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Sorry if this has already been posted. Interested to know peoples thoughts on the new Necron release in general. Personally, I liked the models, and would like to know more about the fluff. Thought the 'Eavy Metal use of lots of gold was bad though. Necrons are imo the darkest race in 40k, and gold is just to richer a colour for that. Anyone agree?

I think with the background rewritten, Necrons no longer have any claim over being the "darkest". Not that they're nice guys all of the sudden, but they are no longer the mindless killing machines of old. They now have intellect, pride, honor, and a healthy sense of entitlement. The highest ups have very distinct personalities. Combine all of that with the fact that Necrontyr (and Necron) society is extremely hierarchical, and ornate gold headdresses and jewelry make a whole lot of sense. Just getting a new metal body doesn't mean you lose your fashion sense!

On the whole, I like the release. I was a big fan of the old fluff and was initially reticent about the new ideas, but I have since been won over. The new codex just has so much more flavor, both in unit choices and in fluff. Necron armies have traded being uniformly dour in for an opportunity to be diverse and characterful. All for the better in my opinion. I've never been happier to be a Necron player.

Thanks. Its just I always liked the Necrons because they were so dark and mindless, bloody killing machines. Don't tell me I need to see a psychiatrist.

I understand completely. That was the appeal for me as well...I did not expect to like the changes so much.

I will note they do still retain a bit of the cold, calculating inflexibility of automatons. One of the best bits of fluff (IMO) is just a small quote in the corner of a page. It's basically a Necron Overlord addressing a human settlement, explaining that they have one month to remove "their squalid colony" from a rightful Necron Crownworld (a way-important kind of Tomb World). If the settlers are unwilling to negotiate, the Overlord calmly notes that his armies will be willing "to conclude negotiations" themselves. At the end of the message it is made clear that it was an Imperial Hive World (billions upon billions of people) being asked to promptly evacuate.

That, to me, says it all about New-crons. They once ruled the galaxy with an iron fist and are back to reclaim what is rightfully theirs---regardless of whatever has occurred in the many intervening millennia. It's not quite a "harvest" anymore, but I think it's even more chilling in a way. While the lower ranks remain mindless killing machines, the top ranks are maybe even worse: tyrannical, scheming, and obstinate in mind and body.

Read The Fall of Damnos. It really, really puts the new fluff into perspective compared to what was there before. They're still mostly mindless killing machines. That part of the fluff has definitely been preserved.

All the new "personality" stuff that people are going on and on about has been restricted purely to the necron ruling elite. Necron Immortals have enough mental capacity to make some extremely cool one-liners when coincidence permits it, but other than that there's no talking beyond the lords and crypteks.

It also gives some insight into the flayed ones. IMO they really, really got short-shrifted in the new codex compared to how they're written in the book (isn't that how it always goes though?).

As for the rest of it...

The models look awesome (barring the new flayed one models...and their ridiculous pricing).
The new codex is awesome (not difficult compared to what we were working with before).

There's not much to complain about, and lots to talk about.

I did. It was a decent read until the drop pods started showing up and a gimp-field flowed out from them to every necron on the planet

I liked (most of) the new models. I wasn't taken by the Tomb Kings look that much, but i suppose it was inevitable.

Their power-level has been hiked at bit, which can't hurt their popularity with new players

As a very long time Necron Player i feel violated by the new fluff. They've gone from a very good mysterious lovecraftian vibe, (built mainly from rumors and guesswork, that was nicely creepy but apparently too subtle for some to notice ) to the bad guy from Thundercats

Fluffwise everything that made them cool seems to have taken a hit or been utterly retconned.

Fleets that can wipe massively superior numbers of other races ships relatively untouched, or at best destroyed as a phyrric victory - nope.

FTL travel anywhere in moments - nope

Prophecies that they will return to harvest everyone for the benefit of cruel, capricious gods in a relentless, silent and creepy way - gone.

For me it's like taking a really dark graphic novel with a dark, brooding evil feel and replacing it with a Marvel comic.

Both are good in their place, but they are no longer Necrons, they're metal Tomb Kings with some nice new models, who have apparently sold the rights to their good tech to the IOM and then promptly wiped their hard drives on how to do it themselves. (melta/Lance resistance is now only a Space Marine and Eldar thing, AFAIK). Granted the Lith has some new tricks, and the original Living Metal would make it broken on the table, but fluffwise it's ugly.

Reading it from as impartial a mindset as possible, it's a decent codex, with so-so fluff (so long as you view it as a completely new race and forget the prior codex completely). If you were ever into the previous Necrons it's almost as bad as being a squat player, really into their fluff and then being told that they just got eaten, no save, thankyou and goodnight.

Newcrons look cool, look like they play cool, but are not Necrons

I dislike most of the miniatures ( too much bling ) and the general direction of the fluff.
Still, Tombkings in Space seems to be a direction that is liked by many others and since i don't play Necrons, well, who cares?

I really like the release. The Models are fantastic, and I really like the direction the fluff has gone in. I feel like I can customize my army a lot more, and that there is a much greater Depth to Necrons now.

The Codex also appears to be at the perfect level of strength as well. Not too over the top, and not too weak.

Ascalam wrote:I did. It was a decent read until the drop pods started showing up and a gimp-field flowed out from them to every necron on the planet

I liked (most of) the new models. I wasn't taken by the Tomb Kings look that much, but i suppose it was inevitable.

Their power-level has been hiked at bit, which can't hurt their popularity with new players

As a very long time Necron Player i feel violated by the new fluff. They've gone from a very good mysterious lovecraftian vibe, (built mainly from rumors and guesswork, that was nicely creepy but apparently too subtle for some to notice ) to the bad guy from Thundercats

Fluffwise everything that made them cool seems to have taken a hit or been utterly retconned.

Fleets that can wipe massively superior numbers of other races ships relatively untouched, or at best destroyed as a phyrric victory - nope.

FTL travel anywhere in moments - nope

Prophecies that they will return to harvest everyone for the benefit of cruel, capricious gods in a relentless, silent and creepy way - gone.

For me it's like taking a really dark graphic novel with a dark, brooding evil feel and replacing it with a Marvel comic.

Both are good in their place, but they are no longer Necrons, they're metal Tomb Kings with some nice new models, who have apparently sold the rights to their good tech to the IOM and then promptly wiped their hard drives on how to do it themselves. (melta/Lance resistance is now only a Space Marine and Eldar thing, AFAIK). Granted the Lith has some new tricks, and the original Living Metal would make it broken on the table, but fluffwise it's ugly.

Reading it from as impartial a mindset as possible, it's a decent codex, with so-so fluff (so long as you view it as a completely new race and forget the prior codex completely). If you were ever into the previous Necrons it's almost as bad as being a squat player, really into their fluff and then being told that they just got eaten, no save, thankyou and goodnight.

Newcrons look cool, look like they play cool, but are not Necrons

Got to agree with this comment as I am an old Necron player myself.

Been seeing a lot of comments about the Necrons being balanced. Total Gak actually as they can easily be as broken when the right builds are applied. I've said that this codex will be competitive and will do well in tournament play -if- the players uses the meat of the codex and not the candy of the codex.

As an example. Too much emphasis has been put on scarabs. This is a turned based game. How many vehicles can a swarm eat to be effective enough to turn a game around? 1 squad, maybe 2 if you have extra points to use up, but three? There are better options there in the codex to use your points up.