Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Iracundus wrote:

willhman wrote:
Sir I disagree with some of what you say. first off how are necrons finite? If anything they are infinite because, once they take enough damage they then teleport to the nearest tomb world, which is huge thing because this means that they tyranids are losing alot of biomass because, gause weaponry flays everything wjicj makes it useless to the tyranids, though if they win a battle then they do get a whole world to consume and so yeah they win in a way I agree with that sentemen

The Necrons are finite as given by the following passages from the Necron Codex:

Should a fallen warrior fail to phase out, it self-destructs and is consumed by a blaze of emerald light.

p. 5, 5th edition Necron Codex

Much of the territory once ruled by the Charnovokh Dynasty lies far to the galactic southeast. Many of its dormant Tomb Worlds were devoured by Hive Fleet Behemoth, and countless others have been ravaged against the Imperium's counterattacks against the Tyranids. As a result, the remaining systems of the Charnovokh Dynasty are many, but small and scattered.

p. 10, 5th edition Necron Codex

From the above quotes we see that despite Necrons being resilient and often repaired, there are still times when some are destroyed. There is also no evidence no Necrons are being created. The only Necrons are those leftover from the Necrontyr bio-transference as all Necrons are essentially Necrontyr personalities dumped into a metal body. Constructing things like scarabs, wraiths, or spyders isn't the same as constructing new Necrons. Even if only 1 in 10,000 Necrons is destroyed in combat, that still means over time the number diminishes over time, just very slowly.

The 2nd quote, showing the Charnovokh Dynasty to be scattered and diminished also shows that they are not truly infinite in number. If they were truly infinite, then there could not be such a thing as a weakened dynasty by definition since they would have infinite numbers.

Numerous does not equate to infinite.

Thank you, that saved me a post lols. When I say the necrons are finite, i mean they don't multiply/breed. there is a finite number of necrontyr. Tyranids are infinite in comparison.

According to Fall of Damnos, all that is needed to make more necrons is metal. Can make scarabs, stalkers, spyders, and wraiths out of it to

Azure wrote:According to Fall of Damnos, all that is needed to make more necrons is metal. Can make scarabs, stalkers, spyders, and wraiths out of it to

Can you provide a citation and quote please? Remember we are talking new construction, not rebuilding heavily damaged "destroyed" Necrons.

Iracundus wrote:

Azure wrote:According to Fall of Damnos, all that is needed to make more necrons is metal. Can make scarabs, stalkers, spyders, and wraiths out of it to

Can you provide a citation and quote please? Remember we are talking new construction, not rebuilding heavily damaged "destroyed" Necrons.

Seconded... Unless they have decided to completely ignore old fluff in the new book, and then I may as well quit playing this game.

-Loki- wrote:
The main issue isn't from fighting a common foe, it's from xenocidal madmen letting xenos go, because they were honourable. No. Dante would have caved the Silent Kings head in with his axe after the fight, not let him go.

Dante couldn't have been assured of victory. Not only does he think that he himself is hugely important to the Imperium, but he's unlikely to choose to potentially throw away the lives of his men against a Necron force that is primarily directed against the Tyranids. He could have fought, but he felt that the balance of forces meant that withdrawal was the better option.

Iracundus wrote:

willhman wrote:
Sir I disagree with some of what you say. first off how are necrons finite? If anything they are infinite because, once they take enough damage they then teleport to the nearest tomb world, which is huge thing because this means that they tyranids are losing alot of biomass because, gause weaponry flays everything wjicj makes it useless to the tyranids, though if they win a battle then they do get a whole world to consume and so yeah they win in a way I agree with that sentemen

The Necrons are finite as given by the following passages from the Necron Codex:

Should a fallen warrior fail to phase out, it self-destructs and is consumed by a blaze of emerald light.

p. 5, 5th edition Necron Codex

Much of the territory once ruled by the Charnovokh Dynasty lies far to the galactic southeast. Many of its dormant Tomb Worlds were devoured by Hive Fleet Behemoth, and countless others have been ravaged against the Imperium's counterattacks against the Tyranids. As a result, the remaining systems of the Charnovokh Dynasty are many, but small and scattered.

p. 10, 5th edition Necron Codex

From the above quotes we see that despite Necrons being resilient and often repaired, there are still times when some are destroyed. There is also no evidence new Necrons are being created. The only Necrons are those leftover from the Necrontyr bio-transference as all Necrons are essentially Necrontyr personalities dumped into a metal body. Constructing things like scarabs, wraiths, or spyders isn't the same as constructing new Necrons. Even if only 1 in 10,000 Necrons is destroyed in combat, that still means over time the number diminishes over time, just very slowly.

The 2nd quote, showing the Charnovokh Dynasty to be scattered and diminished also shows that they are not truly infinite in number. If they were truly infinite, then there could not be such a thing as a weakened dynasty by definition since they would have infinite numbers.

Numerous does not equate to infinite.

Thank you sir for showing me the error of my way, I thought though that when a necron tomb world was damaged really heavly, beyond repair, that the necron units would teleport to the closes Tomb world to be reactivated? sorry I read this stuff on lexicanum and it says that they transport back to base to be healed, if base is gone, then they go to the nearest ally base in the galaxy.

Again I thank you sir

willhman wrote:Thank you sir for showing me the error of my way, I thought though that when a necron tomb world was damaged really heavly, beyond repair, that the necron units would teleport to the closes Tomb world to be reactivated? sorry I read this stuff on lexicanum and it says that they transport back to base to be healed, if base is gone, then they go to the nearest ally base in the galaxy.

Again I thank you sir

Lexicanum is not a reliable source. It paraphrases and summarizes and thus risks introducing writer interpretations or misreadings into the original sources, giving a mixture of truth, exaggeration, and possibly distorted facts.

Necrons do teleport back for repairs, but as the 1st quote in my previous post shows, this is not always possible or successful, in which case then the Necron self-destructs.

Even in the old Necron Codex, there was implication of this in the story of the Deathwatch team penetrating a tomb complex. There, they witness the shattered torso of a Necron reappear, minus its limbs, and fall to the floor. This meant then the limbs failed to teleport back or were hit so severely that they were completely destroyed beyond hope of recovery, as otherwise they should have reappeared with the rest of the Necron. If limbs could fail to teleport or be destroyed, why not the torso or conceivably the whole Necron? It might not be a common event but over all the centuries and millenia, that still might amount to some Necrons being totally obliterated, such as perhaps by being hit with Titan scale or starship scale weaponry.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

-Loki- wrote:
The main issue isn't from fighting a common foe, it's from xenocidal madmen letting xenos go, because they were honourable. No. Dante would have caved the Silent Kings head in with his axe after the fight, not let him go.

Dante couldn't have been assured of victory. Not only does he think that he himself is hugely important to the Imperium, but he's unlikely to choose to potentially throw away the lives of his men against a Necron force that is primarily directed against the Tyranids. He could have fought, but he felt that the balance of forces meant that withdrawal was the better option.

Um, if Commander Dante only engages when he is guaranteed a win, what the smeg was he doing engageing Necrons that styimed him for three weeks?

On very large threat the Tyranids present is if they attack Terra. The danger in this is not entirely if they win or lose. When the Tyranids approach a world they shroud it in the Shadow of the warp that comes with all Hive Fleets. To stop this requires destroying the Hive Fleet responsible. However it can take weeks or even months after the shadow falling on it's target for the Hive Fleet to move out of deep space and present itself as a target.

The shadow in the warp blocks out the astromonicon entirely. If this were to happen at Terra the astromonicon would be blocked at it's source. This would make warp travel in the Imperium impossible for weeks or months. It is stated in the 40K timeline that a brief flicker in the astronomicon sent thousands of ships to destruction in the warp and left thousands of others stranded or sent far off course.

Weeks or months of this would leave the Imperium in tatters if not destroy it as a unified orginisation. Finding a Hive Fleet before it attacked Terra would be next to impossible due to Tyranids using a form of FTL unlike warp travel and it's stated in the Tyranid codex that until a Hive Fleet gets close scanners can't find it because of thier unusual biological nature.

Considering the possible size of future Tyranid invasions nobody knows, only that it will dwarf all that have come before. Three common errors are made in estimating the amount of bio-mass Tyranids have at thier disposal.

First is the assumtion that a world they attack has any defences. For every ihabited and defended world there are countless undiscovered planets rich in life the Tyranids can feed upon undisturbed.

Second is that Tyranids need big populations of humans, Orks, animals etc to feed on. All these beings require a larger amount of food to exist or they will starve and die out. When feeding is concerned this food supply would be the Tyranids primary target as it is larger than any population it supports. The majority of life is in truth vegtable matter. To make a herd animal for eating requires a larger amount of plant matter to feed it. To feed humans requires a larger amount of this vegtable matter for us or the animals we eat. Because of this Tyranids are in fact primarily vegitarian, though not by choice. The populations of any planet would be a small food source compared to their food supply. This doesn't even take into account how many Tyranids could be made using a world's oceans.

Third is the idea that all Tyranids eat is bio-mass. Metals and other minerals are an important part of biological life. These elements would be consumed too. I also read a story of the Tyranid assault on Iyanden Craftworld and Tyranid organisms and DNA was infecting the wraithbone which the Eldar Bonesingers had to use all their skills to hold in check, so wraithbone is on the menu too.

Mordiggian wrote:Um, if Commander Dante only engages when he is guaranteed a win, what the smeg was he doing engageing Necrons that styimed him for three weeks?

Presumably he will fight when he is likely to achieve his objective (like the vast majority of Astartes, otherwise they'd all die very quickly in suicidal assaults). He may have assumed that the Silent King, following the Tyranid assault, had a greater force than him as well as superior technology. The Tyranids may have destroyed whatever the Blood Angels were defending (if they were defending anything). The objective may have merely been to preserve the Imperium's control of that moon - the Necrons withdrawing would achieve that goal.

Really, this isn't any worse than the Tau-Imperial or Eldar-Imperial alliances that we've had that haven't resulted in the immediate attacking of the other side. People seem too attached to the old presentation of the Necrons.

Im a little unclear on the fact that tyranids are a truly united force, that would make games with tyranids vs. tyranids radically against the fluff, every faction has conceivable reasons for attacking any faction(including themselves). I don't have anything to back it up, but the whole tyranid faction being a single united front doesn't make any sense to me.

Also, the fact that they are so susceptible to the psychic influence via the hive mind, makes them perfect puppets for tzeentch.

do you hear the voices to wrote:Im a little unclear on the fact that tyranids are a truly united force, that would make games with tyranids vs. tyranids radically against the fluff, every faction has conceivable reasons for attacking any faction(including themselves). I don't have anything to back it up, but the whole tyranid faction being a single united front doesn't make any sense to me.

Also, the fact that they are so susceptible to the psychic influence via the hive mind, makes them perfect puppets for tzeentch.

Actually if you think about it, it makes sense. Say there are two diffrent hive fleet tendrils and they both stumble on a world with bio-resources. Now say they are both starving and might shut down and this world only has enough bio for one of these fleets to continue. the two fleets shall fight over the planet to get not only the planet but also the other fleet so in the end it strenghtens the strong fleet and gets ride of the weak fleet

Oh and no the hive mind is way stronger than tzeentch so he wouldnt mess with the hive mind at all not including the shadow in the warp abilitie which weakens tzeentch's followers alot

do you hear the voices to wrote:Im a little unclear on the fact that tyranids are a truly united force,

They are not.

It honestly seems pretty ridiculous to me that the Necrons would ever form and alliance. They seem pretty intent on mindless killing to me, and it mentions that in Cain's Last Stand. From what I know, they typically just kill whatever is around, with no fear of death or defeat. Of course that portrayal may be obsolete now, I'm not sure. All the same, of all the factions in the game, I would say that Necrons and Tyranids are the least likely to cooperate with anyone else. Both of their objectives is simple: Kill Everything, or Kill and Consume Everything.

But the Necrons are definitely a finite force. I also read that their souls degrade every time they have to be revived, becoming first mindless automatons (even more so than now) and then degrading until they can't keep reviving.

hellspawn22 wrote: I also read that their souls degrade every time they have to be revived, becoming first mindless automatons (even more so than now) and then degrading until they can't keep reviving.

Where did you read that exactly?

Their lack of souls completely is the price they paid for immortality.

DarknessEternal wrote:

do you hear the voices to wrote:Im a little unclear on the fact that tyranids are a truly united force,

They are not.

Proof? Evidence? Unfounded. All Tyranids no matter how big or little are extensions of the hive mind. A single entity that binds all Tyranid life under one mind. How is that not United?




Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarknessEternal wrote:

hellspawn22 wrote: I also read that their souls degrade every time they have to be revived, becoming first mindless automatons (even more so than now) and then degrading until they can't keep reviving.

Where did you read that exactly?

Their lack of souls completely is the price they paid for immortality.

There was no talk of souls when the Necrontyr made the pact with the C'tan. It was all about the C'tan having control over the Necrontyr. You might want to read your fluff more DarknessEternal.

Think a lot of people are mixing 3rd edition codex vs most recent codex.

In 3rd edition they were tricked by the C'Tan gods and the Deceiver and Nightbringer feasted on their souls when they entered the furnaces.

I believe they lost more and more of their old memories/self awareness when they would "phase out" , thus only the lords holding any real form of intelligence.

Things changed with the ret-con fluff in the new codex.

I refuse to accept the existance of the new 'Dex





Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh an I'm in serious amounts of denial with 5th Ed Nids too for that matter... B RING BACK THEM THAR OLDEN DAYS!!!

Cryage wrote:Think a lot of people are mixing 3rd edition codex vs most recent codex.

In 3rd edition they were tricked by the C'Tan gods and the Deceiver and Nightbringer feasted on their souls when they entered the furnaces.

A common misconception but the C'tan have never feasted on souls, either in the new Necron Codex or the old.

In the new:

As the cyclopean machines clamoured, the C'tan swarmed about the biotransference sites, drinking in the torrent of cast-off life energy and growing ever stronger.

p. 7, 5th edition Necron Codex

In the old Necron Codex, there was a vignette of Abaddon viewing Mars through a daemonic vision and seeing sacrifices to the Void Dragon being made, and seeing that the souls were cast adrift into the warp where hungry daemons swarmed.

The C'tan have in both codices, fed on the "life energy" of their victims, not their souls. The soul in 40K is a construct of psychic energy. The C'tan have nothing to do with psychic energy.

Thanks for the proper clarification Iracundus

hellspawn22 wrote:
But the Necrons are definitely a finite force. I also read that their souls degrade every time they have to be revived, becoming first mindless automatons (even more so than now) and then degrading until they can't keep reviving.

Thats their intelligents sir not their souls and after awhile im pretty sure that it becomes second nature to just aim and fire that gun repeatedly or its just hard wired into their brain to do it either way they are still their in the end

I think you mean Intellect's weillhman

Per James Swallow, in Hammer & Anvil we get to observe an entire Necron army phase out to another Tomb World thousands of light-years away when their local Monolith gets destroyed. Even the Monolith phases out to this distant Tomb World.

Much mention is made of the Necron foot-troops being nothing more than automata, and require no new life or sentience to be reborn and recast into another Warrior body. The Lords, too, can almost always be re-interred into a newly-cast necrodermis body, they have no need of their current shells. They are, almost without exception, immortal.

Psienesis wrote:Per James Swallow, in Hammer & Anvil we get to observe an entire Necron army phase out to another Tomb World thousands of light-years away when their local Monolith gets destroyed. Even the Monolith phases out to this distant Tomb World.

Much mention is made of the Necron foot-troops being nothing more than automata, and require no new life or sentience to be reborn and recast into another Warrior body. The Lords, too, can almost always be re-interred into a newly-cast necrodermis body, they have no need of their current shells. They are, almost without exception, immortal.

Fortunately/Unfortunately not all Novels are accepted as canon within fluff. Swallow's account IIRC is the only time that Necrons teleport light-years away.

AnUnearthlyChilde wrote:I think you mean Intellect's weillhman

Oops my bad thank you for that

willhman wrote:

AnUnearthlyChilde wrote:I think you mean Intellect's weillhman

Oops my bad thank you for that

S'cool... I am a Grammar Nazi, which is ironic... as I'm dyslexic

DarknessEternal wrote:

do you hear the voices to wrote:Im a little unclear on the fact that tyranids are a truly united force,

They are not.

"From the tendril shoals of the hive fleets to the tinest feeder organisms, every Tyranid is bound to the implacable will of the Hive Mind." Codex Tyranids, 4th edition, page 4.

"However, the truth is more complex than anyone could imagine, for each Hive Fleet is but a splinter of one greater assemblage, acting under the instructions of a single monstrous and unfathomable intelligence - the Hive Mind". Codex Tyranids, 5th edition, page 6.

Surely sounds like they are officially a truly united force.

willhman wrote:

do you hear the voices to wrote:Im a little unclear on the fact that tyranids are a truly united force, that would make games with tyranids vs. tyranids radically against the fluff, every faction has conceivable reasons for attacking any faction(including themselves). I don't have anything to back it up, but the whole tyranid faction being a single united front doesn't make any sense to me.

Also, the fact that they are so susceptible to the psychic influence via the hive mind, makes them perfect puppets for tzeentch.

Actually if you think about it, it makes sense. Say there are two diffrent hive fleet tendrils and they both stumble on a world with bio-resources. Now say they are both starving and might shut down and this world only has enough bio for one of these fleets to continue. the two fleets shall fight over the planet to get not only the planet but also the other fleet so in the end it strenghtens the strong fleet and gets ride of the weak fleet

Oh and no the hive mind is way stronger than tzeentch so he wouldnt mess with the hive mind at all not including the shadow in the warp abilitie which weakens tzeentch's followers alot

Assuming that the consciousness of a fleet is part of another, larger intelligence, it would be reasonable to assume that the Hive Mind would let Darwinian Principle to judge which fleet gets to feast on the planet below. The fleet that wins is smarter and stronger, so it gets to feast first. And nothing can manipulate the Hive Mind; it's so powerful that under it's shadow neither astrotelepathy ir daemonic summonning can function.

Tadashi wrote:
Assuming that the consciousness of a fleet is part of another, larger intelligence, it would be reasonable to assume that the Hive Mind would let Darwinian Principle to judge which fleet gets to feast on the planet below. The fleet that wins is smarter and stronger, so it gets to feast first. And nothing can manipulate the Hive Mind; it's so powerful that under it's shadow neither astrotelepathy ir daemonic summonning can function.

Nice reasoning, but, there is no differentiation of "smarter" fleets. All do the will of the hive mind, they are extensions of it, just as our fingers our extensions of our body and do our minds will.

AnUnearthlyChilde wrote:

Tadashi wrote:
Assuming that the consciousness of a fleet is part of another, larger intelligence, it would be reasonable to assume that the Hive Mind would let Darwinian Principle to judge which fleet gets to feast on the planet below. The fleet that wins is smarter and stronger, so it gets to feast first. And nothing can manipulate the Hive Mind; it's so powerful that under it's shadow neither astrotelepathy ir daemonic summonning can function.

Nice reasoning, but, there is no differentiation of "smarter" fleets. All do the will of the hive mind, they are extensions of it, just as our fingers our extensions of our body and do our minds will.

What I meant was that, just like Hive Tyrants have limited free will, individual fleets have limited independence relative to other fleets; the primary Hive Mind, if it exists, would probably judge which fleet to prioritize via Darwinian selection.