Necron Mars raid - is it still valid or not?

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**Brother Coa**

According to new fluff Necron ships lost their unique FTL drive and have been degraded to pre C'Tan FTL drives ( the ones they use before they encounter the old Ones ), as stated on page 8 of new codex.
Their ships also seems to be degraded in power, as Imotekh capital ship was obviously no match for Space Marine Battle Barge as his ship lost all it's shields from the broadside fire. Not only that but all other Necron ship that were in the area were destroyed by Space Marine fleet, with Imotekh capital ship destroyed after colliding with nearby star.

And we all know that Imperial Navy ships outmatch Space Marine ones in strength and firepower ( with Space Marine ships being only faster as to support Astartes fast attack tactics ). So a fact that 5 Necron light cruisers ships pops up near Mars, be able to actually land while taking heat from the Mars defensive fleet ( with itself contains ships from Battlefleet Solar - the strongest Imperial battle fleet ) doesn't seem valid to me anymore. Space Marine Battle Barge was actually able to strip down Necron capital ship shields in short time, while here a light cruiser can withstand fire from the strongest fleet at Imperium's disposal to actually land on a planet and take a lot of ships with himself.

I still think that Void Dragon story is valid but I think that Necron Mars raid is no longer valid due to this new information from Necrons own codex.
Opinions are more them welcome.

**TheRobotLol**

I would have to agree, the newcrons have taken a step down in terms of power, and as a result the mars raid would now be impossible.

**DarkHound**

Man, that removes a all the mystique from the army. I hadn't read that story.

**purplefood**

Considering they can't beat SM ships in a straight up fight they are some of the weaker ships about...

**ShatteredBlade**

Fluff wise the Necrons lost a lot of their teeth. They are still a threat, but not as near as they once were. It would fit the rumor that Chaos is supposed to become the biggest threat to the galaxy in 6th ed.

**Lord Rogukiel**

ShatteredBlade wrote:Fluff wise the Necrons lost a lot of their teeth. They are still a threat, but not as near as they once were. It would fit the rumor that Chaos is supposed to become the biggest threat to the galaxy in 6th ed.

Shame. I really liked the idea that they were a massive threat with only a small portion of total forces awakened.

**AegisGrimm**

Chaos has to become ascendant in 6ed because that's the only other way to field Space Marines! Without Space marines versus Space marines, you basically can't play 40K!

I think you'd find that in current GW fluff style, even had the Necrons stayed the mechanical terrors they used to be, the days of reading about Space marines losing a fight in any form are about done. They would have found some sort of goofy weakness that the Necrons in their "pride of superiority" missed, ala the Death Star's vent.

Even though I haven't read all of the new codex, my way of being happy about Necrons ( I play them from time to time) is to take the new fluff style of lords (and maybe the Crypteks), and ignore the rest and go back to the 3-4ed version of the fluff. They are just the overminds guiding the horde. In effect, mechanical tyranids. Maybe the Ctan shards are just small portions of the few that are left. They send pieces of their consciousness between all the awakening tomb-worlds as observers of 'the master plan', rather than some giant god-like entity on a single battlefield, that in all likelihood by the old fluff, would require Apocolypse games where they can have fun killing titans by themselves.

**SomeRandomEvilGuy**

AegisGrimm wrote: the days of reading about Space marines losing a fight in any form are about done.

They do lose in the Necron Codex though. More than once if I recall correctly.

I might try to suggest that Helbrecht's ship was better than most Astartes ships (i.e. from the Dark Age of Technology or some such), but it does seem to question the Necron space superiority.

**Milisim**

40K NEEDS to have something happen BIG.

Stupid little battles on the fringes of Imperium space is getting old....

We need some major chapters to get rocked, major planets being devoured with Nids.... etc....

6E needs to be the Xenos Edition... Give all the outdated codexes an update and put the IoM on the back foot.

**DarknessEternal**

Brother Coa wrote:According to new fluff Necron ships lost their unique FTL drive and have been degraded to pre C'Tan FTL drives ( the ones they use before they encounter the old Ones ), as stated on page 8 of new codex.

They didn't lose anything. They gained the webway.

**Marzillius**

DarknessEternal wrote:
Brother Coa wrote:According to new fluff Necron ships lost their unique FTL drive and have been degraded to pre C'Tan FTL drives ( the ones they use before they encounter the old Ones ), as stated on page 8 of new codex.

They didn't lose anything. They gained the webway.

The Dolmen Gates are completley cut off from the Webway. The Necrons made them, the Eldar cut them off right then. All they have are useless gates.

**King Pariah**

Marzillius wrote:
DarknessEternal wrote:
Brother Coa wrote:According to new fluff Necron ships lost their unique FTL drive and have been degraded to pre C'Tan FTL drives ( the ones they use before they encounter the old Ones ), as stated on page 8 of new codex.

They didn't lose anything. They gained the webway.

The Dolmen Gates are completley cut off from the Webway. The Necrons made them, the Eldar cut them off right then. All they have are useless gates.

And where the hell does it say that?

**Brother Coa**

King Pariah wrote:
And where the hell does it say that?

Page 8, Necrons control them but Eldar sabotage them as soon as Necrons activated them. Necron overlord can take his troops trough it, but there is 90% chance that he will never exit.
Even Dolmen Gates are out of Necron reach, they work but they are broken by the Eldar. In addition to that they monitor them and even if Necorns survive trip they will be attacked by Eldar forces as soon as possible.

Only means of transportation Necrons have now is their pre Old Ones war ships.

**King Pariah**

Eh, I'll take your word for it, I whited out that piece of terrible fluff called the Dolmen Gates.

**Galdos**

One way to look at it is that they took some of their best ships to perform the Mars blockade run. Did they take like 5 and lose 4? So the reason the Necron ships arnt on par anymore is actually that the few times they were encountered in the past was encounters with their best stuff. Now that much of it has been destroyed, they are making due with their weaker stuff.

However I have not read the Codex so im not sure exactly how it is written. Just offering a suggestion

**Sasori**

Marzillius wrote:
DarknessEternal wrote:
Brother Coa wrote:According to new fluff Necron ships lost their unique FTL drive and have been degraded to pre C'Tan FTL drives ( the ones they use before they encounter the old Ones ), as stated on page 8 of new codex.

They didn't lose anything. They gained the webway.

The Dolmen Gates are completley cut off from the Webway. The Necrons made them, the Eldar cut them off right then. All they have are useless gates.

Try again. It says the Eldar were only able to cut off some of it, and some have been lost/destroyed/rendered useless, but the "Webway is immeasurably vast, and these Sundered Skeins grant the Necrons a Mode of travel that far out paces the younger races"

I still don't understand the "Necrons lost a lot of their threat" in this new book. They lost their mysteriousness but, the Newcrons have done more damage to the galaxy in this new book, than they did in the old one. There were very few encounters with them, before, to the point were they were almost insignificant. Now you have various Overlords going out and conquering parts of the Galaxy, With 2 entire chapters killed in the codex, and a 3rd one rendered impotent for the most part. You also have things like the Celestial Orrey, which is the most potent galactic scale weapon we've ever seen. Imotekh alone has conquered over 80 planets since he woke up.

It also states in the codex, that what is mentioned is only a handful of the "Many Millions" of Tombworlds scattered about the Galaxy. The fact that a handful of Dynasties have conquered so much, in such a short period of time, should be a testament to he Necrons threat. The fact that it's only a fraction of a fraction of the Necrons overall power, should make anyone quake in fear at the thought a Fully Awakened Necron force.

**XT-1984**

I don't understand how they can't have FTL travel when they have techonolgy like the Veil of Darkness, the Monoliths Eternity Gate or the portal on the Night Scythe.

In particular they Night Scythes description says that units embarked can be on a distant tomb world untill they are called to battle and instantly teleport into the fight.

**Sasori**

XT-1984 wrote:I don't understand how they can't have FTL travel when they have techonolgy like the Veil of Darkness, the Monoliths Eternity Gate or the portal on the Night Scythe.

In particular they Night Scythes description says that units embarked can be on a distant tomb world untill they are called to battle and instantly teleport into the fight.

Poor Writing. The Necrons had conquered the ENTIRE galaxy at one point, yet they don't have FTL travel? Makes no sense. It's really the only part of the new Fluff that I strongly disagree with.

**Noir Eternal**

Sasori wrote: Poor Writing. The Necrons had conquered the ENTIRE galaxy at one point, yet they don't have FTL travel? Makes no sense. It's really the only part of the new Fluff that I strongly disagree with.

Agreed, although there is a lot more in the new fluff that I don't like, the biggest problem with the attempt to weaken their space ships leaves gaping holes in the background that were very perfectly explained before.

Talking about all of the old fluff that now may or may not have happened is actually pretty depressing. I'd say leave it be, they touched down on Mars and if the Necrons wanted to they could do so again

**Irdiumstern**

The way I see it, the mention of the new style slow travel, torchships, are usually in relation to malfunctioning tomb worlds. It seems to be a local phenomenon of various tomb worlds damaged in during the long sleep.

Dolmen gates . . . it's instantaneous travel. The webway is pretty much show in the rest of canon to be the end-all for travel. Necron ships may have been fast before, but now those dynasties with access to a Dolmen gate can strike out at anyone.

**AtomicEngineer**

I think this quote from the other necron thread sums up the unneeded changes to some of the necron stuff, including their starships. I especially enjoyed the mars attack and such from the old cron stories.

tsz52 wrote:
Kaldor wrote:
tsz52 wrote:Instead it's more, 'All that old lore was BS, and we'll retcon (therefore destroy, rather than preserve) everything such that the older fluff, novels, computer games and other licenses, and armies that folks have lovingly built are now all false. Not the old 'many interpretations, none of it's true, it's all true' thing but flat out false.'

Like what?

Well, now I'm in the tricky position of wanting to answer a question asked in good faith, but if I answered it fully I'd be perceived as the most muck-raking, ****-stirring, dead-horse-flogging troll of all time.

I'd ask you to look back over all of the 'Oh no, not this again!' threads of controversy and vitriol in recent memory (the ones that tend to get locked), paying attention to such things as the: 'Eldar players/fans whining again'; 'Space Marine haters whining again'; 'Necron players/fans whining again'; 'Daemon Hunters players/fans whining again'; 'Witch Hunters* players/fans whining again'; 'SoB players/fans whining again'; 'Fans of the (non-Astartes) Imperial Institutions (like the Inquisition) whining again'; 'Chaos players/fans whining again'... threads.

There's a bit of a gestalt there that you can't have missed, and it can't all be dismissed as incorrect or whining. And those are just the ones that I've paid particular attention to, given my particular interests.

There were plenty of previous facts and stories (and army builds) now rendered both absolutely false and impossible; and old mysteries and hints now answered (that will take another ham-fisted retcon to remedy) in a way that contradicts the previous lore and vibe. Don't forget that this isn't just confined to the current 40k TT but spreads out to every other 40k based game (BFG has been properly mashed up by all these retcons), novel (Cain vs Oldcrons, and a big list of others) and license (something that GW should really be a bit less arrogant about, since it isn't the powerful PLC that it likes to strut about as, compared to some of these licensee corporations).

For the sake of harmony and tedious-repetition-reduction, I would urge you to take the above as a rough guide and answer your own question.

*As a single example of difference in approach between then and now:-

Then: In C:WH the SoB are the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Hereticus. Clutching your beautiful 2nd Ed C:SoB to your bosom you had every right and ability to say, "Not in my personal 40k they're not, bud, thanks!" and build an Ecclesiarchy army instead, or a pure SoB army, or have whatever as allies of an Imperial army. But you've received an extra option and none of the previous ones and facts had been removed or destroyed. There was no rug-pulling or leaving you stranded with a chosen and beloved army that you can no longer use, going, "WTF?!!!"

Now: GK are now the Chamber Militant for the whole Inquisition: All previous BL coffee table books, novels, army builds, games of Inquisitor that you may have played, and Codices etc that say anything otherwise are now false! It destroys more than it adds. Bad for the customers, bad for GW's most precious asset (its IP).

It's like wanting to add a rose to your garden. The old way (once the setting had matured and stabilised around 3rd Ed) involved tip-toeing with finesse until you found a suitable spot then plant the rose with care to amplify the beauty of the garden as a whole; the new way is to get an oafish imbecile to dig up and trample everything already existing and slap the gaudy new flower in the ground... but the idiot grabbed a briefly-flowering weed to plant rather than the rose.

Both self-defeating and unsustainable. And very avoidable, since it's entirely possible for a skilled writer who cares to add barrel-loads of Heroic Awesome! without destroying anything else.

**DarkHound**

I'll give the above a +1.

**NL_Cirrus**

The old fluff doesn't exist anymore remember? So yes that means that it is not valid.

**Sasori**

NL_Cirrus wrote:The old fluff doesn't exist anymore remember? So yes that means that it is not valid.

This isn't exactly true. Old fluff is only invalidated if the new Fluff directly contradicts it. As an example, all of those wacky things that the Deceiver did before are still there with the difference being that it appears it was a shard.

But, bleh, the lack of Inertia-less drives does suck. I hope they fix that in the 6th rulebook under the Necron Lore area. I can hope at least.

**Dytalus**

Brother Coa wrote:
King Pariah wrote:
And where the hell does it say that?

Page 8, Necrons control them but Eldar sabotage them as soon as Necrons activated them. Necron overlord can take his troops trough it, but there is 90% chance that he will never exit.
Even Dolmen Gates are out of Necron reach, they work but they are broken by the Eldar. In addition to that they monitor them and even if Necorns survive trip they will be attacked by Eldar forces as soon as possible.

Only means of transportation Necrons have now is their pre Old Ones war ships.

That's quite obviously wrong, and has no evidence backing it. Nowhere is a number as high as 90% mentioned. In fact, IIRC (will check Codex when home) if anything Necrons reach their destination more often than they don't. The Eldar have cut off some of the webway, but not all of it. The Eldar are incapable of sabotaging the Dolmen Gates, what happens is that the Webway repairs itself (because it's awesome like that). Necrons can just activate the Dolmen Gate again and punch a hole through what was repaired. They probably lose whatever was trapped inside at the time, but hey. They seem to have numbers similar to the Imperium (or will when they're all awake anyway), so I suppose that's not really too much of a problem.

Alas, I do think this new fluff is dumbtastic. How does a civilisation conquer most of the galaxy pre-Dolmen Gates without FTL travel? Also, if they use the webway for FTL travel how did Helbrecht manage to attack a fleet when Marines don't have access to the Webway? It's poor writing, and it seems to suggest someone forgot to mention "oh lol, they have FTL but webway is faster so they use that too. Our bad, trololol". Otherwise pretty much all the fluff from before the end of the war in heaven (since it's said they only got access towards the end of it) makes no sense. How did they have an empire spanning the galaxy? How did they fight the Old Ones (who did have FTL)?

**Brother Coa**

Dytalus wrote:
That's quite obviously wrong, and has no evidence backing it. Nowhere is a number as high as 90% mentioned. In fact, IIRC (will check Codex when home) if anything Necrons reach their destination more often than they don't. The Eldar have cut off some of the webway, but not all of it. The Eldar are incapable of sabotaging the Dolmen Gates, what happens is that the Webway repairs itself (because it's awesome like that). Necrons can just activate the Dolmen Gate again and punch a hole through what was repaired. They probably lose whatever was trapped inside at the time, but hey. They seem to have numbers similar to the Imperium (or will when they're all awake anyway), so I suppose that's not really too much of a problem.

Just reread it, I am still right. Gates are unstable at best, and with the Eldar watching Webway Necrons have little chance with them travelling across the galaxy.

Alas, I do think this new fluff is dumbtastic. How does a civilisation conquer most of the galaxy pre-Dolmen Gates without FTL travel?

They used C'Tan ships, it seems after they destroy them they destroyed their ships to.

**CrazedVaultBoy**

Necrons are necrons.... They are scary as gak... but what we need is necrons vs chaos!

**Dytalus**

Brother Coa wrote:
Dytalus wrote:
That's quite obviously wrong, and has no evidence backing it. Nowhere is a number as high as 90% mentioned. In fact, IIRC (will check Codex when home) if anything Necrons reach their destination more often than they don't. The Eldar have cut off some of the webway, but not all of it. The Eldar are incapable of sabotaging the Dolmen Gates, what happens is that the Webway repairs itself (because it's awesome like that). Necrons can just activate the Dolmen Gate again and punch a hole through what was repaired. They probably lose whatever was trapped inside at the time, but hey. They seem to have numbers similar to the Imperium (or will when they're all awake anyway), so I suppose that's not really too much of a problem.

Just reread it, I am still right. Gates are unstable at best, and with the Eldar watching Webway Necrons have little chance with them travelling across the galaxy.

The snippet is a paragraph long, makes no mention of the Eldar actively patrolling it, and makes it quite clear it's serving it purpose as their primary method of attack. Use your own brain here Coa, how would the Necrons be capable of attacking and conquering so many worlds so quickly with sub-ftl ships? That's five years between stars assuming travelling at the speed of light. And that's the closer average estimate. More likely it's far, far longer.

Alas, I do think this new fluff is dumbtastic. How does a civilisation conquer most of the galaxy pre-Dolmen Gates without FTL travel?

They used C'Tan ships, it seems after they destroy them they destroyed their ships to.

No, they didn't. They had a galaxy spanning empire long before they met the C'tan. Do you actually read the fluff, or have you got your own manic scribblings?

**Brother Coa**

Dytalus wrote:
The snippet is a paragraph long, makes no mention of the Eldar actively patrolling it, and makes it quite clear it's serving it purpose as their primary method of attack. Use your own brain here Coa, how would the Necrons be capable of attacking and conquering so many worlds so quickly with sub-ftl ships? That's five years between stars assuming travelling at the speed of light. And that's the closer average estimate. More likely it's far, far longer.

And if you reread it you would read that Eldar almost imediatally close the holes in Webway that Necrons create. And that many were destroyed so the Necron can only access very limited parts of the Webway. I am using my brain, and the fact that after defeating the C'Tan Necrons were essentially everywhere it does not surprise me that they attack so many world when they were already on it. It is said so in the last chapters of Necron codex before great awakening, Tomb King order all Necrons to dig on the worlds they are stationed at that time to build great tombs and afte they finised he send the mall to sleep and fly away from the galaxy.

No, they didn't. They had a galaxy spanning empire long before they met the C'tan. Do you actually read the fluff, or have you got your own manic scribblings?

No they didn't, they used stasis ships to colonize nearby star systems and then they run into the Old Ones who beat Necrons back to their homeworlds because they had Webway while Necrons had only stasis ships. There is no mention that their empire was galaxy spanning. it was probably more like the Tau Empire. And there is even a mention of C'Tan coming with their ships on Necrons worlds and taking them with them.

I thin kthat you should reread the codex first before posting false info.

**Harriticus**

No, it's not valid.
1.) Their new ships would likely be unable to reach Mars
2.) Their new ships wouldn't stand a chance against Imperial defenses
3.) There's no more C'tan on Mars, Void Dragon is a prisoner/slave of the Necrons and a Space Marine Captain could probably take him.

CrazedVaultBoy wrote:Necrons are necrons.... They are scary as gak... but what we need is necrons vs chaos!

They're really not that scary anymore now. Just a small series of self-warring empires on the Eastern Fringe. Imotekh is scary in the same way the Overfiend of Octarius is scary I guess, thouigh I'd rate Ocarius as more powerful then the Sautekh Dynasty.