minimal. The entire stat page of the 3rd Ed army was a little less than half a page at large font. Troops was literally one single unit. Elites, Heavy Support, and Fast Attack were three units each, with Pariahs being a one choice per army. And at least the old Phase Out rule isn't affecting army builds any more, either.
JNAProductions wrote: And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.
At least they have a lot more options than they used to, even if customization within those options are minimal. The entire stat page of the 3rd Ed army was a little less than half a page at large font. Troops was literally one single unit. Elites, Heavy Support, and Fast Attack were three units each, with Pariahs being a one choice per army. And at least the old Phase Out rule isn't affecting army builds any more, either.
Yeah, as someone who played 3rd ed necrons, I can say that the main problem wasn't the fluff or the lack of customization, but the army structure. The gauss rule was nice and compensated for the lack of special weapons options, but you still had fewer unit types than everyone else, they were pretty much all metal in single blisters, and ergo bloody expensive, and you had that stupid phase out rule which pretty much gimped your army if you wanted to take any of the more interesting options.
The fact they didn't get a new codex until near the end of 5th didn't help matters.
JNAProductions wrote: And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.
At least they have a lot more options than they used to, even if customization within those options are minimal. The entire stat page of the 3rd Ed army was a little less than half a page at large font. Troops was literally one single unit. Elites, Heavy Support, and Fast Attack were three units each, with Pariahs being a one choice per army. And at least the old Phase Out rule isn't affecting army builds any more, either.
Yeah, as someone who played 3rd ed necrons, I can say that the main problem wasn't the fluff or the lack of customization, but the army structure.
The gauss rule was nice and compensated for the lack of special weapons options, but you still had fewer unit types than everyone else, they were pretty much all metal in single blisters, and ergo bloody expensive, and you had that stupid phase out rule which pretty much gimped your army if you wanted to take any of the more interesting options.
The fact they didn't get a new codex until near the end of 5th didn't help matters.
Phase Out could be quite easily mitigated with taking 2 of each unit and Tomb Spyders. Both helped dramatically in making sure your units remained on the board.
I have played necrons since 3rd edition and they were my first army. Absolutely loved the faceless, high-tech, robot, borg, terminator vibes the faction had. The only thing that the newcron lore does better than the oldcron lore is the fact that lords are sapient and actually have a personality, which IMO should have been a thing in the oldcron lore. If I could take oldcron lore with sapient lords, and none of the internal strife or "diplomaticness" of the newcron lore I would do so in a heartbeat.
People made fun of the Blood Angels and necrons teaming up to take on the tyranids back in 5th edition or so, but I thought it was a cool story that breathed a little color into an otherwise kinda lifeless faction. I think they went a little overboard with how willing they were to make necrons that diplomatic in the newcron lore. Necrons working together with humanity should be the once in a blue moon exception, rather than the somewhat common thing it has become. Outside of those exceptions they should consider us pond-scum, maybe interesting and "novel" pond-scum, but still pond-scum that needs to be wiped out of existence. Think janeway making a deal with the borg collective in voyager, like that kinda thing. Outside of those interactions their only communications to humanity should be along the lines of "you will all be exterminated". They should also absolutely despise the Eldar considering that the Eldar fought alongside the old ones. I also miss their mastery over digital technology, and think they should subvert Imperial machines that rely on digital computers like aircraft or advanced vehicles by "hacking" them by simply being around, it should confuse the gak out of the tech priests.
w1zard wrote: I have played necrons since 3rd edition and they were my first army. Absolutely loved the faceless, high-tech, robot, borg, terminator vibes the faction had. The only thing that the newcron lore does better than the oldcron lore is the fact that lords are sapient and actually have a personality, which IMO should have been a thing in the oldcron lore. If I could take oldcron lore with sapient lords, and none of the internal strife or "diplomaticness" of the newcron lore I would do so in a heartbeat.
They did put in the sapient lords into the Oldcrons. It was in either the 4th or 5th ed rulebook where they described how the phase out process removed a degree of the Necron's intelligence each time it happened- hence why the chaff units like Warriors were mindless automata due to being destroyed multiple times and higher ups like the Lords retained much of their personalities from their previous lives.
Grimtuff wrote: They did put in the sapient lords into the Oldcrons. It was in either the 4th or 5th ed rulebook where they described how the phase out process removed a degree of the Necron's intelligence each time it happened- hence why the chaff units like Warriors were mindless automata due to being destroyed multiple times and higher ups like the Lords retained much of their personalities from their previous lives.
There was no 4th edition necron book, and the 5th edition necron book was the start of the "newcrons".
Grimtuff wrote: They did put in the sapient lords into the Oldcrons. It was in either the 4th or 5th ed rulebook where they described how the phase out process removed a degree of the Necron's intelligence each time it happened- hence why the chaff units like Warriors were mindless automata due to being destroyed multiple times and higher ups like the Lords retained much of their personalities from their previous lives.
There was no 4th edition necron book, and the 5th edition necron book was the start of the "newcrons".
RULEBOOK my friend. Rulebook.
There was a primer for each army in the Rulebooks. Just like there is now.
JNAProductions wrote: And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.
At least they have a lot more options than they used to, even if customization within those options are minimal. The entire stat page of the 3rd Ed army was a little less than half a page at large font. Troops was literally one single unit. Elites, Heavy Support, and Fast Attack were three units each, with Pariahs being a one choice per army. And at least the old Phase Out rule isn't affecting army builds any more, either.
Yeah, as someone who played 3rd ed necrons, I can say that the main problem wasn't the fluff or the lack of customization, but the army structure. The gauss rule was nice and compensated for the lack of special weapons options, but you still had fewer unit types than everyone else, they were pretty much all metal in single blisters, and ergo bloody expensive, and you had that stupid phase out rule which pretty much gimped your army if you wanted to take any of the more interesting options.
The fact they didn't get a new codex until near the end of 5th didn't help matters.
Phase Out could be quite easily mitigated with taking 2 of each unit and Tomb Spyders. Both helped dramatically in making sure your units remained on the board.
That still doesn't leave much room for anything else though, unless you are playing higher than 2k points. Remember that Necron warriors were 18pts each, had a base unit size of 10, and were the only troops choice. 360 points had to go to troops alone.
w1zard wrote: I have played necrons since 3rd edition and they were my first army. Absolutely loved the faceless, high-tech, robot, borg, terminator vibes the faction had. The only thing that the newcron lore does better than the oldcron lore is the fact that lords are sapient and actually have a personality, which IMO should have been a thing in the oldcron lore. If I could take oldcron lore with sapient lords, and none of the internal strife or "diplomaticness" of the newcron lore I would do so in a heartbeat.
They did put in the sapient lords into the Oldcrons. It was in either the 4th or 5th ed rulebook where they described how the phase out process removed a degree of the Necron's intelligence each time it happened- hence why the chaff units like Warriors were mindless automata due to being destroyed multiple times and higher ups like the Lords retained much of their personalities from their previous lives.
Huh, that does sound right. I could have sworn reading something like that prior to the reboot. I'm too lazy to go dig up the books though.
Phase Out could be quite easily mitigated with taking 2 of each unit and Tomb Spyders. Both helped dramatically in making sure your units remained on the board.
That still doesn't leave much room for anything else though, unless you are playing higher than 2k points.
Remember that Necron warriors were 18pts each, had a base unit size of 10, and were the only troops choice.
360 points had to go to troops alone.
List at 1750pts I used to run (going from memory here) in 5th ed. was
Deceiver, Destroyer Lord with res orb and warscythe, 2x units of 5 Immortals, 2x units of 10 warriors, 2x units of 3 wraiths, 2x units of a single heavy destroyer and 2x tomb spyders.
Did quite well with it as Deceiver was there to feth with deployment (esp. when playing dawn of war deployment in 5th. Deploy first and put a single unit of warriors as far forward as possible (enemy couldn't deploy within 24" of them) then use grand illusion to pull them back) and the spyders helped dramatically with stopping units from being deleted. Remember that you only had to have a another Necron unit of the same type on the battlefield (and the spyder in range) rather than 6" as the spyder teleported them over.
Ah, well at my GW gaming store at the time there was a limit of 750pts. That was the highest they'll let anyone play. So my options were a little more limited.
JNAProductions wrote: And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.
I feel like a measure of uniformity is important to the theming of the army. I certainly wouldn't want the tenth guy in a Warrior squad to have a special weapon.
JNAProductions wrote: And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.
I feel like a measure of uniformity is important to the theming of the army. I certainly wouldn't want the tenth guy in a Warrior squad to have a special weapon.
It would probably be fine for Immortals and Destroyers though. Immortals are the sort of unit that would have a special or heavy weapon, being "basic soldiers" and destroyers should have access to melee weapons, tesla destructor and pretty much heavy weapon bar the deathray and doomsday cannon. Though knowing destroyers, there's bound to be one crazy bastard trying to weld a Doomsday Ark to himself.
It would probably be fine for Immortals and Destroyers though.
Immortals are the sort of unit that would have a special or heavy weapon, being "basic soldiers" and destroyers should have access to melee weapons, tesla destructor and pretty much heavy weapon bar the deathray and doomsday cannon. Though knowing destroyers, there's bound to be one crazy bastard trying to weld a Doomsday Ark to himself.
(Mad) Idea: What if one in every 10 Immortals could be upgraded to a Destroyer?
I don't think I'd want to see Immortals with a special weapons guy either; imo the general mechanical theme of the army (other than being sturdy) is "we don't need special weapons because our basic guns are better than yours". I'd rather GW took the steps to make sure that is actually true (IE fixing the gauss and tesla rules to be more practical) than to give the fifth Immortal a plasma gun.
I'd definitely approve of Destroyers having different weapon options for melee and tesla in the same vein as Immortals having different options for their basic gun, though. It is pretty weird that Destroyers have so much counter synergy with the Destroyer Lord.
It would probably be fine for Immortals and Destroyers though.
Immortals are the sort of unit that would have a special or heavy weapon, being "basic soldiers" and destroyers should have access to melee weapons, tesla destructor and pretty much heavy weapon bar the deathray and doomsday cannon. Though knowing destroyers, there's bound to be one crazy bastard trying to weld a Doomsday Ark to himself.
(Mad) Idea: What if one in every 10 Immortals could be upgraded to a Destroyer?
Nah, that would be clunky. Destroyers have double the movement and are like 3 times the size. It wouldn't play well, both physically and mechanically.
JNAProductions wrote: And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.
I feel like a measure of uniformity is important to the theming of the army. I certainly wouldn't want the tenth guy in a Warrior squad to have a special weapon.
Oddly enough, some of the customization has changed since 3rd Edition to 5th Edition, and I'm not even talking about what the Lords could do.
Immortals changed to Troops, now there is a choice of Troops.
Warriors and Flayed Ones lost Disruption Field options.
Immortals, Wraiths, and Spyders gained new gun options.
Pariahs downgraded from their anti-psyker role and converted to Lychguard who can choose between Halberds and sword and board.
And that's just what existed from before. The addition of the Praetorians, Blades, Scythes, Crytpeks (who lost customization in 7th), Deathmarks, Stalkers, Arks, and Barges helped provide considerations as to what to include in each slot.
Sure, it doesn't match what options a Space Marine Squad can do internally (nor should it, unless we go Eldar and have adding Lords/Crypteks to units as sergeants/champions), but it is a far improvement of customization over their early beginnings.
Nah, that would be clunky. Destroyers have double the movement and are like 3 times the size. It wouldn't play well, both physically and mechanically.
I was assuming there wouldn't be any new Necron models any time soon, but if we're presuming GW will stop making Primaris Lieutenants long enough to put out some Necron Models, there are
probably better options.
Also, the D-Lord just needs to have an Extermination Protocol version of My Will Be Done. Hell, I'd take a (tiny) points hike for that if needs be.
JNAProductions wrote: And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.
I feel like a measure of uniformity is important to the theming of the army. I certainly wouldn't want the tenth guy in a Warrior squad to have a special weapon.
Oddly enough, some of the customization has changed since 3rd Edition to 5th Edition, and I'm not even talking about what the Lords could do.
Spyders gained new gun options.
.
Not quite. They gained twin particle beamers, but they lost the particle projector
JNAProductions wrote: And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.
I feel like a measure of uniformity is important to the theming of the army. I certainly wouldn't want the tenth guy in a Warrior squad to have a special weapon.
Oddly enough, some of the customization has changed since 3rd Edition to 5th Edition, and I'm not even talking about what the Lords could do.
Immortals changed to Troops, now there is a choice of Troops.
Warriors and Flayed Ones lost Disruption Field options.
Immortals, Wraiths, and Spyders gained new gun options.
Pariahs downgraded from their anti-psyker role and converted to Lychguard who can choose between Halberds and sword and board.
And that's just what existed from before. The addition of the Praetorians, Blades, Scythes, Crytpeks (who lost customization in 7th), Deathmarks, Stalkers, Arks, and Barges helped provide considerations as to what to include in each slot.
Sure, it doesn't match what options a Space Marine Squad can do internally (nor should it, unless we go Eldar and have adding Lords/Crypteks to units as sergeants/champions), but it is a far improvement of customization over their early beginnings.
This isn't really the type of customization I'm talking about; it's more the "four of your dudes have a crappy gun so the fifth guy has a really good gun" most other armies use. Lychguard can choose to have the shield or the warscythe, but you can't give your fifth lychguard a voidscythe. Necrons don't have sergeants and you're generally encouraged to use the same wargear on every model in a unit, which is a mechanical choice that leads to a distinct aesthetic that is very different from most other armies in this game that I really like.
While Oldcrons had cool lore and models, the lore really couldn't GO anywhere, there is only so much that cold, emotionless, robots bent on harvesting souls for their ever-hungry star gods could actually do. TBH it was a boring faction that was pretty much the same as Tyranids in goals. Terminators are cool, don't get me wrong, but even Skynet had more personality than the Oldcrons did.
While I AM biased since my army in WHFB was Tomb Kings, I like the Newcrons beyond just the similar styles in models, their personal goals just make much more sense. There are glitches from the Great Sleep, many Lords and Overlords have outright gone mad, those that hadn't are lusting for power beyond their original station. It is all just more interesting IMO. I love that old timey Feudal feel of it all. I like that C'Tan have been powered down as well, playing the Galactic Embodiment of Death Itself, didn't really fit on the tabletop TBH, and now that it is just a SHARD of the Nightbringer, it makes its power feel more realistic (as realistic as it can get in 40klol).
I understand a lot of older Necron players preferred the Old Lore and everything, and I am not trying to knock it, but I understand WHY GW retconnned them. They still have a lot of the old Terminator vibe to them (Like Destroyer Cults in the Lore), it is not like they completely abandoned the main story points.
Arachnofiend wrote: It is pretty weird that Destroyers have so much counter synergy with the Destroyer Lord.
I think a big part of the problem is the new fluff.
Previously, Destroyer Lords were just the equivalent of jetbike HQs for other factions. The only difference was that, being machines, they swapped out their legs for a Destroyer body, rather than riding something.
In the new fluff, Destroyers (including Lords) are practically a different species of Necrons. They're now insane dalek things that just want to exterminate everything.
The problem is that this has left the Destroyer Lord isolated from everything else in the army. So rather than being able to buff anything, he's limited to buffing two ranged units - in spite of the fact that he can only be built as a melee unit. He'd be infinitely better if he had the same reroll 1s to-wound aura as the Necron Lord. That would let him buff stuff like Wraiths and Scarabs.
Of course, there are parts of his design that can't be blamed on the new fluff - like the fact that his aura only buffs ranged attacks. Yeah, that's fun on a melee unit.
Arachnofiend wrote: It is pretty weird that Destroyers have so much counter synergy with the Destroyer Lord.
I think a big part of the problem is the new fluff.
Previously, Destroyer Lords were just the equivalent of jetbike HQs for other factions. The only difference was that, being machines, they swapped out their legs for a Destroyer body, rather than riding something.
In the new fluff, Destroyers (including Lords) are practically a different species of Necrons. They're now insane dalek things that just want to exterminate everything.
The problem is that this has left the Destroyer Lord isolated from everything else in the army. So rather than being able to buff anything, he's limited to buffing two ranged units - in spite of the fact that he can only be built as a melee unit. He'd be infinitely better if he had the same reroll 1s to-wound aura as the Necron Lord. That would let him buff stuff like Wraiths and Scarabs.
Of course, there are parts of his design that can't be blamed on the new fluff - like the fact that his aura only buffs ranged attacks. Yeah, that's fun on a melee unit.
Yeah, that's weird. There's a lot of design flaws with the necron codex. Whoever designed it didn't think things through.
The "newcrons" have some horror all their own, but it's kinda subtle.
The necrons are machines, but they are also driven by all to human failings. Arrogance, greed, selfishness, hate, pettiness, spite, cruelty, etc.
They embody the soullessness of machines and the worst of humanity, no compassion, no empathy, but still capable of all the negative aspects of being people.
They are the worst of both worlds in a sense. They're even in some ways worse than tyranids. As Ripley said of the Aliens: "At least you don't see them XXXXing each other over for a goddam percentage."
The necrons will eagerly XXXX each other over for less than a percentage, for spite, jealously, selfishness, etc.
Another aspect of the necron horror is that they may still retain some decency, some spark of "humanity" inside them, and that can still feel remorse, sorrow, loss,. pain, etc.
The Silent King himself disdained the destroyers for being too cruel, and said "I am a soulless machine, yet even I pity their victims."
The silent king may retain enough of himself to realize what a horror his people have become and be driven to do all he can to repair the wrong he lead them to, yet be doomed to be forever unable to.
So yes, the newcrons have a certain horror to them, made more evident by the fact the AM rushes to attain the state they have achieved, not knowing what awaits them.
I don't find the new or revamped Necron fluff or lore particularly good. Since it's nothing to impress, I prefer the old fluff (or lack thereof). The stuff you don't understand is often far scarier than the stuff you do. It also lends itself more to people who want to create their own narrative of why the Necrons are rising and what they actually are. Not to mention they were generally much stronger than the Necrons now. Nigh unstoppable depending on what your army build was. I'm speaking of the 2nd edition lore. Also, I generally dislike GW's continuing passion to link every single race somehow to eachother. It's unnecessary in something the size of the galaxy/universe and is just...lazy. It doesn't add anything trying to justify why Orks or Eldar or Necrons were created. It's even worse trying to shoe-horn them all in together. It doesn't add anything to the fluff or lore, it diminishes it in fact.
But they're not human, they should have no humanity.
They only have the form they have (hence the models when they came out) because the Nightbringer chose it as it most terrified their enemies, the creations of the Old Ones.
That throws the true form of the Necrontyr into doubt, assuming old lore. And I personally love that far more that the arrogant nobles they are now.
Blndmage wrote: But they're not human, they should have no humanity.
They only have the form they have (hence the models when they came out) because the Nightbringer chose it as it most terrified their enemies, the creations of the Old Ones.
That throws the true form of the Necrontyr into doubt, assuming old lore. And I personally love that far more that the arrogant nobles they are now.
"
Humanity" meant any sort of understandable human feelings. The necrons seem to have ther negative ones, not the poisitivce one/s
JNAProductions wrote: And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.
I feel like a measure of uniformity is important to the theming of the army. I certainly wouldn't want the tenth guy in a Warrior squad to have a special weapon.
Oddly enough, some of the customization has changed since 3rd Edition to 5th Edition, and I'm not even talking about what the Lords could do.
Spyders gained new gun options.
.
Not quite. They gained twin particle beamers, but they lost the particle projector
3rd Ed, Wraiths only had claws and tail without even the option for the Disruption Field. 5th Ed, they could take a Particle Caster or a Transdimencional Beamer. That classifies as "new" in my book.
JNAProductions wrote: And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.
I feel like a measure of uniformity is important to the theming of the army. I certainly wouldn't want the tenth guy in a Warrior squad to have a special weapon.
Oddly enough, some of the customization has changed since 3rd Edition to 5th Edition, and I'm not even talking about what the Lords could do.
Immortals changed to Troops, now there is a choice of Troops.
Warriors and Flayed Ones lost Disruption Field options.
Immortals, Wraiths, and Spyders gained new gun options.
Pariahs downgraded from their anti-psyker role and converted to Lychguard who can choose between Halberds and sword and board.
And that's just what existed from before. The addition of the Praetorians, Blades, Scythes, Crytpeks (who lost customization in 7th), Deathmarks, Stalkers, Arks, and Barges helped provide considerations as to what to include in each slot.
Sure, it doesn't match what options a Space Marine Squad can do internally (nor should it, unless we go Eldar and have adding Lords/Crypteks to units as sergeants/champions), but it is a far improvement of customization over their early beginnings.
This isn't really the type of customization I'm talking about; it's more the "four of your dudes have a crappy gun so the fifth guy has a really good gun" most other armies use. Lychguard can choose to have the shield or the warscythe, but you can't give your fifth lychguard a voidscythe. Necrons don't have sergeants and you're generally encouraged to use the same wargear on every model in a unit, which is a mechanical choice that leads to a distinct aesthetic that is very different from most other armies in this game that I really like.
I know it isn't the customization you're talking about. What I was saying is that they had a LOT more customization that they used to have. In addition, with the introduction of the Overlords and Crypteks and the devaluing of Necron Lords, they actually had something similar to that until they removed the IC options from the game.
DudleyGrim wrote: While Oldcrons had cool lore and models, the lore really couldn't GO anywhere, there is only so much that cold, emotionless, robots bent on harvesting souls for their ever-hungry star gods could actually do. TBH it was a boring faction that was pretty much the same as Tyranids in goals. Terminators are cool, don't get me wrong, but even Skynet had more personality than the Oldcrons did.
Tyranids had as much personality, but they were quite favored up to their 5th Edition book. Do you know why? Because customization and options were rampant in those books while Necrons didn't have spit until their 5th Ed book. The Tyranid 3rd Ed book was so customizable that it was like you were role-playing Abathur from Starcraft 2. Their 4th ed book as a bit more limited, but you could still play around with things. Their 5th Ed book was actually extremely dry and boring in comparison. Quite an interesting comparison in army design between these two.
Yes, I know wraiths could only take claws. I was talking about and specified spyders.
In 3rd ed spyders could take a particle projector, which was a basically a staff of light.
In 5th ed and onwards that was replaced by the twin particle beamer.
Spyders always had a ranged option.
Having ranged options on wraiths is completely new though. Keep in mind that 3rd ed wraiths are not at the all the same as the current one.
3rd ed wraiths were pure necron, 5th+ wraiths are canoptek.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Yes, I know wraiths could only take claws. I was talking about and specified spyders.
In 3rd ed spyders could take a particle projector, which was a basically a staff of light.
In 5th ed and onwards that was replaced by the twin particle beamer.
Spyders always had a ranged option.
Apologies, I read Wraiths in there.
But that doesn't change that it was a new gun for the Spyder, and therefore a new gun option.
Oldcrons. I liked the mystery/facelessness with their lack of named characters and the dynasties, and many of the older models, wraiths in particular, just looked great.
I feel like this poll should have four options, two for each choice indicating whether you do or do not collect Necrons. I know some Necron players prefer Oldcrons but I'd be curious to see how many of the ardent Oldcron supporters are Imperium players who think they made a cool antagonist.
I'm torn. I wish that they would have went half as far as they did. Virtually no information of the Oldcrons obviously needed to be developed a bit further to encourage people to customize their armies, get into the faction, etc., as so many other posters have said. I wish that they had expanded the model line (most of which I personally find fantastic) and given some information about the waking up process, then provided human/inquisition/whatever theories on their origin, goals, and motivations, without actually committing to such a bland story. You could elude to the war in heaven, the possibility that they fought against the Old Ones, develop some special characters about which the imperium has collected information on. Basically, walk the line between providing information so people can sandbox and develop their own head cannon without destroying the mystery.
I don't really get what people are saying with the Necrons having bland motivations and whatnot. The Necrons don't... have a unified motivation? That's kinda the whole point, the dynasties are so fractured that nobody can agree on what the Necrons should be doing right now. Szarekh wants to eradicate the Tyranids. Imotekh wants to expand the Sautekh's territory to the galaxy-spanning Necron army of old. Trazyn wants to ensure the younger races don't destroy everything of significance in their stupidity. Xun'bakyr has essentially the same "destroy all life" motivations as Oldcrons, it's just that she's in charge rather than some gakky star god.
Arachnofiend wrote: I feel like this poll should have four options, two for each choice indicating whether you do or do not collect Necrons. I know some Necron players prefer Oldcrons but I'd be curious to see how many of the ardent Oldcron supporters are Imperium players who think they made a cool antagonist.
I was building an Oldcron force to fight my High Eldar, essentially forces that were trapped outside the Galaxy since the War in Heaven. I used Tomb Kings parts even though I'm not a fan of Newcron Tomb Kings fluff. I bought a plastic banshee to convert into the Deceiver, but later upgraded to a Necro Sphinx to use as my own C'Tan, The Sphinx. I love the newer plastics for the most part, but really miss the bigger scale of the old fluff, the feeling of inevitability.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I also bought a BFg force for them.
BlaxicanX wrote: Vague anecdotes like "they were nicely customized" and "they had personalities" with no examples given to quantify those statements isn't very meaningful.
Ok firstly, have you read the codex. The first part about personalities is in there. Although it is also mentioned in several white dwarves. Unfortunatly the new zealand and Japanese white dwarves often Have different articles so even if I could remember which ones it wouldnt help much. I'm almost dead certain it says something about it under the lord description in the codex though. As for nicely customized, ever heard of google bro. I mean honestly, have you ever even read the codex? Did you even play / play against oldcrons? If not, why are you even in this discussion?
There were plenty of stories about Necronlords with personalities. Xenology, That Gav Thorpe story with Neoggeddon, Dead Men Walking to some extent, and blurbs in white dwarf and various rule books. They were about as well (sporadically) represented in BL fiction at the time as the Tau or Tyranids, and no one complains about those factions.
Arachnofiend wrote: I don't really get what people are saying with the Necrons having bland motivations and whatnot. The Necrons don't... have a unified motivation? That's kinda the whole point, the dynasties are so fractured that nobody can agree on what the Necrons should be doing right now. Szarekh wants to eradicate the Tyranids. Imotekh wants to expand the Sautekh's territory to the galaxy-spanning Necron army of old. Trazyn wants to ensure the younger races don't destroy everything of significance in their stupidity. Xun'bakyr has essentially the same "destroy all life" motivations as Oldcrons, it's just that she's in charge rather than some gakky star god.
I rather feel the same way. In fact, I feel it gives more opportunities to sand box a dynasty than the 3rd Edition Codex did because it gave you a set of personalities you could bounce off of.
I started collecting Necrons about six months before their 7th Edition book was released, but I had been fascinated them since started studying about 40K to collect roughly around 4th Edition's launch. My approach was as a dynasty whose awakening tended to view races not around during the War in Heaven as citizens of the Necrons who were fighting against their upgrade, and set about collecting them for conversion to feed the War in Heaven. As a joke, I even considered painting the Ghost Ark as a Yellow Taxi and the Doomsday Ark as a Domino's pizza delivery vehicle.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: There were plenty of stories about Necronlords with personalities. Xenology, That Gav Thorpe story with Neoggeddon, Dead Men Walking to some extent, and blurbs in white dwarf and various rule books. They were about as well (sporadically) represented in BL fiction at the time as the Tau or Tyranids, and no one complains about those factions.
Those personalities outside Xenology are frickin vague though.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: There were plenty of stories about Necronlords with personalities. Xenology, That Gav Thorpe story with Neoggeddon, Dead Men Walking to some extent, and blurbs in white dwarf and various rule books. They were about as well (sporadically) represented in BL fiction at the time as the Tau or Tyranids, and no one complains about those factions.
Those personalities outside Xenology are frickin vague though.
Yes, but that was because no one in GW or BL wanted to devote much time to them. The potential was there. There were story hooks about crazy Necronlords wanting to fight the C'Tan or regain their flesh or rebuild their empires or enslave humanity and convert them into Necrons, but you had to sort through a lot of sources to find them. If they had been in a quarter of the stories that Chaos got in the same period, those Necrons would have been pretty well fleshed out.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And that's ignoring the C'Tan. The Deceiver was fun. The strange relationship between him and The Laughing God bore years of fruit for fan theorists, as did the Dragon buried on Mars playing the Machine God, inspiring the Mechanicus, the DAOT and the Men of Iron.
I picked newcrons but I really wish they would start acting like a semi intelligent race. They are frequently outnumbered and ill prepared for conflict. An intelligent being would look at his situation and conclude that military action is probably unwise at this time. So what do they do? Oh, stupid aliens are on my rock. Gotta fufill my kill subroutine protocol. Or how about attack their equally ill prepared neighbor in the hope that your forces won't be pounded into scrap even in the event of your victory. Or monolog like some bond villan right before suisiding into Ultramar or some equally stupid and arbitrary target.
in a galaxy filled to the brim with potential cannon fodder who are poorly treated and usually looking for an excuse to revolt. Where is the overlord that's just murderizing the hell out of imperial planetary governors and using the humans to fortify his domain. Hell, best thing would be to make him really good at it. Like he's just extremely good at running and defending the world's he conquers. To the point that his new subjects prefer slavery under their new zenos overlord to citizenship in the Imperium. Would be hilarious if a few dozen world's killed their own governors and willingly submitted to Notamorontehp the Practical
Or how about a bunch of overlords banding together because that's just a good survival strategy and that really should be the name of the game.
Or how about just bideing your time and rebuilding your forces untill Ultramar can't stop you. I mean, they are immortal. It's not as if they don't have time in overabundance. Do they HAVE to go all "get off my lawn!" The second they realize there is an intruder nearby?
Point is, they aren't behaving like arrogant bastards. They are acting like idiots by and large. And that makes their current lore meaningless. I chose newcrons because it has more potential than a gang of rampaging killbots. But all the potential in the world won't save them from writing that makes them seem incompetent.
Merkabah wrote: I chose newcrons because it has more potential than a gang of rampaging killbots.
Rampaging, hyperintelligent, super-efficient killbots, filled with a hatred of all other forms of life that would put a dalek to shame, with the patronage of cthulu-esque monsters that make the chaos gods look like gretchin in comparison. Yea I really miss the old lore.
Merkabah wrote: I chose newcrons because it has more potential than a gang of rampaging killbots.
Rampaging, hyperintelligent, super-efficient killbots, filled with a hatred of all other forms of life that would put a dalek to shame, with the patronage of cthulu-esque monsters that make the chaos gods look like gretchin in comparison. Yea I really miss the old lore.
Still feels a lot like Tyranids but chrome. But whatever floats your boat man.
Merkabah wrote: I chose newcrons because it has more potential than a gang of rampaging killbots.
Rampaging, hyperintelligent, super-efficient killbots, filled with a hatred of all other forms of life that would put a dalek to shame, with the patronage of cthulu-esque monsters that make the chaos gods look like gretchin in comparison. Yea I really miss the old lore.
Still feels a lot like Tyranids but chrome. But whatever floats your boat man.
By that measure, the Newcrons are just metal Eldar. If you refuse to engage with the material, any army can be summed up in one pithy line.
Merkabah wrote: I chose newcrons because it has more potential than a gang of rampaging killbots.
Rampaging, hyperintelligent, super-efficient killbots, filled with a hatred of all other forms of life that would put a dalek to shame, with the patronage of cthulu-esque monsters that make the chaos gods look like gretchin in comparison. Yea I really miss the old lore.
Still feels a lot like Tyranids but chrome. But whatever floats your boat man.
Yeah, and newcrons are chrome humans with an Egypt fetish. I can be dismissive too, its not hard.
Merkabah wrote: I chose newcrons because it has more potential than a gang of rampaging killbots.
Rampaging, hyperintelligent, super-efficient killbots, filled with a hatred of all other forms of life that would put a dalek to shame, with the patronage of cthulu-esque monsters that make the chaos gods look like gretchin in comparison. Yea I really miss the old lore.
Still feels a lot like Tyranids but chrome. But whatever floats your boat man.
Yeah, and newcrons are chrome humans with an Egypt fetish. I can be dismissive too, its not hard.
Merkabah wrote: I picked newcrons but I really wish they would start acting like a semi intelligent race. They are frequently outnumbered and ill prepared for conflict. An intelligent being would look at his situation and conclude that military action is probably unwise at this time. So what do they do? Oh, stupid aliens are on my rock. Gotta fufill my kill subroutine protocol. Or how about attack their equally ill prepared neighbor in the hope that your forces won't be pounded into scrap even in the event of your victory. Or monolog like some bond villan right before suisiding into Ultramar or some equally stupid and arbitrary target.
in a galaxy filled to the brim with potential cannon fodder who are poorly treated and usually looking for an excuse to revolt. Where is the overlord that's just murderizing the hell out of imperial planetary governors and using the humans to fortify his domain. Hell, best thing would be to make him really good at it. Like he's just extremely good at running and defending the world's he conquers. To the point that his new subjects prefer slavery under their new zenos overlord to citizenship in the Imperium. Would be hilarious if a few dozen world's killed their own governors and willingly submitted to Notamorontehp the Practical
Or how about a bunch of overlords banding together because that's just a good survival strategy and that really should be the name of the game.
Or how about just bideing your time and rebuilding your forces untill Ultramar can't stop you. I mean, they are immortal. It's not as if they don't have time in overabundance. Do they HAVE to go all "get off my lawn!" The second they realize there is an intruder nearby?
Point is, they aren't behaving like arrogant bastards. They are acting like idiots by and large. And that makes their current lore meaningless. I chose newcrons because it has more potential than a gang of rampaging killbots. But all the potential in the world won't save them from writing that makes them seem incompetent.
Necrons can fight in a different strategic paradigm than other races. They engage, maybe "lose" the battle in a tactical senses take some casualties, inflict some casualties, phase out, then return shortly while he nemey is still missing the troops he lsot and the necron casualties have Ben repaired and restored.
That was perhaps the most contraversial part of the Oldcron lore: the Necrons were an Outside Context Problem in both quality and scale (FTL, no actual losses, perhaps raw numbers), hinted at becoming an enemy an order of magnitude more dangerous than any other foe for the Imperium (with the possible exception of Tyranids). At the "present" time of the codex, the Imperium was sending their soldiers and superhuman marines to fight while the Necrons were sending their farmers with varmint guns.
For understandable reasons, people who thought Chaos or Orks should have been an existential threat were peeved at their armies' place-putting. Now GW is catering to them, and my opinion of the current fluff is that it's horrible.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: That was perhaps the most contraversial part of the Oldcron lore: the Necrons were an Outside Context Problem in both quality and scale (FTL, no actual losses, perhaps raw numbers), hinted at becoming an enemy an order of magnitude more dangerous than any other foe for the Imperium (with the possible exception of Tyranids). At the "present" time of the codex, the Imperium was sending their soldiers and superhuman marines to fight while the Necrons were sending their farmers with varmint guns.
For understandable reasons, people who thought Chaos or Orks should have been an existential threat were peeved at their armies' place-putting. Now GW is catering to them, and my opinion of the current fluff is that it's horrible.
IDK, even in the old lore the tyranids were a comparable threat, because it was strongly hinted that the hive fleets previously encountered (even the one that wrecked Macragge) were "scouting fleets", and were nothing next to the full force of the tyranid hive about to descend on the galaxy from extragalactic space. It was also strongly hinted that the tyranids had devoured at least one other galaxy of all life and were now in a mass migration towards ours.
The orks were being united in a way they haven't been since the beast during the great crusade, under the banner of Ghazghkull. This signaled a return to power of the orks and a possible rebirth of the krork empire, one that was supposedly powerful enough to fight toe-to-toe with the necrons at the height of their power (even though they eventually lost). They are the perfect bioweapon, some might even say the perfect organic life-form, arguably even comparable to the tyranids.
Chaos has always been terrifying... extradimensional daemons that touch the mind of every sentient living thing except blanks. Chaos corrupts everything it touches, including supposedly the necrons who feared it so much they tried to cut off the warp from realspace permanently. Chaos was the Old One's final and most terrifying weapon unleashed against the necrons during the war in heaven as an act of desperation.
The necrons aren't at the height of their power anymore. The eons have dulled them. Enough for the other factions to beat them? Who knows? I fail to see how the other factions were feeling small next to the necrons even in the old lore. Every xeno faction was 11/10 on the "oh fething hell" chart except possibly the Eldar (both flavors) who were on the decline, and the T'au who were very young as an empire.
Merkabah wrote: I chose newcrons because it has more potential than a gang of rampaging killbots.
Rampaging, hyperintelligent, super-efficient killbots, filled with a hatred of all other forms of life that would put a dalek to shame, with the patronage of cthulu-esque monsters that make the chaos gods look like gretchin in comparison. Yea I really miss the old lore.
There was a tomb world in the old lore who's protocols were so predictable that the local guard regiment used them for drills.
I know it's very easy to get lost in the nostalgia but the original lore was just as capable of putting together stupid ideas that make the Necrons look bad as the new.
Merkabah wrote: I chose newcrons because it has more potential than a gang of rampaging killbots.
Rampaging, hyperintelligent, super-efficient killbots, filled with a hatred of all other forms of life that would put a dalek to shame, with the patronage of cthulu-esque monsters that make the chaos gods look like gretchin in comparison. Yea I really miss the old lore.
There was a tomb world in the old lore who's protocols were so predictable that the local guard regiment used them for drills.
I know it's very easy to get lost in the nostalgia but the original lore was just as capable of putting together stupid ideas that make the Necrons look bad as the new.
That was due to a AI error that caused the necrons to repeat their raiding protocols.
It captured the idea of alien machines better and was a lot less dumb than Don Quixote in space.
Merkabah wrote: I chose newcrons because it has more potential than a gang of rampaging killbots.
Rampaging, hyperintelligent, super-efficient killbots, filled with a hatred of all other forms of life that would put a dalek to shame, with the patronage of cthulu-esque monsters that make the chaos gods look like gretchin in comparison. Yea I really miss the old lore.
There was a tomb world in the old lore who's protocols were so predictable that the local guard regiment used them for drills.
I know it's very easy to get lost in the nostalgia but the original lore was just as capable of putting together stupid ideas that make the Necrons look bad as the new.
Merkabah wrote: I chose newcrons because it has more potential than a gang of rampaging killbots.
Rampaging, hyperintelligent, super-efficient killbots, filled with a hatred of all other forms of life that would put a dalek to shame, with the patronage of cthulu-esque monsters that make the chaos gods look like gretchin in comparison. Yea I really miss the old lore.
There was a tomb world in the old lore who's protocols were so predictable that the local guard regiment used them for drills.
I know it's very easy to get lost in the nostalgia but the original lore was just as capable of putting together stupid ideas that make the Necrons look bad as the new.
That's actually from the 5th ed Wardcron des.
Wasn't it from the 5th ed BRB, before the codex was released? I could have sworn I read it there first.
I have mixed feelings. I liked the Pariahs and the "mysterious incrutable aliens / terminator" vibe of the old style Necrons. But I despised the C'tan and am glad they got ripped to bits in the plot. Also current cannon seems to suggest the Necrons are the ultimate loser race who never ruled the galaxy and were almost always getting beat up by someone...
Cheeslord wrote: I have mixed feelings. I liked the Pariahs and the "mysterious incrutable aliens / terminator" vibe of the old style Necrons. But I despised the C'tan and am glad they got ripped to bits in the plot. Also current cannon seems to suggest the Necrons are the ultimate loser race who never ruled the galaxy and were almost always getting beat up by someone...
Its not clear, but I think they did rule the galaxy for a bit. Not for long though.
The new fluff isn't well written, so it may seem like they fought the C'tan right after beating the Old Ones, whereas you'd think they would spend some time preparing first.
Oldcrons were my first army, when they were released. I loved the stories, and I loved the rules, But I hated Phase out (for you younglings, "Phase Out" was a rule that meant when you were reduced to 25% of your models, the army just disappeared and the opponent won. it sucked.)
The old fluff was exceptional, I felt. The necrons were sleeping under the planets that humans built their empire on. Then they woke up, and started murdering everyone. if you killed them, they just teleported home to be fixed, then came back. their guns would strip you one layer at a time, until there was nothing left, feeding your matter back to the gun to power itself. flayed ones were corrupt, and draped themselves in skin to try and regain their mortality. The imperium didn't know anything about them, only that when they turned up, everyone died. it was so much more sinister than the tyranids, and was a much needed horror for the game, beyond chaos, which was more entertaining horror.
Now they fly around on croissants, use lightning guns and, apparently, talk. sinisterness out of the window. now just a race of robot space aliens.
I guess I am nearly the only one who liked the idea of the C'Tan in the old fluff? That the Necrontyr basically made a deal with the devil just to overcome their mortal limitations, rather than the Deceiver coming to the Silent King?
I like what they were trying to do with the new fluff, but it really makes Necrons too much of cookie-cutter villains, as many people here have already alluded to. The Silent King and Triarch stuff just feels like bad fluff feeding bad rules and then vice-versa.
If I was actually a talented writer, I'd attempt to bridge the gap and try to make new fluff that captures the essence of the old, with the more "personable" ideal of the new ,but it would also be a waste of time.
For the sake of an earlier request, I started Necrons in 4th edition, after getting into the miniatures game post-Dawn of War.
Cheeslord wrote: I have mixed feelings. I liked the Pariahs and the "mysterious incrutable aliens / terminator" vibe of the old style Necrons. But I despised the C'tan and am glad they got ripped to bits in the plot. Also current cannon seems to suggest the Necrons are the ultimate loser race who never ruled the galaxy and were almost always getting beat up by someone...
Its not clear, but I think they did rule the galaxy for a bit. Not for long though.
The new fluff isn't well written, so it may seem like they fought the C'tan right after beating the Old Ones, whereas you'd think they would spend some time preparing first.
My understanding was that the Necrons turned on the C'tan immediately after defeating the Old Ones, since that final epic battle would have been when the C'tan were at their weakest.
Of course, this in turn required the Necrons to blow their wad completely and put them in a position where they couldn't compete with the Eldar.
Cheeslord wrote: I have mixed feelings. I liked the Pariahs and the "mysterious incrutable aliens / terminator" vibe of the old style Necrons. But I despised the C'tan and am glad they got ripped to bits in the plot. Also current cannon seems to suggest the Necrons are the ultimate loser race who never ruled the galaxy and were almost always getting beat up by someone...
Its not clear, but I think they did rule the galaxy for a bit. Not for long though.
The new fluff isn't well written, so it may seem like they fought the C'tan right after beating the Old Ones, whereas you'd think they would spend some time preparing first.
My understanding was that the Necrons turned on the C'tan immediately after defeating the Old Ones, since that final epic battle would have been when the C'tan were at their weakest.
Of course, this in turn required the Necrons to blow their wad completely and put them in a position where they couldn't compete with the Eldar.
They could, but the Silent King thought it would be rather pyrrhic. Since time was now on THEIR side, he thought he'd give them time to self-destruct, and they rather did. Unfortunately, a rather upstart race came along in the meanwhile that seems to owe some patronage to both Old One and C'tan.
Newcrons are better. I liked the old fluff, but the new fluff is infinitely better regarding forging a narrative with your army. I have a full court of characters i've named. Court politicking, actual honest-to-god goals that are more than smoke and mirrors.
They are now capable of being protagonists in their own story, rather than just an adversary for the other factions to shoot at.
That being said, I also liked the tomb kings lore.
Charistoph wrote: They could, but the Silent King thought it would be rather pyrrhic. Since time was now on THEIR side, he thought he'd give them time to self-destruct, and they rather did. Unfortunately, a rather upstart race came along in the meanwhile that seems to owe some patronage to both Old One and C'tan.
If you are talking about humans, I don't think humans have ever been linked to the old ones in any way, considering that they disappeared 40 million years ago, way before human life was even in a recognizable form on earth.
Humans are also enemies of the C'Tan outside of a few mechanicus worshipers, considering the Emperor dueled with the void dragon and imprisoned him on mars.
Tyran wrote: Newcrons have Trazin, that makes them infinitely better.
Trazyn was possible in the old lore too, considering that even in the old lore it stated that the lords were the only ones who had any kind of personality. Sadly instead of working with the old lore they overhauled it to be tomb kings in space.
Charistoph wrote: They could, but the Silent King thought it would be rather pyrrhic. Since time was now on THEIR side, he thought he'd give them time to self-destruct, and they rather did. Unfortunately, a rather upstart race came along in the meanwhile that seems to owe some patronage to both Old One and C'tan.
If you are talking about humans, I don't think humans have ever been linked to the old ones in any way, considering that they disappeared 40 million years ago, way before human life was even in a recognizable form on earth.
Humans are also enemies of the C'Tan outside of a few mechanicus worshipers, considering the Emperor dueled with the void dragon and imprisoned him on mars.
"Some" being the defining word. I never really stated how extensive it was.
Consider it either an Old One in hiding, or more likely, the initiation of the life process which ended up being human. Either way, some patronage there.
The imprisoning of the Void Dragon is what led to much of the Imperium's tech, so some patronage there. There are also some indications that a shard of the Deceiver started implementing the "Blank" or "Pariah" gene in to humanity at some point. Though, with the Deceiver, you can never really tell.
Prior to this, they themselves had no character. And the tabletop rules for C'Tan made them seem daft.
The Newcrons however have agency all their own.
And the best bit? Absolutely the best bit? None of the Newcron background actually erases the original. Not when you consider The Deceiver could have quite easily programmed in a 'we killed the C'Tan' fantasy into each and every one of the Necrons during bio-transference.
The added depth to their story I quite like. I didn't like how the old necrons seemed to have no purpose besides mindless slaves. I think GW needs to make more of an emphasis to show how they have changed to conquer and enslave races to add to their ranks. Like the Borg they need to kill to add a slave caste to their ranks. That would be a terrifying way to increase their importance on the story of the game.
I miss the lovecraftian vibe that oldcrons had. That's missing now from Warhammer 40k.
And before anyone says "BUT MUH TYRANIDS": They're not really lovecraftian. The whole point of lovecraft was madness and cosmic horror from beings that could barely perceive you. The Tyranids absolutely perceive you (including getting shot off your world in some cases), don't really cause madness (GSC can break social order, but studying the Tyranids doesn't drive individual academics off the deep end), and are basically just hive-mind predators. Not really a "cosmic horror."
Meanwhile, the Old C'tan barely perceived humans as different from eldar, orks, whatever. They were all food, like motes of dust to be hoovered up for sustenance. The Nightbringer was the cause of the "Grim Reaper" in the minds of the living races, Death with his Scythe, implying a great horror from beyond the stars that could be worshipped as a god. Studying the Necrons drove Imperial historians and philosophers to madness; the former Imperial archaeologist "Thomas" in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade becomes what is essentially a lovecraftian cultist after being driven mad from unearthing a tomb. The Necrons, obligingly, turn them into a pariah to serve them.
Then there was the old Lovecraftian themes like the poems and prophecies of the Eldar, that talked of the return of "The Outsider" and "Vaul-Moons" and other cryptic things, much in the way Cassilda's Song speaks cryptically of the King in Yellow...
.... bah. We need more lovecraft in 40k, and changing necrons utterly killed it.
I want to build a King in Yellow army now. And I can't.
The thing I miss about the old C'tan was that they were the anti-thesis to Chaos.
On one hand, you have the Chaos Gods, who are metaphysical representations of raw emotion and change.
On the other hand, you have the C'tan, who are physical incarnations of the very forces of the material world.
Both of which are cruel, uncaring entities who drive any mortal they meet to madness, but they represent two entirely different concepts and forces.
If the chaos gods are Chaotic Evil, then the C'tan are Lawful Evil. I miss that dichotomy between the Oldcrons and Chaos. You don't really have it now. Oh, they say that the Necrons are still orderly, but they don't act like it.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I miss the lovecraftian vibe that oldcrons had. That's missing now from Warhammer 40k.
And before anyone says "BUT MUH TYRANIDS": They're not really lovecraftian. The whole point of lovecraft was madness and cosmic horror from beings that could barely perceive you. The Tyranids absolutely perceive you (including getting shot off your world in some cases), don't really cause madness (GSC can break social order, but studying the Tyranids doesn't drive individual academics off the deep end), and are basically just hive-mind predators. Not really a "cosmic horror."
Meanwhile, the Old C'tan barely perceived humans as different from eldar, orks, whatever. They were all food, like motes of dust to be hoovered up for sustenance. The Nightbringer was the cause of the "Grim Reaper" in the minds of the living races, Death with his Scythe, implying a great horror from beyond the stars that could be worshipped as a god. Studying the Necrons drove Imperial historians and philosophers to madness; the former Imperial archaeologist "Thomas" in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade becomes what is essentially a lovecraftian cultist after being driven mad from unearthing a tomb. The Necrons, obligingly, turn them into a pariah to serve them.
Then there was the old Lovecraftian themes like the poems and prophecies of the Eldar, that talked of the return of "The Outsider" and "Vaul-Moons" and other cryptic things, much in the way Cassilda's Song speaks cryptically of the King in Yellow...
.... bah. We need more lovecraft in 40k, and changing necrons utterly killed it.
I want to build a King in Yellow army now. And I can't.
Well said.
I disliked some of the shoehorning of the C'tan into the background, but damn were they awesome villains. Plus the idea that the Necrons only served as a conduit for the C'tan to feed on the "life-force" of intelligent life was epic. Despite the fact that, yes, technically you can still field Necrons who worship the C'tan, the gravitas behind it has been greatly reduced.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I miss the lovecraftian vibe that oldcrons had. That's missing now from Warhammer 40k.
And before anyone says "BUT MUH TYRANIDS": They're not really lovecraftian. The whole point of lovecraft was madness and cosmic horror from beings that could barely perceive you. The Tyranids absolutely perceive you (including getting shot off your world in some cases), don't really cause madness (GSC can break social order, but studying the Tyranids doesn't drive individual academics off the deep end), and are basically just hive-mind predators. Not really a "cosmic horror."
Meanwhile, the Old C'tan barely perceived humans as different from eldar, orks, whatever. They were all food, like motes of dust to be hoovered up for sustenance. The Nightbringer was the cause of the "Grim Reaper" in the minds of the living races, Death with his Scythe, implying a great horror from beyond the stars that could be worshipped as a god. Studying the Necrons drove Imperial historians and philosophers to madness; the former Imperial archaeologist "Thomas" in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade becomes what is essentially a lovecraftian cultist after being driven mad from unearthing a tomb. The Necrons, obligingly, turn them into a pariah to serve them.
Then there was the old Lovecraftian themes like the poems and prophecies of the Eldar, that talked of the return of "The Outsider" and "Vaul-Moons" and other cryptic things, much in the way Cassilda's Song speaks cryptically of the King in Yellow...
.... bah. We need more lovecraft in 40k, and changing necrons utterly killed it.
I want to build a King in Yellow army now. And I can't.
Well said.
I disliked some of the shoehorning of the C'tan into the background, but damn were they awesome villains. Plus the idea that the Necrons only served as a conduit for the C'tan to feed on the "life-force" of intelligent life was epic. Despite the fact that, yes, technically you can still field Necrons who worship the C'tan, the gravitas behind it has been greatly reduced.
You know, people keep saying you can still have old style necrons and C'tan worshippers, but you never see it. Its barely mentioned in the fluff and no trait supports that. Where's my "Empire of the Severed" trait? Where's my "Cult of the Void Dragon" trait? The only traits and relics on display are the "triarch" dynasties.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: The thing I miss about the old C'tan was that they were the anti-thesis to Chaos.
On one hand, you have the Chaos Gods, who are metaphysical representations of raw emotion and change.
On the other hand, you have the C'tan, who are physical incarnations of the very forces of the material world.
Both of which are cruel, uncaring entities who drive any mortal they meet to madness, but they represent two entirely different concepts and forces.
If the chaos gods are Chaotic Evil, then the C'tan are Lawful Evil. I miss that dichotomy between the Oldcrons and Chaos. You don't really have it now.
Also agree with this wholeheartedly. Chaos gods were still stuck in the Warp, too. The C'tan were, practically speaking, actual gods existing in the material plane.
I also really miss the Necron specialty of having weapons that ignore invulnerable saves. Seems like everyone else is better at producing Mortal Wounds now.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I miss the lovecraftian vibe that oldcrons had. That's missing now from Warhammer 40k.
And before anyone says "BUT MUH TYRANIDS": They're not really lovecraftian. The whole point of lovecraft was madness and cosmic horror from beings that could barely perceive you. The Tyranids absolutely perceive you (including getting shot off your world in some cases), don't really cause madness (GSC can break social order, but studying the Tyranids doesn't drive individual academics off the deep end), and are basically just hive-mind predators. Not really a "cosmic horror."
Meanwhile, the Old C'tan barely perceived humans as different from eldar, orks, whatever. They were all food, like motes of dust to be hoovered up for sustenance. The Nightbringer was the cause of the "Grim Reaper" in the minds of the living races, Death with his Scythe, implying a great horror from beyond the stars that could be worshipped as a god. Studying the Necrons drove Imperial historians and philosophers to madness; the former Imperial archaeologist "Thomas" in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade becomes what is essentially a lovecraftian cultist after being driven mad from unearthing a tomb. The Necrons, obligingly, turn them into a pariah to serve them.
Then there was the old Lovecraftian themes like the poems and prophecies of the Eldar, that talked of the return of "The Outsider" and "Vaul-Moons" and other cryptic things, much in the way Cassilda's Song speaks cryptically of the King in Yellow...
.... bah. We need more lovecraft in 40k, and changing necrons utterly killed it.
I want to build a King in Yellow army now. And I can't.
Well said.
I disliked some of the shoehorning of the C'tan into the background, but damn were they awesome villains. Plus the idea that the Necrons only served as a conduit for the C'tan to feed on the "life-force" of intelligent life was epic. Despite the fact that, yes, technically you can still field Necrons who worship the C'tan, the gravitas behind it has been greatly reduced.
You know, people keep saying you can still have old style necrons and C'tan worshippers, but you never see it. Its barely mentioned in the fluff and no trait supports that. Where's my "Empire of the Severed" trait? Where's my "Cult of the Void Dragon" trait?
The only traits and relics on display are the "triarch" dynasties.
Right? That's why I say "technically".
It would go a long way for some of us if GW released some more material to reinforce that idea.
Prior to this, they themselves had no character. And the tabletop rules for C'Tan made them seem daft.
The Newcrons however have agency all their own.
And the best bit? Absolutely the best bit? None of the Newcron background actually erases the original. Not when you consider The Deceiver could have quite easily programmed in a 'we killed the C'Tan' fantasy into each and every one of the Necrons during bio-transference.
That's my head canon.
However, the nerfing of Necron FTl, spatial scope and industrial might bothers me quite a bit.
I have very strong feeling on this. To the point that I quit the hobby entirely when the 5th edition codex came out. We waited a decade for Matt Ward to take a gak down our throats and tell us it's chocolate.
I came back shortly before 8th released but I'm still not happy, I just choose to ignore the new fluff and pretend the models I hate simply don't exist. The first codex was brilliant because it was told from the perspective of the Imperium. It was a masterpeice of terror and dread and the artwork and rules reflected that. I know a lot of people liked Necrons for their goofyness, the terminator references etc. I like them because of the existential horror.
No other faction has been so heavily retconned. It's really sad. The alteration to the war in heaven fluff actually makes me angry. The C'tan were handled badly, the Lord characters are unnecessary and dumb, they removed Pariahs entirely (the only unit in modern 40k to ever be deleted?) which is such a shame because the fluff potential their was massive. Yes Necrons needed to be fleshed out, but they went in completely the wrong direction
Model-wise they utterly fethed up with the Ward codex. The Arks, the Barges, the named characters all look ridiculous. The rest of the stuff is hit and miss and they managed to give flayed ones gak new sculpts as well as cast them in resin - double feth up, wow! The only thing I like about newcrons are the Canoptek units. The Spiders, centipedes and Wraiths models look great and the AI servitor drone fluff works, because it was already there from the old codex.
Cynista wrote: I have very strong feeling on this. To the point that I quit the hobby entirely when the 5th edition codex came out. We waited a decade for Matt Ward to take a gak down our throats and tell us it's chocolate.
I came back shortly before 8th released but I'm still not happy, I just choose to ignore the new fluff and pretend the models I hate simply don't exist. The first codex was brilliant because it was told from the perspective of the Imperium. It was a masterpeice of terror and dread and the artwork and rules reflected that. I know a lot of people liked Necrons for their goofyness, the terminator references etc. I like them because of the existential horror.
No other faction has been so heavily retconned. It's really sad. The alteration to the war in heaven fluff actually makes me angry. The C'tan were handled badly, the Lord characters are unnecessary and dumb, they removed Pariahs entirely (the only unit in modern 40k to ever be deleted?) which is such a shame because the fluff potential their was massive.
/rant
Original 40k had imperial suicide bombers, human bombs, who fit the imperial background and fluff quite nicely. They were deleted totally for political reasons, I've heard. Peolle thought it was a tribute to real world suicide bombers. So they we're forced to drop them. Which is a pity, frankly as horrible as life n the imperium is i'm surprised they don't have billions of peolle willing to buy a ticket out of it so the idea of fanatical suicide bombers attacking in waves is sure in line with the fluff.
Here's a link to an article showing the old stats for human bombs, now vastly out of date.
Cynista wrote: I have very strong feeling on this. To the point that I quit the hobby entirely when the 5th edition codex came out. We waited a decade for Matt Ward to take a gak down our throats and tell us it's chocolate.
I came back shortly before 8th released but I'm still not happy, I just choose to ignore the new fluff and pretend the models I hate simply don't exist. The first codex was brilliant because it was told from the perspective of the Imperium. It was a masterpeice of terror and dread and the artwork and rules reflected that. I know a lot of people liked Necrons for their goofyness, the terminator references etc. I like them because of the existential horror.
No other faction has been so heavily retconned. It's really sad. The alteration to the war in heaven fluff actually makes me angry. The C'tan were handled badly, the Lord characters are unnecessary and dumb, they removed Pariahs entirely (the only unit in modern 40k to ever be deleted?) which is such a shame because the fluff potential their was massive.
/rant
Original 40k had imperial suicide bombers, human bombs, who fit the imperial background and fluff quite nicely. They were deleted totally for political reasons, I've heard. Peolle thought it was a tribute to real world suicide bombers. So they we're forced to drop them. Which is a pity, frankly as horrible as life n the imperium is i'm surprised they don't have billions of peolle willing to buy a ticket out of it so the idea of fanatical suicide bombers attacking in waves is sure in line with the fluff.
Here's a link to an article showing the old stats for human bombs, now vastly out of date.
Cynista wrote: I have very strong feeling on this. To the point that I quit the hobby entirely when the 5th edition codex came out. We waited a decade for Matt Ward to take a gak down our throats and tell us it's chocolate.
I came back shortly before 8th released but I'm still not happy, I just choose to ignore the new fluff and pretend the models I hate simply don't exist. The first codex was brilliant because it was told from the perspective of the Imperium. It was a masterpeice of terror and dread and the artwork and rules reflected that. I know a lot of people liked Necrons for their goofyness, the terminator references etc. I like them because of the existential horror.
No other faction has been so heavily retconned. It's really sad. The alteration to the war in heaven fluff actually makes me angry. The C'tan were handled badly, the Lord characters are unnecessary and dumb, they removed Pariahs entirely (the only unit in modern 40k to ever be deleted?) which is such a shame because the fluff potential their was massive.
/rant
Original 40k had imperial suicide bombers, human bombs, who fit the imperial background and fluff quite nicely. They were deleted totally for political reasons, I've heard. Peolle thought it was a tribute to real world suicide bombers. So they we're forced to drop them. Which is a pity, frankly as horrible as life n the imperium is i'm surprised they don't have billions of peolle willing to buy a ticket out of it so the idea of fanatical suicide bombers attacking in waves is sure in line with the fluff.
Here's a link to an article showing the old stats for human bombs, now vastly out of date.
So Necrons were retconned because of a real fear of a Cthulu-robot takeover?
I don't really understand the post.
I think he's responding to the claim that Necrons were the only faction that was heavily retconned.
The problem with his example is that that was just one aspect that was removed from the Imperial fluff. It ultimately didn't change anything. Its not as if it completely altered the feel and history of the faction, like what happened with necrons.
In a sense the necrons now are in a state of horror. They know they've been screwed badly, and are "soulless machines" but still retain some emotions and the sense of loss they we're stuck with.
I get what they were going for with the NewCron fluff. They wanted to give them more personality than "mindless machines EXTERMINATE" and that's fair enough. I have a soft spot for them actually having Lords who are affable and not just up for killing everything just because.
On the other hand, they almost come across as a bit too human. Worse than that, they're too obviously Tomb Kings... IN SPACE! 40k has it's caricatures of cultures, but that's mostly kept to the Imperium - where it 'kind of' fits - but it just feels a bit too blatant with the NewCrons.
Charistoph wrote: Consider it either an Old One in hiding, or more likely, the initiation of the life process which ended up being human. Either way, some patronage there.
This is speculation, as that is never even hinted at in the lore. The eldar actually look down on humans because we evolved naturally and were not created by the old ones.
Charistoph wrote: The imprisoning of the Void Dragon is what led to much of the Imperium's tech, so some patronage there. There are also some indications that a shard of the Deceiver started implementing the "Blank" or "Pariah" gene in to humanity at some point. Though, with the Deceiver, you can never really tell.
This is also speculation. There is nothing in the lore that hints that humanity derived all of its tech from the Void Dragon or study of necrons, considering that humanity independently developed warp drives, a drive that utilizes travel through a dimension that is anathema to the necrons, and that a lot of the tech we use now was explicitly stated to have either been developed by the emperor himself (bolter, power armor) or the techno-barbarians on earth during the age of strife.
Arbitrator wrote: I get what they were going for with the NewCron fluff. They wanted to give them more personality than "mindless machines EXTERMINATE" and that's fair enough. I have a soft spot for them actually having Lords who are affable and not just up for killing everything just because.
On the other hand, they almost come across as a bit too human. Worse than that, they're too obviously Tomb Kings... IN SPACE! 40k has it's caricatures of cultures, but that's mostly kept to the Imperium - where it 'kind of' fits - but it just feels a bit too blatant with the NewCrons.
Absolutely agreed. I still think they could have gone with the "Lords with interesting and unique personalities" without altering the original fluff at all.
Arbitrator wrote: I get what they were going for with the NewCron fluff. They wanted to give them more personality than "mindless machines EXTERMINATE" and that's fair enough. I have a soft spot for them actually having Lords who are affable and not just up for killing everything just because.
On the other hand, they almost come across as a bit too human. Worse than that, they're too obviously Tomb Kings... IN SPACE! 40k has it's caricatures of cultures, but that's mostly kept to the Imperium - where it 'kind of' fits - but it just feels a bit too blatant with the NewCrons.
To me the Tomb King in space element of the Necron was always there. The very first Necron Lord model had a pharao crown on its head. Add to that the concept of tomb world, fabulous treasures and curses, all there from the inception of the Necrons, and you are basically stuck in all the major trope of Tomb Kings.
Techpriestsupport wrote: In a sense the necrons now are in a state of horror. They know they've been screwed badly, and are "soulless machines" but still retain some emotions and the sense of loss they we're stuck with.
Right, but like I mentioned above, and other's put more eloquently, part of what was interesting in the old lore was that the author of the Necron's predicament was the Necrontyr themselves. In the pursuit of victory at any cost, they sold their soul to The Deceiver. In the new lore, The Deceiver simply just hoodwinks the Silent King who sells out the Necrontyr and only later realizes he got duped.
So, rather than a tale about the danger of courting Nihilism incarnate, it's about the danger of Nihilism courting you. It's a fundamental locus of control change and not a small one. It means that Nihilism is an external force, rather than an internal one. And that's largely garbage, in my opinion.
It makes the Necrontyr seem like victims of The Deciever, when before they were victims of their own iniquity, manifest through The Deceiver. There was no real need to flip that script to arrive at the aim of the new lore though, which is why I pointed out that the new lore isn't bad, a priori, in intention, it's just poorly done in actual practice.
It'd be far more interesting if the Necrons now had personality, but rather than just lamenting how "unfair" the C'Tan were to them, they would recognize that their undoing was of their own accord. The Silent King could be the tragic figure who realizes that, despite them having messed up, they are now basically pot-committed, having gone all-in on victory, there is only one direction to go and that is onward toward toward overwhelming Order Incarnate.
Arbitrator wrote: I get what they were going for with the NewCron fluff. They wanted to give them more personality than "mindless machines EXTERMINATE" and that's fair enough. I have a soft spot for them actually having Lords who are affable and not just up for killing everything just because.
On the other hand, they almost come across as a bit too human. Worse than that, they're too obviously Tomb Kings... IN SPACE! 40k has it's caricatures of cultures, but that's mostly kept to the Imperium - where it 'kind of' fits - but it just feels a bit too blatant with the NewCrons.
To me the Tomb King in space element of the Necron was always there. The very first Necron Lord model had a pharao crown on its head. Add to that the concept of tomb world, fabulous treasures and curses, all there from the inception of the Necrons, and you are basically stuck in all the major trope of Tomb Kings.
It was more of a funerary cult thing than an egyptian thing.
You had Egyptian imagery, such as Scarabs and pyramids, but you also had other horror/sepulchral imagery as well, such as wraiths (not an Egyptian thing), the Grim Reaper (not an Egyptian thing), spiders (not associated with graves in ancient Egypt myth like it is in the west) and flayed ones (based off of the cult of Xipe Totec, the Aztec god of Death, Rebirth and Disease)
The old necrons weren't so much about Egypt as they were about death, tombs and rebirth. It was only after 5th ed that they started to really push the Egypt in space thing, complete with stupid head crests and boats.
Charistoph wrote: Consider it either an Old One in hiding, or more likely, the initiation of the life process which ended up being human. Either way, some patronage there.
This is speculation, as that is never even hinted at in the lore. The eldar actually look down on humans because we evolved naturally and were not created by the old ones.
Charistoph wrote: The imprisoning of the Void Dragon is what led to much of the Imperium's tech, so some patronage there. There are also some indications that a shard of the Deceiver started implementing the "Blank" or "Pariah" gene in to humanity at some point. Though, with the Deceiver, you can never really tell.
This is also speculation. There is nothing in the lore that hints that humanity derived all of its tech from the Void Dragon or study of necrons, considering that humanity independently developed warp drives, a drive that utilizes travel through a dimension that is anathema to the necrons, and that a lot of the tech we use now was explicitly stated to have either been developed by the emperor himself (bolter, power armor) or the techno-barbarians on earth during the age of strife.
1) I didn't say "all" of the Imperium's tech, but "much", as in a significant quantity. Warp Drive was around long before the Emperor was made, much less before he forced the Void Dragon to give up some of its secrets. The Emperor combined much Dark Age tech with Martian tech with some of the Necron tech he gleaned from the Void Dragon. Heck, it's quite possible his idea of the "human webway" was gained from the information on Dolmen Gates.
2) I never said that this was solid fluff, either, I just said it "seemed" to have been. There are random bits of fluff which point at the possibilities of such, but little else. One case is the story of the Culexus Assassin being sent out to have them captured and converted in to a Pariah. Another is all the dominate saurian life on Earth before being smashed at roughly the same time as the War in Heaven, but didn't quite take out all the life on the planet.
40K Lore is very... imprecise and if it has been written, it is canon, even the contradictory stuff. When you toss in beings like the Deceiver and the Laughing God in to the mix, historical facts can be quite difficult to identify. Most if it is based off of myths, legends, and manipulated information. The "truth" can be as malleable as you desire it to be for YOUR particular army.
It has definitely been hinted that the Old Ones, or rather one remaining Old One, interfered with human evolution(Xenology). There's also the blindingly obvious fact that humans have the same humanoid shape as most of the Old Ones' creations. Then you have the more subtly hints, like maps of ancient Earth being found on dead worlds during the crusade.
And the Dragon is explicitly stated to be on Mars, chained by the Emperor to be the inspiration for the Admech. If you don't like that fluff...welcome to how we feel.
A C'tan being on Mars isn't new. It was heavily implied that something related to the Necrons was on Mars, which is why they tried sending a landing party down there, and there was supposed to be a necron cult there too.
"I don't like the new fluff, but if they were to change them back I'd keep the one character who most epitomizes everything they changed about the fluff because he's awesome".
It's not a strawman - we just disagree on the nature of the Trazyn character.
I'm using a humorous (to me) recreation of the OPs post to point out that the very things they like about the character would not have existed in the old fluff and any attempt to recreate him in the old fluff would (IMO) either fundamentally change the character or be a jarring anomaly.
The fact that the OP calls him "Trollzyn" implies that they like his independent and irreverent qualities - e.g. the fact that he talks and banters with people, is always 1 step ahead and seems above everyone else - not just his machine-like efficiency at putting things in a museum.
Again - IMO - you can't just take his character as-is and say "also he's a slave to some star gods who want to absorb all the energy in the universe". You either need to re-write the motivations of the C'tan or rewrite Trazyn to the point where he's not Trollzyn anymore he's just Evil Xenos Who Wants to Kidnap People So they Can Be Used For Something Unimaginably Horrible and Scary Later #26775
"I don't like the new fluff, but if they were to change them back I'd keep the one character who most epitomizes everything they changed about the fluff because he's awesome".
It's not a strawman - we just disagree on the nature of the Trazyn character.
I'm using a humorous (to me) recreation of the OPs post to point out that the very things they like about the character would not have existed in the old fluff and any attempt to recreate him in the old fluff would (IMO) either fundamentally change the character or be a jarring anomaly.
The fact that the OP calls him "Trollzyn" implies that they like his independent and irreverent qualities - e.g. the fact that he talks and banters with people, is always 1 step ahead and seems above everyone else - not just his machine-like efficiency at putting things in a museum.
Again - IMO - you can't just take his character as-is and say "also he's a slave to some star gods who want to absorb all the energy in the universe". You either need to re-write the motivations of the C'tan or rewrite Trazyn to the point where he's not Trollzyn anymore he's just Evil Xenos Who Wants to Kidnap People So they Can Be Used For Something Unimaginably Horrible and Scary Later #26775
I think you could do it.
There's no reason that a "slave to some star-gods who want to absorb all energy in the universe" couldn't have a personality. It's not like slaves in historical human societies didn't have personalities.
Besides, where does it say that they are all mindless slaves? What if one Necron lord was really into becoming a machine, and became a loyal servant / collaborator? Wouldn't you think that the C'tan would reward him by letting have most of his personality intact?
Indeed, if you take my Lovecraftian analogy that I made above, the cultists (in this case the cultists of the C'tan, or Necrons) are only brainwashed (mindwiped) at the lowest levels. The higher level cultists (Lords, Overlords, etc.) are all enthusiastic supporters of the cult (C'tan), and would likely be allowed to keep their sapience (however broken or trollish or mechanized it might be).
Unit1126PLL wrote: I miss the lovecraftian vibe that oldcrons had. That's missing now from Warhammer 40k.
And before anyone says "BUT MUH TYRANIDS": They're not really lovecraftian. The whole point of lovecraft was madness and cosmic horror from beings that could barely perceive you. The Tyranids absolutely perceive you (including getting shot off your world in some cases), don't really cause madness (GSC can break social order, but studying the Tyranids doesn't drive individual academics off the deep end), and are basically just hive-mind predators. Not really a "cosmic horror."
Meanwhile, the Old C'tan barely perceived humans as different from eldar, orks, whatever. They were all food, like motes of dust to be hoovered up for sustenance. The Nightbringer was the cause of the "Grim Reaper" in the minds of the living races, Death with his Scythe, implying a great horror from beyond the stars that could be worshipped as a god. Studying the Necrons drove Imperial historians and philosophers to madness; the former Imperial archaeologist "Thomas" in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade becomes what is essentially a lovecraftian cultist after being driven mad from unearthing a tomb. The Necrons, obligingly, turn them into a pariah to serve them.
Then there was the old Lovecraftian themes like the poems and prophecies of the Eldar, that talked of the return of "The Outsider" and "Vaul-Moons" and other cryptic things, much in the way Cassilda's Song speaks cryptically of the King in Yellow...
.... bah. We need more lovecraft in 40k, and changing necrons utterly killed it.
I want to build a King in Yellow army now. And I can't.
"BUT MUH CHAOS"
I am a much newer player who has been fairly interested in following this thread. So I can't exactly speak about new vs. old too much beyond it sounds like the newcrons sound like a better idea for a faction where players usually spend hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours before playing a game. As much as playing a force of unstoppable alien terminator robots sounds, I would rather be able to hang my fluff hat on something more.
My actual point is that everything you describe sounds like it would be the preview of Chaos being actual extra-dimensional entities largely alien save the raw emotions which should encompass more than just the species of human and Eldar (like the rest of the minor non-faction minor species which I imagine added together would be a significant %). I have been playing some of Dawn of War Winter Assault and the voice like from the CSM of, "Do you hear the voices too!" which has reminded me that it is very likely that nearly all Chaos space marines, and generally all Chaos followers, probably have a constant whispering of the maddening things 'beyond space and time' that literally feed upon raw emotion of the galaxy. I think everyone has just got comfortable with the personifications of the Chaos gods since most are depicted in a pretty hackneyed characture of their thing. We don't really consider Chaos like that anymore since they got all those brightly colored lesser demons and space marines being the 5-8 hit dice (as in Orks constantly depicted as the 1 HD) monster of the setting. Just tough enough to show how awesome the heroes are.
Even though Chaos is composed of very human (Eldar and other minor species) emotion, this does not necessarily mean that they are understandable. Other than the fact that Chaos generally takes an active part far more than most Lovecraftain entities it just about the biggest difference between the two if you want cosmic horror. Basically, what you say you want from Necrons can easily be delivered by Chaos in the 40K setting. The still have all those crazy prophecies, it is just that they have been around for so long that it is hard for them to be cryptic. Especially since the big 4 Chaos gods were all written having a shtick which hurts them as much as it allows players to grasp what they are about.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I miss the lovecraftian vibe that oldcrons had. That's missing now from Warhammer 40k.
And before anyone says "BUT MUH TYRANIDS": They're not really lovecraftian. The whole point of lovecraft was madness and cosmic horror from beings that could barely perceive you. The Tyranids absolutely perceive you (including getting shot off your world in some cases), don't really cause madness (GSC can break social order, but studying the Tyranids doesn't drive individual academics off the deep end), and are basically just hive-mind predators. Not really a "cosmic horror."
Meanwhile, the Old C'tan barely perceived humans as different from eldar, orks, whatever. They were all food, like motes of dust to be hoovered up for sustenance. The Nightbringer was the cause of the "Grim Reaper" in the minds of the living races, Death with his Scythe, implying a great horror from beyond the stars that could be worshipped as a god. Studying the Necrons drove Imperial historians and philosophers to madness; the former Imperial archaeologist "Thomas" in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade becomes what is essentially a lovecraftian cultist after being driven mad from unearthing a tomb. The Necrons, obligingly, turn them into a pariah to serve them.
Then there was the old Lovecraftian themes like the poems and prophecies of the Eldar, that talked of the return of "The Outsider" and "Vaul-Moons" and other cryptic things, much in the way Cassilda's Song speaks cryptically of the King in Yellow...
.... bah. We need more lovecraft in 40k, and changing necrons utterly killed it.
I want to build a King in Yellow army now. And I can't.
"BUT MUH CHAOS"
I am a much newer player who has been fairly interested in following this thread. So I can't exactly speak about new vs. old too much beyond it sounds like the newcrons sound like a better idea for a faction where players usually spend hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours before playing a game. As much as playing a force of unstoppable alien terminator robots sounds, I would rather be able to hang my fluff hat on something more.
My actual point is that everything you describe sounds like it would be the preview of Chaos being actual extra-dimensional entities largely alien save the raw emotions which should encompass more than just the species of human and Eldar (like the rest of the minor non-faction minor species which I imagine added together would be a significant %). I have been playing some of Dawn of War Winter Assault and the voice like from the CSM of, "Do you hear the voices too!" which has reminded me that it is very likely that nearly all Chaos space marines, and generally all Chaos followers, probably have a constant whispering of the maddening things 'beyond space and time' that literally feed upon raw emotion of the galaxy. I think everyone has just got comfortable with the personifications of the Chaos gods since most are depicted in a pretty hackneyed characture of their thing. We don't really consider Chaos like that anymore since they got all those brightly colored lesser demons and space marines being the 5-8 hit dice (as in Orks constantly depicted as the 1 HD) monster of the setting. Just tough enough to show how awesome the heroes are.
Even though Chaos is composed of very human (Eldar and other minor species) emotion, this does not necessarily mean that they are understandable. Other than the fact that Chaos generally takes an active part far more than most Lovecraftain entities it just about the biggest difference between the two if you want cosmic horror. Basically, what you say you want from Necrons can easily be delivered by Chaos in the 40K setting. The still have all those crazy prophecies, it is just that they have been around for so long that it is hard for them to be cryptic. Especially since the big 4 Chaos gods were all written having a shtick which hurts them as much as it allows players to grasp what they are about.
I couldn't disagree more. Chaos has some lovecraftian vibes, but they are absolutely an understood quantity. I play a Slaanesh Daemons army right now, and I've looked at Nurgle. Nothing feels terribly "lovecraftian" about them. They're not cryptic, they're well explained, and easily understood. They're just not that horrific in the "Cosmic Horror" sense (or the Lovecraftian genre sense, in other words). Life under a Chaos God would be awful, to be sure, but not unimaginable. Similarly, the gods themselves aren't really unimaginable. They're manifestations of mortal emotions, which means I can inherently fathom them because I can inherently fathom my own emotions.
Remember, part of the criteria of a Cosmic Horror is that it doesn't necessarily set "Goals" or "Objectives" or deliberately do wilful things to get stuff done. Their cultists and servants do, generally, but there's a heavily implied sense of "if it ever actually willed something to happen, it could just happen." The Chaos Gods once willed the Fall of Man during the Horus Heresy and the Emperor said "talk to the hand, bitches." A unfathomable cosmic horror ceases to be unfathomably horrific as soon as it becomes fairly trivially stopped. Chaos has been driven off of worlds time and again, and is fairly well understood. Studying it doesn't automatically make you go mad (though sometimes it does, RIP Inquisitor Quixos).
As soon as you can say "Oh, we'll just shut down the <Cosmic Horror Faction> by shooting it with enough bullets" then that faction ceases to have any value as a cosmic horror, and Chaos has been driven back and defeated time and again by a sufficient number of guns.
It's why I liked the old Necron Phase-Out mechanic so much, from a fluff perspective. They voluntarily (though not so much from the player's perspective) withdrew from battle once casualties exceeded a certain threshold. That always implied to me that any 40k match involving Necrons was basically a recon skirmish, since they just up and left once they suffered a bit too much. Any battle they directly participated in was always, invariably, a victory (before Newcrons), from Sanctuary 101 where they wipe out the Adepta Sororitas and the Black Templars to the fight with the Mechanicus when the Nightbringer was released, where they get barely a single pict off the tombworld before being wiped out. The only major loss suffered by the Oldcrons was their ships attempting to land on Mars, and it was only five ships of a fairly minor class. One actually made it to the surfaceIIRC before it was destroyed, through all of the Terran defenses. Sending only 5 medium-weight ships to Mars struck me as "probing mission" if I ever saw one.
I guarantee you 5 Chaos ships of a similar medium weight class showing up in the Terran system unexpectedly would be swatted like flies. Chaos isn't scary. There's no horror there.
Chaos doesn't work well as Lovecraftian on the tabletop because there are only so many model designs you can make molds of and everything has to be neatly defined to fit into units. As Unit puts it, we know everything about Chaos. We understand how it functions (roughly), what effects it can have, and what daemons look like. We know this because they're a tabletop faction that has to fit nearly into boxes.
I think that's why I'm excited for the Daemons of the Ruinstorm list coming for Horus Heresy. They seem to have acknowledged this, and the list itself is deliberately throwing out the hard set 'these are Plaguebearers, these are Bloodletters' to work with the idea of Chaos being an evertwisting, horrifying, un-knowable thing that manfiests in an impossible number of ways. I can't wait for some weird and wonderful conversions to get put out and for the opponent to ask, "What are those?"
Chaos' Lovecraftian themes work great in Black Library or Dark Heresy because writers can go wild with making Chaos a truly disturbing, reality-bending, corruptive force that warps minds, flesh and machine. It doesn't work on the tabletop.
The problem with what you are describing sounds like an completely unworkable concept in a miniatures war game as a player controlled faction. You want a completely unknowable force that can't be destroyed in setting to allow players to take a group of models to play a game with another player and have them fight a fictional battles where bullets are commonly used to destroy enemies. I can't see how that can work where both players are supposed to have symmetrical forces.
If you can't have cosmic horror is a setting that can destroy it with bullets. Then by your own reasoning, Warhammer 40K can't have cosmic horror. Remember, the setting is a war game where that has to be a thing.
Fact is any daemon destroyed in the materium also 'phases out' back to the warp where it can just try again. I like to think the same goes for most csm too. How else to you think they recover their numbers so quickly yet never seem to have more. Sure, maybe this return causes mutation sometimes to the point of spawn-hood, but the forces of Chaos cannot be defeated by military might. In fact, the case of Khorne in particular, war only strengthens him.
You say that the Emperor stopped the Chaos gods during the Horus Hersey, but it could have been that gods accomplished as much as they needed to and didn't have to work together for a second longer. It seems to me they each did quite well for themselves in the last 10,000 years. Or do you think the IoM is going turn things around?
I don't think Chaos wants a definitive end. They may think they do. It might even be in their destructive nature to try for it. Post destruction of everything seems far too orderly for them. Chaos wants chaos and having the IoM eat itself from the inside provides far more of what the Chaos gods want that if Horus would actually defeated the Emperor. Then again, I prefer to believe that Chaos' motivation is unknowable least of all to Chaos itself. I do think you can argue that Necron could be like Chaos save they actually do want the death of everything and won't stop until they get it where Chaos will always break down before then.
Again, what the Necrons do with phasing out is the same thing that demons do except they don't remain in the materium. It might take a while, but when the stars are right those demons will return. Seems pretty Lovecraftain to me.
As for the Necron ships making to Mars, so what? It is obvious that Chaos couldn't get that close due to they way they are written and the setting plot armor of Terra. I am sure it there was a way for Chaos to bring 5 ships into the terrain system NOT having the goal of wrecking as much stuff as possible and leaving of their volition, they could. But we both know that isn't what Chaos are about they would have to be destroyed completely or Terran system would have be corrupted by Chaos. The fact is any faction that directly attacks the Terran system upset the status quo of the miniatures game potentially costing sales. So it isn't going happen.
Lore bends its knee to the models and game surrounding them because models are where GW make most of their money. So the Necrons, like any other faction, are going to be written in such a way that GW thinks they can make the most money.
I think Chaos is and should be the Lovecraftian faction of the setting. Sure, the human followers and perhaps even ascended mortals such as Daemon Princes may have understandable personalities and motives, but closer to pure daemon you get, more eldritch they become. The chaos gods themselves should be completely unfathomable to humans. Even a lot of the 'facade' of the chaos as it is shown to us could be mere mortal interpretation of it, and attempt of their feeble and limited minds to place logical structure on a thing that ultimately is beyond reason.
Thematically 'machine men' is completely different of this; machines represent reason, even if may be cold and uncaring reason, inimical to life.
Chaos: Is the dark mirror to the order of the Imperium, and essentially a result of the races subjugated to it. The endgame to Chaos is total freedom and the consequences thereof.
Tyranids: Total annihilation.
Oldcrons: Absolute subjugation of all conscious life. Humanity becomes cattle.
Arbitrator wrote: I get what they were going for with the NewCron fluff. They wanted to give them more personality than "mindless machines EXTERMINATE" and that's fair enough. I have a soft spot for them actually having Lords who are affable and not just up for killing everything just because.
On the other hand, they almost come across as a bit too human. Worse than that, they're too obviously Tomb Kings... IN SPACE! 40k has it's caricatures of cultures, but that's mostly kept to the Imperium - where it 'kind of' fits - but it just feels a bit too blatant with the NewCrons.
Yes the necrontyr were human in many ways, humans suffering terribly and bitter about it, humans who were angry when the cure for the their suffering was denied them, and now they still retain some humanity, the bitterness, jealousy, pettiness, spiteful, angry parts. Even as machines they retain the worst parts of humanity.
Both Necrons and Chaos are Lovecraftian. Necrons are comparable to Great Old Ones, and Chaos is comparable to some of the Outer Gods (the ones exist outside of our dimension, that is).
However, as Chaos is born from human emotion, they do lose some Lovecraft points as the whole idea of his work is that there are alien creatures that exist beyond our understanding.
Chaos draws more inspiration from Judeo-Christian demon lore, really. Chaos needs to possess people to get things done, are reflections of human vice and have demon cults. Cults are not necessarily Lovecraftian, otherwise every satanic cult in every work of fiction ever could be called Lovecraftian.
Necrons are completely alien, are dormant on planets and even have a Nyralothep expy. They are even implied to have a cult on Mars, which fulfils the cult quotient that apparently has to be fulfilled now when determining if something is Lovecraftian or not. Necrons are a lot closer to Lovecraft's works in this respect, especially once you consider that a lot of them are dormant. Just like Cthulhu. Keep in mind that the Great Old Ones are entities from space who once ruled the Earth, but were forced to go dormant. Just like Necrons. There's even a faint hint of the Color from Outer Space, if you consider what the C'tan's true form is like.
Who says that only one faction can have a monopoly on Lovecraft anyway? I mean, Genestealer Cults are basically Innsmouth in space, and the Tyranids certainly take inspiration from some of the alien races and outer gods.
If I were to compare the 3 world enders, it would be something like this -
Chaos - Threat from within, societal decay and loss of inhibitions, interdimensional reflections of humanity's sins Necrons - Threat from nearby (as in, underneath you), mechanical, planetary kill bots Tyranids - Threat from beyond, organic, intergalactic locust deathswarm
There's nothing wrong with a bit of overlap, the devil is in the details. Going "but X is Y except Z" is just lazy.
I wrote a lot more about this, but Dakka ate my message
Agreed, though I think part of the Lovecraftian theme also has to be unstoppability.
Before the 2011 5th Edition Codex release, I don't think the Necrons had a single major loss in the fluff. They had minor losses, like the 5 small vessels that tried to land on Mars, but they were never wholesale thrown off a world that they wanted and utterly defeated. Indeed, the greatest heroes of the Ultramarines chapter, including Sergeant Chronus, Cato Sicarius, that one chaplain guy... etc. only managed to heroically evacuate a planet with their lives in Fall of Damnos. I think they escape with a bit of the planet's population, 30 Space Marines, and 20 Guardsmen. Like, it's a war, and there's impressive moments of heroic feats for the Space Marines, but the Necrons don't care. They're utterly silent, utterly relentless, and unstoppable in their convictions in the services of their old reanimate Gods, the C'tan.
Meanwhile, same era of fluff, Tyranids are being beaten back from Macragge, and Angron, greatest ascended daemon-champion of Khorne, is getting punted back to the warp with a solid licking from the Grey Knights. They're hardly unstoppable.
"What is not dead can eternal lie, and in strange eons even death may die." One of the most famous Lovecraftian phrases, and describes exactly no-one in the fluff except Necrons.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Agreed, though I think part of the Lovecraftian theme also has to be unstoppability.
Eh...not quite. Its more inevitable than unstoppable. You can stop the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods, you can kill their servants and foil their plans. But they will always be there, waiting. All you are doing is buying time, which they already have plenty of. You could totally kill Deep Ones, but in the end it hardly matters, because there will always be more in hiding. Dagon will still be there, and you will never know who has Deep One genes.
In that sense, Chaos is also Lovecraftian, as you can kill demon after demon, but it ultimately won't matter as the Chaos Gods will just try again in a couple of centuries. Yes, there is overlap between Chaos, Necrons and Tyranids. But that's not inherently a bad thing, as there is still room for nuance and differences.
Come to think of it, Orks would also be a world ending faction. Usually an ork infestation is permanent, meaning that no matter how many times you beat them, they will come back.
Since there are 4, I can now make a Four Horsemen analogy
Oldcrons - Death (omnicidal)
Chaos - Pestilence (corruption) / Conquest (wants to control and spread over everything)
Tyranids - Famine (hungry, Famine is associated with plagues of vermin and locusts)
Orks - War (obvious reasons)
The analogy doesn't really work now though, as newcrons are more into conquest than omnicide, and you can't let Chaos stay pestilence as conquest and pestilence are the same horseman, depending on version.
Eh...not quite.
Its more inevitable than unstoppable. You can stop the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods, you can kill their servants and foil their plans. But they will always be there, waiting. All you are doing is buying time, which they already have plenty of.
You could totally kill Deep Ones, but in the end it hardly matters, because there will always be more in hiding. Dagon will still be there, and you will never know who has Deep One genes.
In that sense, Chaos is also Lovecraftian, as you can kill demon after demon, but it ultimately won't matter as the Chaos Gods will just try again in a couple of centuries.
Yep.
And in a war game you cannot have an faction which is unbeatable, it goes against the whole point of the game. You need to be able to beat any foe, even the victory might be a mere setback to the enemy in the grander scheme of things.
Tyran wrote: Yeah no. Chaos is annoying when GW tries to push how unstoppable it supposedly is, Oldcrons were the same type of annoying.
Having an unstoppable faction sucks all the tension of the setting and makes a joke of the narrative.
I'd argue it's annoying because for all the' unstoppableness' they don't actually do too well in media res. When the setting is supposed to be about how doomed the Imperium is, and how we're watching the doom of it and there's just too much pulling at the seams, it feels like everything that's not a codex paragraph is about how those nice Imperial boys manage to save the day anyway.
They couldn't even give the Tau a win at Damocles without it coming off as Pyrrhic.
Cadia sucked, but it led to Gulliman and the Primaris which is just about the best thing ever, apparently.
The Imperium Nihilus kind-of-but-not-really sucks because it's the same thing as before; some random planets we only get the name of are lost, but the actual relevant places get saved by Primaris hop, skip and jumping over the Great Rift in time anyway.
Tyran wrote: Yeah no. Chaos is annoying when GW tries to push how unstoppable it supposedly is, Oldcrons were the same type of annoying.
Having an unstoppable faction sucks all the tension of the setting and makes a joke of the narrative.
I'd argue it's annoying because for all the' unstoppableness' they don't actually do too well in media res. When the setting is supposed to be about how doomed the Imperium is, and how we're watching the doom of it and there's just too much pulling at the seams, it feels like everything that's not a codex paragraph is about how those nice Imperial boys manage to save the day anyway.
They couldn't even give the Tau a win at Damocles without it coming off as Pyrrhic.
Cadia sucked, but it led to Gulliman and the Primaris which is just about the best thing ever, apparently.
The Imperium Nihilus kind-of-but-not-really sucks because it's the same thing as before; some random planets we only get the name of are lost, but the actual relevant places get saved by Primaris hop, skip and jumping over the Great Rift in time anyway.
Except that I disagree that the setting is about how doomed the IoM is. Imperial players would like their victories to mean something, and current fluff is a lot about how Guilliman and the Primaris bring hope.
But more importantly, the setting is not binary. It isn't only about the IoM vs Chaos, or the IoM vs Necrons.
It is about everyone vs everyone, and it is annoying how Xenos factions are sidelined for the sake of Chaos. And Oldcrons sidelining everyone else is just as bad.
Having an unstoppable faction sucks all the tension of the setting and makes a joke of the narrative.
Why I dont like the current version of Tyranids.
I do agree to a point that Tyranids should not be a faction. They should exist in the lore though. GW should have continued with the Genestealer cults instead of ditching them and bringing them up only recently. Narratively speaking, Genestealer Cult is a much better foe. They are subversive. They are alien, but also human. They have personnality. They can hold territory and create small empires against which one can wage war or even temporary and very risky alliances. The Tyranids should exist as the thing they rever. They would be to the Genestealer Cut what daemons and the Gods of Chaos are to the Lost and Damned and Chaos Marines. They are the virtually invincible, but still distant, swarm that comes to consume the galax, but just as Khrone himself doesn't have stats, neither does the Tyranid super-organism.
While I prefer the potential of the new fluff, I'm a little disappointed by how the C'tan got sidelined. Maybe allowing the Deceiver and Nightbringer to escape and turn some dynasties to their will would be cool. So the C'tan forces would be the nameless doom (as the C'tan are weak and need to absorb a lot of life force), while the independent dynasties have more character and act more like empires. We could then give the C'tan pariahs and other newly converted living as they attempt to rebuild their armies. So players get to choose if they want the focus on necron characters or C'tan characters.
evil_kiwi_60 wrote: Give me the new fluff. Most of the characters have hilarious backstories. Trazyn and the guy who doesn't realize he's a robot are especially good.
Old Crons lacked the strength to be a real threat. There was no mass organization. save for the c'tan forces
Imo the old crons didn't need to mass organization to be a threat. You could find a piece of a monolith, feed it power and it would rebuild itself. Once it was a full monolith, it would dial up a nearby tombworld and start dumping crons on you.
evil_kiwi_60 wrote: Give me the new fluff. Most of the characters have hilarious backstories. Trazyn and the guy who doesn't realize he's a robot are especially good.
Old Crons lacked the strength to be a real threat. There was no mass organization. save for the c'tan forces
Imo the old crons didn't need to mass organization to be a threat. You could find a piece of a monolith, feed it power and it would rebuild itself. Once it was a full monolith, it would dial up a nearby tombworld and start dumping crons on you.
And at that point the only option was exterminatus when there's an awakened tomb world.
I really miss the endless legion vibe they used to have. Yes they have more character now I guess but the soulless horde they used to be is sadly missed
evil_kiwi_60 wrote: Give me the new fluff. Most of the characters have hilarious backstories. Trazyn and the guy who doesn't realize he's a robot are especially good.
Old Crons lacked the strength to be a real threat. There was no mass organization. save for the c'tan forces
Imo the old crons didn't need to mass organization to be a threat. You could find a piece of a monolith, feed it power and it would rebuild itself. Once it was a full monolith, it would dial up a nearby tombworld and start dumping crons on you.
And at that point the only option was exterminatus when there's an awakened tomb world.
I really miss the endless legion vibe they used to have. Yes they have more character now I guess but the soulless horde they used to be is sadly missed
Would most exterminatus methods affect necrons? Especially ones in a deep underground tomb complex?
The life eater virus (common exterminatus weapon) might break down all bio matter and cause a firestorm of combustion as all the oxygen com it was released (in the 40k universe anyway...) but would it bother a necron tomb complex?
Cyclonic torpedoes create plasma vortexes that multiply and spread, burning the planets surface and destroying the atmosphere maybe. Again, maybe a tom complex just shuts the doors and waits it out.
Most forms of exterminatus just scour the biosphere. Necrons don't need air, food, water, etc. Unless the planet is basically blown like Alderaan or a massive asteroid bullseyes a necron tomb complex it seems they could just seal up their complex and play pinochle until the fires abated in most exterminatus cases.
I think one of the exterminatus methods involve completely destroying the planet by drilling an path to the planet's core then bombing it. I'm not sure though. I do know though that its an absolute pain in the ass to destroy a tomb complex, and that the easiest way is actually to infiltrate it and plant explosives.
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evil_kiwi_60 wrote: Give me the new fluff. Most of the characters have hilarious backstories. Trazyn and the guy who doesn't realize he's a robot are especially good.
Old Crons lacked the strength to be a real threat. There was no mass organization. save for the c'tan forces
Did you miss the part where they reduce planets to dust and killed an order of sisters? Or the whole World Engine Fiasco, that wreaked havoc until a space marine chapter sacrificed themselves to destroy it? Or that necron ships managed to reach Mars's surface, making them the first threat to get close to a vital world in the Sol system since the Horus Heresy? Yeah, sure, no real threat.
The Necrons were a mass organization. They weren't splintered like they are now. They just need to be awakened and they will continuing carrying out the C'tan's will.
I don't really see a problem with ultimately unbeatable foes in Warhammer like the Tyranids and Oldcrons, because the setting will never move towards a final conclusion. Battling against impossible odds is a ubiquitous motive in fiction, so it works really well on a large scale. On a smaller scale, on the tabletop or in narrative campaigns, a tyranid invasion can be fought off which would be considered a major victory for everyone involved, so there is still quite a lot of room for gratification on both sides.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Interestingly, even the World Engine and its defeat were from the 5th Edition necron codex.
Prior to the 5th Edition Necron codex, the Necrons had no major defeats in the lore at all.
Wasn't there a world engine prior to the 5th ed codex? Or was it something else? I could have sworn reading something like that before 5th ed dropped.
Or maybe I was just thinking of Necron ships in general.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Interestingly, even the World Engine and its defeat were from the 5th Edition necron codex.
Prior to the 5th Edition Necron codex, the Necrons had no major defeats in the lore at all.
Wasn't there a world engine prior to the 5th ed codex? Or was it something else? I could have sworn reading something like that before 5th ed dropped.
Or maybe I was just thinking of Necron ships in general.
Oldcron ships had inertialess drives and teleported (or rather accelerated indefinitely) between points, rather than using the warp. They were sapient and constructed of solid-hulled living metal. Their weapons didn't exist as individual weapons, but rather a store of power that could be discharged in any number of ways based on how the weapon "grew" (so in Battlefleet Gothic, instead of having two 10-strength macrocannon batteries like the Mars-class imperial battlecruiser, which could fire one on each side, the Necron tombship had a 20-strength weapon that could be split among any targets anywhere. So it could be 5 4-strength weapons firing at little escorts, or one single 20-strength beam to shoot a battleship. It depended on what you wanted).
Tyran wrote: Inertialess drives are still a thing, the living metal is still a thing. The Fall of Damnos space battle is still a thing.
Newcrons are still the most powerful space navy in the galaxy in terms of individual ships and technological advantages.
I thought they took away the inertialess drives in favor of necrons using Dolmen Gates or some other kind of 'warp but not warp' tech stolen from the Eldar?
Tyran wrote: Inertialess drives are still a thing, the living metal is still a thing. The Fall of Damnos space battle is still a thing.
Newcrons are still the most powerful space navy in the galaxy in terms of individual ships and technological advantages.
I thought they took away the inertialess drives in favor of necrons using Dolmen Gates or some other kind of 'warp but not warp' tech stolen from the Eldar?
The Dolmen Gates involve interstellar travel. Inertialess drives involve interplanetary travel and combat maneuvering.
Tyran wrote: Inertialess drives are still a thing, the living metal is still a thing. The Fall of Damnos space battle is still a thing.
Newcrons are still the most powerful space navy in the galaxy in terms of individual ships and technological advantages.
I thought they took away the inertialess drives in favor of necrons using Dolmen Gates or some other kind of 'warp but not warp' tech stolen from the Eldar?
The Dolmen Gates involve interstellar travel. Inertialess drives involve interplanetary travel and combat maneuvering.
Right, okay. When I said inertialess drives for the Oldcrons, I think it was their only method of travel so they didn't become fops who basically wouldn't've been capable without stealing from the Eldar.
Tyran wrote: Inertialess drives are still a thing, the living metal is still a thing. The Fall of Damnos space battle is still a thing.
Newcrons are still the most powerful space navy in the galaxy in terms of individual ships and technological advantages.
I thought they took away the inertialess drives in favor of necrons using Dolmen Gates or some other kind of 'warp but not warp' tech stolen from the Eldar?
The Dolmen Gates involve interstellar travel. Inertialess drives involve interplanetary travel and combat maneuvering.
Right, okay. When I said inertialess drives for the Oldcrons, I think it was their only method of travel so they didn't become fops who basically wouldn't've been capable without stealing from the Eldar.
What fluff came out before 5th Edition made it seem like a portal or gate that they traveled through. If one didn't have a complete visual on them, it would seem like teleporting. Eldar operate similar, so it's not a huge stretch making them use the same "universe" to do interstellar travel, even if access isn't the same.
Except it explicitly states that the Dolmen gates work by hijacking the webway. Which is a stupid way of travelling.
I don't mind it being used as a weapon, but as their only way of interstellar travel? Bugger off.
Inertialess drives were also used for interstellar travel. I believe it said as much in the 3rd ed codex.
Oldcron ships had inertialess drives and teleported (or rather accelerated indefinitely) between points, rather than using the warp.
But that's utter nonsense. Of course whole FTL and Warp are nonsense too, but at least the warp travel works in completely ludicrously fantastic way to begin with. But you just cannot accelerate past the light speed, be there inertia or not. This is something that is known. It is like saying that you could lift yourself in the air by pulling your own hair, if you only pulled hard enough.
Oldcron ships had inertialess drives and teleported (or rather accelerated indefinitely) between points, rather than using the warp.
But that's utter nonsense. Of course whole FTL and Warp are nonsense too, but at least the warp travel works in completely ludicrously fantastic way to begin with. But you just cannot accelerate past the light speed, be there inertia or not. This is something that is known. It is like saying that you could lift yourself in the air by pulling your own hair, if you only pulled hard enough.
Hey man, if this is where your suspension of disbelief stops, wait until I tell you about Tyranid FTL...
Oldcron ships had inertialess drives and teleported (or rather accelerated indefinitely) between points, rather than using the warp.
But that's utter nonsense. Of course whole FTL and Warp are nonsense too, but at least the warp travel works in completely ludicrously fantastic way to begin with. But you just cannot accelerate past the light speed, be there inertia or not. This is something that is known. It is like saying that you could lift yourself in the air by pulling your own hair, if you only pulled hard enough.
Hey man, if this is where your suspension of disbelief stops, wait until I tell you about Tyranid FTL...
Tyranid FTL is just a gravity based Alcubierre drive.
The only thing that does not truly makes sense about it is that it should also be time travel. (then again that applies to all types of FTL)
Ultimately Oldcron lore is superior because it is better to have characters with entry-level writing quality creating depth than the cop-out of "you can't understand it" which is nothing but a lazy excuse. I say this as a Lovecraft, the incomprehensible unknowable horror that you can't describe because you can't understand it is a writing crutch and gakky excuse for want of world building and character exploration.
That said with your typical GW writing quality the most we've gotten out of Newcrons has been comic-book style characters which one could argue aesthetically clash with the established current setting. Which with I could and would agree; I like the idea of Newcrons as developed xenos characters with flaws and growth. But the execution has been mostly short of that mark, opting in stead for puns and running gags with characters like Trazyn.
Frankly the best Necron character to date was probably that one Necron Lady with an established relationship (platonic) with a Lychguardess eons ago.
Wyzilla wrote: Ultimately Oldcron lore is superior because it is better to have characters with entry-level writing quality creating depth than the cop-out of "you can't understand it" which is nothing but a lazy excuse. I say this as a Lovecraft, the incomprehensible unknowable horror that you can't describe because you can't understand it is a writing crutch and gakky excuse for want of world building and character exploration.
Character and worldbuilding aren't always necessary for everything, fear of the unknown and unknowable is a perfectly valid narrative element, it's what makes horror work, and plays and element in all such stories. A simple dark empty hole in the ground can evoke all sorts of imaginative emotions and thoughts without needing anything direct to play off of.
What matters is the perspective desired. If one wants a tale of a putz guardsmen facing the unfathomable horrors of the universe, it works great for a story like that. If one wants a fleshed out background for a faction in an accessible, customizable, and copyrightable manner for a tabletop game, where you need to sell defined units, weapons, characters, etc, well then it doesn't work so much, which is why GW changed it.
That said with your typical GW writing quality the most we've gotten out of Newcrons has been comic-book style characters which one could argue aesthetically clash with the established current setting. Which with I could and would agree; I like the idea of Newcrons as developed xenos characters with flaws and growth. But the execution has been mostly short of that mark, opting in stead for puns and running gags with characters like Trazyn.
This id agree withm there's a lot of ways they could have pivoted the Oldcron fluff. Tomb Kings in spaaaaace with a gag mad scientist was not the best way to handle that
Wyzilla wrote: Ultimately Oldcron lore is superior because it is better to have characters with entry-level writing quality creating depth than the cop-out of "you can't understand it" which is nothing but a lazy excuse. I say this as a Lovecraft, the incomprehensible unknowable horror that you can't describe because you can't understand it is a writing crutch and gakky excuse for want of world building and character exploration.
Character and worldbuilding aren't always necessary for everything, fear of the unknown and unknowable is a perfectly valid narrative element, it's what makes horror work, and plays and element in all such stories. A simple dark empty hole in the ground can evoke all sorts of imaginative emotions and thoughts without needing anything direct to play off of.
What matters is the perspective desired. If one wants a tale of a putz guardsmen facing the unfathomable horrors of the universe, it works great for a story like that. If one wants a fleshed out background for a faction in an accessible, customizable, and copyrightable manner for a tabletop game, where you need to sell defined units, weapons, characters, etc, well then it doesn't work so much, which is why GW changed it.
A simple dark hole in the ground is one thing, but when you've got three factions that are simple dark holes in the ground, things start to get redundant. Oldcrons only make sense in a universe absent of Chaos and Tyranids as a narrative force. When you've got Chaos, Necrons, and Tyranids, two of them need to step down before completely over-saturating the sense of dread and rendering it mundane.
That said with your typical GW writing quality the most we've gotten out of Newcrons has been comic-book style characters which one could argue aesthetically clash with the established current setting. Which with I could and would agree; I like the idea of Newcrons as developed xenos characters with flaws and growth. But the execution has been mostly short of that mark, opting in stead for puns and running gags with characters like Trazyn.
This id agree withm there's a lot of ways they could have pivoted the Oldcron fluff. Tomb Kings in spaaaaace with a gag mad scientist was not the best way to handle that
The criminal thing is that while copying Tomb Kings, they didn't even copy the well developed and interesting Tomb King characters. Settra in space would leagues better than Trazyn the eclectic collector who pokeballs random people.
Wyzilla wrote: [
A simple dark hole in the ground is one thing, but when you've got three factions that are simple dark holes in the ground, things start to get redundant. Oldcrons only make sense in a universe absent of Chaos and Tyranids as a narrative force. When you've got Chaos, Necrons, and Tyranids, two of them need to step down before completely over-saturating the sense of dread and rendering it mundane.
That may be a more valid point, though oversaturation and turning things up to 11 is also a pretty 40k thing
The criminal thing is that while copying Tomb Kings, they didn't even copy the well developed and interesting Tomb King characters. Settra in space would leagues better than Trazyn the eclectic collector who pokeballs random people.
I think oldcrons and Chaos were fine. One is the inner flaws killing you and the other is an unknowable external foe. Then you had the interesting part of reality vs the warp going on.
Wyzilla wrote: [
A simple dark hole in the ground is one thing, but when you've got three factions that are simple dark holes in the ground, things start to get redundant. Oldcrons only make sense in a universe absent of Chaos and Tyranids as a narrative force. When you've got Chaos, Necrons, and Tyranids, two of them need to step down before completely over-saturating the sense of dread and rendering it mundane.
That may be a more valid point, though oversaturation and turning things up to 11 is also a pretty 40k thing
The criminal thing is that while copying Tomb Kings, they didn't even copy the well developed and interesting Tomb King characters. Settra in space would leagues better than Trazyn the eclectic collector who pokeballs random people.
I concur
I have high hopes for the Silent King, who will be likely featured in inevitable Necron expansions, to be a decent character and less of a meme than Trazyn and friends. Certainly his lore on his character has been handled better, with him being a species-minded Necrontyr-ist that also suffers from the emotional weight of his failures and will pursue any means to save his people, even if it entails working with humanity.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:Except it explicitly states that the Dolmen gates work by hijacking the webway. Which is a stupid way of travelling.
I don't mind it being used as a weapon, but as their only way of interstellar travel? Bugger off.
Inertialess drives were also used for interstellar travel. I believe it said as much in the 3rd ed codex.
Why is the Webway a stupid way to travel? Most of the advantages of the Warp with few of the problems. If the Dark Eldar can survive in their with an entire stellar system and not attract Slaanesh. The only issue is maintaining it, which the Eldar failed to do.
All and all, the Webway was still a far sight better traveling system than the slow go Torch Ships they used to use.
Wyzilla wrote:The criminal thing is that while copying Tomb Kings, they didn't even copy the well developed and interesting Tomb King characters. Settra in space would leagues better than Trazyn the eclectic collector who pokeballs random people.
Even worse is introducing the Fallen King of the Flayed Ones, yet doing absolutely NOTHING ELSE with him but a teasing page of fluff.
The new Crons are unplayable in a competitive setting if you ask me. I played Crons in the 6th and 7th ed winning several local tourneys with them. But now I shelved them and I unshelved my Eldar.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:Except it explicitly states that the Dolmen gates work by hijacking the webway. Which is a stupid way of travelling.
I don't mind it being used as a weapon, but as their only way of interstellar travel? Bugger off.
Inertialess drives were also used for interstellar travel. I believe it said as much in the 3rd ed codex.
Why is the Webway a stupid way to travel? Most of the advantages of the Warp with few of the problems. If the Dark Eldar can survive in their with an entire stellar system and not attract Slaanesh. The only issue is maintaining it, which the Eldar failed to do.
All and all, the Webway was still a far sight better traveling system than the slow go Torch Ships they used to use.
Wyzilla wrote:The criminal thing is that while copying Tomb Kings, they didn't even copy the well developed and interesting Tomb King characters. Settra in space would leagues better than Trazyn the eclectic collector who pokeballs random people.
Even worse is introducing the Fallen King of the Flayed Ones, yet doing absolutely NOTHING ELSE with him but a teasing page of fluff.
They shouldn't even be in the Webway lorewise for a start. Plus it's a maze, they have no navigation, it actively tries to stop them and they have no control over the gateways within it.
It's like using an enemies motorways except the motorway has impenetrable energy shields, no signs or landmarks and is covered in mines. But still you use that for all your military needs instead of your much better and safe motorway.
Wyzilla wrote: A simple dark hole in the ground is one thing, but when you've got three factions that are simple dark holes in the ground, things start to get redundant. Oldcrons only make sense in a universe absent of Chaos and Tyranids as a narrative force. When you've got Chaos, Necrons, and Tyranids, two of them need to step down before completely over-saturating the sense of dread and rendering it mundane.
Why can there only be one apocalyptic faction? I thought one of the points of 40k was how massively gakked humanity was. Facing multiple "endgame" scenarios at the same time was perfect for that feeling IMO.
Tyranids, chaos, and oldcrons were all fething death, but they were different flavors of death. Oldcrons represented the cold hatred of impossibly advanced, ancient murder machines, who served as footsoldiers to great-old-ones style entities. Tyranids represented the infinite hunger of an extra-galactic hive mind come to devour all of the biomass in our galaxy like a plague of locusts. They don't hate us, they just see us as food for the harvest, a bioweapon run amok. While chaos represented the worst parts of ourselves, "the great enemy" was but a reflection in the mirror, our own tendency for sin and selfishness made manifest in a mirror dimension. All three are unique and terrifying in their own ways.
Part of my problem with the ret-con fluff is it reads like it was written by an Eldar fanboy who hated the very idea of there being a more ancient, more technologically advanced race and so systematically destroyed it.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:Except it explicitly states that the Dolmen gates work by hijacking the webway. Which is a stupid way of travelling.
I don't mind it being used as a weapon, but as their only way of interstellar travel? Bugger off.
Inertialess drives were also used for interstellar travel. I believe it said as much in the 3rd ed codex.
Why is the Webway a stupid way to travel? Most of the advantages of the Warp with few of the problems. If the Dark Eldar can survive in their with an entire stellar system and not attract Slaanesh. The only issue is maintaining it, which the Eldar failed to do.
All and all, the Webway was still a far sight better traveling system than the slow go Torch Ships they used to use.
Because the Webway hates necrons and will try to trap them inside of it, and a race that can apparently create pocket dimensions at will shouldn't have to rely on some space elves' warp highway.
Oh, its a great way to travel for Eldar. They made it. For necrons though? Dumb and lame.
And the Webway is the most advanced construction in the setting, making everything else (Eldar, Necron, Human) look like toys. It is much more than just a "warp highway".
Hell, the entire plan of the GEOM was based on getting access to it.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:Except it explicitly states that the Dolmen gates work by hijacking the webway. Which is a stupid way of travelling.
I don't mind it being used as a weapon, but as their only way of interstellar travel? Bugger off.
Inertialess drives were also used for interstellar travel. I believe it said as much in the 3rd ed codex.
Why is the Webway a stupid way to travel? Most of the advantages of the Warp with few of the problems. If the Dark Eldar can survive in their with an entire stellar system and not attract Slaanesh. The only issue is maintaining it, which the Eldar failed to do.
All and all, the Webway was still a far sight better traveling system than the slow go Torch Ships they used to use.
They shouldn't even be in the Webway lorewise for a start. Plus it's a maze, they have no navigation, it actively tries to stop them and they have no control over the gateways within it.
Answer doesn't address the question. Why is the Webway a stupid way to travel?
Because it is a maze? Compared to the Warp it is downright linear.
pm713 wrote:It's like using an enemies motorways except the motorway has impenetrable energy shields, no signs or landmarks and is covered in mines. But still you use that for all your military needs instead of your much better and safe motorway.
False equivalencies. Once a mine is set, it doesn't care who triggers it. As a machine, you're basically immortal to time, so you start exploring. And again, it is MUCH faster than relying on real space.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:Except it explicitly states that the Dolmen gates work by hijacking the webway. Which is a stupid way of travelling.
I don't mind it being used as a weapon, but as their only way of interstellar travel? Bugger off.
Inertialess drives were also used for interstellar travel. I believe it said as much in the 3rd ed codex.
Why is the Webway a stupid way to travel? Most of the advantages of the Warp with few of the problems. If the Dark Eldar can survive in their with an entire stellar system and not attract Slaanesh. The only issue is maintaining it, which the Eldar failed to do.
All and all, the Webway was still a far sight better traveling system than the slow go Torch Ships they used to use.
Because the Webway hates necrons and will try to trap them inside of it, and a race that can apparently create pocket dimensions at will shouldn't have to rely on some space elves' warp highway.
Oh, its a great way to travel for Eldar. They made it. For necrons though? Dumb and lame.
Necrons didn't exist when the Webway was created, much less the Eldar. Still, the Eldar were the only sentients to retain the ability to use it in any case. They did a lousy job of maintaining it, too.
You may have a point about the pocket dimensions, but conversely, it depends on how that pocket dimension mechanic works. The only ones who really use it effectively are the Flayed Ones and the Death Marks, and .... yeah...
It is possible to teleport a Monolith from the tomb world to the target (which presumably could be half a galaxy away) and then teleport stuff from the tombworld to the monolith.
The Portal of Exile and the Monolith's method of teleportation are both explicitly not Dolmen Gates to the Webway. Therefore, Necrons have the technology to avoid the Webway entirely in a demonstrable form.
They just don't because newcron fluff is bad & dumb.
You may have a point about the pocket dimensions, but conversely, it depends on how that pocket dimension mechanic works. The only ones who really use it effectively are the Flayed Ones and the Death Marks, and .... yeah...
Well, there's also the phasing that Wraiths do, and C'tan weapons used to do. (maybe still do, I'm not sure)
Tyran wrote: When has a Monolith been teleported from a Tomb World to another planet?
They can be teleported from orbit, but that requires an orbiting ship.
D'oh! you're right, they can be teleported from orbit...
proving the Necrons can teleport without the warp. The reason they can't do this in other ways (e.g. to facilitate FTL travel) is because ......?
Because teleport isn't necessarily FTL.
Also the mechanics of teleporting a relatively small vehicle an orbital distance are completely different from moving a starship to a different star system.
Tyran wrote: When has a Monolith been teleported from a Tomb World to another planet?
They can be teleported from orbit, but that requires an orbiting ship.
D'oh! you're right, they can be teleported from orbit...
proving the Necrons can teleport without the warp. The reason they can't do this in other ways (e.g. to facilitate FTL travel) is because ......?
Because teleport isn't necessarily FTL.
Also the mechanics of teleporting a relatively small vehicle an orbital distance are completely different from moving a starship to a different star system.
They teleport troopers to and from Tomb Worlds. so that's definitely FTL. As for ships moving between systems, I'm not sure what their deal is currently. Back in the day it was some sort of non-warp, physics-breaking FTL iirc.
Insectum7 wrote: They teleport troopers to and from Tomb Worlds. so that's definitely FTL. As for ships moving between systems, I'm not sure what their deal is currently. Back in the day it was some sort of non-warp, physics-breaking FTL iirc.
But they still need physical means to generate the portals to teleport through. Monoliths Deep Strike the same way that Drop Pods do, just more slowly and threateningly. They then provide the gates for the troops to come through. The same applies to the Scythe. That type of "FTL" is closer to Stargate technology. It definitely is faster once the gate is set up, but the gate needs to be present first. And that is one reason for using the Webway, to get the gates in to place to "gate" things in.
Insectum7 wrote: They teleport troopers to and from Tomb Worlds. so that's definitely FTL. As for ships moving between systems, I'm not sure what their deal is currently. Back in the day it was some sort of non-warp, physics-breaking FTL iirc.
But they still need physical means to generate the portals to teleport through. Monoliths Deep Strike the same way that Drop Pods do, just more slowly and threateningly. They then provide the gates for the troops to come through. The same applies to the Scythe. That type of "FTL" is closer to Stargate technology. It definitely is faster once the gate is set up, but the gate needs to be present first. And that is one reason for using the Webway, to get the gates in to place to "gate" things in.
I agree with all that for monoliths and teleporting troops through their portals. Their starships afaik didn't need physical portals. I could be wrong, but that's my impression.
Old crons had the Dyson Sphere, possibly housing the Outsider. They also had interstellar teleportation on the personal scale, and presumably on the starship scale, although they didn't need it.
Tyran wrote: Inertialess drives are still a thing, the living metal is still a thing. The Fall of Damnos space battle is still a thing.
Newcrons are still the most powerful space navy in the galaxy in terms of individual ships and technological advantages.
I thought they took away the inertialess drives in favor of necrons using Dolmen Gates or some other kind of 'warp but not warp' tech stolen from the Eldar?
The Dolmen Gates involve interstellar travel. Inertialess drives involve interplanetary travel and combat maneuvering.
Right, okay. When I said inertialess drives for the Oldcrons, I think it was their only method of travel so they didn't become fops who basically wouldn't've been capable without stealing from the Eldar.
What fluff came out before 5th Edition made it seem like a portal or gate that they traveled through. If one didn't have a complete visual on them, it would seem like teleporting. Eldar operate similar, so it's not a huge stretch making them use the same "universe" to do interstellar travel, even if access isn't the same.
No, it was an inertialess drive akin to the Lensman drive, allowing FTL travel through real space. Oldcron ships were explicitly able to accelerate and decelerate so quickly that they appeared to appear and disappear at will, and could travel across the galaxy "in the blink of an eye".
Insectum7 wrote:I agree with all that for monoliths and teleporting troops through their portals. Their starships afaik didn't need physical portals. I could be wrong, but that's my impression.
That's because the ships didn't use the same technology. When a ship comes out of the Webway it's not like a Warp jump or even like the smaller web gates we see in common Eldar use. They just slide in to the universe.
BobtheInquisitor wrote:No, it was an inertialess drive akin to the Lensman drive, allowing FTL travel through real space. Oldcron ships were explicitly able to accelerate and decelerate so quickly that they appeared to appear and disappear at will, and could travel across the galaxy "in the blink of an eye".
Not the fluff I read. They were able to see regular combat movement with little difficulty. One person managed to catch them leaving and it looked more like a screen wipe. It just happened really fast.
Of course, I think that was a Blood Ravens novel, so there's a salt mine deed attached to it...
The Necrons using the webway for space travel doesn't make any sense... The Necrontyr had a large galactic empire prior to the War In Heaven. They couldn't have infiltrated the webway because at the earliest time they must have had FTL they were in no position to contest the Old Ones for it.
IIRC, the Dolmen gates were actually a C'tan creation that allowed the necrons to breach the webway.
How could a race that is incompatible to the warp find a way to hack into warp based technology? Idk, ask Ward.
Anyway, it was a way of countering the Old One's mobility.
Which makes sense, but then Ward decided that necrons should have to rely on the damned things instead of just doing what they did in 3rd ed.
Arachnofiend wrote: The Necrons using the webway for space travel doesn't make any sense... The Necrontyr had a large galactic empire prior to the War In Heaven. They couldn't have infiltrated the webway because at the earliest time they must have had FTL they were in no position to contest the Old Ones for it.
It does though. If your enemy built their own road, would you not use it? It's likely to lead to their strongholds and enclaves.
And now, Necrons possibly find it just more convenient.
Arachnofiend wrote: The Necrons using the webway for space travel doesn't make any sense... The Necrontyr had a large galactic empire prior to the War In Heaven. They couldn't have infiltrated the webway because at the earliest time they must have had FTL they were in no position to contest the Old Ones for it.
It does though. If your enemy built their own road, would you not use it? It's likely to lead to their strongholds and enclaves.
And now, Necrons possibly find it just more convenient.
It's not a question of usefulness, it's a question of possibility. The Necrontyr couldn't have used the webway to build their empire because before they became the Necrons the Old Ones were quite capable of stopping them. If the Necrons had only started using FTL after biotransference then sure, that works, but then how did they traverse their galactic empire?
Arachnofiend wrote: It's not a question of usefulness, it's a question of possibility. The Necrontyr couldn't have used the webway to build their empire because before they became the Necrons the Old Ones were quite capable of stopping them. If the Necrons had only started using FTL after biotransference then sure, that works, but then how did they traverse their galactic empire?
Pardon my ignorance, but what precludes they didn't have some kind of intertialess drive pre-Biotransference?
I admit that I have no dragged out my 3rd edition Codex in a while, so perhaps I missed something?
Insectum7 wrote: They teleport troopers to and from Tomb Worlds. so that's definitely FTL. As for ships moving between systems, I'm not sure what their deal is currently. Back in the day it was some sort of non-warp, physics-breaking FTL iirc.
But they still need physical means to generate the portals to teleport through. Monoliths Deep Strike the same way that Drop Pods do, just more slowly and threateningly. They then provide the gates for the troops to come through. The same applies to the Scythe. That type of "FTL" is closer to Stargate technology. It definitely is faster once the gate is set up, but the gate needs to be present first. And that is one reason for using the Webway, to get the gates in to place to "gate" things in.
Oldcron monoliths explicitly teleported to the surface. In fact, every codex before the current one has had them teleporting to the surface. The current one retconned that to the "drop pod"-style descent from orbit, presumably because the idea of teleporting straight from a tomb world (or orbit) violated the entire notion of Dolmen Gates and demonstrated how stupid that fluff was.
The Monolith required no "gate" at its arrival site in old fluff. Indeed, the teleporting monolith actually shoved units out of the way when it arrived.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:Except it explicitly states that the Dolmen gates work by hijacking the webway. Which is a stupid way of travelling.
I don't mind it being used as a weapon, but as their only way of interstellar travel? Bugger off.
Inertialess drives were also used for interstellar travel. I believe it said as much in the 3rd ed codex.
Why is the Webway a stupid way to travel? Most of the advantages of the Warp with few of the problems. If the Dark Eldar can survive in their with an entire stellar system and not attract Slaanesh. The only issue is maintaining it, which the Eldar failed to do.
All and all, the Webway was still a far sight better traveling system than the slow go Torch Ships they used to use.
They shouldn't even be in the Webway lorewise for a start. Plus it's a maze, they have no navigation, it actively tries to stop them and they have no control over the gateways within it.
Answer doesn't address the question. Why is the Webway a stupid way to travel?
Because it is a maze? Compared to the Warp it is downright linear.
pm713 wrote:It's like using an enemies motorways except the motorway has impenetrable energy shields, no signs or landmarks and is covered in mines. But still you use that for all your military needs instead of your much better and safe motorway.
False equivalencies. Once a mine is set, it doesn't care who triggers it. As a machine, you're basically immortal to time, so you start exploring. And again, it is MUCH faster than relying on real space.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:Except it explicitly states that the Dolmen gates work by hijacking the webway. Which is a stupid way of travelling.
I don't mind it being used as a weapon, but as their only way of interstellar travel? Bugger off.
Inertialess drives were also used for interstellar travel. I believe it said as much in the 3rd ed codex.
Why is the Webway a stupid way to travel? Most of the advantages of the Warp with few of the problems. If the Dark Eldar can survive in their with an entire stellar system and not attract Slaanesh. The only issue is maintaining it, which the Eldar failed to do.
All and all, the Webway was still a far sight better traveling system than the slow go Torch Ships they used to use.
Because the Webway hates necrons and will try to trap them inside of it, and a race that can apparently create pocket dimensions at will shouldn't have to rely on some space elves' warp highway.
Oh, its a great way to travel for Eldar. They made it. For necrons though? Dumb and lame.
Necrons didn't exist when the Webway was created, much less the Eldar. Still, the Eldar were the only sentients to retain the ability to use it in any case. They did a lousy job of maintaining it, too.
You may have a point about the pocket dimensions, but conversely, it depends on how that pocket dimension mechanic works. The only ones who really use it effectively are the Flayed Ones and the Death Marks, and .... yeah...
In no way is the Webway linear. It's a labyrinth with one map in all existence that's almost impossible to get. The Warp is way more straightforwards and oldcron inertialess drives were so much better. It is a bad comparison in hindsight but the machine argument is meaningless. They have forever to walk into walls because the Webway restructures itself to block them. It's only faster for Eldar, everyone else has no motive to use it which is why the EoMs plan is mind bogglingly dumb but that's another topic.
Where did the idea that Eldar didn't maintain the Webway come from? It was in good enough shape for cities.
Insectum7 wrote: They teleport troopers to and from Tomb Worlds. so that's definitely FTL. As for ships moving between systems, I'm not sure what their deal is currently. Back in the day it was some sort of non-warp, physics-breaking FTL iirc.
But they still need physical means to generate the portals to teleport through. Monoliths Deep Strike the same way that Drop Pods do, just more slowly and threateningly. They then provide the gates for the troops to come through. The same applies to the Scythe. That type of "FTL" is closer to Stargate technology. It definitely is faster once the gate is set up, but the gate needs to be present first. And that is one reason for using the Webway, to get the gates in to place to "gate" things in.
Oldcron monoliths explicitly teleported to the surface. In fact, every codex before the current one has had them teleporting to the surface. The current one retconned that to the "drop pod"-style descent from orbit, presumably because the idea of teleporting straight from a tomb world (or orbit) violated the entire notion of Dolmen Gates and demonstrated how stupid that fluff was.
The Monolith required no "gate" at its arrival site in old fluff. Indeed, the teleporting monolith actually shoved units out of the way when it arrived.
Teleported from where? 3rd Ed codex doesn't say. It's not like they couldn't have teleported from an orbiting ship, and such short range teleporting is well within their capacity, as their Lords have been doing it with regularity.
The issue is teleporting from one star system to another that causes a lot of problems. You either have to travel there directly, indirectly through a different medium, or have two points which act like bridge ends to keep things straight. The Necrontyr Torch Ships go one way, the Warp and Webway provide the second, with the Monolith and Scythe operating the third.
pm713 wrote:In no way is the Webway linear. It's a labyrinth with one map in all existence that's almost impossible to get. The Warp is way more straightforwards and oldcron inertialess drives were so much better. It is a bad comparison in hindsight but the machine argument is meaningless. They have forever to walk into walls because the Webway restructures itself to block them. It's only faster for Eldar, everyone else has no motive to use it which is why the EoMs plan is mind bogglingly dumb but that's another topic.
The Webway IS linear when compared to the Warp. Reread what I wrote. The Warp is actually NOT straightforward. Traveling through the Warp before Navigators was like taking a dingy from Ireland and heading west. Sure, you might get lucky, but more than likely you'd be lost. After Navigators it still wasn't a sure thing and ships got lost all the time, collecting in to Space Hulks. The Emperor provided his beacon to help the Navigators, but even that is not a sure thing as ships still get lost emerging at a point and time not of their choosing. The Webway is consistent in travel time and direction by comparison.
The Old Ones had little trouble traversing the Warp, yet still built the Webway, why? Because it was better over all.
Then when you consider that the Necrontyr never had access to the Warp and flew in stasis between the stars, the Webway would seem downright convenient.
And I have yet to read where the Webway was a more hostile place to outsiders than the Warp. It is quite possible to travel the Webway and never run in to a counter-measure. And when compared to the strength of the Necrons who would be stronger than most anything that would be thrown at them, they are a relative non-issue. The Necrontyr would be a different story, but they never had access to it.
pm713 wrote:Where did the idea that Eldar didn't maintain the Webway come from? It was in good enough shape for cities.
From the Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Necron codices. There are many collapsed sections of the Webway which allowed the Warp to enter.
Who would maintain it now? The self-indulgent Eldar who fapped Slaanesh into existence were the only ones who knew and cared enough how after the Old Ones were gone. What's left of the mighty Eldar race is either too primitive to care, on the run in massive star ships with barely the wherewithal to maintain themselves, or a one-system degenerate society that is too interested in other factors to worry about their highways. The Krorks might have, but they don't care now that their Brain Boyz are gone. The God Emperor wanted to get started on it, but was rather interrupted when some of his sons got a little pouty.
And I don't think you understand the capacity the Webway has. It literally contains an entire star system in at least one section (possibly more).
It's not at all linear compared to the Warp. With just Warp Engines you can make slow but consistent FTL travel with small jumps and the biggest issue becomes maintaining your Gellar field. If you want to get riskier you can jump straight from A to B and trust the Navigator. Pretty straightforwards.
The Webway requires you to rush through a labyrinth to your destination which you don't know the location of before your sealed in. In a world with weird physics, hostiles potentially everywhere who could attack without warnings. Much harder.
You really can't speculate about the Old Ones motives seeing as the Warp had none of the dangers then because there wasn't Chaos.
Why would Necrons use the Webay though? NecronTYR are the ones with motive to do so, Necrons have inertialess drives which are better in every way and actually fit their theme.
Yeah there are collapsed sections after the apocalyptic event that broke it. That's like saying human cities are as structurally weak as wet paper because they're in ruins but only looking at ones that were bombed for days on end.
Where? How does that at all match what you're saying? It's small enough to be used as a galaxy spanning travel method despite the time limit but big enough for star systems?
Insectum7 wrote: They teleport troopers to and from Tomb Worlds. so that's definitely FTL. As for ships moving between systems, I'm not sure what their deal is currently. Back in the day it was some sort of non-warp, physics-breaking FTL iirc.
But they still need physical means to generate the portals to teleport through. Monoliths Deep Strike the same way that Drop Pods do, just more slowly and threateningly. They then provide the gates for the troops to come through. The same applies to the Scythe. That type of "FTL" is closer to Stargate technology. It definitely is faster once the gate is set up, but the gate needs to be present first. And that is one reason for using the Webway, to get the gates in to place to "gate" things in.
Oldcron monoliths explicitly teleported to the surface. In fact, every codex before the current one has had them teleporting to the surface. The current one retconned that to the "drop pod"-style descent from orbit, presumably because the idea of teleporting straight from a tomb world (or orbit) violated the entire notion of Dolmen Gates and demonstrated how stupid that fluff was.
The Monolith required no "gate" at its arrival site in old fluff. Indeed, the teleporting monolith actually shoved units out of the way when it arrived.
Teleported from where? 3rd Ed codex doesn't say. It's not like they couldn't have teleported from an orbiting ship, and such short range teleporting is well within their capacity, as their Lords have been doing it with regularity.
Can you explain what, other than simple power generation, a short ranged teleporter might be more usable while a long range teleport is not?
Heck, a series of short range teleports will get you there quick as can be, since teleports are instantaneous. If you travel from A->Z in T=0, then travelling from A->B->C->... could presumably also be done in T=0, if your computers are programmed in advanced and your power generation is up to snuff.
Remember, teleportation literally violates causality. Having any "teleporter" tech at all means you don't really have to worry about speed anymore, and we know that Monoliths have teleporters that can take them to a planet's surface from at /least/ Orbit without requiring a gate at the bottom.
Tyran wrote: You cannot assume the technology works like that. You cannot assume it is truly instantaneous.
Hell, even Oldcrons couldn't use their teleport technology for FTL, and the Inertialess Drive never has been teleportation.
Right. So the point is:
They went from wiz-bang coolness (FTL Inertialess drives, possible teleportation shenanigans, whathaveyou) to basically helpless without stealing the Webway from the Eldar. That isn't... engaging or a fun change. It's an unnecessary change that makes the Necrons seem a bit... dumb really. It'd be like if you had to drive through enemy territory to do anything always. Oh, and the highway is trying to kill you.
pm713 wrote:It's not at all linear compared to the Warp. With just Warp Engines you can make slow but consistent FTL travel with small jumps and the biggest issue becomes maintaining your Gellar field. If you want to get riskier you can jump straight from A to B and trust the Navigator. Pretty straightforwards.
A Navigator was only marginally useful before the Emperor, and gained significant, but not complete, usefulness after the Emperor set up his guiding light. And yeah, the Necrontyr and Necrons never had Warp Navigators.
pm713 wrote:The Webway requires you to rush through a labyrinth to your destination which you don't know the location of before your sealed in. In a world with weird physics, hostiles potentially everywhere who could attack without warnings. Much harder.
Actually the Warp is even worse if you don't have any navigational aids.
pm713 wrote:You really can't speculate about the Old Ones motives seeing as the Warp had none of the dangers then because there wasn't Chaos.
I can speculate all I want to about the Old Ones. You can't stop me. Your point actually emphasizes the superiority of the Webway over the Warp since the Warp started to get dangerous during the War in Heaven, yet the Old Ones still built and used the Webway extensively over the Warp.
pm713 wrote:Why would Necrons use the Webay though? NecronTYR are the ones with motive to do so, Necrons have inertialess drives which are better in every way and actually fit their theme.
Just being inertialess doesn't change other aspects such as top speed being limited by other factors. Technically speaking, all being inertialess means is that vector changes aren't an issue. A good example of this in the Star Control games. Every ship is subject to inertia, but one (the Arilou). It is a fast ship, but it can be out-run by other ships because they have a higher top speed or can slingshot around the planets while they cannot.
pm713 wrote:Yeah there are collapsed sections after the apocalyptic event that broke it. That's like saying human cities are as structurally weak as wet paper because they're in ruins but only looking at ones that were bombed for days on end.
Actually that has nothing to do with it. We're talking about maintenance here. Like when a freeway overpass gets knocked down by an earthquake. If no one makes an effort to shore up and maintain it, it will stay knocked down. If a town is abandoned, then the buildings will fall and be over-grown.
pm713 wrote:Where? How does that at all match what you're saying? It's small enough to be used as a galaxy spanning travel method despite the time limit but big enough for star systems?
Read up on the Dark Eldar's home and how they escaped Slaanesh's birth and wrath. They actually dragged a star in to the Webway to give energy to the Dark City.
Parts of the Webway are small enough for people to engage with it on a personal level and other parts allow whole fleets through. Basically, it's always "plot-sized".
Unit1126PLL wrote:Can you explain what, other than simple power generation, a short ranged teleporter might be more usable while a long range teleport is not?
Capacity for observation and being able to account for the conditions of the local target is one. The longer the trip, the more fine your course has to be, and "teleportation" usually doesn't allow for easy corrections along the way. As an example, look at Star Trek: Into Darkness when Scottie beams everyone to the Enterprise. That was a "short" distance compared to the ranges that 40K operates at. To say nothing of being off by a 10^-23 in your calculations between observed and actuality.
Unit1126PLL wrote:Heck, a series of short range teleports will get you there quick as can be, since teleports are instantaneous. If you travel from A->Z in T=0, then travelling from A->B->C->... could presumably also be done in T=0, if your computers are programmed in advanced and your power generation is up to snuff.
Short range teleportation could be quick, or it could be slow. Factors involved are in how long it takes to power up a jump and the maximum reliable distance of said jumps, or maximum distance of semi-reliable jumps. Interestingly enough, Isaac Asimov's Foundation series goes in to some detail on this with one of the final books. The pilot notes that any ship can make jumps as quickly as they want between star systems, but their jump system tended to be unreliable in hitting the target. However, the computer seemed to be extremely accurate on their ship, so they were able to make numerous jumps all at once. If one considers a "reliable" jump to be at interplanetary distances, it can still take a considerable amount of time to traverse interstellar distances depending on how quickly it takes to initiate said teleportation jump in the first place, even with a quick jump sequence.
Unit1126PLL wrote:Remember, teleportation literally violates causality. Having any "teleporter" tech at all means you don't really have to worry about speed anymore, and we know that Monoliths have teleporters that can take them to a planet's surface from at /least/ Orbit without requiring a gate at the bottom.
Remember, we know so very very little about our universe. It violates what we know of causality, and only for our universe. We haven't even left our planetary system yet, but we can make hard pronouncements on what is and is not possible for such an occurrence? To say nothing about a universe where one's own demons can literally come home to roost if one's psychic power is sufficient.
Not to mention, it really depends on how the teleportation system operates. Terminators take a quick hop through the Warp. In relative terms, it is little different to Deathmarks hopping in to their hyperspace bubbles. Star Trek converts objects in to energy and then projects and reforms that energy at a different location. We have zero understanding on the limitations of what teleportation methods the Necrons use, and can only go by observed data.
From there, Oldcron stories are told from the Imperium's perspective, Newcron stories are told either from an omniscient (or nearly so) or Necron's perspective. What may seem like a teleport to a Guardsman or a Marine who is focusing on the battle in front just may be them not noticing the Monolith dropping at a prodigious rate.
Glutted on the life force of the Necrontyr, the empowered C'tan were near unstoppable and unleashed forces beyond comprehension. Planets were razed, suns extinguished and whole systems devoured by black holes called into being by the reality-warping powers of the star gods. - Necron Codex, 8th Edition, page 9.
The Newcrons still have the C'tan who created black holes and destroyed solar systems (but so do Oldcrons).
Which begs the question how the newcrons defeated the C'tan if they were so powerful. It's a stupid plot point, and is indicative of Ward's lack of coherency.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Which begs the question how the newcrons defeated the C'tan if they were so powerful. It's a stupid plot point, and is indicative of Ward's lack of coherency.
The C'Tan we're weakened by their nettle with the old ones and wrongly believed the necrons we're totally under their control.
Which either makes Szarekh the tricksiest bastard in the universe or the Deceiver incredibly stupid. Like, even as someone who thinks newcrons were an overall positive move the origin story doesn't really check out.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Which begs the question how the newcrons defeated the C'tan if they were so powerful. It's a stupid plot point, and is indicative of Ward's lack of coherency.
The C'Tan we're weakened by their nettle with the old ones and wrongly believed the necrons we're totally under their control.
They can manipulate reality to their whim and could eat planets. The fact that some necrons weren't under their control is irrelevant, as they shouldn't have the firepower to kill something like that. The fact they gave the command protocols to one necron is idiotic. The entire newcron backstory is badly written, full of holes and reeks of Ward's usual "Look, Look! These guys are sooooo kewl! Look at them do stupid impractical gak that falls apart as soon as you start thinking about it logically!" It's like a bad shounen anime.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Which begs the question how the newcrons defeated the C'tan if they were so powerful. It's a stupid plot point, and is indicative of Ward's lack of coherency.
The C'Tan we're weakened by their nettle with the old ones and wrongly believed the necrons we're totally under their control.
They can manipulate reality to their whim and could eat planets. The fact that some necrons weren't under their control is irrelevant, as they shouldn't have the firepower to kill something like that.
The fact they gave the command protocols to one necron is idiotic. The entire newcron backstory is badly written, full of holes and reeks of Ward's usual "Look, Look! These guys are sooooo kewl! Look at them do stupid impractical gak that falls apart as soon as you start thinking about it logically!" It's like a bad shounen anime.
Um, you mean like every other aspect of warhammer 40,000? Not to mention star wars, star trek, every superhero story and most other forms of entertainment?
As to particulars, the necrons built the Blackstone fortresses allegedly to destroy the old ones but actually to shatter the C'Tan. The C'Tan, perhaps not understand material, physical technology and apparatus very well given they never needed to use them, didn't get the idea that they could be quickly repurposed.
Yes you need to suspend disbelief quite a bit to enjoy 40k.
Except the necrons did not build the Blackstone fortresses. Its been heavily implied that the old ones did. They are called the Talismans of Vaul by the Eldar. Why would they name a necron weapon after an Old One, aka one of their gods? There is nothing in the fluff that supports that the necrons built it, especially when you consider that the Blackstone fortress is a WARP based weapon and doesn't share any visual design elements with necron tech.
There's a difference between suspension of disbelief and blindly accepting everything the author writes at face value.
Tyran wrote: If the Necrons didn't have the firepower to damage C'tan, then they would have been useless in the WiH, as the Old Ones were even more powerful.
The entire logic of the conflict requires the Necrons to be powerful enough to threaten the Old Ones and by extension the C'tan.
Except the Old Ones weren't more powerful. The necrontyr were actually more technologically advanced than the Old Ones, but the Old Ones were more mobile due to their mastery of the warp. So the Old Ones would attack the necrontyr by surprise, then retreat back. The C'tan helped the necrontry by bending reality in such a way that such attacks were ineffective. The Dolmen gates were a good idea in this sense, as they explained how the necrons countered the Old One's greatest advantage over then. But then the writer did a stupid thing and made the necrons rely on the gates for everything.
Besides, think about it logically - The Necrons and the C'tan fought together against the Old Ones. If the C'tan were weakened by the battle, then logically the necrons would have taken casualties as well. If the C'tan are that powerful, then they should be able to deal with necrons in a weakened state, even if they spent some of their powers. It would make more sense if the necrons betrayed the C'tan some time after the war in Heaven, when they regained some of their strength. In the old fluff there was a C'tan civil war. I do not believe this happened in the new fluff, which is a pity, as that would have been the perfect time for the necrons to turn against the C'tan. Of course, you'd then have to address how the necrons gained independence, and no "the silent king did it" is not a valid reason, as giving control of your slave race to a slave is a really, really dumb idea. Arrogant is not a synonym for stupid.
The premiss for the argument is presented rather flatly. The question is more difficult then just old 'crons vs new 'crons.
There are at leats 3 major arias to be looked at, perhaps more.
The visual aesthetic is one major component. The old crones had this techno-magic look. Their wraights looked like metal ghosts. The new look incorperates a very different aesthetic, and all the robot sub factions got an overhaughl.
Second is how they play on the battlefield. The old crones had very few units. They had some iconic units like the old monolith that was near unkillable. Even if nev crones did not come along it is unlikly play mecanics would have remained intact from the old codex up until 8th edition as much changed. Where as the new 'cron codex has so much more units and more options.
Lastly there is a big change in the backround and story. This is perhaps the biggest hurdle. The 'crons as an army moved away from these mindless chtulu servant like enteties and over into more local kings and serfs, ruling over their place of the galaxy. Lets look at some of the major points of this issue.
The new 'crones are just not that scary. Their bakcground got fleshed out quite a bit and opinions are varied. Things like the Celestial Orrey and how it can destroy everything in the known galaxy was not well met by all. But they got fleshed out a lot. And that was the main problem with the old crones. They, like the tyranids, are hard to use in any form of campain or story. They had no personalaty and no will on their own, it was frustrating from a story tellers perspective. And that change was nessassery in my opinion. While subjective, it can be objectivly stated to be a hot potato.
I miss the old necron fluff, and I really wish they where still around. I would like to see 'bound' 'crons out there and loose C'tan pulling in strings. Forge world did have a campain book featuring the new 'crons. It has some really cool bakcground stuff, I really like it. It would not have been possible with the old 'crons.
Tyran wrote: If the Necrons didn't have the firepower to damage C'tan, then they would have been useless in the WiH, as the Old Ones were even more powerful.
The entire logic of the conflict requires the Necrons to be powerful enough to threaten the Old Ones and by extension the C'tan.
Except the Old Ones weren't more powerful.
The necrontyr were actually more technologically advanced than the Old Ones, but the Old Ones were more mobile due to their mastery of the warp. So the Old Ones would attack the necrontyr by surprise, then retreat back. The C'tan helped the necrontry by bending reality in such a way that such attacks were ineffective.
Besides, think about it logically -
The Necrons and the C'tan fought together against the Old Ones. If the C'tan were weakened by the battle, then logically the necrons would have taken casualties as well. If the C'tan are that powerful, then they should be able to deal with necrons in a weakened state, even if they spent some of their powers.
It is hinted that the Old Ones were more advanced on another fields, especially secrets of immortality that were the ultimate goal of the Necrontyr.
The triarch decide to go against the Old Ones to unite the Necrontyr Empire against one enemy, and the official reason is something along the line of "they don't wan't to share their secrets with us".
"Only the Old Ones, first of all the galaxy’s sentient life forms, were a prospective foe great enough to bind the Necrontyr to a common cause. Such a war was simplicity itself to justify, for the Necrontyr had ever rankled at the Old Ones’ refusal to share the secrets of eternal life." Necron codex page 8
The Necrontyr are advanced beyond comparison with current 40k factions, but the Old Ones are on another level, the super-plot level
Yes, in terms of warp tech and biotech the Old Ones were probably more advanced than necrontyr. They did create servant races, after all. In terms of overall engineering and hard science the necrons were more advanced, however. It is pretty clear though that the webway and the warp gave the Old Ones a bit of an advantage, as that was a field the necrontyr didn't know much about.
So in a straight up slug fest the necrontyr would win, but in a hit and run engagement the Old Ones would win as the necrontyr were too slow.
Tyran wrote: You cannot dismiss warp tech in a slug fest. I mean, some of the most powerful guns in the game are pure warp tech.
And the other most powerful ones are necron tech. The Doomsday cannon and the Deathray are both S10 with high armor pen and multi-damage, you have S16 weapons on the Seraptek, you have the Gauss Pylon, etc. The necrontyr can create a powerful weapons without having to rely on space magic. That's pretty advanced, and they can make more of them.
But that's besides the point; the codex even states that the necrontyr were more advanced than the Old Ones -
Their superior numbers and technologies were constantly outmaneuvered by the Old One's mastery of the webway portals
pg 8, necron codex, 8th edition. This is not old fluff, this is recent.
There is no point in further argument, it explicitly states that necrontyr had the higher tech level, and the Old Ones won by being sneaky gits. The premise that the Old Ones were more advanced than the necrontyr is blatantly false.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Which begs the question how the newcrons defeated the C'tan if they were so powerful. It's a stupid plot point, and is indicative of Ward's lack of coherency.
How did they do that? They used a weapon that focused the power of the entire universe and almost shattered reality to do so. It terrified the Necrons so much they erased it from their memories.
Not all of the Necron stuff is written by Ward.
C'tan have been consistently as powerful as I quoted ever since the early editions. The "creating black holes and destroying solar systems" quote is nothing new.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Which begs the question how the newcrons defeated the C'tan if they were so powerful. It's a stupid plot point, and is indicative of Ward's lack of coherency.
The C'Tan we're weakened by their nettle with the old ones and wrongly believed the necrons we're totally under their control.
They can manipulate reality to their whim and could eat planets. The fact that some necrons weren't under their control is irrelevant, as they shouldn't have the firepower to kill something like that.
The fact they gave the command protocols to one necron is idiotic. The entire newcron backstory is badly written, full of holes and reeks of Ward's usual "Look, Look! These guys are sooooo kewl! Look at them do stupid impractical gak that falls apart as soon as you start thinking about it logically!" It's like a bad shounen anime.
Do you know what you are talking about? The Necrons have power far surpassing destroying planets. They have the Celestial Orrery, a "gardening trimmer" that can destroy ever star in the galaxy.
Even Pre Fall Eldar had "overturned world and quenched stars." with their "mere dreams." Even DAOT humanity could shrink stars to sub atomic level.
EDIT: Here is something not written by Matt Ward.
"In the centre of the debris cloud rose a burning ember, a mote of fire ascending from the darkness. It gathered matter and light into itself like a black hole pulling at the surface of Borsis. Hyalhi let the image of it burn into his brain, sinking in deep, because this would have to be remembered too.The being that formed in the centre of the zone of destruction hovered above the tallest spire, and its body was composed of darkness. It had no fixed shape, its only definite feature the crescent of three eyes that burned in its heart. Tendrils of it, composed of torn and compacted metal, dragged it along above the spires. Hyalhi did not have to picture the geography of Borsis to know where it was headed.What followed had to be remembered as well. Hyalhi turned his consciousness this time outside his body, riding the ripples growing in the warp from the impact of the being erupting from its prison. He could see Borsis unfolding beneath him, the endless steel canyons and metal spires rushing past. The Astral Knights had fought across much of the planet's surface but now he saw, from his high psychic vantage point, great palaces and monuments the Astral Knights had not seen. It was the work of endless millennia, the labour of countless scarabs and worker-constructs devoted to deifying their nobles.The entity roared up ahead, shredding the spiretops as it passed and absorbing the fragments of matter that flew up into its swirling mass. Limbs formed and reformed as it hauled itself along, and pulses of raw, alien hatred battered against the surface of Hyalhi's mind. It was not a human emotion, for there was nothing human about this being, but it was unmistakably hatred.The entity crossed into the Labyrinth Wastes. It passed over columns of warrior-constructs arriving to join the final stages of the battle, and those that could feel dismay felt it now as the great darkness bellowed and stormed overhead.(...)Silver and gold glittered as Overlord Heqiroth and his lychguard retinue arrived on the battlements. The darkness bore over them as the moon that passed closest to it was torn apart and absorbed into its body. Heqiroth took one look at the approaching entity and the silvery necrodermis swarmed over his body in a protective shroud.An arm of compacted debris swept the lychguard off the wall. They tumbled down the side of the cathedral along with tonnes of shattered battlement. The darkness loomed closer and the necrodermis squirmed off Heqiroth's body as if of its own accord, drawn off in ductile streamers into the swirling blackness.The entity wove the necrodermis around it into the form of the star-god the necrons had first beseeched, then worshipped, then destroyed. Even this single shard of it was terrifying to see taking shape – it was like a deity of destruction and calamity from some long-forgotten human religion, crowned with three burning eyes, its enormous form clad in liquid metal.Hyalhi did not know the necron language in which Heqiroth spoke to Yggra'nya the Worldmaker, the C'tan imprisoned in the heart of Borsis to power it and guide it towards Mars. It was not a tongue that even needed sound, transmitted in pure information. But Hyalhi could guess it involved pleading, perhaps bargaining, Heqiroth offering lordship of Borsis, every necron under his command, everything he could possibly give in return for being permitted to continue existing.And Hyalhi knew the reply, too. "You betrayed us", Yggra'nya would be saying. "You imprisoned us. You enslaved us to this mad plan to journey to Mars."Heqiroth held up the tesseract in which he had imprisoned and then recaptured Turakhin, no doubt trying to persuade the C'tan that its enslavement had been Turakhin's doing. Yggra'nya snatched the tesseract and it dissolved in its hand, consumed by a purple-black fire, and with it the last glimmer of Turakhin's existence. But it was not enough."You, Turakhin, all that came before, you are all the same." Hyalhi could almost hear the star-god's words and their meaning could not be in doubt. "The whole necron race is our enemy. Now I am free, and you will all be punished."It gave Hyalhi some measure of satisfaction to see Overlord Heqiroth lifted off the battlements and dissected, piece by piece, by the will of Yggra'nya. Each section peeled and lifted away, gradually reducing the overlord to a spindly metal skeleton that squirmed in pain, if necrons could feel it. That, too, was dissolved away until only a glimmering speck of consciousness sat in Yggra'nya's palm. Then the C'tan closed its fist and Heqiroth, too, was annihilated.Yggra'nya raised its arms as if making a sacred pronouncement. The substance of the Cathedral of the Seven Moons came apart and reformed above it, an endless torrent of shattered metal forming great rings that orbited the star-god. Then they became gigantic blades that Yggra'nya stabbed into the surface of Borsis, driving them deep down through the crust of the world it had once built in an earlier age of the galaxy.Yggra'nya dived into the fissure it had opened up. Hyalhi could feel it ripping through the planet, dissolving everything in front of it like a blowtorch through flesh. It tore through the vast power sources that drove Borsis, through the chambers where warrior-constructs were assembled and repaired, through the necropoli of long-forgotten dynasties and the vaults full of war machines and spacecraft. It shrieked through the core of the planet and looped around again, riddling Borsis with molten destruction in its rage.The sky changed from a grey mantle of cloud to a patchwork of light and dark as the cover was blown away. Hyalhi knew what that meant. With the destruction of the generators and reactors at Borsis's core, the shielding around the planet was failing. Whereas before Borsis had been impervious to the torpedoes and lance batteries of the Varv Deliverance Fleet, now its surface was laid bare and open. Hyalhi realised he had been holding his breath, for now he breathed it out in relief.(...)Yggra'nya hovered there, its three eyes turned down towards Hyalhi. There was no doubt the star-god could see Hyalhi. He was the last Astral Knight left on Borsis. Perhaps Yggra'nya wanted to pay its respects, though Hyalhi doubted it.Hyalhi looked up into those burning eyes. Men would have gone mad to see it, but Hyalhi was not afraid.'We will find you!' yelled Hyalhi at the star-god. If it heard him, it gave no reply. It simply shot up into space, the silver streak of its body vanishing into the void.
C'tan Shard of Yggra’nya breaking apart moons and reforming them into blades that rip through the World Engine, which was invulnerable to the torpedoes and lance batteries of the Varv Deliverance Fleet (a sector Imperial fleet). Then the C'tan shard shot up into space.
Oh, so there are other terrible writers.
Still doesn't change the fact that Ward was the first.
Yes, I know about the celestial orrary. It's a stupid concept that makes the necrons even more into over the top special snowflakes. It was introduced in the 5th ed codex, which is where this mess started.
If they have the means to create something like that, why the hell would they even need C'tan in the first place?
Think about it logically; if the necrons were advanced enough to create absurd bits of tech that could break the universe, why did they need to enlist the service of creatures that could also break the universe? Why didn't they use their oh so special orrery to just end the War in Heaven and all of their problems? It's bad writing.
"In the centre of the debris cloud rose a burning ember, a mote of fire ascending from the darkness. It gathered matter and light into itself like a black hole pulling at the surface of Borsis. Hyalhi let the image of it burn into his brain, sinking in deep, because this would have to be remembered too.The being that formed in the centre of the zone of destruction hovered above the tallest spire, and its body was composed of darkness. It had no fixed shape, its only definite feature the crescent of three eyes that burned in its heart. Tendrils of it, composed of torn and compacted metal, dragged it along above the spires. Hyalhi did not have to picture the geography of Borsis to know where it was headed.What followed had to be remembered as well. Hyalhi turned his consciousness this time outside his body, riding the ripples growing in the warp from the impact of the being erupting from its prison. He could see Borsis unfolding beneath him, the endless steel canyons and metal spires rushing past. The Astral Knights had fought across much of the planet's surface but now he saw, from his high psychic vantage point, great palaces and monuments the Astral Knights had not seen. It was the work of endless millennia, the labour of countless scarabs and worker-constructs devoted to deifying their nobles.The entity roared up ahead, shredding the spiretops as it passed and absorbing the fragments of matter that flew up into its swirling mass. Limbs formed and reformed as it hauled itself along, and pulses of raw, alien hatred battered against the surface of Hyalhi's mind. It was not a human emotion, for there was nothing human about this being, but it was unmistakably hatred.The entity crossed into the Labyrinth Wastes. It passed over columns of warrior-constructs arriving to join the final stages of the battle, and those that could feel dismay felt it now as the great darkness bellowed and stormed overhead.(...)Silver and gold glittered as Overlord Heqiroth and his lychguard retinue arrived on the battlements. The darkness bore over them as the moon that passed closest to it was torn apart and absorbed into its body. Heqiroth took one look at the approaching entity and the silvery necrodermis swarmed over his body in a protective shroud.An arm of compacted debris swept the lychguard off the wall. They tumbled down the side of the cathedral along with tonnes of shattered battlement. The darkness loomed closer and the necrodermis squirmed off Heqiroth's body as if of its own accord, drawn off in ductile streamers into the swirling blackness.The entity wove the necrodermis around it into the form of the star-god the necrons had first beseeched, then worshipped, then destroyed. Even this single shard of it was terrifying to see taking shape – it was like a deity of destruction and calamity from some long-forgotten human religion, crowned with three burning eyes, its enormous form clad in liquid metal.Hyalhi did not know the necron language in which Heqiroth spoke to Yggra'nya the Worldmaker, the C'tan imprisoned in the heart of Borsis to power it and guide it towards Mars. It was not a tongue that even needed sound, transmitted in pure information. But Hyalhi could guess it involved pleading, perhaps bargaining, Heqiroth offering lordship of Borsis, every necron under his command, everything he could possibly give in return for being permitted to continue existing.And Hyalhi knew the reply, too. "You betrayed us", Yggra'nya would be saying. "You imprisoned us. You enslaved us to this mad plan to journey to Mars."Heqiroth held up the tesseract in which he had imprisoned and then recaptured Turakhin, no doubt trying to persuade the C'tan that its enslavement had been Turakhin's doing. Yggra'nya snatched the tesseract and it dissolved in its hand, consumed by a purple-black fire, and with it the last glimmer of Turakhin's existence. But it was not enough."You, Turakhin, all that came before, you are all the same." Hyalhi could almost hear the star-god's words and their meaning could not be in doubt. "The whole necron race is our enemy. Now I am free, and you will all be punished."It gave Hyalhi some measure of satisfaction to see Overlord Heqiroth lifted off the battlements and dissected, piece by piece, by the will of Yggra'nya. Each section peeled and lifted away, gradually reducing the overlord to a spindly metal skeleton that squirmed in pain, if necrons could feel it. That, too, was dissolved away until only a glimmering speck of consciousness sat in Yggra'nya's palm. Then the C'tan closed its fist and Heqiroth, too, was annihilated.Yggra'nya raised its arms as if making a sacred pronouncement. The substance of the Cathedral of the Seven Moons came apart and reformed above it, an endless torrent of shattered metal forming great rings that orbited the star-god. Then they became gigantic blades that Yggra'nya stabbed into the surface of Borsis, driving them deep down through the crust of the world it had once built in an earlier age of the galaxy.Yggra'nya dived into the fissure it had opened up. Hyalhi could feel it ripping through the planet, dissolving everything in front of it like a blowtorch through flesh. It tore through the vast power sources that drove Borsis, through the chambers where warrior-constructs were assembled and repaired, through the necropoli of long-forgotten dynasties and the vaults full of war machines and spacecraft. It shrieked through the core of the planet and looped around again, riddling Borsis with molten destruction in its rage.The sky changed from a grey mantle of cloud to a patchwork of light and dark as the cover was blown away. Hyalhi knew what that meant. With the destruction of the generators and reactors at Borsis's core, the shielding around the planet was failing. Whereas before Borsis had been impervious to the torpedoes and lance batteries of the Varv Deliverance Fleet, now its surface was laid bare and open. Hyalhi realised he had been holding his breath, for now he breathed it out in relief.(...)Yggra'nya hovered there, its three eyes turned down towards Hyalhi. There was no doubt the star-god could see Hyalhi. He was the last Astral Knight left on Borsis. Perhaps Yggra'nya wanted to pay its respects, though Hyalhi doubted it.Hyalhi looked up into those burning eyes. Men would have gone mad to see it, but Hyalhi was not afraid.'We will find you!' yelled Hyalhi at the star-god. If it heard him, it gave no reply. It simply shot up into space, the silver streak of its body vanishing into the void.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Oh, so there are other terrible writers.
Still doesn't change the fact that Ward was the first.
Yes, I know about the celestial orrary. It's a stupid concept that makes the necrons even more into over the top special snowflakes. It was introduced in the 5th ed codex, which is where this mess started.
If they have the means to create something like that, why the hell would they even need C'tan in the first place?
Think about it logically; if the necrons were advanced enough to create absurd bits of tech that could break the universe, why did they need to enlist the service of creatures that could also break the universe? Why didn't they use their oh so special orrery to just end the War in Heaven and all of their problems? It's bad writing.
Is it stupid how a lot of things in franchises like Doctor Who are overpowered?
And this is from the Apocalypse Expansion book. Not written by Ward or Ben Counter.
Transcendent C'tan are shards of such size and indomitable will that they are too powerful to be contained within a Tesseract Labyrinth; instead, they must serve the Necron cause from the heart of a monolithic Tesseract Vault, which serves as both prison and conduit. Its hull contains layers of node matrices that redirect a portion of the Transcendent C'tan's energies into the cage that holds it captive, but the being within can still age foes to dust, set acres ablaze, or trigger seismic shifts in the planetary crust with but a gesture.
The power of a Transcendent C'tan, even when vastly depowered and sealed within a Tesseract Labyrinth.
EDIT: Why? Because the Celestial Orrery can blow up every star in the galaxy, but that is not enough to stop the C'tan.
Are you saying I am wrong?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Nevermind. Bad writing or not, it is written.
I'm saying the celestial orrery is badly written fluff that shouldn't exist. Yes, its been written. Which is unfortunate. A lot of the newcron fluff is poorly written. The parts about the war in heaven and the great betrayal is just nonsense. It really does read as if the necrons immediately attacked the C'tan right after the Old Ones were defeated, and then the Eldar suddenly came out of nowhere, even though they just lost a brutal war. It doesn't make sense.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: I'm saying the celestial orrery is badly written fluff that shouldn't exist.
I don't believe I doubted that the C'tan are powerful?
Alright. I edited my comment.
But don't you even Pre Fall Eldar could play with stars? This goes back before the Celestial Orrery. The Fulgrim HH book says the Eldar's mere dreams once "overturned worlds and quenched stars."
And the book The Emperor's Mercy shows DAOT tech shrinking a star to sub atomic level.
That sounds really absurd, and I would consider that to be either an exaggeration or poor writing.
Likewise for the subatomic star thing. I've heard of shrinking stars; the Aonic orb and some dark eldar tech uses the same concept, and its not something new in sci-fi as a whole, but subatomic level is just nonsense. That's like, really small. Why would you even want to do that? Its another case of the writer trying to show off how awesome his creation is and throwing out impressive sounding buzzwords, without considering the implications of what it means in the setting as a whole.
I would not consider Black Library canon, because you can get some really stupid gak in those books. Like anything written by CS Goto, for example.
One should also keep in mind several different factors.
The Necrontyr were not quite at the level of tech the Necrons had. They were farther along than any other race before, though. The C'tan gave them even more due to their unique perspective on the galaxy.
The Eldar were still growing when the War in Heaven ended, and only came in to power later. They were strong enough to encourage the Silent King to back off conquering the galaxy after getting their revenge on both Old One and C'tan, but I doubt they were at their height back then like they were when they created the Eye of Terror.
Let's also keep things in perspective. The Old Ones abilities in biology and the Warp were never matched by Necrontyr or Necron. The more "physics"-based technology, though, the Necrons were vastly superior. The Necrontyr were probably only a little better than the Old Ones, but their bodies limited them, and it took the C'tan and their perspective to truly crack in to abilities that rivaled or exceeded the Old One's Psyker powers. Too bad they lost their souls in the bargain.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: That sounds really absurd, and I would consider that to be either an exaggeration or poor writing.
Likewise for the subatomic star thing. I've heard of shrinking stars; the Aonic orb and some dark eldar tech uses the same concept, and its not something new in sci-fi as a whole, but subatomic level is just nonsense. That's like, really small. Why would you even want to do that? Its another case of the writer trying to show off how awesome his creation is and throwing out impressive sounding buzzwords, without considering the implications of what it means in the setting as a whole.
I would not consider Black Library canon, because you can get some really stupid gak in those books.
Like anything written by CS Goto, for example.
Its not just BL saying the Eldar can play with stars, its every piece of lore.
The Eldar themselves said the stars once lived and died at their command. Same with what the narration in the Fulgrim HH book said.
Here is DAOT shrinking stars.
Spoiler:
"Time, Madeline, time. Please hurry," Roth said, reminding her of the battle that threatened to overrun them.
"These are not the exact words. But it seems to suggest that when the planets are not in alignment, the embryonic star is in a stasis state of condensation, shrinking towards itself. It becomes dense matter. They describe it as coiling slumber."
"Please, for us laymen?" Captain Silat asked.
"Dense space matter becomes immeasurably heavy. You would not be able to budge this silo anywhere with all your industrial machines. It would also be in a stasis-state of reduction."
"I see. So what does it say about when the Medina Corridor is in the correct alignment?" Roth asked.
Madeline shrugged her suit. "I can only gather from what I read here. When the polar lines are in alignment, it changes the polar alignment of planets. The embryonic star contained within goes into a state of expansion, and its mass becomes less dense. Light enough to be transported in its state of stasis."
"Transported and perhaps released from stasis?" Roth said. He flexed the lead-lined leather across his neck to smear the sweat away. It was cold in the chamber but he was sweating profusely. A by-product of too much adrenaline.
"Correct. Once the stasis state of this star is broken, it will continue to expand and expand and expand."
"The Archenemy do not need this star to destroy the Medina Worlds. That would bring them nothing. But once the stasis is broken, they can transport this star anywhere, even to Terra, or the Cadian Gate. Better it here, than anywhere else." Captain Silat was thinking strategically, as he had been taught to.
Madeline left that statement unchallenged. For a while nobody said anything. Within that silo, captured in stasis, was an embryonic star. This was just one of the Old Kings that pre-Imperial Medinians had worshipped. But this one they had plucked from the sky with the help of the Early Sentients. This was the angry god they would unleash if ever their civilisations were threatened.
The very same angry god who had been unleashed in the Reclamation Wars. The star hadn't been in expansion then, the polar conduits had not been carved to the precise schematics ordained by the Early Sentients. Instead the gamma flare as the star sparked and returned to stasis had eroded Aridun's ozone and caused the mass extinction. This thing was a destroyer of worlds.
"I'll break it."
Everyone turned to look at Roth.
"I'll break it from stasis right now," Roth declared again.
Madeline opened her mouth to speak but Roth silenced her with a wave of his hand.
"There's no time to think about it. The Archenemy will take this and they will use it on the Bastion Stars. I cannot allow that. Better I release it from its sleep here. How big can a star get?"
"Big enough, probably, to consume the entire Medina Corridor. It's impossible to tell," Madeline suggested.
"Medina is gone. Chaos has subjugated the whole damn system."
Roth turned to face the silo, patting it gently with his Tang-War gauntlet. With one swift motion he pushed the silo over. It yielded like a ripe fruit and toppled from its base with a clang that echoed around the perfect amplification of the cubic chamber.
"Go now. Or stay if you must. I'm going to open this here."
Madeline moved towards Roth, but Captain Silat stopped her and tried to usher her away by the elbow.
"Professor de Medici. Your service has been invaluable to me," Roth said.
The inquisitor stood over the bell silo. He tugged the mitten off his Tang-War gauntlet and allowed his weapon to charge. He took one last look at the artefact that had cost him so much. The Old King, the Star Ancient, the astronomical body worshipped as something it had no right to be. Roth lifted his power fist and fractured the silo in one clean strike.
The tomb bell was split, opening a chasm down its centreline. Inside was the star, now released. At first it was subatomic, an infinitesimal particle invisible to the naked eye. Yet its existence was undeniable as it bathed the entire chamber in an ambient green glow. It was like a microbial sun casting its light for an interior universe, colouring the sweeping map of the Medina Corridor, illuminating the mathematical lines.
Roth could feel its energy, thrumming harmonics in the air, prickling heat upon his skin. He waited in reverent silence as the star continued to grow. Soon it was as large as a fist, a boiling sphere of emerald gas. The interior casing of the broken tomb bell began to scorch and bubble into molten slag. The temperature and radiation accelerated so quickly that Roth could wait no longer. Without a word, the Task Group scrambled for cover as the star began to awaken.
DURING THE SIXTY-EIGHTH hour of the Last War, the embryonic star was roused from its dormant state.
At the centre of the four hundred-kilometre wall of Fortress Chain, a swirling disc of light could be seen, even from orbit by the 9th Route Fleet. It appeared as a whirling nexus, the energies of thermonuclear fusion spearing outwards with solar flares. The pulses even disrupted communications equipment on board the Carthage at high anchor.
The last Naval craft to leave Aridun tried to evacuate as many personnel as it could carry from the excavation site. Brigade commanders and staff generals were crammed alongside shell-shocked privates and NCOs. The Naval pilots simply tried to get as many bodies into their hangars before the Ironclad overran the perimeter.
Inquisitor Roth - all that remained of the Conclavial Task Group - along with a Professor Madeline Rebequin Louise de Medici boarded the last flight out of Aridun. A Marauder fighter-bomber was risking one last sortie to evacuate Roth. They carried him up on a stretcher, the Guardsmen parting the crowd for Inquisitor Roth as he was rushed up the landing ramp. Already some of the NCOs nearby were barking at the younger soldiers to make way for "their general".
The CantiCol still fought, up until the last hour of the planet's existence. The resistance, however, was largely pyrrhic. Pockets of CantiCol Guardsmen who had been scattered during the Archenemy siege continued to resist. Wallowing through the smoke, Guardsmen sniped at Ironclad formations. For the many who had run out of ammunition, they took themselves out into the middle of the streets, clutching unpinned grenades to their chest. They walked out into the night to find a suitable patch of rubble and lay down to die. It was in the hope that they would fall asleep and release the grenade, or the Archenemy would disturb them. Either way it was as quick and dignified a death as they could manage.
Before the fourth dawn of the Last War, the CantiCol no longer existed as a fighting regiment of the Imperial Guard. But by then, the entire Medina Corridor was well on its way to extinction. The embryonic star had convulsed into a rapidly expanding swirl of dust and dark matter. It glowed and flashed like the heart of a scarlet hurricane. Cones of contrasting green gamma flashed from its pressure gradient as expanding gas clouds boiled around it in smoky wreaths. The incalculable heat and pressure entirely consumed the planet of Aridun, and as it gradually gyrated into an expanding sphere, it consumed Cantica, Orphrates and Kholpesh. Within the end of the lunar cycle, the star had expanded into a fully-fledged white sun
Ah, well in that case it depends on the writing. If its "live and die at their command", then that could just be a fancy way of saying that Eldar could create or destroy stars. Which is doable. Its a lot different than "I dreamed of Isha and destroyed a nearby solar system. Whoops"
Do you have a source of a non-BL book where it says that? Like in a codex or a white dwarf?
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Ah, well in that case it depends on the writing. If its "live and die at their command", then that could just be a fancy way of saying that Eldar could create or destroy stars. Which is doable. Its a lot different than "I dreamed of Isha and destroyed a nearby solar system. Whoops"
Do you have a source of a non-BL book where it says that? Like in a codex or a white dwarf?
It should say so in the Eldar codices. The Dark Eldar Codex says the Dark Eldar stole and completely drained stars.
Look, 40k is not the strongest setting, but it has its own Godlike entities and factions.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Ah, well in that case it depends on the writing. If its "live and die at their command", then that could just be a fancy way of saying that Eldar could create or destroy stars. Which is doable. Its a lot different than "I dreamed of Isha and destroyed a nearby solar system. Whoops"
Do you have a source of a non-BL book where it says that? Like in a codex or a white dwarf?
White Dwarf said the Pre Fall Eldar could birth stars out of sheer psychic power.
This is from the Craftworld Eldar 8th Edition Codex:
Lost in the vastness of space, the craftworlds float in utter isolation like scattered jewels upon a pall of velvet. Distant from the warmth of sun or planet, their domes gaze into the darkness of empty space. Inner lights glisten like phosphorus through semi-transparent surfaces. Within them live the survivors of a civilisation abandoned aeons ago amidst terrifying destruction. These are the Aeldari, a race that is all but extinct, the last remnants of a people whose mere dreams once overturned worlds and quenched suns.
At their peak, nothing was beyond the Aeldari’s reach and nothing was forbidden. The ancient race continued their glorious existence unaware or unwilling to acknowledge the dark fate that awaited them. They plied the stars at will, experiencing the wonders of the galaxy and immersing themselves completely in the endless sensations that it offered them. Such was the technological mastery of the Aeldari that worlds were created specifically for their pleasure, and stars lived or died at their whim.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Ah, well in that case it depends on the writing. If its "live and die at their command", then that could just be a fancy way of saying that Eldar could create or destroy stars. Which is doable. Its a lot different than "I dreamed of Isha and destroyed a nearby solar system. Whoops"
Do you have a source of a non-BL book where it says that? Like in a codex or a white dwarf?
No response? I quoted the 8th Edition Eldar Codex showing the Eldar played with stars.
You should not be upset about this. The Eldar have always been star level, in BL, and out of BL books.
Lost in the vastness of space, the craftworlds float in utter isolation like scattered jewels upon a pall of velvet. Distant from the warmth of sun or planet, their domes gaze into the darkness of empty space. Inner lights glisten like phosphorus through semi-transparent surfaces. Within them live the survivors of a civilisation abandoned aeons ago amidst terrifying destruction. These are the Aeldari, a race that is all but extinct, the last remnants of a people whose mere dreams once overturned worlds and quenched suns.
At their peak, nothing was beyond the Aeldari’s reach and nothing was forbidden. The ancient race continued their glorious existence unaware or unwilling to acknowledge the dark fate that awaited them. They plied the stars at will, experiencing the wonders of the galaxy and immersing themselves completely in the endless sensations that it offered them. Such was the technological mastery of the Aeldari that worlds were created specifically for their pleasure, and stars lived or died at their whim.
It has the lines where the stars lived and died at Eldar command, and their mere dreams quenching stars.
There's a bit of a contradiction there, as it states that they can do that with their dreams, and another bit where it states that they use tech. Which would mean that they can't, in fact, do that with their "mere" dreams and require technology to do it.
I think the dream bit might just be a bit of fancy writing, to illustrate that if they wanted to, they had the tech to do it. Not that Eldrad's grand pappy was having a nap and blew up a star by accident.
Not to mention, references to the Craftworlds are pointless since they do not represent the Eldar during the War in Heaven. There is no indication that they had remained stagnant in development for the roughly 64-65 million years between the Necrons went dormant and Slaanesh's birth.
Oldcrons were a mysterious powerful force with not much information known about them. The draw to them was in part the mystery. Plus the old c'tan were bad ass and the old back story was mostly about the c'tan.
The newcrons story butchered the original c'tan mythos and with that everything that used to be interesting and mysterious about the race. The newcrons are more akin to Tomb Kings in Space, which is fine I guess some people enjoy that aspect. I just wish they didn't have to bastardize my terminator race to bring tomb kings into space.
Cthulhuspy, its not a contradiction. It says the stars lived and died at their command. The Eldar were psychically and technologically strong enough to play with stars. Those lines in the quote were from the 8th Edition Eldar Codex. And the other parts were their mere dreams. The Eldar Codex has always said the pre Fall Eldar played with stars.
