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ceorron wrote:

Molten Butter wrote:

Howard A Treesong wrote:How do you know there aren't people in the Monolith?

We don't; the old Necron codex doesn't say anything on the matter, so I guess it's really just the Tomb Spyders and Scarabs.

Probably because of all the vehicles in 40k it doesn't have a front really (unless you count the wavy door opening which I don't) Also it doesn't apear to have any view slits for the pilots and the guns shoot in 360 degrees suggesting that there really isn't a front.

They need not be 'pilots' in the traditional sense, they might be like Borg in a cube. The fact that the Monolith doesn't have windows doesn't mean it doesn't have crew.

Edit remove. Miss interpretation.

WOW ! Those are great looking models, and i love the deathmark models.

Zweischneid wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:
Not if they're badly written. And the Sanguinor and Draigo do kinda do the two things you mentioned.

How so? Neither the Sanguinor nor Draigo make a ret-con appereance in any established fluff like the Swarmlord does. Whatever justification there may or may not by for Swarmy in some RPG-book, his presentation in the Nid-Book still rips 20 years of established Hive-Fleet War Fluff a new one. Neither the Sanguinor nor Draigo do that.

Second, both Sanguinor and Draigo perfectly epitomize critical aspects of their respective army; in the case of the Sanguinor the silver-line that is a hope of salvation for a Chapter plunging into dark doom. For Draigo, the ultimate hero's dilemma to either remain pure at the price of ineffectiveness, or change the course of history at the price of your own corruption. Both a brilliant archetypes that both fantastically augment and highlight the character of their respective armies.

The Swarmlord (Deathwatch story non-withstanding) on the other hand is a violation of the same army it sits in (as is the Decapitator of the Dark Eldar by the way, scheming Necron-style to end all life, rather than indulge in the Dark Eldars normal perverse decadence on the edge of their own doom). The Deathwatch story, while making the Swarmlord story tolerable, also painfully illustrates how bad the first pitch was in the actual Codex.

The Sanguinor and Draigo are the most awefull Fluff pieces that ever was created...

One is just an excuse to have a Whats-should-have-been-Deamon-Princes that buffs one mini of the army and inflict a malus on a ennemy mini...,yeah right...

And the other one completly mess with the 35years of established Fluff about Chaos...

The guy just take a walk into the Gods realms and mess around,while it take millions of Psykers sacrified so that the Emperor can bearly stay in the Warp and have to fight for his soul for all of eternety since the last 10k years...,gimme a break...

So be it Swarmlord,Draigo or the Sanguinor,they are full of Crap-Fluff...

If that transport doesn't have some kind of tervigon spawning to it I intend to do some conversion so that it is the first vehicle to actually transport warriors, altho if the capacity is very high I'll only try to fit the 10 real warriors in.

Pretty awesome, will be good to play against them and actually have to ask "What are they and what do they do?". I dislike some of the models, while others are awesome. I honestly dont give a monkey if ships are piloted by AI or by necrons.

Looking forward to the codex, but probably wont buy anything.

Molten Butter wrote:Learn how phase out works.

Currently, if the pilot is shot, there's no pilot for the barge. If the pilot is attached to the barge, there's no pilot for the barge. Either way, the barge won't phase out until the rest of the army phases out, so it will just be downed if either sort of pilot is shot. Giving the barge its own AI would fix the problem, but for some reason Games Workshop thought a pilot was more fitting.

I think there is a confusion between the current Necron-background on Phase-out and the gaming-rule of Phase-out. The first, is what happens to each and every Necron individually if he is damaged beyond WBB. The second, is a game-rule in the current book that means you lose the game as the entire army retreats.

As people were making complaints about the pilots on the basis of the background, rather than the game rules, I was referring to the first, not the latter. Similarly, the "individual" phase out of each and every Necron as a feature on what happens when they "die" will likely remain in the background, even if the army-wide phase-out as a handicap rule is removed.

Molten Butter wrote:

Altruizine wrote:Anyway, it's probably easier to program a robot that is overlapped with a vestigial humanoid skillset to pilot a vehicle than it is to build a magical vehicle piloting program from the ground up. People are making a lot of assumptions about how easy it would be for the Necrons to do the latter, when we really don't have much to indicate that that is truly the case.

The Monolith, Tomb Spyder, Tombstalker, and Scarabs have their own AI. In particular, Scarabs having their own AI would suggest an ornate looking vessel like the Ghost Ark would have it too.

Scarabs have an unbelievably simplistic role on the battlefield, so they aren't proof of anything. In fact, you could probably program Scarabs to do what they do with contemporary earth technology (although their flight and weapons systems would not be up to snuff at all).

Tomb Spyders seem to have a pretty simplistic list of automated tasks as well, so I'm not sure they're a good example.

Monoliths and Tombstalkers could serve your point well, but if you go back a page or two there was a debate about whether or not the codex actually says anything about their pilots and/or piloting systems. Neither side of that argument presented indisputable evidence either way, but it was enough to make me want to dig out my 3rd edition codex and see what was what (but I haven't yet).

Edit: I see you have acknowledged this yourself in a subsequent post. I would maintain that Scarabs and Spyders aren't enough to prove the existence of supposedly superior AI. Scarabs just buzz around until they find a hostile signature to attack, and Spyders bumble around waiting to receive a "Medic!" signal and probably only engage in defensive combat. But, like I said, I need to do a codex recap to get an accurate grip on all this. It's been a while, and I'm coasting on earlier impressions.

Necron Scarab Swarms are Evil Roombas of Death.

As for the rest of the stuff, we don't have enough information to make an informed argument.

Kanluwen wrote:Necron Scarab Swarms are Evil Roombas of Death.

I can just see a Necron Lord ordering that (in Necronese, obviously): " Cry Havoc and let slip the Evil Roombas of Death!"

I keep hearing that the machines that the necrons use have been programmed or that AI is being used. This is not really what I am suggesting. What I am suggesting is that the vehicles nay the entire necron army are machines with a "transplanted" human conscious. Or animal conscious in the case of scarab.

So the proof that this is possible and in the relms of the army is the army itself.

In this instance there is no programming, no need of control in any sense. Though like human society there are still orders and still hierarchy as obvious from the need for necron lords.

Well here is another link on youtube of the leaked necrons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK_SxGhomNg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

enjoy

ceorron wrote:
I keep hearing that the machines that the necrons use have been programmed or that AI is being used. This is not really what I am suggesting. What I am suggesting is that the vehicles nay the entire necron army are machines with a "transplanted" human conscious. Or animal conscious in the case of scarab.

So the proof that this is possible and in the relms of the army is the army itself.

In this instance there is no programming, no need of control in any sense. Though like human society there are still orders and still hierarchy as obvious from the need for necron lords.

It's probably easier to transplant a humanoid consciousness into a 1:1 metal analogue of the humanoid form (that then utilizes humanoid behaviours to control other devices) than it is to convert a humanoid consciousness into an entirely new form of vehicular consciousness.

If I knocked you out, extracted your brain, and chucked it into a robotic body that had many of the same functions as your old body, you would know exactly how to operate it. Now imagine waking up as a Toyota.

Necrons are Necrontyr souls in machine bodies.

The Necrons do use AI. though; Scarabs, Tomb Spyder, Tomb Stalker.

Altruizine wrote:

ceorron wrote:
I keep hearing that the machines that the necrons use have been programmed or that AI is being used. This is not really what I am suggesting. What I am suggesting is that the vehicles nay the entire necron army are machines with a "transplanted" human conscious. Or animal conscious in the case of scarab.

So the proof that this is possible and in the relms of the army is the army itself.

In this instance there is no programming, no need of control in any sense. Though like human society there are still orders and still hierarchy as obvious from the need for necron lords.

It's probably easier to transplant a humanoid consciousness into a 1:1 metal analogue of the humanoid form (that then utilizes humanoid behaviours to control other devices) than it is to convert a humanoid consciousness into an entirely new form of vehicular consciousness.

If I knocked you out, extracted your brain, and chucked it into a robotic body that had many of the same functions as your old body, you would know exactly how to operate it. Now imagine waking up as a Toyota.

I'd like to be an Audi if possible that way my accelerator won't jam on.

I have no interest in necrons. These models don't change that. I am, however, glad to see another xeno army getting some more models and an updated codex. While not as impressive as the redo that DE got, this looks to be a more complete update than the nids got.

The new models are looking realy nice (apart from the flayed ones, there was nout wrong with the old ones).

just going to have to wait for the codex to come out now so i can find out what they all do. Should be good for the game though let alone necron players, should hopefully mean we see some different style necron lists.

I have a friend who collects Necrons whose going to be over the moon. BTW are these plastic flayed ones and immortals or just finecast?

Ascalam wrote:For those raging on piloted necron devices.

Did no-one consider that these might have been the ships the Necrontyr used BEFORE they became robotic? They all lost a good wodge of their brilliance after transition...

If they had fleets of these things in storage, why not use them?

I'm undecided on the new models yet.

This.

Exactly what I was thinking. Seriously, people need to think more and rage less.

Zweischneid wrote:How so? Neither the Sanguinor nor Draigo make a ret-con appereance in any established fluff like the Swarmlord does. Whatever justification there may or may not by for Swarmy in some RPG-book, his presentation in the Nid-Book still rips 20 years of established Hive-Fleet War Fluff a new one. Neither the Sanguinor nor Draigo do that.

Second, both Sanguinor and Draigo perfectly epitomize critical aspects of their respective army; in the case of the Sanguinor the silver-line that is a hope of salvation for a Chapter plunging into dark doom. For Draigo, the ultimate hero's dilemma to either remain pure at the price of ineffectiveness, or change the course of history at the price of your own corruption. Both a brilliant archetypes that both fantastically augment and highlight the character of their respective armies.

The Swarmlord (Deathwatch story non-withstanding) on the other hand is a violation of the same army it sits in (as is the Decapitator of the Dark Eldar by the way, scheming Necron-style to end all life, rather than indulge in the Dark Eldars normal perverse decadence on the edge of their own doom). The Deathwatch story, while making the Swarmlord story tolerable, also painfully illustrates how bad the first pitch was in the actual Codex.

Just because something theoretically has a good concept doesn't mean the actual writing is good, Ward took what could be a neato concept and killed it with bad writing, IMO.

Also, "change the course of history at the price of your own corruption"? Where, from the text, did you get that interpretation from?

Don't really have a problem with Necrons piloting vehicles though, personally. I think aesthetically it could maybe of been done better, but meh.

Void__Dragon wrote:
Just because something theoretically has a good concept doesn't mean the actual writing is good,

Yup. You are right on that one. Something that's painfully obvious everytime someone opens the books for Space Wolves or Dreadfleet Eldar.

No GW-related book has ever contained good writing. You just cross your fingers and pray for "non-cringeworthy".

Altruizine wrote:No GW-related book has ever contained good writing. You just cross your fingers and pray for "non-cringeworthy".

Titanicus?
This quoted post is going to derail this thread I bet.

One a relate note, the necron arks looks more Viking than Egyptian the more you look. Even Roman.

Actually this looks extremely cool.

Mewiththeface wrote:
One a relate note, the necron arks looks more Viking than Egyptian the more you look. Even Roman.

Given all the other "corpse-cart" and "BSG" influences, its close enough IMO.



The perhaps more notable rip-off would, if anything, be BSG.

Or maybe is was made to reflect a ribcage? That seems to be a very common trope among scifi vehicles for more evil-er races.

Ii think they look alot like the interior of the trade federation ships from the phantom menace.

The other thing ive noticed with the new models is a distinct lack of green rods?!!!!!!

Does anyone know are they doing away with the rods?

I'm fairly certain the Jes Goodwin's sketches, one of which is very close to the final Ark predate the last few seasons of BSG. I could be wrong though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

andy_123_p wrote:Ii think they look alot like the interior of the trade federation ships from the phantom menace.

The other thing ive noticed with the new models is a distinct lack of green rods?!!!!!!

Does anyone know are they doing away with the rods?

It seems likely. I can't imagine them just keeping them on the Warriors and Destroyers.

Ill be gutted if they do ditch them, especially with how cool they look on warscythes/staff of light etc.

andy_123_p wrote:The other thing ive noticed with the new models is a distinct lack of green rods?!!!!!!

Does anyone know are they doing away with the rods?

I'm guessing that the painter just painted over them for a more uniform and menacing look. I felt that the rods and everything else in clear green plastic just looked weird. Too much contrast between painted and clear tinted plastic.

EDIT: Painting over the rods make it look a lot more like some of the artwork. I think it's supposed to look like a plasma arc rather than a cylinder.