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So i had an old friend who plays Necrons and my knowledge on the story was they were soul less slaves to the C'Tan. With the new codex out i have to say their models look fantastic but i see a lot of people bashing the new fluff. From my limited understanding the necrons now have free will or something? What's causing people to not like the new direction?

I won't speak for those who don't like the current Necrons. Instead, I'll speak as someone without the nostalgia for the old lore.

Necrons as they're currently presented, only have freewill among the higher courts. Necron Lords, Overlords, Crypteks, and others at the highest tiers of control have unique personalities and agendas. This allows for far more diversity, both in looks and goals among Necron Dynasties. Yes, after millions of years, some of the Necron Lords have gone a little crazy. Some wish to return to bodies of flesh, some want to see their ancient empire restored, some simply want to complete the destruction of the Eldar and the Orks, and plenty of others. It's no longer just one goal for every single Necron army.

The relation with the C'Tan has definitely changed from what has been in the past. Essentially, the Necrons betrayed the C'Tan following the War in Heaven. They couldn't outright destroy the C'Tan (well they could, but after doing it to one C'Tan, the impact was disastrous for the Necron) and so shattered each C'Tan into thousands of individual shards of power and consciousness, each representing an aspect of the C'Tan themselves. These shards could be bound and controlled using devices known as Tesseract Labyrinths. The C'Tan shards are, like the Necrons, are now far more varied than the old four C'Tan. Plenty of them rage against their captivity, some have come to agreements with their Necron captors, some have broken their bonds and either enslaved their former captors or simply seek to merge back with other shards to reform themselves. Dozens if not hundreds of shards are still loose out in the galaxy. In this way, a C'Tan army unit on the tabletop is no longer the actual C'Tan, but a shard of that C'Tan. If anything, this makes the true C'Tan even more powerful, as all of the old lore of C'Tan actions, are now being performed not by a fully-powered C'Tan, but a single (if sometimes fairly large) shard.

Old-cron armies were basically all the same thing: Robo-mummies driven by Cthulhu-lite in order to kill everything in the galaxy.

Booorrr-ring!

New-crons can actually have personalities, communicate with other species, have different goals from one another, and even be an army like the robo-mummies of old, but aren't bound to that story. The introduction of the varied Lords and other SC in the codex added flavor and interesting angles to the army, while keeping the Destroyers and Destroyer Lords permits one to play a new-cron army with the flavor of the old-cron "armies of silent death".

What happened when a C'Tan was destroyed?

The basic issue is that some people (me) liked the previous lore more. Some people are the reverse. This being the Internet means people usually end up arguing.

pm713 wrote:
What happened when a C'Tan was destroyed?

The basic issue is that some people (me) liked the previous lore more. Some people are the reverse. This being the Internet means people usually end up arguing.

Then it becomes important to hold to one of the key truths of the 40k setting. "The truth is irrelevant." It doesn't matter what actually happened if your particular chapter/warband/craftworld/dynasty doesn't remember it that way. They'll act based on how they remember it and how they understand it. "Truth" as an objective concept serves no purpose in 40k.

As to your question, when the Necrons destroyed the C'Tan known as Llandu'gor, the Flayer, his death unleashed upon the Necrons the flayer curse bringing about the Flayed Ones, as they're presented in M41.

jareddm wrote:

pm713 wrote:
What happened when a C'Tan was destroyed?

The basic issue is that some people (me) liked the previous lore more. Some people are the reverse. This being the Internet means people usually end up arguing.

Then it becomes important to hold to one of the key truths of the 40k setting. "The truth is irrelevant." It doesn't matter what actually happened if your particular chapter/warband/craftworld/dynasty doesn't remember it that way. They'll act based on how they remember it and how they understand it. "Truth" as an objective concept serves no purpose in 40k.

As to your question, when the Necrons destroyed the C'Tan known as Llandu'gor, the Flayer, his death unleashed upon the Necrons the flayer curse bringing about the Flayed Ones, as they're presented in M41.

I've seen people argue over that too...

Wow that's a pretty bad result. Thanks for telling me.

 Psienesis wrote:
Old-cron armies were basically all the same thing: Robo-mummies driven by Cthulhu-lite in order to kill everything in the galaxy.

Booorrr-ring!

New-crons can actually have personalities, communicate with other species, have different goals from one another, and even be an army like the robo-mummies of old, but aren't bound to that story. The introduction of the varied Lords and other SC in the codex added flavor and interesting angles to the army, while keeping the Destroyers and Destroyer Lords permits one to play a new-cron army with the flavor of the old-cron "armies of silent death".

Psi, I thought you read my proof that the Oldcrons had personalities in the higher-ups, they were just mostly not woken up yet?

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Old-cron armies were basically all the same thing: Robo-mummies driven by Cthulhu-lite in order to kill everything in the galaxy.

Booorrr-ring!

New-crons can actually have personalities, communicate with other species, have different goals from one another, and even be an army like the robo-mummies of old, but aren't bound to that story. The introduction of the varied Lords and other SC in the codex added flavor and interesting angles to the army, while keeping the Destroyers and Destroyer Lords permits one to play a new-cron army with the flavor of the old-cron "armies of silent death".

Psi, I thought you read my proof that the Oldcrons had personalities in the higher-ups, they were just mostly not woken up yet?

I recall something about this as well though not from the codex but rather in diffrent supplements. Pretty sure the first apocalypse rulebook had some speculations on the hierarchy of necrons and that they had more personality the higher up they went. Also it said something about the highest tier necron lords had yet to be seen and might have been the tomb-worlds themselves.

I like that they let more personality and flavor be put in your crons armies, but if I were to have my own army of them, I'd probably make them the silent killers who got enslaved by a C'tan shard, because I like that aspect of the necrons.

 Psienesis wrote:
Old-cron armies were basically all the same thing: Robo-mummies driven by Cthulhu-lite in order to kill everything in the galaxy.

Booorrr-ring!

New-crons can actually have personalities, communicate with other species, have different goals from one another, and even be an army like the robo-mummies of old, but aren't bound to that story. The introduction of the varied Lords and other SC in the codex added flavor and interesting angles to the army, while keeping the Destroyers and Destroyer Lords permits one to play a new-cron army with the flavor of the old-cron "armies of silent death".

They lost their Lovecraftian charm, imo.

Their new fluff is better, in my opinion.

*waits patiently*

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Old-cron armies were basically all the same thing: Robo-mummies driven by Cthulhu-lite in order to kill everything in the galaxy.

Booorrr-ring!

New-crons can actually have personalities, communicate with other species, have different goals from one another, and even be an army like the robo-mummies of old, but aren't bound to that story. The introduction of the varied Lords and other SC in the codex added flavor and interesting angles to the army, while keeping the Destroyers and Destroyer Lords permits one to play a new-cron army with the flavor of the old-cron "armies of silent death".

Psi, I thought you read my proof that the Oldcrons had personalities in the higher-ups, they were just mostly not woken up yet?

Yeah, I remember the 3rd codex mentioning that the lords had a higher degree of free will and intelligence as well, though they are still bound to the will of the C'tan.
The 3rd ed necron fluff had the better atmosphere, imo. There was some pretty good horror in the 3rd ed fluff.

Prior to the 5th ed release, there was a nice variation of horror.

Chaos - Slasher, Supernatural and body Horror
Dark Eldar - Clive Barker, torture porn
Tyranids - Alien (as the in the franchise), apocalyptic horror
Necrons - Oppressive, psychological and some what existential horror. Like the Tyranids, they also share the Horror of the unknown, though where the Tyranids are biological, chaotic and nigh-infinite, the Necrons where mechanical, ordered and finite.

The 5th ed book...not so much. They just made the Necrons stupidly powerful, which doesn't provide the same sort of psychological horror. It just made them goofy.
Like, this faction can destroy whole galaxies, but they won't because they don't feel like it? Lolwut?
There are some horror elements, like the Night Scythe engines causing madness, and the Flayer curse, but other than that it felt like they were trying to brighten up the crons. Probably for marketing reasons.

I did like how they elaborated a bit on pre-biotransference necron culture though. You never knew much about who the Necrontyr were in the 3rd book, but in the 5th ed book they did go into a bit more detail.
If they were clever they could have gone for a Faustian tragedy sort of thing. But they undermined it by giving them free will, and having them behave just like when they were still "living"

I just read the article on Lexicanum so let's see if I understand this:

Old lore had the necrons totally enslaved to the C'Tan and wiped out the galaxy of almost all life then laid dormant to re-harvest for the C'Tan lords.

New lore the necrons attacked the C'Tan and shattered them into shards and so the necrons were weak after the war and so waited in dormancy to take over the galaxy again.

So instead of harvesting life they just want to reclaim the galaxy?

They want to do many different things, depending on the lord and the dynasty involved. That's the point. It's not just the same goal for every single Necron army.

The general goal for most minor Necron dynasties is indeed "Git off ma lawn!" these days.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
The general goal for most minor Necron dynasties is indeed "Git off ma lawn!" these days.

Which I do like. Its when they started making quirky lords with a sense of honor that things got goofy.

I dunno, I find characters like Trazyn and Anrakyr and Orikan to be some of the best things about the Necrons now. And, really, why wouldn't they be that way? They took their minds, exactly as they were 60-plus million years ago, and encoded them into immortal bodies... imperfectly.

Every sentient Necron is mentally stuck in whatever mindset they had when they first underwent bio-transference. Those personality traits they had, whatever they were, are now hard-coded into their engrams. It is what makes the Necrons tragic on a Faustian level, because they destroyed everything in their culture (all their merchants and artists, the things by which a culture is defined, are now mindless Warriors) in order to defeat a foe they really didn't need to pick a fight with.

Remember, the war with the Old Ones began because the Necrontyr were otherwise turning on themselves. So, in order to save their culture, they destroyed it, and have no hope of ever recovering it. They might, one day, return to bodies of flesh, but apart from a bunch of nobles of various ranks, they don't have the "working class" folks that define a culture.

... not to mention that going back to flesh bodies makes them tasty treats for the millions of Necrons suffering the Flayer Virus.

I preferred the older fluff. The story and twist in xenology was one of the coolest stories. What I loved was how little we knew about the necrons. Their goals were mysteries, their masters unknowable gods in a way that was radically different than the Chaos gods. The fluff that the heart of mars contains a Ctan, that the necrons might have infiltrated the Inquisition, that they were developing anti pysker necron/human hybrids. That they were dedicated to separating warp from the physical world.

I don't mind the newer fluff but the old one was better in my opinion, to much of the mystery was peeled backed and making them another deeply divided race is boring to me.

They certainly don't seem like much of a threat anymore.

Considering a single Necron Dynasty took 30 Imperial worlds in 40 days and another managed to raid Mars indicates how much of a threat they actually are.

A lot of people really got into the old Necrons because they were an unknown unlike any other Xenos threat. Orks are savage brutes. Eldar are a haughty race in decline. Tau are optimistic upstarts. Tyranids are beasts. Necrons appeared from nowhere and struck without mercy, without emotion. They were cold, metallic beings that no only had no interest in diplomacy, but seemingly lacked the ability to communicate with their opponents in any fashion. Even when defeated in battle, they remained an unnerving threat, since they simply de-materialized and vanished, leaving the victors wondering if they were truly gone. They had no perceivable interests, desires, or needs and, thus, they could not be hurt. Necrons played on a deeply-rooted psychological fear, the same that makes children afraid of the dark or the monsters that lurk in their closet or under their bed.

The new fluff recast them in very "human" terms. Now the Necrons were led by nobles, who often fight over trivial, petty matters. They suffer from all the same faults that we mortal humans do - pride, rage, jealousy. They are completely understandable. In every way that matters, Necrons are us, only metal. Once the mystique is lost, they just became yet another faction competing over the living corpse of the Imperium.

 Grumblewartz wrote:
A lot of people really got into the old Necrons because they were an unknown unlike any other Xenos threat. Orks are savage brutes. Eldar are a haughty race in decline. Tau are optimistic upstarts. Tyranids are beasts. Necrons appeared from nowhere and struck without mercy, without emotion. They were cold, metallic beings that no only had no interest in diplomacy, but seemingly lacked the ability to communicate with their opponents in any fashion. Even when defeated in battle, they remained an unnerving threat, since they simply de-materialized and vanished, leaving the victors wondering if they were truly gone. They had no perceivable interests, desires, or needs and, thus, they could not be hurt. Necrons played on a deeply-rooted psychological fear, the same that makes children afraid of the dark or the monsters that lurk in their closet or under their bed.

The new fluff recast them in very "human" terms. Now the Necrons were led by nobles, who often fight over trivial, petty matters. They suffer from all the same faults that we mortal humans do - pride, rage, jealousy. They are completely understandable. In every way that matters, Necrons are us, only metal. Once the mystique is lost, they just became yet another faction competing over the living corpse of the Imperium.

^
This.
Before they were an alien threat, comparable to the Tyranids. Now they are just cyber-Egypt-IoM, with minor Faustian undertones (albeit less than before, imo. They didn't seem to lose much this time. Before they lost their culture and their free will. Here they just lost their culture, and you still don't know much about it, if there were indeed any artists or writers.)

A problem I have is now the Necrons seem to now want their empire back or in other words rule the galaxy. Like the Imperium. And Eldar. And Tau. And Chaos.

Grumblewartz wrote:A lot of people really got into the old Necrons because they were an unknown unlike any other Xenos threat. Orks are savage brutes. Eldar are a haughty race in decline. Tau are optimistic upstarts. Tyranids are beasts. Necrons appeared from nowhere and struck without mercy, without emotion. They were cold, metallic beings that no only had no interest in diplomacy, but seemingly lacked the ability to communicate with their opponents in any fashion. Even when defeated in battle, they remained an unnerving threat, since they simply de-materialized and vanished, leaving the victors wondering if they were truly gone. They had no perceivable interests, desires, or needs and, thus, they could not be hurt. Necrons played on a deeply-rooted psychological fear, the same that makes children afraid of the dark or the monsters that lurk in their closet or under their bed.

The new fluff recast them in very "human" terms. Now the Necrons were led by nobles, who often fight over trivial, petty matters. They suffer from all the same faults that we mortal humans do - pride, rage, jealousy. They are completely understandable. In every way that matters, Necrons are us, only metal. Once the mystique is lost, they just became yet another faction competing over the living corpse of the Imperium.

So, what you're saying is... you want Card's Formics in 40k?

There's pros and cons when you compare old vs new fluff.

The old fluff made us question if the Void Dragon was actually on Mars, and overall the army had an incredibly creepy tone, which was excellent for the storytelling in that 3rd edition codex, and left us wanting the mystery behind them solved even though it wouldn't happen. That said, Necron vs Necron conflicts made little sense and there weren't really characters.

The new fluff has no true horror behind it and feels like there's too much explanation for an army we really shouldn't know much about (meaning no mystery), but it explained Necron vs Necron conflicts much better, created a sense behind different colors and signs, and gave us some pretty awesome characters as a whole. I cannot name a Necron special character I don't like some way or another.

So I think the ultimate compromise is that the Necrons rebelled and simply weren't successful, the Silent King is in exile over that, and some Overlords still seek to rebel against the C'Tan, hence maybe explaining alliances?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
There's pros and cons when you compare old vs new fluff.

The old fluff made us question if the Void Dragon was actually on Mars, and overall the army had an incredibly creepy tone, which was excellent for the storytelling in that 3rd edition codex, and left us wanting the mystery behind them solved even though it wouldn't happen. That said, Necron vs Necron conflicts made little sense and there weren't really characters.

The new fluff has no true horror behind it and feels like there's too much explanation for an army we really shouldn't know much about (meaning no mystery), but it explained Necron vs Necron conflicts much better, created a sense behind different colors and signs, and gave us some pretty awesome characters as a whole. I cannot name a Necron special character I don't like some way or another.

So I think the ultimate compromise is that the Necrons rebelled and simply weren't successful, the Silent King is in exile over that, and some Overlords still seek to rebel against the C'Tan, hence maybe explaining alliances?

Yeh, that would be a good compromise. It could be possible for an Overlord to regain free will, due to a malfunction or whatnot, like how Androids in Do Androids Dream of Electric sleep begin to think of them selves.

There was already a precedent for internal necron conflicts before though, as the C'tan tended to war against each other, and used their Necron servants as foot soldiers.

A monologous Necron isn't as interesting as a Necron race that is just as prone to fighting itself as well as others. Tyranids are pretty much the sole exception, but that's due to the lore written around them; the Tyranids would be boring if they instead were prone to fighting eachother and had their own goals, minds etc.

The lore written around Necrons pretty much demand the sort of fluff that gives named characters personality and differing ambitions.IMO it wouldn't ve very 40k-ish if they didn't.

Necron are evil space mummies, where's the fun without giving the evil space mummies personality? Otherwise, it's all very bland.

Real crons: souless killing meachines designed by the ctan to feed them by ending life. They wanted to live forever now they do at a cost of all they where. Before they slumbered the ctan where destroyed and all those who where to far gone feel asleep. For each death the necron suffered cost them more of their soul. Now that life has stumbled apon them or a ctan has been calling them for it hungers they awake to feed the ctan once again.

New cron: emo egyptians who owned everything got bored fell asleep woke up then it began. The first of their kind busted from the ground and said damn girls I need to pimp my metal arse and get back my galaxy. The second necron sup homes why you sleep if you wanted to rule it. Pimpcron looked back and said cause yo I feel like sleepin. Then more and more awoke and they began to bring back great tech such as the row boat. Thats right millions of years sleeping as robots and when you reawake you rowboat your ass threw the stars.

Then they message their neigbors for some chatting, they text their mates some awesom gosip stories about how this one servant bugging them. Then travel threw e stars taking back whats theirs and collecting shiny things like freaking space crows to colour themselves with.

Truely horible creatures unless you tweet them then they cool yo.

Just throwing in my hat, I'll take newcrons over oldcrons any day. Oldcrons were basically just mecha-tyranids with somehow even less personality. Sure, they were kinda spoopy, but they never seemed super-spoopy, mainly because they're robots. I dunno if it's a personal thing, but robots don't give me that creepy factor that organic things do. Sure, they can be intimidating, but when I think of creepy, I think of Silent Hill, PT, or the kids from the Polar Express movie- y'know, things that are imitating life but aren't quite there.

Newcrons still give people the chance to be spoopy space terminators, but they can also add their own fluff, which I adore. If I built a cron army I'd probably go with a mix of "kill everything" and some occult stuff- paint them all black with deep, purple markings here and there. Have them missing limbs or heads, big chunks blown out of them. I dunno, almost like zombie-crons?

I just don't get the love for the oldcrons. Heck, even the new fluff I find dry compared to Space Marines, Orks, Chaos, or Guard. Maybe it's because I never found them creepy to begin with, but newcrons give people a chance to make their armies unique rather than another blob of gray death people.