Even in new Necron fluff most Warriors are basically mindless robots, only the leaders are sentient and maybe some of the Praetorians, so higher ranking officers. They fit your description pretty well. Just leave out Flayed Ones . There are also female versions from WGE if you really need "sexy stuff". You could also concentrate on Canopthek constructs which are all "real" robots (no soul trapped in there).
I don't know where there's sexy or hot stuff in DE that's not in normal Eldar as well...
Mechanicum from 30K could have been an option for you, but sadly GW/FW was too dumb to ever port them to 40K.
In the end your list is already pretty good, so take what you think looks best. You'll use these miniatures the rest of your life and have to look at them for hours when painting them, so if you don't like Necron Skull faces but dig the Tau-suit aesthetic, well, take Tau then.
I hate to say it but if you dislike tech advancement not really being a thing, not sure 40k's the right setting for you. that said if you didn't say you disliked bio stuff I'd argue that Tyranids would check almost all your boxes
well in that case if Orks manage to win eneugh they actually do advance, the war of the beast series gives us a look at what Orks are CAPABLE of if left alone to do their thing too long
The entire range is an army of metal warriors led by powerful intelligent leaders whilst the regular warrior can range from a just awakened drone to semi-sentient. They also have their Canoptech machines which are, well, proper full machines (no previous soul) which were mostly made to guard and maintain their tombs whilst the Necrons slept.
The lack of sexystuff - as said GW doesn't really do that through most of their range. The men are all hunks and the women are not bad; but they don't go for full on sexy stuff for most of their release - though AoS gets close with things like Witch Aelves.
They do a range of factions in alternate sculpt form in resin. Of course you can use them at any club or 3rd party event; but you won't be able to use them at a GW store or GW event because they are not GW models. Depending on the store manager you can sometimes get away with the odd model here and there in an otherwise GW army and converted parts are fairly open to interpretation as to how far you can go - but a straight up alternate army from another company isn't allowed
Adepticus Mechanicus might also interest you, even though its part of the dreaded human world of the Imperium.
No race can turn an entire planet into spaceships. A Tomb World is a world upon which there are great tombs buried beneath the surface, chock full of sleeping Necrons.
Early Necrons were basically totally mindless as they awoke; as they've advanced the story they've gained more independent thought on the whole. However its more so the leaders. The underlings are more ghosts of their former selves, driven by the directive to follow orders and obliterate all life from the universe. Whilst they technically have souls they've no sense of taste, love, lust, etc.... so they are as close to machines as you can get.
A few, like the crazed flayers, have bit more madness in them - but they still obey.
Also have a look at the puppets war Cyber nightmares range. These are alternative Necrons with an own style, but complement the GW range nicely. Their Warriors are very different and look like mechanical Insects, they might be exactly what you're after (and you can avoid skulls with these ) not sure if they do ship to the USA though.
Ah well yes races can build space ships. What I meant is they can't make a planet into a spaceship.
Tyranids are getting close though, they've built a planet sized organic construction which, at present, is seen to project a huge Shadow into the Warp which blocks the demons around it. However other than that its not done anything yet, so we've no idea what its real and full purpose is.
Indeed barring the organic aspect, Tyranids fully embody the ideal of a single minded race controlled by a greater mind. Even if that mind is formed by the unity of the countless numbers of the swarm that comprises it.
Well they exist in a galaxy where the standard method of faster than light travel is to take a trip through hell.
Also Tyranid lore is a bit more flexible than many other races if mostly because its made from outside perspectives. It's also shifted somewhat over time. They have had codex and evidence that they do devour mineral content of worlds. I'd argue that it takes them longer and as they are more on the offensive they just take the easier to digest biomass.
Their great volume comes from the fact that they devour all and they waste nothing with non-essential life. Every Tyranid is built for a specific purpose. Their only weakness would indeed be the burn of energy in transfers; however they can park around a sun and soak up the radiation for energy.
Otherwise don't "overthink" the science too much in a world where Gods exist; where Hell is waging war on the living; where demons are reality. Heck Tyranids come from the empty nothing outside of the Galaxy.
Chaos
+Scary stuff
+Ascension
+Greater Daemons are epic
+Slaanesh stuff is hawt
-Excessive Gore
-Lack of advancement. No advancement in science or society. No nation building. They are 100% steal followers from other races faster than they kill their own. Correct me if I'm wrong.
-No sustainability. Once they "win" that's it. The end. They kill themselves faster than they reproduce so the end.
Excessive gore is only really something found on Khorne and Nurgle. Which you don't need or require.
No sustainability is also untrue, considering there are whole sectores and claimed worlds. Further the endgoal of the Legions atleast allways was to conquer the empire, however the gods prefer the status quo somewhat so it isn't as clear cut.
-Their tech is primitive being super old, lack of maintenance, and no advancement
And this is the point where dark mechanicum would whack you over the head and turn you into a sacrifice for their innovation:
Introducing: Obliterators, mutilators, Hellblade fighters, Helltalon fighter bombers, Decimators, sonic dreadnought, , defieler, Helldrake, forgefiend, Mauler fiend, Soul grinder, greater brass scorpion, blod slaughterer, blight drones, etc.
-Sentient race of individuals
Just as likely to be a bunch of chaos androids (yes that was a thing) or Darkmech forces, (which yes were a thing) . too possesed, which are also not really individuals anymore.
Further as a owner of a ghost CSM army shakled to a necromancer i find this chaos and it is offensive. (Joke is joke)
-Pure Evil
The legions? yes (except maybee AL because we have no idea what they do.). The Daemons, YES. The Lost and the damned, aka renegades and heretics, more often then not tragically unaware for whom they fight.
Sounds like Dark mechanicus to me.
They're a chaos version of imperial mechanicum, except they have no boundaries.
Most of them will want to merge realspace and warp, so you get a lot of impossible living daemon engines, which are a fusion of robots and daemons that defy conventional (in-lore) physics.
Pros:
As for the hivemindedness, can go anywhere you want with the tech. You could have a warlord that commands an army of robots by linking his soul to them, or remote controlling them via the noo-sphere or whatever you want really. I believe they're still not hot on AI though.
Scary stuff is a check, you have daemons and spooky tentacly murder robots.
Ascension is also a given due to the nature of chaos.
Given how the dark mechanicum are more individual, you can make things as sexy as you want. Slaanesh is a thing, but there is no governing design philospophy. You could have sleek futurustic aesthetics, or merge humans with machines in a giger-esque fashion, etc.
Epic is easy, they make titans too.
Gore, again, is up to you, you could literaly make machines fueld by blood and have open organs or you know...not.
You have machines and walkers galore.
It doesn't get more advanced than dark mechanicum. Yes, Necron have more advanced "realty" based tech but dark mechanicum are merging two dimensions as they will it.
Cons:
They are baseline humans, so are about as sustainable as the imperium. This is also a pro though in that said they are about as human as your toaster once they survive to a notable level. Biologically speaking, as well morality wise.
The cons depends largely on how you visualize the mechanicum. you could see a focus on biology and such, but it's not really a con as you can focus on a general that pursues research more inline with what you want.
A big con on the other hand would be that you will not see much of this in videogames, or even the lore.
Apart from googling, you can also check the forgeworld site (Horus Heresy -> mechanicum). It's mostly the "good" guys but I reckon that many of them would still see use today as they are much easier to mass produce as opposed to binding daemons into a machine.
From 30k, a dark mech general but of course you also have stuff like the Kytan or Scorpions, Defilers, Decimators, etc.
Actually that is not true.
It depends on the daemonengine type.
Soul grinders are f.e. voluntary. Decimators are a Bunch of mercs. Defieler and the more melee ones are forced,helldrake basically is when a pilot and the Machine spirit fuse.
Well the Techno Virus basically turns the soul into a daemonic machine from witch the power of obliterators stem.
Also daemonworlds are not the only place and further many legions are owners of their own hovels of course including cultists,mutants,etc.
Further decimators are actually unkown,since they do have alien aswell as chaos weaponry,further they supposedly can be hired.
The biggest plus of chaos is,that you can fit all concepts in and customize then to your liking.
Sadly ia13 isn't anymore but that list got quite a lot you could draw Inspiration from.
You can't think of Dark Mechanicum as a united faction, even less so than Chaos marines. It's more a number of individuals that share common traits/goals with precious little restraint. That's also why you can do pretty much whatever you want.
There is no doubt someone crazy enough to work on AI too, but it's not really sensible when you can insert actual sentience via daemons much much easier. There is the Kaban Machine for example.
That said, daemons are probably less dangerous than AI when it comes to 40k, they always end up going full skynet.
I don't have any example for linking souls, but with the dark Mechanicum the sky is the limit. Anything goes, it's only because of the nature of 40k that nothing ever comes of it.
Fulgrim has made actual primarchs by the dozen and yet you don't see them steamrolling the galaxy because he kills them or they get trader or whatever. The mechinicum was able to link with the hive mind or at least draw vast knowledge from gene memory which would have changed the universe, only to get blown up, etc, etc. The knowledge and tech is out there, despite not going anywhere storywise. Doesn't mean that great things don't happen though and with eldar being able to capture souls and have them pilot machines, alpharius likely having a shared soul, I have no doubt that it's possible / has been done in lore to share your soul in some fashion for control instead of conventional tech, which really isn't that big of a deal. Might require the odd harvested brain or so, but hey.
As for reproducing, there is plenty of that going on. They even have forced breeding camps or...way..way worse. Read on the Daemonculaba if you can stomach it.
Plus daemon worlds have been around for thousands of years, I think it's safe to say that humans CAN live there...not that you'd want to, but they are not lacking in numbers.
Either way, it seems like Necrons or Tau are the way to go.
Necrons were once all sentient, yes, but post-biotransferance the species lost their sentience in relation to where they stood in prefall necrontyr society, which was a highly caste-based society. Lords and Overlords are still who they once were, mostly, soldiers maintain some degree of self-awareness, the common peasants are about as self-aware as a servitor. If I were to make my own necron army, I would have it based on a simple lord who ruled over an agrarian planet, he deeply cared for his people and kept them mostly out of (the first phase of) the war in heaven (conscientious objectors, like the amish). This meant that his people never became warriors and rose in the necrontyr ranks, thus being deemed useless by the C'tan and were robbed of all their personality during biotransferance. The lord was the only one on the planet who maintained his personality. Now he lives among the soulless, emotionless husks of his beloved people, forever wracked by guilt. But enough of my own lore, I will admit it can be hard to get past the Egyptian aesthetic, and the necrons most certainly have gore (flayed ones).
The T'au have a class-based society, they are not communists. It's not even like a 1984 party members vs non-party members thing, they are overtly divided into 5 castes. It's more hindu than anything. Sure, they say all castes are equal, but can it really be said that the hands/Kshatriyas (warriors) are just as valued as the feet/Shudras (peasants), or that the fire caste is just as valued as the earth caste? And if this makes their sentience a little more tolerable, they tau (except their rulers, the etherials) have very weak souls, little psychic presence. Of course, I don't know if there is a connection between sentience and psychic ability or soul strength. But again, their aesthetic is hard to swallow unless you like gundam/anime. Hell, most of Tau lore follows the same kind of Imperial Rescript on Education (Japanese state school propaganda) derived plot found in most military-based animes, with a few warhammeresque twists.
I would suggest the normal mechanicus if you are put off by deamons, as they are kinda separate from the wider imperium, but I don't think skirarri get anesthetic when their legs get ground off and replaced with augmetics. Of course, the dark mechanicus do similar things, if not much worse.
Honestly, looking at your list of likes and dislikes, I wonder if you actually like 40k. A lot of your dislikes are recurring themes (individualism, for example, plays a big part in the fluff, even for races which exalt the whole). That said, I agree with the consensus that Necrons are probably the closest to what you're looking for.
I was thinking of Adeptus Mechanicus, but since you refuse to use the Imperial forces...
If you are open to conversions and some fluff forging, you could play the Men of Iron, using perhaps AdMech rules and heavily converted models. Their fluff is rather vague and can be modified as you please.
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Men_of_Iron
Men of Iron using AdMech rules
Things I like:
+Single sentient supercomputer entity with a bajillion robots doing his bidding. Only he is the sentient one, no one else is sentient so when his minions "die" it's like losing a car or a computer, not a life. (they are sentient machines, but can be modified)
+Scary stuff (possible)
+Ascension (possible)
+Sexy or hawt stuff (unlikely)
+Epic stuff (definitely)
+Machines (YES!)
+Walkers (YES!)
+High-Tech (YES!)
Things I don't like
-Gore, including physical torture (not sure)
-Humanity or any other sentient race of individuals (they can be of any form)
-Stupidity (you need some bug fixing and patches)
-Lack of advancement (nope)
-Primitive savages (nope)
-Animals or Nature (nope)
-Bio stuff (nope)
-Tanks. I don't care how big they are, tanks are boring. (they have hovercrafts)
flandarz wrote: Honestly, looking at your list of likes and dislikes, I wonder if you actually like 40k. A lot of your dislikes are recurring themes (individualism, for example, plays a big part in the fluff, even for races which exalt the whole). That said, I agree with the consensus that Necrons are probably the closest to what you're looking for.
regarding individualism, it's kinda important to a mini's game because it let's you add some varity and embellishments to your various models, helps make the painting go easier.
The Daemon Prince Shukketh Voidmaw infects the tomb world of Vorketh with the taint of Chaos. Vorketh’s regent awakens to find his crypts transformed, and his legions already locked in battle.
Does this mean
1. Chaos Necrons. or
2. Necrons are fighting Chaos in the tomb world
--------------------------------
I think I'm gonna go with a Necron Phaeron who expelled all of his necron soldiers to other dynasties and just spends all of his time turning planets and moons into armies of necron vehicles and spaceships or super weapons and rents them out to other Necron Dynasties.
The thing holding me back from Chaos is that Arch-Hereteks can't make their own Daemons or human souls, and human breeding farms are just sick, too evil. So unless powerful psykers can create their own Daemons without a Chaos God or souls, I think I'm gonna go with Necrons. Self-Sufficiency is important for me, and if the creators of Daemon Engines have a 0% chance of being self-sufficient, then that's a deal breaker.
That depends on your definition of self-sufficient. A lone necron lord buliding armies? He is entirely reliant on helpers like scarabs and what have you, which are not extensions of him iirc. Super Wifi sure, but not truly linked.
Dark mech and daemons can't create their own souls, but not for the reasons you think and an arch-heretek can do the same thing as the necron lord while giving you more flexibility in design and aesthetics. They would be about equally self sufficient.
Both would also need resources from somewhere, can't build from nothing, meaning you need to mine and or raid. There's no way you can be 100% self sufficient.
Unless someone here shows me that Daemon Princes can make their own Daemons? Anyone? That might actually make me choos Chaos. Be a Daemon Prince who makes his own Daemon Engines from his own essence.
This depends, daemons are splinters of the chaos gods themselves. Horrors can split themselves, Avatars of khaine are equally splintered, the C'tan have splintered, there are plenty examples of it being a thing.
To do it on an army level however would require stupid amounts of worship to that particular daemon, it's not really feasible.
That said, on a smaller scale, even low tier daemons are capable of creating ammo out of thin air when possessing people or bound into a daemon-engine.
Now that said, the soul is separate from the body as seen with eldar soulstones and even the "imperium" has created similar tech as seen in the eisenhorn novels. Some xenos races have warp based weaponry that does not rely on the chaos gods that can rip your soul out.
And you can interact with these bound souls, like say the wraithbone constructs. Horus' soul was obliterated and yet he somehow still roams the warp doing his thing.
So, in theory you could bind your own soul into a machine and effectively becoming the 40k equivalent of a lich. That's something Necron can't do, not having a soul and all.
And say you were previously possessed by a daemon and exorcised it (people do this), with any luck you could gain the knowledge needed to spew out you're own bullets or whatever you want really. Not sure if you have enough mojo to do it with just one puny soul though.
Daemons are still part of something MUCH greater after all, they're not truly sentient.
There is also psychic tech, so between warp based tech (not chaos god related necessarily) and psychic shenanigans you could easily rival necron tech in terms of self suffciency and interconnectedness.
Hell, who knows, it might be possible to weaponize your own soul and turn it into a pseudo daemon virus and go all literal ghost in the machine, so a "living" AI sorta thing.
Bottom line:
Become immortal, then you can do whatever you want really. You're self sufficient in that you don't need sustenance.
Necron already start this way, a heretek would have to get damn inventive, but it's theoretically possible. And you aren't just ascended by the gods on a whim either.
Otherwise necron and dark mech are very similar in what they can do, just by different means.
Necron however have actual models and are represented in other media. Dark mech just kind of....exist.
@OP it sounds like a case of having the cake and eating it too.
You should narrow down your "priorities" further as there's not a single faction that fulfills all of your thematic needs.
Also, if you're not a powergamer and trying to get into the hobby for the visual & background, I'd say search on google for [FACTION] army, and see which army screams out to you. Many times, the visual aspects of the army (not units) can help you cope with the things you don't like about their lore and vice versa.
Actually tyranids are pretty gore free as models. There's only one or two that have any actual dismembered bodies and guts on show - all the rest are pretty clean of any core details. The Haruspex gets closest with its exposed mouth, however there isn't any gore on there just the fleshy bits of tyranid. The Malceptor might be the most gory as its standing over a torn apart marine - others might hold a marine helmet and such. So in general whilst they are most certainily bloody and gory in the lore; in the game itself they can be shiny clean neat dinosaur space bug lizard insect things.
You're not thinking big enough For one, an arch heretek does not need human or daemons, I present to you the Legio Cybernetica.
In other words, there are good old regular nuts and bolts robots in 40k as well, not just human hybrids or black magic robots. And did you look at Anacharis Scoria ?
A "regular" arch heretek could be a borderline walking factory, nevermind a theoretical "daemon"engined heretek.
Which brings me back to the point of making bullets. That argument wasn't really about bullets, it was meant more conceptual.
If you can construct a machine that ends up making bullets out of nothing....well what's to stop you from making a machine that makes whatever raw material you want? Essentially being able to set up camp anywhere you want.
Infinite resources, even if it takes a while to produce a significant amount. Being functionally immortal, even without considering a potential ascension, with infinite resources is one hell of an argument for being self sufficient.
Daemons being an essentially infinite resource that is available anywhere is just the cherry on the cake.
Also, nobody ever said that daemons and by extension their gods are willingly being stuck into toasters. Plus there are ways to protect yourself against corruption.
You don't need to ally with chaos to use daemons. Just ask any radical inquisitor or the iluminati.
So yea, a heretek is perfectly capable of creating an army of non living/sentient murder robots without any help if given enough time and material. Or mess with AI, which is still a spectrum after all ( mostly different shades "how soon will my creation kill me" but hey, that's 40k for ya.
Although yes, he will need a ship to get there, but again, could be piloted by robots
Since we're talking potentials and speculation, there really isn't any reason that the dark mechanicum couldn't rival Necrons in virtually any endeavor. Of course being around for literal aeons has a way of giving you a different perspective on things that a heretek could only dream of.
They wouldn't be able to rival them using conventional tech, but by adding warp tech into the mix they would be able to achieve the same results, though perhaps more volatile and dangerous to the user.
Decimator Daemonengine:
It's one of the coolest things from FW.
I own one, should be somewhere in my blog:
Here's the conept art, if you want i can give you a description from IA13.
Or even take some pictures of mine if you'd want.
the TL: DR version of the decimator is:
Nigh indestructable, selfworking AI, supposedly of daemonic nature altough unverified (could be Chaos AI) HIRED by certain warlords, using alien+ dark mech .
Automatically Appended Next Post: BTW, Khorne doesn't hate warpsmiths, Khorne hates psykers, Warpsmiths are not psykers infact they require psyker help sometimes but they themselves aren't.
OOOH Good idea. If i go into real WH40K I might just do that.
Wait, what? This is just for what faction to play in the video games?
Did anyone ever say you maybe worry about this too much? Deliberating over spending vast sums on an army is one thing, but for a video game??? Just play it with a faction, and if you don't like it try a different one... Jeez...
Not Online!!! wrote: BTW, Khorne doesn't hate warpsmiths, Khorne hates psykers, Warpsmiths are not psykers infact they require psyker help sometimes but they themselves aren't.
One of the few things I don't like about WH40k is how every mech looks like a hunch back XD
I'm having trouble understanding how Khorne doesn't hate warpsmiths and Daemon engines when psykers are mandatory for their creation. If warpsmiths can't get Daemons themselves then I change my answer above to ascended Heretek or Master of Possession.
Crispy78 wrote: Wait, what? This is just for what faction to play in the video games?
Did anyone ever say you maybe worry about this too much? Deliberating over spending vast sums on an army is one thing, but for a video game??? Just play it with a faction, and if you don't like it try a different one... Jeez...
There is a large number of people who don't play WH40K but discuss its lore because the lore is so over the top hilarious. Anytime anything sci-fi comes up there's always someone mentioning and derailing the topic to WH40K. It doesn't help that virtually everything out there is influenced by WH40K like starcraft. And fantasy too because everytime orcs are mentioned there's always someone who says Orks are much better and these "noble" orcs defeats the entire purpose of having orcs. And I agree, I believe WH40K's orks are the best incarnation of orcs in everywhere.
Getting deep into the lore is fun for me. I'm having fun here discussing chaos lore with others. Having a faction to root for lets me enjoy the lore even more.
Khorne is perfectly find with psykers, he only hates sorcerers. The difference is that sorcerers rely on powers gifted by gods or other means that have them rely on something other then their own skills.
Psykers bring their foes down through sheer willpower and bending the immaterium to their will.
Generally Khorne is fine with anything really so long as it's a test of skill/might. Although, sacrifice a planets worth of skulls in his name and he might cut you some slack regardless.
This whole melee only nonsense is a recent change...which I happily ignore. (see Lheorvine Ukris or blood pact)
He used to be/is the god of war, ie discipline, honour etc, not JUST mindless carnage, although that too of course.
So yea, a khorne warpsmith is A-OK. Especially one fueling the warmachine, even if his minions may not be so keen about you.
And as for the daemon engine rituals, well...you normally need a sorcerer and an apostle to to aquire a daemon and subdue it while the smith goes about fusing it into the machine.
But literally anybody can summon daemons, it just takes longer since you need to do rituals, cause enough slaughter /misery etc. And as for subduing them, I suppose some re-purposed necron anti warp tech might help trap them too.
Or you go find a spot where daemons spill forth, shouldn't be that hard to find what with the XBOX HUEG tear in reality now. Then you just have to figure out how not to get your soul eaten and you're good.
Oh and about the hunchback thing, dark mech creates whatever they want, so you can build whatever floats your boat. From spindely horrific skeletal robots to crabs or even armed tires. when I said the sky is the limit I meant it, including re-using xenos tech like tau.
and also:
Not Online!!! wrote: BTW, Khorne doesn't hate warpsmiths, Khorne hates psykers, Warpsmiths are not psykers infact they require psyker help sometimes but they themselves aren't.
One of the few things I don't like about WH40k is how every mech looks like a hunch back XD
I'm having trouble understanding how Khorne doesn't hate warpsmiths and Daemon engines when psykers are mandatory for their creation. If warpsmiths can't get Daemons themselves then I change my answer above to ascended Heretek or Master of Possession.
Crispy78 wrote: Wait, what? This is just for what faction to play in the video games?
Did anyone ever say you maybe worry about this too much? Deliberating over spending vast sums on an army is one thing, but for a video game??? Just play it with a faction, and if you don't like it try a different one... Jeez...
There is a large number of people who don't play WH40K but discuss its lore because the lore is so over the top hilarious. Anytime anything sci-fi comes up there's always someone mentioning and derailing the topic to WH40K. It doesn't help that virtually everything out there is influenced by WH40K like starcraft. And fantasy too because everytime orcs are mentioned there's always someone who says Orks are much better and these "noble" orcs defeats the entire purpose of having orcs. And I agree, I believe WH40K's orks are the best incarnation of orcs in everywhere.
Getting deep into the lore is fun for me. I'm having fun here discussing chaos lore with others. Having a faction to root for lets me enjoy the lore even more.
so discuss 40k, you don't need some bizzare fictional backstory for a character you never touch to do so (in fact I find it's easier to have a rational coversation if the other guy doesn't run around saying "we" and insisting on treating something he knows is BS as true because "my character would belive that"
BrianDavion wrote: so discuss 40k, you don't need some bizzare fictional backstory for a character you never touch to do so (in fact I find it's easier to have a rational coversation if the other guy doesn't run around saying "we" and insisting on treating something he knows is BS as true because "my character would belive that"
There's always someone in every forum that tells you that you're having fun wrong.
I enjoy things more if I can picture an original character I made in the setting. If the lore I read affects said character in someway then I get into it a lot more instead of everything feeling like a history textbook. And I like to RP a commander in the setting when I play anything including WH40K video games.
Since you have a problem with me imagining an original character in the setting to the point of telling me i'm having badwrongfun, I'm gonna have to kindly ask you to stop reading this thread. I don't get why people don't just stop reading a thread if they don't like what the OP is doing.
hey all I'm saying is you don't need a personal character to discuss 40k and it can sometimes get in the way.
roboemperor wrote: Ok so in case anyone was wondering, I'm down to two factions.
Tyranids
Necrons
Spoiler:
Chaos is out because they're just too *censored*. No matter how much I try to ignore it, all of chaos sacrifices their own be it their own sorcerers, warpsmiths, lords, princes, anything and everything. Also Daemon Engines require teamwork to be crafted, and I ain't into Daemon Engines themselves so really no point in going chaos. This is on top of all the sick **** they do en masse to everything.
The thing that is preventing me from definitively choosing Tyranids is Nuclear Transmutation. Tyranids leave a valueless rock behind after consumption, but that's just it. They left something behind. With enough energy you can turn any matter or element into any other matter or element. It may involve anti-matter mass production or artificial stars and supernovas all of which the necrons are capable of doing, but they can and should do it since stars give off endless energy.
So if the Tyranids are doing what they're doing for the sake of efficiency to fight the existing factions and eventually, after they win WH40K, will go back with dedicated tyranid hive fleets to turn all matter into biomass, I'm 100% on board with Tyranids. Otherwise there's gonna be a huge nagging voice in the back of my head that the Tyranids are at their technological peak and it's not high enough. Because they're leaving a planet and all of its inner/outer core mantle mineral stuff behind forever. That is a huge ass waste. Not good enough. They should have the scientific know-how to do this stuff because they consumed humans who do know how to do this stuff so....
Necrons on the other hand, are no different than the imperium of man. Also their entire army is like 99% infantry and infantry on vehicles. Even the monolith is crewed by sentient necrons. Their True AI is only canoptek, seraptek, and Obelisk. Former two aren't really military grade combat units but just police security for their tombs. And the obelisk is not a robot. Carnifex is a bio-robot but still a robot. I really like the Carnifex. The Obelisk is just a floating rock made out of necrodermis.
Tyranids
+I really like the Carnifex.
-Warp dependent, though i'm sure they can evolve to use other methods of communication should the Necrons pylon up the entire galaxy.
-Leaves matter behind. If it's truly just a feeding habit thing that will change once the galaxy is devoid of all resistance then my tune will change.
Necrons
+I really like their color scheme and lasers
-Their robots are either police grade or don't look like robots but just floating blocks.
-Most of their army is like imperium of man. "humans" on vehicles.
Overread wrote: Their only weakness would indeed be the burn of energy in transfers; however they can park around a sun and soak up the radiation for energy.
I couldn't locate this piece of fluff. Where did you get this?
My friend, you are waaay over thinking it.
Pick the faction that has the most models you like.
Build & paint a force of those 1st. Play a bunch of games.
Make up whatever fluff you want to justify why your models are fighting, & to explain the inclusion/exclusion of various units (but realize that nobody but you actually cares about your personal story concerning your force - all the opponent sees across from them is Necrons/Tyranids/etc. They MIGHT pause for a moment & think "Huh, that's a different build." if you field non-typical lists. But the moment passes, the shooting/melee begins, & it really doesn't matter.)
While you're doing the above? Start building the 2nd choice force.
Why?
1) You're going to do it anyways & it won't be any cheaper in the future. So as funds & time permit in the here & now....
2) Eventually you'll grow tired of playing only 1 faction. Having multiple forces, that play differently, helps avoid burnout.
3) Eventually the rules will shift. And typically a forces effectiveness swings good ---> bad (or at least to not as effective, though people freak & scream their armies now trash) /bad ---> good. Having multiple forces helps ride out those shifts. The more forces you can enjoy playing, the more likely you are of always having something worth fielding.
Eldar wraith constructs fit somewhat, and you could absolutely add female spiritseers to fulfill the "hawt" (really?). Simple female headswaps and also maybe add Yvraine from the Ynnari to lead them.
For lore we don't know why Tyranids leave behind minerals on planets, however consider that right now they are on the offensive and that living biomatter is clearly faster to digest and use. Their fleets currently attack worlds, consume the readily accessible food and then move onto the next.
This both allows them to retain a high degree of mobility and also allows them to continually weaken their enemies by stripping worlds in this manner.
It might well be that the Tyranids "grazing" on mineral worlds would come much later when there's no viable threat left in the Galaxy and they are then able to settle around mineral worlds and feed more slowly on the mineral content. They might even have different hive ships far out in the dark of the empty between Galaxies which are simply waiting (or travelling very slowly) to come and consume the rest.
Overread wrote: For lore we don't know why Tyranids leave behind minerals on planets, however consider that right now they are on the offensive and that living biomatter is clearly faster to digest and use. Their fleets currently attack worlds, consume the readily accessible food and then move onto the next.
This both allows them to retain a high degree of mobility and also allows them to continually weaken their enemies by stripping worlds in this manner.
It might well be that the Tyranids "grazing" on mineral worlds would come much later when there's no viable threat left in the Galaxy and they are then able to settle around mineral worlds and feed more slowly on the mineral content. They might even have different hive ships far out in the dark of the empty between Galaxies which are simply waiting (or travelling very slowly) to come and consume the rest.
This is just speculation though. Like I do hope it is true but imagine, spending 10 years with Tyranids only to realize at the end, it turns out they don't.
Could you tell me where you found the Tyranids soaking up radiation fluff? I can't locate it.
I did actually. Legio Cybernetica is awesome. They're in fact in Inqusitor - Prophecy and I loved it! Don't like the servitors but the Kastelan Robots were freaking awesome.
TL;DR;
Tyranids suffer from the same problem Abaddon does, people see only the memes, ignoring that nids are an insanely badass faction.
And you'd throw that away for not eating a dead rock?
So you had fun for 10 years and then have a midlife crisis because they added fluff you didn't like? Then 40k really is not for you lol. That's setting unrealistic standards.
GW mess with the lore all the time. 40k is also full of speculation and to a degree that's part of the fun.
This is simply a matter of head canon, there sa good chance you will never get an answer to why they don't consume planets, so you might as well go with the idea that works for your hive fleet.
In this case being that they do but they are in on the front lines and attacking, so no time for that.
Besides, nobody has ever been to a planet that has been eaten and STAYED in tyranid controlled space. That would mean that it's no longer a passing hivefleet but the main mass of tyranids has made contact.
There is currently no faction in 40k that could survive that. What people encounter in 40k are what a hivefleet left in it's wake, that is a different from being at the center of a tendril and doesn't even come remotely close to whatever said tendril is attached to.
People in general underestimate what the tyranids are.
There is/was fluff that basically says that for all we know, the nids might as well have consumed all the surrounding galaxies. We know they are a pan-galactic organism. The nids are a lovecraftian kind of horror and not because they have tentacles. They are UTTERLY alien, enough so to push even astartes psyker minds to their limit from simply glimpses of the shadow in the warp.
Which also brings me to being dependant on warp. How are nids dependant on the warp? They don't even travel through it, they supress it. They kind of just float around until something rings the dinner bell.(It's more complicated but whatever)
I guess that depends on how you look at it. You can't take the warp out of 40k, that's like saying (in RL), no reality= no life, it's absurd.
The warp is there to stay, or it's not 40k anymore.
And given that, you can only locally dampen the warp, and then it depends on how many nids there are, or how close you are to the main biomass.
A couple of pylons can be an issue for a low number of nids and even then, as you say, they can adapt. That is their whole shtick after all.
But blocking their psychic aspect as a faction, that is a laughable idea. That's like trying to wall of all the water on the planet with a single popsicle stick and that's being generous, it's just not happening.
As far as I'm concerned, the shadow in the warp is not so much suppressing the warp as it is such a monstrously strong psychic presence that it effectively takes over the warp in it's path.
Like turning up the volume until the ground starts shaking and then breaking off the knob ( Which we can already do ).The sheer scale makes it behave in new ways that it can barely still be called a psychic presence.
Even a single hive fleet can generate a strong enough presence to make daemons fade from reality from simply being there. And if that is indeed a psychic resonance of sorts, then , yes, it is also affected by warp dampening technology, but that technology will inevitably be overpowered if there are enough tyranids.
Roknar wrote: I guess that depends on how you look at it. You can't take the warp out of 40k, that's like saying (in RL), no reality= no life, it's absurd.
The warp is there to stay, or it's not 40k anymore.
Off topic, but the topic is kinda weird anyway, so…
I had an idea once for a "Warhammer 50k" fan-setting, wherein the warp is totally gone:
There's no more warp travel, the webway only has tiny little fragments left, there's no more psykers or daemons anymore, no more Emperor or astronomicon, no more Imperium (though there's still humans), the surviving Aeldari no longer have to worry about Slaanesh and live in isolated little hedonistic covens, the tyranids are (almost) extinct, the centre of the Segmentum Solar where Terra used to be is now just a big black hole, and no one remembers what exactly happened. So it'd have a sort of "post-apocalyptic" vibe on a galactic scale: remnants of the Imperium regressing to barbaric tech-scavenger cultures on some worlds while others start beginning to develop science again (even dangerous AI!), the few remaining Astartes (no imperium means no proper geneseed maintenance) rule as superhuman tyrants and warlords over their feudal worlds, Orks or Ogryn raiders are a constant threat, little pockets of increasingly inhuman tech-priests and pseudo-skitarii still keeping their old tech alive under a new version of the Cult Mechanicus that denounces the Emperor (who they don't even remember accurately) as having been an evil False Omnissiah, the Necron dynasties are held in check only by their own madness and internecine warfare, etc. etc.
Like a setting where the big climax of 40k happened, but no one remembers what exactly it was, and everything is simultaneously much much better AND much much worse.
I'm sure I read of them orbiting suns and such but it might have been in an old codex or even a white dwarf issue; it might even have been on something like the 4Chan wiki for 40K.
In the end if you're after an iron tight lore system then honestly I'd say go play Middle Earth - because you won't get a lore deeper nor more set in stone then forged in iron than Middleearth. Any living lore constructed by multiple authors is going to have issues; esp when its tied ti a living product line that evolves and changes through time.
It just seems that in a hobby where most of your time is spend building and painting and playing with models you're focusing on the lore. That's not bad, but you seem to be fixating on it a lot more than average. It might even be that you'd be happier buying and reading BL books for a good while as it seems that lore is very important to you almost more than the models and performance of the army.
Overread wrote: I'm sure I read of them orbiting suns and such but it might have been in an old codex or even a white dwarf issue; it might even have been on something like the 4Chan wiki for 40K.
In the end if you're after an iron tight lore system then honestly I'd say go play Middle Earth - because you won't get a lore deeper nor more set in stone then forged in iron than Middleearth. Any living lore constructed by multiple authors is going to have issues; esp when its tied ti a living product line that evolves and changes through time.
It just seems that in a hobby where most of your time is spend building and painting and playing with models you're focusing on the lore. That's not bad, but you seem to be fixating on it a lot more than average. It might even be that you'd be happier buying and reading BL books for a good while as it seems that lore is very important to you almost more than the models and performance of the army.
Quoted for accuracy. 40k lore is intentionally left open in some parts and even without the models, not all writers have the same vision on what the rules of the universe are.
And then there is the need to drive sales and re-inventing the wheels that has an effect on lore whether you like it or not. Personally I love the universe, but I do pick my lore as I like it.
There are many aspects of the lore that I don't like but because it is such a vast universe and time frame, you can somewhat pick and choose.
Not to mention that not all the lore you see is factual, if anything, very little actually is. The vast majority of lore is told through in universe means such as remembrancers and what have you.
In that sense 40k lore is a game of telephone and you never truly know what actually happened.
If you need strict fixed lore, then 40k lore is pretty much the polar opposite.
You have to consider that hivefleets are a minuscule part of the tyranid threat.They're the first ones into the fray, probing the galaxy and stuff. They only need enough sustenance to keep going. The objective is not to devour everything. That comes afterwards with the tendrils and whatever horror follows that.
They're essentially scouting.
The 99,99% figure is way too speculative. This is one galaxy, that they are slowly closing in on.
Emperor only knows what happened to the other galaxies they have devoured.
Your kneecapping yourself with this, some of the best lore comes from the Grey Knight and Legio Custodes.
Also, you know, heretic BURN HIM in the righteous fire of my indignation!
Roknar wrote: Rainbow warriors have nothing to do with LGBT, they're a different kind of rainbow
I know. They were the sort of Aztec-flavoured ones from the rogue trader days who got axed early on, yeah?
But the guy who mentioned them was clearly doing so in a jokey way, so I'm having a bit of fun too (though I definitely hope it's clear I mean "I think these paint schemes are funny, fun, and charming", not "haha look how awful this is, let's mock it" or "let's have a super-serious political discussion about LGBT rights")
I mean, this isn't a super serious thread at this point, right? We're allowed to have a bit of fun and make little non-serious humorous posts?
Roknar wrote: Rainbow warriors have nothing to do with LGBT, they're a different kind of rainbow
I know. They were the sort of Aztec-flavoured ones from the rogue trader days who got axed early on, yeah?
But the guy who mentioned them was clearly doing so in a jokey way, so I'm having a bit of fun too (though I definitely hope it's clear I mean "I think these paint schemes are funny, fun, and charming", not "haha look how awful this is, let's mock it" or "let's have a super-serious political discussion about LGBT rights")
I mean, this isn't a super serious thread at this point, right? We're allowed to have a bit of fun and make little non-serious humorous posts?
Sure, I was just putting it out there that they are an actual chapter for those who aren't aware.
Roknar wrote: Rainbow warriors have nothing to do with LGBT, they're a different kind of rainbow
I know. They were the sort of Aztec-flavoured ones from the rogue trader days who got axed early on, yeah?
But the guy who mentioned them was clearly doing so in a jokey way, so I'm having a bit of fun too (though I definitely hope it's clear I mean "I think these paint schemes are funny, fun, and charming", not "haha look how awful this is, let's mock it" or "let's have a super-serious political discussion about LGBT rights")
I mean, this isn't a super serious thread at this point, right? We're allowed to have a bit of fun and make little non-serious humorous posts?
Sure, I was just putting it out there that they are an actual chapter for those who aren't aware.
Respectfully (honest), please bear in mind that you're in a forum where virtually EVERYONE has made a "what faction to choose?" decision where the stakes of that decision was literally hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of financial investment, and hundreds and hundreds of hours worth of skilled labour investment.
For us, the question of what faction to commit to is a BIG FETHING THING with real world consequences. You can't just delete and start over on $450 worth of models and 4 months worth of intense work if you find out Thousand Sons aren't really working for you. So when we see someone asking what faction to go with, we expect it's got a similar weight.
Take that, and add in the intense seriousness with which you seem to be taking the question?
AND the way your weirdly specific desires for an ideal faction seem contradictory to the entire spirit of the setting and its story? Like "no stagnation", "no stupidity", "no gore", or "I want an autocratic, technologically advanced AI controlling sexy puppet drones"?
When I said "Go play Aleph in Infinity", it wasn't just to be snarky, it was because I was still under the mistaken impression you were interested in miniatures wargaming, which you made zero effort to dispel, and I genuinely thought you'd enjoy it better (despite my snarky phrasing)
AND THEN finding out it's just for a video game, and you're not investing ANYTHING in this choice that could AT ALL be considered a serious loss!?
And you didn't even think to make that apparent upfront!?
YEAH, yeah that's gonna seem a LITTLE insulting and ridiculous to 40k players! So YEAH, we're going to tease you a bit! Honestly, everyone here has been INCREDIBLY gentle, friendly, and good-natured towards you, given the context of what you've been asking!
especially as video games are gonna be limited in your options, you can love necrons to bits all you want but if you're playing Eternal crusade? Yeaaah you're SOL.
honestly, there's no reason to focus on a single faction for video games, in dawn of war, and just about any other 40k game out there I play to a degree all the factions in it. sometimes those games end up selling me ON a faction. I'll happily note that many of my 40k armies can be directly attributed to their presentation in various video games selling me on that. There's no reason to commit to a faction if you don't have to. even people who play various armies in table top, are often fans of other armies. I'd for example call myself a 1 thousand sons fan, I don't have a 1k sons army (assuming infanite time, infinate resources and infinate storage space I'd love to start one) but that wou;dn't take away from me happily playing a game focused around them. a video game is 80 bucks and a few gigs of hard drive space. less of a sacrifice then 800 bucks and a display cabinet.
If you like 40k, (and to be hoenst I'm not convinced the OP does) there's no reason to limit yourself for video games
Overread wrote: Ah well yes races can build space ships. What I meant is they can't make a planet into a spaceship.
Tyranids are getting close though, they've built a planet sized organic construction which, at present, is seen to project a huge Shadow into the Warp which blocks the demons around it. However other than that its not done anything yet, so we've no idea what its real and full purpose is.
Indeed barring the organic aspect, Tyranids fully embody the ideal of a single minded race controlled by a greater mind. Even if that mind is formed by the unity of the countless numbers of the swarm that comprises it.
The thing I don't get about nids is that where the hell are they getting all that biomass?
If they ate rocks minerals and turned it into biomass I'd understand. But I read that planets they leave behind are in fact fully intact planets with just all life on the surface exterminated. And life on a planet is extremely rare. So if Nids leave asteroids, moons, and planets alone, and only increase mass by consuming planets with life, and they continually lose mass because you need to burn a bajillion calories to keep a single nid alive and moving, how the hell are they so big, numerous and capable of building bioplanets?
They ingest all material deep inside the planet via capillary towers. Apperantly, they dont completley eradicate everything on a planet so that they could comeback for another plate when life eventually starts to grow again. Its actually pretty logical, but it makes thrm seem a lot less scary
Overread wrote: Ah well yes races can build space ships. What I meant is they can't make a planet into a spaceship.
Tyranids are getting close though, they've built a planet sized organic construction which, at present, is seen to project a huge Shadow into the Warp which blocks the demons around it. However other than that its not done anything yet, so we've no idea what its real and full purpose is.
Indeed barring the organic aspect, Tyranids fully embody the ideal of a single minded race controlled by a greater mind. Even if that mind is formed by the unity of the countless numbers of the swarm that comprises it.
The thing I don't get about nids is that where the hell are they getting all that biomass?
If they ate rocks minerals and turned it into biomass I'd understand. But I read that planets they leave behind are in fact fully intact planets with just all life on the surface exterminated. And life on a planet is extremely rare. So if Nids leave asteroids, moons, and planets alone, and only increase mass by consuming planets with life, and they continually lose mass because you need to burn a bajillion calories to keep a single nid alive and moving, how the hell are they so big, numerous and capable of building bioplanets?
They ingest all material deep inside the planet via capillary towers. Apperantly, they dont completley eradicate everything on a planet so that they could comeback for another plate when life eventually starts to grow again. Its actually pretty logical, but it makes thrm seem a lot less scary
Intergalactic scale farmers are an army I can get behind. I mean more so than I already am.
I like sci-fi
I like orks as an enemy and I think WH40K's orks are the best incarnation of orks in all of fiction. Warcraft's being the absolute worst.
I like chaos as an enemy. Not even d&d has demon stuff as intense and fully fleshed out as chaos
I like battle of different techs. Each faction's full unit list has their own unique tech style that isn't just a dumb clone of each other.
I like difference of tech. Such as a high-tech titan slaughtering masses of low-tech savages. Tyranid as a whole feels like one giant high tech weapon. Necrons feel like they are only fighting savages due to them being too advanced technologically.
I like power armor. A lot. Reason I played Fallout 4 was for the power armor.
I like dakka. I love dakka. High-tech dakka not ork dakka. WH40K is the dakkaest franchise in all of fiction. I only build range units in every video game i play.
I like Zerg, but SC2 ruined the entire franchise. Absolutely ****ing ruined it. SC2 induced an entire genre change from sci-fi to pure fantasy and proved without a doubt that starcraft is nothing but a WH40K ripoff. I mean CHAOS was in STARCRAFT in the form of "god" xelnaga and corrupted marines.
WH40K however seems to be the progenitor of Starcraft and Tyranids are the progenitors of Zerg. And the original is always better than the ripoff.
Some things worth thinking about, and that are part of why some of us are thinking this isn't the ideal franchise for you…
Firstly, 40k isn't exactly sci-fi. It's more of a horror / satire that wears the trappings of sci-fi and fantasy. Look at the 30 years worth of art… you're not seeing technology and aliens and robots, you're seeing weird gothic medieval stuff, renaissance and baroque Catholic aesthetics, visual signifiers of World War 1 and 2 and the movies about them, Tolkien-esque fantasy ideas (like orcs and elves), easily recognizable pop sci-fi concepts (like Aliens, Starhip Troopers, Terminator and Judge Dredd), Cold War era bleak resignation, and a whole lot of hilariously over-the-top misery and gallows-humour, all mashed together into a weird cynical horrific soup.
This especially becomes a concern given that you imply
a) You said you don't like stagnation- EVERYONE in 40k is stagnating, except maybe the T'au and the Tyranids. It's part of the whole mentality of the setting.
b) You seem to dislike fantasy, and prefer hard sci-fi. 40k is about as fantasy as a setting set in outer space can possibly get. They literally use *magic* to achieve FTL travel, for crying out loud!
c) "The original is always better than the ripoff" - Well, I've got bad news for you about Chaos (Michael Moorcock), Tyranids (Aliens), Necrons (Terminator), Space Marines (Starship Troopers), Adeptus Arbites (Judge Dredd), Orks and Eldar (Tolkien), etc etc etc
d) You said you don't like gore - This is about as brutally ultraviolent and over-the-top a setting as you can get.
e) You like darkness - the grimdark in 40k is REALLY not meant to be taken seriously. It's not a Zack Snyder movie. Despite ironically coining the term "grimdark", the sort of super-duper serious, intense things with which the term is usually associated, and which often seem to think being dark and violent and inappropriate-for-children is somehow a one-to-one substitute for maturity and sophistication, are very very different in tone to 40k. 40k was, if anything, mocking and deconstructing the ultraviolence of other games and genre fiction in the 1980s, by "turning it up to 11" with a heavy dose of maximalism, and a willingness to follow the implications of militarism and violent solutions all the way through to their most horrific conclusions.
I mean, I could definitely go on, but… it's Christmas Eve and I'm fitting to get drunk on egg nog, eat cookies, and watch some sappy Holiday specials.
Look, you're welcome to like it. Obviously it would be silly for me to say "actually you hate this thing that you say you like". And you're welcome to be really intense about choosing a faction for videogames (even if I find that really bizarre). I'll even grant that maybe you just plain don't understand how it's stepping on the toes of 40k tabletop players to be taking this so seriously when the stakes are so comparably small, and not bothering to tell us what you were actually asking about. But, thing is, you came here asking for people's opinions and advice, so… we're providing them.
Anyway, Merry Christmas, happy holidays, happy new year, etc.
I'd also like to throw in a question here..
What's with the concern about 'nids using 99.whatever percent of available mass? No other army does this either. Necron C'tan literally used to eat stars (and now souls) but dont eat planets whole. I'm a little confused as to why that's even a concern.
Also, theres hinted evidence about tyranids having previously visited the galaxy before with how genestealers were proven to be nid strains, as well as belief from mechanicus magos biologis that superfauna found on deathworlds may have evolved from nid genetics, like the catachan devil, or the fenrisian kraken.
And all a planet needs to eventually house life again is to be a proper distance from its star, and hydrogen on it. (Pretty sure hydrogen is literally the most common thing in the universe,
too.) Stray asteroids have been proven to seed bacteria and other life forming conditions on planets that may not have had enough of those to start life on it's own, but otherwise, it's just a matter of time.
Also, also..
Khorne doesnt hate warpsmiths at all. Binding daemons can be done alone. It's just not time efficient unless you have a pretty automated system already set up. And psykers typically have an easier time reaching into the warp to snatch the psychic essence that makes up daemons to shove them into their metal housing. But they're not nessisarily required to summon daemons. And fluff supports this.
Theres an entire legion of space marines (the brazen beasts) wholly dedicated to khorne and who's fluff highly prioritizes daemon engine use. Theres pretty cool stories about them in vigilus ablaze. The 7th edition khorne daemonkin codex is also a vast wealth of summoning daemons and making daemon engines, too.
Sorry if I'm bringing up old points. I've just read a lot of nid and chaos fluff. And I'm a chaos player. (Started playing with khorne daemonkin, loved them. Want them back.)
I do agree with mostly everyone else here that it seems like you just want a "your dudes" necron faction, though. I do think with this level of detail you're going after here, you should probably give playing the table top game a try. It's fun. And you can really delve into the kitbashing aspect to really make your army feel like everything you want from it.
Theres plenty of people on this site with their painting and modeling blogs that have such amazing ideas it's crazy. I personally like following krautscientists eternal hunt and mcgibbs bloody beasties, myself. But I've also seen the tau "all drone" army and it was amazing. Plenty of ways to take a faction you may like an aesthetic of, and make up your own fluff and kitbashed appearances with to fit how you want and truly make them "your dudes".
Good luck with figuring out your preferred faction, though.
Being viciously defensive and insecure when people are trying to calmly explain their PoV, give you sincere input and exactly the kind of help you're looking for, bury the hatchet, and wish you a happy holiday is really not very endearing, kid.
I think that idea is very misleading. 40k fluff can be anything. Tyranids can very obviously pull vast types of mineral deposits from the earth and its supported by the psycho-reactive minerals that the swarm lord uses for its bone sabres. They match no known material in this galaxy. Their projectile bio weapons have living creatures grow, get launched from their growth hive, and harden to the point of being stronger than diamonds, then explode from within with terribly destructive acid all within less than seconds.
Their hive fleets dont travel through the warp, but instead can manipulate, create and harness gravity to literally launch themselves at ridiculous speeds through space. That's all very clear evidence of them turning matter to energy and back to matter or transferring energy to something else. And they can do this to an insane degree. The swarmlords unknown mineral blades can be made using resources found in this galaxy. And it can be made, used, reabsorbed into a hive fleet and be created in a different section of the galaxy, in a different hive fleet. They literally are the pinnacle of evolution. The only thing holding them back is imagination. And maybe the cost of energy for growing all these things. Energy has to be spent to convert energy after all. No process gets around that
And even if one species cant take 100% of all resources in the universe.. neither can the rest. You cant take dirt and make it metal. The mechanicus have tech that they've forgotten that's in many ways more advanced than the necrons. Theres stories of this all the time.
Also, I'm not sure where you got that summoning quote, it's cool and all, but theres more than one way to summon daemons. Just in the eisenhorn series, its proven one guy can vat-grow a body to house a bound daemon without having to sacrifice anything but time. Some daemons can show up literally with just enough devotion paid to them. Khorne Daemonkin have warbands that dont allow psykers, but by being so zealous in their bloodshed can open holes in the warp for daemons to pour out and join them in combat directly.
Theres even one warband who specialize in fighting tyranids. They have faught their way inside a hive mothership, killed it from within, and pulled forth daemons from inside the ship. Which is right in the middle of the shadow of the warp.
I cannot stress this enough.. you do not need all of those things to summon daemons. It's just the most common method used. You can create daemons in other ways. Helldrakes are a great example. It's literally a fighter craft and pilot spending too much time in the warp, and they become fused together into flying metal dragons.
Also, not all chaos is back stabby. The word bearers and world eaters primarchs are the bro-est of bros. Angron literally threw himself under the foot of a warhound titan and heft it to keep Lorgar from being crushed to death. And when Lorgar found out Angron was dying to the butcher's nails in his head, he turned his brother into a daemon prince and made him immortal. And dont forget that Khorne is also the god of honor and justice, too. All the chaos gods also embody the positive traits of sentient life, it's just the entire galaxy has SO much negative about it that it's the prominent mirror for the majority of sentient beings psyche.
I think you might be taking this sci-fi fantasy game a little too seriously if you're dismissing a Faction because they ain't eating entire planets...
But, as mentioned, it would take a LOOOOOONG time to eat an entire planet, and the Tyranids rely on quickly moving and consuming to overwhelm their opposition. It's entirely possible that there's Hive fleets outside the galaxy that are specifically designed to harvest literally everything and that they're waiting until it's "safe" to do so.
Do you have some sources for necrons being able to use every type of mass for something? Because even when it comes to 40k, the only race that could really believably accomplish something like that would maybe be the old ones. I'm not saying I dont believe you, I've just never heard of necrons being able to do this. And I only have one necron player in my gaming group.
And yes, for sure, chaos can be fickle. But theres really only one backstabby chaos god. Maybe sometimes Slaanesh. But Tzeentch is the biggest jerk not from the eldar race in 40k. Papa Nurgle loves you, and isn't a betraying sod. Khorne is the god of honor, and has never broken an oath, and specifically has a beastie to hunt down those who betray him. (Karanaks lore is pretty cool) and Kharn in fluff kills all those who scorn the blood God, who are unworthy of being one of his servants, who are worthy offerings to the skull throne, or who attempt to take his skull. If you show loyalty to him and to Khorne, and live for that work, your skull is safe from his axe. Also, with warpsmiths and daemon princes and stuff like that, a vast number of them probably willingly go to their fates. Daemon princes are immortal. Theres some that are entire planets in size. And many of them would consider the sacrifice of others of their kind for a massive creation the same as the jive mind sacrificing gaunts. Plus, you know.. being immortal, they aren't killed in that sacrifice. They're becoming one with it.
With nids..
It's actually shown that without the hive mind, those other leser tyranids have their own instincts and behaviors, and like I said can evolve on their own (the catachan devil, ect). Or in the case of genestealers, are their own thinking masterminds separate from the hivemind, but working with it.
It's mostly mortal greed that makes chaos backstabby. Personal gain and all that from other aspiring champions. But theres a lot of examples of staunch loyalty in chaos. As well as legions and warbands who aren't edgy and spikey marines.
Theres cases of chaos necrons. Of orks who sell their dakka to humans. Of eldar who fall in love with imperial assassins.
40k is an entire galaxy. If you go by official fluff.. well.. theres a lot of inconsistencies and contradictions. One of the most malicious monsters in 40k (Arhiman) is driven to literally save the souls of his legion and make them normal space marines again. But for everyone in his way, hes a butcher.
No fluff is locked in for every subfaction. There are named characters and named legions and named battles but for every one of those, theres leser known warbands, new foundings, lesser dynasties, forgotten splinter fleets, and all sorts of side stories. Theres chaos without daemons, dark mechanicus who took their true A.I. with them after the heresy to hidden bases, renegades who aren't part of the ruinous powers but turn their backs on the imperium because they hate what its become. Theres necrons who have degraded to the point of being nothing but soulless machines.
Theres old rules that let orks loot tyranid monsters and ride them into battle. You're never locked into a corner with 40k. It's a big galaxy. GW supports "your dudes". You can make up your own dynasty, your own hive fleet, your own warband, your own magos. Anything.
You are being excessively pedantic and I don't mean that to be rude.
What I get from your posts is that you need to know everything with 100% certainty or it's a wash for you. That's something you will NEVER get, in ANY setting.
Particularly in 40k lore but it's bad writing in general. That only happens in those kinds of stories where you know what happened in the beginning and the fun is in figuring out how it happened as they flash back and slowly show it.
It never happens on a whole universe setting. Hell, we have two primarchs who ONLY exist for people to make their own gak up.
You say yourself that Nids have the tech to consume planets, what is stopping you from accepting the possibility that they can and roll with that?
Even if the backstory and all possible future and past events of every tyranid in the galaxy are revealed, you STILL won't know what the hivemind is or what the race as a whole is capable of as there would still be untold trillions of tyranids waiting in the void between galaxies.
Logic dictates that you can melt marshmallows with a light saber, but you're never going to get concrete proof of that happening. And according to some media, all it does is leave a stain on armour as opposed to cut through.
Are you going to insist that you can't melt marshmallows just because it's never been seen and there is lore that makes no sense whatsoever? Of course not, so why be so stubborn on tyranid lore?
Logic dictates that they have the possibility to harvest stars and planets, so the question should not be if they can or not, regardless of what GW says, but why don't they?
Which is a question only you can answer because unless you go merge with the literal hivemind, you won't be getting a 100% factual answer on that. You need to cut the lore/writers some slack.
There are plenty of mysteries that are left unresolved on purpose
And as for chaos, if you are ok with being dissolved to be fed back into the swarm, then you have no reason to be confrontational with sacrifice.
By worshipping a god you offer up your soul to your god and by doing so become immortal.
And you don't need to ascend to become immortal either. Daemons are literally immortal and are in fact a part of their God.
They can be re-absorbed and separated at will and time is obviously a triviality to a chaos god.
So if you manage to ascend in some way, death is really not an issue.
Mortal can be effectively immortal too. Kharn died and was resurrected by Khorne. Lucius has died god knows how often and neither are ascended or even possessed, their gods just really like them.
Death is not the end when subscribing to chaos. I mean, it's a gamble whether or not your plans work out, but sacrificing yourself is not necessarily a bad idea, besides those that do often have larger plans at work and by sacrificing themselves, they can complete their life's work.
Achieving your dreams is not a bad way to go if you ask me, and again, death might only be a step towards a greater goal. The gods have plans aeons in the making, who's to say you won't come back a few million years from now or reborn as a god yourself because of what you set in motion.
And on being sacrificed against your will, well that's on you. Guess you weren't as omnipotent as you thought.
The gods aren't just gonna Thanos you out of existence on a whim, somebody has to capture/kill you and so it's your own fault for not being powerful enough to stop it.
So unless you requirements include not ever being able to lose, backstabbing shouldn't be an issue. It doesn't require a god to want your death.
There are enemies in 40k no matter what faction you choose, that's kind of a core concept of 40k.
Besides, how often is a sacrifice truly required/requested by the gods as opposed to being the brainchild of some wannabe chaos champion.
And even then, you obviously have a measure of control over your fate. Willpower is a BIG concept when dealing with chaos.
I mean, the gods are damn near omnipotent so you only really have the illusion of control, but at the same time all bets are off and they play with fire.
They engineered the current state of the galaxy and are thriving because of it, but the emperor screwing them over in the first place wasn't really part of their plans, and yet it worked out in their favour.
At the same though he might well be on the verge of becoming a literal god now that would be diametrically opposed to them and a real threat.
So they seem to know the broad strokes of events, but individuals can very much influence the details and their plans have to change accordingly.
So that same event that requires you to die might end up in your favour and setting you up for godhood.
It doesn't get any better than becoming a God, and we have seen birth been given to new gods in the lore and hints of this happening right now, ie it's a very real possibility if that is really what you want.
When hypothesizing about chaos, time and reality are not static and the scales of plans /events are off the charts.
If you think you understand the gods of chaos, you understand nothing.
Sacrificing could mean anything. Who knows what happens to the minds and souls of every single ritual. Daemons are stated to be immortal, unkillable. And comes back again and again in many instances of the lore. Same deal with norn queens. If everything else can be broken down, why not the hive fleet ships as well? It's all the same vagueness.
Also, that quote you used doesn't lend evidence to me that necrons can use 100% of all mass/energy in the universe. It just says they use science to such a degree it looks like magic. Same could be said of the mechanicus setting loose a living fire that burns in space and sets alight nebula.
The same link also says how stagnant and fractured crypteks are as well, and how hard they have to work just to maintain their own facilities. And how they may need help gaining materials as well. So necrons aren't immune to the same thing the imperium is going through. Only it's much worse for them as they're older and in drastically fewer numbers.
Human tech was once probably comparable to necron tech in what science they had during the first expansion of humanity, but every single race but the tau and chaos are pretty stagnant. With only recently the imperium getting new swag because Cawl.
As far as tyranids being able to do similar things like devour stars and gas giants, they totally can. It's just a biomass loss to do so compared to what biomass they gain. They're more into being efficient with biomass.
Oh and chaos necrons are totally a thing. Chaos can corrupt even rock and stone. Doesnt need a soul. But if it has a soul, its easier to corrupt. Necrons themselves aren't anti-warp, they just have the strongest anti-warp tech due to the war in heaven.
Word of god is somewhat meaningless here. GW makes lore up to sell new kits and contradicts themselves.
Then you have a bazillion different writers who each have a different vision of how the universe works and contradict each other.
And to top it all off, most stories are just that, stories as told from somebody within the universe and thus subject to that persons interpretations and hearsay.
This reddit post has a few quotes from black library authors straight up telling you that is no such thing as canon for 40k.
So I'm sorry, but you won't be getting any kind of confirmation from GW and even if you do, you can easily dismiss it if it doesn't suit your headcanon an consequently, you're going to have to make up your own mind whether or nor a faction is capable of X or Y.
Yeah, the link you provided doesnt say directly or indirectly that they can turn anything into anything, or that they could make necrodermis from dirt or water. That same source also says they're stagnating as well, if you read down.
Are you sure you're getting accurate examples of their ability and not just assuming some of your own opinion? I also want to point out it's a wiki page, so it's own accuracy isn't nessisarily top tier. All technology has its limits. Necrons are no different. Else they would have been able to fix their living bodies while they were still the necrontyr. They were still slaves to more powerful beings, even with their technology, after all.
I would also like sources on necrons being so numerous in the galaxy, as humanity is mind bogglingly vast and spread across all of the galaxy, and the necrons just.. weren't ever the galaxies dominant race. As they were rising, the old ones (who were the galaxies masters) made the krork and advanced the eldar to stop them from becoming too big a threat. Even the eldar, who would be the galaxies next dominant race still never spread across to the degree that humans have. Only the orks are more numerous than humanity. And necrons had pitiful lifespans and breeding problems throughout their history even before the war in heaven. So I'm pretty suspicious of that without direct proof.
This is fun. Is anyone else having fun? I'm having fun.
Roknar wrote: This reddit post has a few quotes from black library authors straight up telling you that is no such thing as canon for 40k.
I guess that's as good as it gets. Thanks. It is unlikely that we'll see Tyranids move to "phase 2" which starts after all life in the galaxy is consumed so I guess we'll never see Tyranid's feeding habits change.
Order of what I like
1. Necron Constructs & Necron Cryptek
2. The entirety of the Tyranid race
... other stuff
?. Necron soldiers and vehicles.
LordOfWar wrote: Yeah, the link you provided doesnt say directly or indirectly that they can turn anything into anything, or that they could make necrodermis from dirt or water. That same source also says they're stagnating as well, if you read down.
How can anything be more clear than "transmute your foe into liquid adamantium". If they can transmute a space marine into a spec of dwarf star matter then they can turn anything into anything.
Stagnation stuff just means they're not as strong as they were before the sleep. What this means I don't know but it defintely doesn't mean they can no longer transmute foes into liquid adamantium.
LordOfWar wrote: Are you sure you're getting accurate examples of their ability and not just assuming some of your own opinion? I also want to point out it's a wiki page, so it's own accuracy isn't nessisarily top tier. All technology has its limits. Necrons are no different. Else they would have been able to fix their living bodies while they were still the necrontyr. They were still slaves to more powerful beings, even with their technology, after all.
They have no bio technology. Metal, Physics, space/time tech however they're as advanced as you can get in the setting. Uncontested. But for some reason Imperium of Man's tech has more firepower.
LordOfWar wrote: I would also like sources on necrons being so numerous in the galaxy, as humanity is mind bogglingly vast and spread across all of the galaxy, and the necrons just.. weren't ever the galaxies dominant race. As they were rising, the old ones (who were the galaxies masters) made the krork and advanced the eldar to stop them from becoming too big a threat. Even the eldar, who would be the galaxies next dominant race still never spread across to the degree that humans have. Only the orks are more numerous than humanity. And necrons had pitiful lifespans and breeding problems throughout their history even before the war in heaven. So I'm pretty suspicious of that without direct proof.
From another thread
Lord Damocles wrote: 'What the Imperium cannot know is that, should the Necrons ever fully wake and unite, they would face a foe as numerous as themselves.'[/i]
Codex: Necrons (7th ed.) 'The Awakening Empire'
LordOfWar wrote: This is fun. Is anyone else having fun? I'm having fun.
I'm having fun too. talking about things I'm interested in (Necrons, Tyranids, Chaos) is fun.
Fully awake and unite.. meaning the silent king coming back from outside the galaxy? Meaning all of the scarabs and other constructs counted? Meaning all of the original soul bound living metal dudes, or newly created warriors? Meaning all of the c'tan shards coming under control? Wasnt there old fluff of then turning humans into necrons, and that's how they got one of the unit types? Would that mean when they wake up, they start turning other races into necron warriors too? Or does it mean their numbers are vast because the automated processes have churned out fresh warriors while they slept? Theres a lot of unknowns there to make a matter of fact statement like that.
Also, your own quote shows each cryptek specializes in one type of science and hyper focused on it. Turning a whole foe into a speck of star dust is taking an amount of mass and spending an unknown amount of energy to get back an amount of mass several millionths of a percent smaller than it was. That's vast losses in energy for a result you could get by just blasting plasma at them.
Transmuting to liquid adamantium also isn't hard when space marine armor is made of plasteel, ceramite and.. adamantium.. they're just liquifying them. Thats still not "anything into anything". And even if they could make something like.. base carbon (which makes up most life forms) into a specific other type of material via their own scientific process, theres no evidence they can turn that same carbon based form into literally any other form. And it's still pointing towards specific actions being able to come to specific results. Especially when they go out of their way to say that crypteks super focus on their specialization of choice.
Whereas chaos can change anything into anything else, and explicitly has fluff that supports chaos beings like daemons of tzeentch changing anything into any other random thing they feel like. Even basic troops like flamers of tzeentch will have random outcomes based on the mood of the lord of change ag the time.
I also just want to go back to the "if the necrons unite" bit..
If all of humanity stops and works together, from every space marine faction, mechanicus, guard, noble house and such stops playing power struggle games and politics and bands under the emperors flag again, and contact is reestablished with all lost colony worlds, and technology is shared, humans will waffle stomp the galaxy again.
If the eldar reunite the craft worlds, dark city, exodites, corsairs and harlequins together for one purpose, they could save their species and rid the galaxy of 24% of the chaos gods, and lock out the other races from being the dominant superpower in the galaxy. While using clone technology and dark eldar science to grow their numbers.
If all of chaos unites under a common leader, who's backed by all 4 gods, and theres no more petty power plays, it will play out like the end times of age of sigmar with abaddon in place of archaeon the everchosen.
If every ork rallies around gazzy, and unites all orks across the galaxy, it will play out like the beast did and eventually the return of the krork and they'll outplay every single other species.
But that's a lot of "ifs".
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and.. if the tyranids are only small "tip of the iceberg" fleets that we have seen just far, everyone will get eaten by them eventually.
The only ones who cant really affect the galaxy in meaningful ways are the tau. At least not yet.
There is also something you may not have considered yet. Tyranids may be engineered by the old ones as a sort of reset button. Clean the galaxy of all life, then start over. The tyranids would then act as a giant dna database, having absorbed all life. In that scenario there is not much to gain from destroying planets and such, you only need to cleanse it of life, not inorganic material that can be used for the next cycle.
Roknar wrote: There is also something you may not have considered yet. Tyranids may be engineered by the old ones as a sort of reset button. Clean the galaxy of all life, then start over. The tyranids would then act as a giant dna database, having absorbed all life. In that scenario there is not much to gain from destroying planets and such, you only need to cleanse it of life, not inorganic material that can be used for the next cycle.
Save everyone by destroying everyone and stashing their DNA in a database for later? By using immense betentacled spacecraft that deploy endless hordes of mindless flesh-drones whose only guns are organically melded into their bodies? With powerful biotic psychic monsters leading the swarms, giant flying worm-things, and no weakpoint to defeat their invasions so it takes a space marine and a deus ex machina? That's how we get rid of the Tyranids! We find the holographic child-computer leading them and tell it to f*** off!
"Foes" is ambiguous and not specific enough to cite a claim it means every single enemy they could come across. It could mean a very specific instance, with their enemy detained in s lab with vast resources towards doing this, or it could mean a super weapon on the battlefield that eats huge amounts of power to accomplish, or it could mean one guy made a glove and waves his hands. Theres no specifics for you to claim the sweeping degree of their abilities.
Also, I never said they can turn only space marines into liquid adamantium. I gave an example of vague writing and pointed out how some feats of power can be exaggerated by looking at established facts and noting a strong connection.
If you use vague examples, you have to treat them like vague examples, not solid fact. And you cant take a word like "foes" and just add meaning to include "everything they ever deal with" and have any kind of factual basis for the arguement.
With the liquid adamantium example, vague writing can say they can turn their foes into that, while specifics could mean "they liquified a space marine by molecular dehiscence, and him and his adamantium armor melted", or it could mean "they changed the very molecular makeup of the organic matter of a random fungal ork into inorganic super alloy".. for some reason. The point being that we dont know specifically how or in what variables they do that, so you cant claim a specificity to it.
Also, the necrons have never destroyed gods. They shattered the essence of c'tan, who are a type of powerful creature in the galaxy, who they worship as gods. But they're not on the same scale of the real gods in the galaxy. They can make technology that can calm the warp in areas, but chaos can still form there. Daemons can still be summoned, and those technologies can be overpowered, or even used in chaos' favor. Just look at the Blackstone fortresses or noctilith crown
roboemperor wrote: And since "trasmit" in computer science is simply "copy and delete original"...
Um. I have never seen that definition associated with that term in computer science in all my years working with computers. Transmit just means the movement of data. Everything on the internet is copied to the requesting system and rarely ever deleted from the source, but is still considered transmitted. Not to mention, deleting an AI on transmit means you cannot mass produce AI with this definition. Sorry, but it actually makes it easier to replicate AI if it is not deleted after transmission.
As a side note, a while back I was making a fan-dex of Gundam Wing converting the Mobile Suits to battlesuits (Super-Heavies weren't really a thing when I started it). One of the units is something called a "mobile doll" and is an AI-operated Mobile Suit. If I had ever got around to actually building the models for it, those units which had this conversion would have been using the Drone bodies as the heads to help mark them out.
Just one question though... Are there any recent video games featuring the Tau as a playable race? As far as I'm aware, you're limited to Dawn Of War: Dark Crusade, Battlefleet Gothic, and the ancient Fire Warrior...
Just one question though... Are there any recent video games featuring the Tau as a playable race? As far as I'm aware, you're limited to Dawn Of War: Dark Crusade, Battlefleet Gothic, and the ancient Fire Warrior...
The one that followed Dark Crusade had Tau as well, Soulstorm. They started on a moon in an area that gave the Orbital Strike upgrade.
They also allowed a commander in the Dawn of War 2 Retribution co-op multiplayer Last Stand missions.
Nothing beyond that, I know of so far, which leave the BFG last one, I believe, for the big names. There may be some mobile version I don't know of, but there is a huge emphasis on the Imperium only otherwise.
Have to admit, Tau are really good in Dark Crusade and Soulstorm, though. Not turrets, but a lot of fun to use otherwise.
roboemperor wrote: And since "trasmit" in computer science is simply "copy and delete original"...
Um. I have never seen that definition associated with that term in computer science in all my years working with computers. Transmit just means the movement of data. Everything on the internet is copied to the requesting system and rarely ever deleted from the source, but is still considered transmitted. Not to mention, deleting an AI on transmit means you cannot mass produce AI with this definition. Sorry, but it actually makes it easier to replicate AI if it is not deleted after transmission.
As a side note, a while back I was making a fan-dex of Gundam Wing converting the Mobile Suits to battlesuits (Super-Heavies weren't really a thing when I started it). One of the units is something called a "mobile doll" and is an AI-operated Mobile Suit. If I had ever got around to actually building the models for it, those units which had this conversion would have been using the Drone bodies as the heads to help mark them out.
Data doesn't "move" in computers. When you "move" a file from a USB to a hard disk, the computer copies the file, pastes the file in the hard disk, and then deletes the file on the USB.
When you defrag your hard drive, your computer copies a file, pastes that file to its new address, then deletes the original file.
When you download something, you aren't moving a file. You are copying and pasting a file on the internet.
etc. etc.
That's actually what I said, except data does move in computers through the datalines from memory point to memory point. "Copying" data is the base method of transmitting data. In fact, "Move" was a actual DOS command you had to use if you didn't want to leave the original on the source and go back and delete it with a separate command. Copying was far faster because it left out the step of deleting the original (and was usually wiser to make sure that the copy worked properly, the first three rules of computers are: Backup; Backup; and Always Remember and Never Forget to Backup).
If you drag and drop a file from your hard drive to your USB, you are only copying the data. You actually have to go out of your way to Cut the file first to actually do a delete with the same move. The operating systems treat hard drives a little bit different now in that dragging and dropping on the same drive does actually commit to altering the memory address references more than copying the data, but that's more background stuff.
Either way, "transmit" is not "only copy, paste, and delete", but pretty much just the "copy" portion.
roboemperor wrote: So when this guy is "transmitting wirelessly" to a new body because his old body is gonna die, what he is actually doing is copying himself into the new body and then deleting himself in the old body.
That's why all sci-fi that has people "upload" themselves into virtual space can never happen. What actually is happening is you are making a copy of yourself in virtual space and then killing yourself in your organic body. So that virtual you isn't really you.
You can never "move" data. Only copy, paste, and delete..
May I introduce you to the Safehold series by David Weber? A good read and may help you out in understanding the concepts properly. They actually had people copying their personalities in to computers to do research in heuristic modes to compress the time needed to process them. They could also download a copy in to an android boy to do dangerous work or sports and then reupload the experiences back in to flesh and blood body. It stops more from an overall downgrade in human technology AND the physical bodies otherwise dying, but death was not a part of copying the human's mind on to the non-organic format.
And no, there is no "only" in copying, pasting, and deleting to move data. One can actually just copy or copy & paste, unless one is using the "move" command (but that's something only really used with Linux and DOS any more). That's all the internet is in the end. Transmitting data copy by copy across the vast interconnected wires and signals. Deleting data has always been an extra step, which is why it is so dangerous and easy to get away with.
Do you really believe that downloading a game requires them to build the game again to download? How do you think CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs work when you cannot delete the data on those discs? You cannot write to those discs to erase the data.
But what do I know, I've only been using computers since 5 1/4" disks were the standard medium and hard drives were just a pipe dream for home owners, restructured my parent's DOS to run the Doom shareware and they weren't cut out of Windows 3.1, building computers for the last couple of decades, and had IT as a profession.
Not necessarily. Not in a universe that has machines that acquire true sentience and can become corrupted by chaos and have literal spirits. That is to say, you can, but are you 100% sure you're not loosing something in the process of copying your AI?
Also, what the hell lol. Here we are are discussing necron, nids and chaos and suddenly Tau come in out of nowhere snatching the title XD.
And in terms of titans, humans were well capable of making AI titans in a sense.
Humans have been around for quite some time. The men of iron were initially created by man, who then went on to create monstrosities like the mechanivores or sun-snuffers. They had a level of tech that could easily compare to Necrons.
And we know that at least one of the men of iron bots survived, so with tech like that, who knows what else is out there. At the very least there is precedent of AI titans in humans,.
Of course there is not a snowballs chance in hell of seeing anything of this in a video game or even the tabletop.
There is also Pax Imperialis by Gordon Rennie, which is canon, so there are at least 2 survivors actually.
Wackiness. I think I mentioned an "all drone army" conversion previously, did I not? Google "tau all drone army" and see something awesome.
I still think your hang up with tyranids "not using 100%" of all matter is pretty bonkers, though. A cut off planetary assault force not having the capabilities of what their biofleets can do doesnt exactly prove anything against them. Especially with there being no proof other races -can- use 100% of all mass in the galaxy.
Also, one quick google search shows wraithbone isn't made from nothing, but its solidified warp power that has to be harvested from the warp. So they're taking the same stuff daemons are made out of, making it look pretty, and forming it into psychic living metal that can sort of heal and grow because it's practically alive.
Oh well. Regardless of minor minutia and accuracy, good job picking a team. Hopefully you actually get into the hobby proper someday.
As a side note and a thought on direction, I saw someone model some Legion of Everblight models from WarmaHordes using a whole bunch of other bits to make them look robotic.
The idea of a techno-organic horde in the shape of Tyranids could work. It's not outside of the realm of possibility when you look at the Adeptus Mechanicus (both Imperium and Dark/Chaos).
LordOfWar wrote: Wackiness. I think I mentioned an "all drone army" conversion previously, did I not? Google "tau all drone army" and see something awesome.
When you said this i considered an necron army consisting solely of canoptek arcanthrite, tomb stalkers, tomb sentinels, and seraptek heavy constructs.
LordOfWar wrote: I still think your hang up with tyranids "not using 100%" of all matter is pretty bonkers, though. A cut off planetary assault force not having the capabilities of what their biofleets can do doesnt exactly prove anything against them. Especially with there being no proof other races -can- use 100% of all mass in the galaxy.
Also, one quick google search shows wraithbone isn't made from nothing, but its solidified warp power that has to be harvested from the warp. So they're taking the same stuff daemons are made out of, making it look pretty, and forming it into psychic living metal that can sort of heal and grow because it's practically alive.
Oh well. Regardless of minor minutia and accuracy, good job picking a team. Hopefully you actually get into the hobby proper someday.
Yeah we're gonna have to agree to disagree at this point.
Necrons capture entire suns and utilize its full energy for weaponry and power. And Crypteks can travel back in time and turn anything into anything. I have no idea what your'e saying with treating things vaguely and how that undermines directly stated lore, but w.e. agree to disagree. And Tau are well on their way to necron's level of tech. They're already learning how to blow up stars.
Yeah, unless you find a citation stating something specific like "turning anything into anything", it's just your own opinion on it, and not directly stated lore. That's why its vague. It just says "some can turn foes into liquid adamantium" with zero specifics on the conditions of how they do it. I previously gave an example of a type of foe who's regular protective gear is literally made of adamantium. So stating a vague feat with no specifics can be fulfilled by simply annihilating flesh and weaker material and turning the adamantium of the armor to liquid. Boom. Accomplished. And nothing says thats not the how or why that feat is claimed. Because its vague and non specific. You're the one adding the "anything" part of that. The other things crypteks can do, so can other races.
Human psykers of the navigator caste can also time travel as well. Using their psychic abilities to peer into alternate timelines, they just jump to a timeline where instead of going down a path where an ambush was waiting, they took the other road instead. Or can look through the warp and find a route to send their ship to so they arrive before they even left. And they do that with just their minds. Some orks using their weird boys and big meks can also create anomalies in time and travel through them as well. And no one time travels like the chaos forces. But if the necrons had limitless time travel to go back and change anything they want, they'd have won the war in heaven. Which means theres some limitation on their abilities, just like every other race.
Also, I looked into the necrons using stars as fuel for weapons and it's just them funneling energy from the c'tan (as usual, due to the c'tan eating stars) to make a huge plasma reactor who's output is the same rate as a solar flare. They don't even seem to use the entire star. Theres nothing I found saying they destroy or use it all up in the process. Or even something saying they capture a star and take it with them. They make these weapons with the specific target being enemy titans. You think with using a star for power, you would at least get some return big enough to crack a whole planet open, but it doesnt seem so. I think it's the same writing flourish that claims plasma pistols use the wrath and fury/power of a small star and such. Or how by sheer temperature, a bolt of lightning is actually hotter than the surface of the sun. It's just a giant necron plasma cannon.
Even necron world engines dont flaunt planet cracking power, simply having guns enough to strip a planet of all life, and cracking ships in half. Whereas the old ones had Blackstone fortresses capable of destroying entire star systems.
My point being that there isn't a race who can do everything in the setting. Necrons, eldar, orks and the old ones were all fighting back before humanity was big. Technology was crazy. Necrons are probably tied with mechanicus and eldar for most advanced race. (Theres things the mechanicus have that would make a cryptek blush and an ork sell all of his teef just to see) and in certain ways, they are the most advanced race in the setting. And in certain ways, the tyranids are the most advanced race. Ditto for tau. And eldar. And even the orks can turn scrap into star fleets. There isn't really a "best" faction. Just a "best at..." ...mostly because the old ones are extinct, really.
Also, I'm pretty sure you can search google and find some cool scarab army conversions for some necron armies. Kitbashing can get truly insane when people are passionate enough about it. Anyways, sorry if I seem like I'm ranting, I just play A LOT of games with very precise rules and lore, and I just feel compelled to find out and explore specifics about statements to get the best possibly accuracy.
. There are also female versions from WGE if you really need "sexy stuff". You could also concentrate on Canopthek constructs which are all "real" robots (no soul trapped in there).
I'm gone. 
