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Alright, so now the Necrons are all sentient and on there own, I think they're somewhat less of a threat. Not less threatening, but less of a threat. And here's why;

In the old Codex, the Necrons would show up, wipe out a world to feed whichever C'tan they served and wander off again. They weren't really interested in military gain most of the time, unless directed to do so or to defend a Tomb World. Although there numbers were limited (if there Tomb World or the machinery they used to be reborn was destroyed, so were they) they also didn't need to hold worlds with the exception of the Tomb Worlds - they could move on and ravage a fresh world after they were done each time, and so long as the Tomb World wasn't destroyed they'd never run low on troops.

That's not true now. The Necron Dynasties are very interested in reclaiming old territory, even though they have a fraction of the Necron forces that once held it thanks to the War with the old ones, the fight with the C'tan and the destruction of Tomb Worlds during there hibernation. Additionally, they have the same floor the old Necrons did - they aren't making new Necrons, and when a Tomb World dies so does there chance to be regenerated. In other words, as time goes on and they get damaged and take more worlds, the less Necrons there will be to both attack new world and defend the ones taken.

So, the Necrons no longer have the ability to be more than a regional threat to the Imperium. They might be able to retake some of the worlds, but can't expand much beyond that. Of course, they could take what they can and blow everything else up using the machine that makes stars go supernova, but other than that...

Correct, they aren't. People will try and make excuses that they're just as big a threat or even a greater threat, but:

A.) They're divided. The Necron Dynasties not only compete with/fight with one another but also have different objectives and some could ally with other races.The most powerful dynasty, the Sautekh, has just 80 worlds and is a localized threat on the Eastern Fringes.
B.) They're not pursuing galactic genocide anymore. They can be reasoned with. These aren't the Tyranids, Orks, or even Chaos.
C.) They don't have a reliable method of FTL travel anymore.

What Harriticus said. Me no likey the new 'crons. :(

It never says they can't create more bodies. Who is to say they couldn't transform "willing" Imperial subjects.

They have something better than FTL they use the webways like the Eldar/Dark Eldar. There are countless of them waking up eventually (or never). I think they could be considered just as dangerous as before. They don't wish to destroy the galaxy but expunge all the aliens and heretics... Wait a second....

Yes, they are no longer as big a threat, but I think this is so as to make Chaos more threatening.

I think they are more like the Orks now. They are not united, but divided to clans/dynasties and they can be reasoned with, like when Blood Angels allied with them briefly in order to defeat a splinter fleet of Tyranids.

Like the Orks, they could be a major threat, but since they are not driven by a single purpose (which was the eradication of all life) they are not that threatening anymore.

They seem as threatening as ever in my opinion...

Depends on your definition of big threat.
Orks and nids act regionally, as do many other threats. So Necrons aren't a smaller threat locally and thats where it counts as battles occur for sytems and sub-sectors, not a whole segmentum.
Agreed they lost their possible unity with just a few C'Tan to lead them.
The necrons are splintered now, but didn't they recieve a million worlds in their codex, like the IoM, instead of a few tombworlds far off at the edge of the galaxy and only rarely one thrown into the middle of the Map?
More worlds would equal more necrons.
Necrons got vassals too, the tribute must be worth the effort of taking those worlds in the first place.

Not sure if its safer to sit upon a sleeping tombworld than facing orks, nids, chaos, eldar, tau or humans.
Because the crons got a base right there, others need to bring their stuff with them, crons just rearm and refit close to you without supply lines to cut . Your chance is the damage this complex may have suffered, but still owning a base and using tech you can't easily interfere with gets them far in the long term.

My take:

They are about as big of a threat.

In there current state they are somewhat less of a threat for many of the reasons above, but they also can unite at pretty much any given point for scarcely a good reason(Anrakyr the traveler can personally either unite his allies against some threat, or throw support to the threat in order to unite his enemies against it, or Both).

Then you have the fact that a great many still slumber which would make a fully awakened Necron presence a much greater threat, especially if the become united for any particular reason(see the Anrakyr parenthetical above).

So while the Splintered few tombworlds that are awakened are slightly weaker individually, they are overall exactly as threatening as they used to be(just more humanized; which is actually a little more threatening since that adds erratic behavior)

Battle Brother Ambrosius wrote:I think they are more like the Orks now. They are not united, but divided to clans/dynasties and they can be reasoned with, like when Blood Angels allied with them briefly in order to defeat a splinter fleet of Tyranids.

Like the Orks, they could be a major threat, but since they are not driven by a single purpose (which was the eradication of all life) they are not that threatening anymore.

Not sure I agree with this, According to fluff the only thing this Imperium fears more than orks on the material plane is Nids and they fear chaos even more than that. Orks are beyond a shadow of doubt a too massive and destructive to be dealt with by anything other than the imperium pulling all it's strength to face the threat. I point out in Armageddon it took hundreds of thousands vessels lead by both space marines and Imperial Guard in order to slow the Waaagh there. Even then ol' Prophet Ghaz still has a huge majority of orks interested in fighting on the planet since he gave the Imperium a good stompin.

The Imperium deals with threats that are clear, present and preventable; In novels when the Necron show up the Imperium just leaves space or avoids their ships at all cost simply to prevent battle because of how outclassed they are tech wise. I would say if the Necron are a true threat to the Imperium and not subjecting entire subsectors into war they would probably ignore them just like they do almost any Xeno except the two above mentioned. After the enemy is clearly presented and request recieved by astropath a decision for war begins and the first idea is to go to space marines if it can be handledby rapid deploying badasses (like knights in chess) or if they need the prolonged muscle of the Imperial Guard.

Cannot remember the novel but the Imperium actually pulled out of a planet which proved to be a dormant tomb world which the Imperium claimed thousands of years ago in ignorance. They fighting was brutal long and hard but the Imperial guard had to leave because a High Lord of Terra didn't agree with the "Expenditure of so many resources without a clear progress to victory." in other words, "yeah we could stop it if we wanted but look what they are taking why do we want to waste good soldiers?"

IMO yes necron are a threat but the same as Dark Eldar, eldar & Tau. All these factions run raids on Imperial worlds or even capture them and its only through excessive battle presence the Imperium will so much as even consider having to deal with them. Remember the approach of the Imperium with their enemies is to one problem deal with another such like orks vs nids. The best benefit the Imperium has in considering them a threat is knowing they are universally hated by just about anyone other than Orks (but do they actually 'hate' anyone?).

So just some food for thought, why would the Imperium fo Man fear the Necron when they can rely on the Eldar, Tau, orks, nids, and local planetary defenses would more than likely be paying visits to that threat before offense is considered needed?

The same scenario played out in Brothers of the Snake. The Snakes guestimated that even if they took the entire chapter to war (1,000+ men) that "you would show me 1,000 dead heroes" as Petrok or Priad put it. Can't remember the exact quote.

Orks in full Waaagh are not easy to deal with.

I think the question is: are Necrons still a large-scale threat to the galaxy overall? The answer is... no. Not on the same scale as the Tyranids. But meet them in battle and you would find out the hard way that they are still incredibly lethal. The same can be said for all the major TT armies in the Warhammer 40k fluff. There are no weaklings but there are varying degrees of power on a galactic scale.

They're not stealing the spotlight from the 'nids anymore, which I like - I found a lot of the old necron fluff and general disposition a bit tiring (especially in BFG) and if you're going to have a galaxy-destroying threat, you really need to have just one imo.

I think the necrons are much more interesting now, personally.

Well that's true. I guess I didn't like the old fluff and I still don't like the new fluff, unfortunately. Old fluff they were too powerful. So dialing them back so that the Tyranids can be THE ultimate galactic menace makes sense. But getting into all of this divided factions/egyptian-theme nonsense was a little over the top imo.

Eh, I kind of agree and kind of don't. They don't have as much potential threat as the old-crons, certainly: no new members, not as unified (old-crons weren't unified either, but you had 2-4 factions instead of hundreds/thousands), can't create new crons.

But 99% of their threat WAS potential threat. Sometimes a tomb world would wake and kill people living on it's surface, but none of the leaders were really that active and 99% of their resources were still sleeping. It was an unknown threat (i'm not saying this is inferior). And their leaders were still a bunch of incompetent, mustache twirling, puppy kickers.

While they no longer have the same threat potential, they are now a much more dangerous, active threat. You know, because they are actually doing something.

The old-crons are like the yosemite super volcano, or an asteroid: they are a threat in that they can destroy everything, but it isn't going to happen any time soon, isn't even a guarentee, so you don' really worry about it. To the Imperium the current Necrons are much more of an active threat. They raid, they conquer, they DO stuff.

I don't see this as inferior, especially for a player race. From a gameplay perspective a race that can actively come into conflict with and interact with the other races of the galaxy is more useful/fun than a maybe, possibly someday gonna be a huge threat race.

And personally I prefer the tragedy of the new race, their slow decay. On the one hand kings of the universe, on the other damned to a slow decline into eternal insanity and corruption, unable to replenish their numbers, or ever really get back what they so carelessly threw away.

Like I said, I agree something has been lost from the old fluff, a certain existential dread. But it was also just so cardboard and two dimensional. I like the multitude of themes going on with the newcrons, and at least for me personally, what was lost is worth what was gained..

Ok, a few things to clean up. The Necrons weren't entirely united before. Their C'Tan leaders actually hated each other. A lot. The Nightbringer hated the Deceiver infinitely. So the picture of perfect unity isn't quite correct. Take off your rose-tinted spectacles for a minute, please. Also, the new necrons have empires currently. Wait, empires? Oh, the old ones never had that. Eighty worlds isn't that much but it's pretty good for a short amount of time. Oh, and again, the previous necrons didn't have anything like this at all, they just had isolated tomb worlds. The Necrons definitely got bumped up on the power scale. All fluff aside, their new codex progressed them from just awakening to having been awake for a little while and starting to rebuild their empire. Still got the exact same tech. and everything minus the Inertialess Drive (Presumably) but that doesn't really matter since they can just jack into the webway now.

Some Necron dynasties will not work together but these are very much the exceptions (I'm looking at your Trazyn). Necrons vastly prefer each other over any other race in the galaxy. Yes, there's political intrigue and other stuff going on between their higher ups but remember that their last command was to rebuild and that's what all of the not completely crazy ones are trying to do. They aren't NEARLY as disjointed as people seem to like to say.

This will be interesting.

BrainDeleted wrote:Ok, a few things to clean up. The Necrons weren't entirely united before.

Proof? The C'Tan can hate each other all day, but there's no source that states that they used the Necrons to fight one another to settle any scores.

BrainDeleted wrote:Take off your rose-tinted spectacles for a minute, please.

Ad Hominem is fun, isn't it?

BrainDeleted wrote:Also, the new necrons have empires currently.

Yes, they do. Several split empires that are just as likely to help each other as they are to fight each other. Empires mean nothing when you have the entire race working towards the same goal.

BrainDeleted wrote:Still got the exact same tech. and everything minus the Inertialess Drive (Presumably) but that doesn't really matter since they can just jack into the webway now.

Valid points

BrainDeleted wrote:Some Necron dynasties will not work together

Which means there's less Necrons working towards the race's overall goals.

Ultimately, while I don't hate the new Necrons, I do miss the old Necron centralization of power and the unity of purpose. In a game full of egomaniacs, it was nice to see a race besides the Tyranids that would kill you simply because it had to.

Cryonicleech wrote:
Proof? The C'Tan can hate each other all day, but there's no source that states that they used the Necrons to fight one another to settle any scores.

The Night Bringer's penchant for consuming other C'Tan.

Cryonicleech wrote:

BrainDeleted wrote:Take off your rose-tinted spectacles for a minute, please.

Ad Hominem is fun, isn't it?

Yeah, totally based my argument around it.

Cryonicleech wrote:
Yes, they do. Several split empires that are just as likely to help each other as they are to fight each other. Empires mean nothing when you have the entire race working towards the same goal.

Proof that the majority of Necrons want to fight each other rather than other race? Nothing suggests that they're as likely to come into conflict with each other rather than other species except for the few examples I outline below. In fact, the fluff suggests the exact opposite, the last command the Necrons were given being to rebuild their dominance over the galaxy. The Stormlord and the Traveler both are very keen to help other tomb worlds.

Cryonicleech wrote:

BrainDeleted wrote: Some Necron dynasties will not work together

Which means there's less Necrons working towards the race's overall goals.

Arguable. The Necrons are now much more numerous (In terms of active Necrons) than they were before. The Dynasties that were presented in the Codex as not willing to work with other Necrons or outcasts among their race are in the vast minority. I'm thinking of the Bone Kingdom of Drazan (Stuck in the Ghoul Stars anyway, unlikely to come into conflict with other Necrons for this reason as well as the fact that there's no meat to gain), Trazyn's little thing (Still allies himself sometimes but generally untrusted), the one example where the tomb world AI overrode the Lords' sentience, and the home of the Celestial Orrery which seems to want nothing other than to be left alone while some other Necrons want to take control of their machine.

They don't seem as big a threat anymore because they're not as vague or mysterious as they once were. People have had years and years to plug in all the gaps with little implications and theories from the old codex and the various short stories and novels , and the unknown can actually seem alot more menacing than it is. Except that because we didn't really KNOW anything about them, and most every encounter was against a potential C'tan (or a single Tomb World) that thread could very well have been overstated.

They've been clarified and defined more than a bit now - we know there are perhaps millions of tomb worlds, and trillions (or more) of Necrons... if they all wake up and if things are pulled back together. It's not a guaranteed threat (in the sense that the Hive Fleets seem to be) but it is still a significant threat. After all, the Orks are scattered and disunified but that doesn't mean they can't be dangerous - and the Necrons at least have better odds of unifying under a single ruler given time.

at: ambrosius: they do have a common goal. kick you off their land and then make you worship them
at: brain: that bone kingdom still teleports out and raids armies that are being attacked by necrons like all other FOs.
oh, and Chandelier of Death!
bigger threat now

BrainDeleted wrote:Ok, a few things to clean up. The Necrons weren't entirely united before. Their C'Tan leaders actually hated each other. A lot. The Nightbringer hated the Deceiver infinitely. So the picture of perfect unity isn't quite correct.

The C'tan were united in purpose: the harvesting of life. They weren't turning on each other yet, and probably wouldn't until they had run out of a food supply. That was the case with the Old Ones before the grand retcon.

Take off your rose-tinted spectacles for a minute, please. Also, the new necrons have empires currently. Wait, empires? Oh, the old ones never had that. Eighty worlds isn't that much but it's pretty good for a short amount of time. Oh, and again, the previous necrons didn't have anything like this at all, they just had isolated tomb worlds. The Necrons definitely got bumped up on the power scale. All fluff aside, their new codex progressed them from just awakening to having been awake for a little while and starting to rebuild their empire. Still got the exact same tech. and everything minus the Inertialess Drive (Presumably) but that doesn't really matter since they can just jack into the webway now.

The Tyranids don't have 1 world either, and that doesn't matter because they're not an empire nor do they engage in empire-building. The Necrons are just like any empire now and many of the dynasties have fixed borders/boundaries. Some are expansionist while some aren't. When the worth of a Dynasty is its size, how many worlds matters whereas when you're simply a force of genocide it really doesn't have to.

Some Necron dynasties will not work together but these are very much the exceptions (I'm looking at your Trazyn). Necrons vastly prefer each other over any other race in the galaxy. Yes, there's political intrigue and other stuff going on between their higher ups but remember that their last command was to rebuild and that's what all of the not completely crazy ones are trying to do. They aren't NEARLY as disjointed as people seem to like to say.

They're not working together as a race against the lesser races like they once were, so they'll always be a reduced threat until then. There's a dynasty that doesn't expand and keeps to itself, another that just acts as pirates, another that's a rival of the Sautekh. Really the only truly threatening ones (that Flayed One world and the Empire of the Severed) are viewed dishonorably by most Necrons.

The C'Tan had already turned on eachother, that is why there are only 4 or so yet. i don't see any reason they would stop.

And the necron codex states that for every one battle they have with eachother they will have hundreds with other species. It also lists far more examples of them working together than not.

In the end I agree with the previous poster, the old-crons were mainly menacing because we didn't know what they could/would do. Now we just have a better idea.

And they do still have FTL travel. They had FTL before they had access to the webway and isolated worlds are still able to function, just at a more limited scale. The webway is just a lot faster and safer, so they prefer it.

riplikash wrote:The C'Tan had already turned on eachother, that is why there are only 4 or so yet. i don't see any reason they would stop.

Because the galaxy was teeming with life ready to harvest again. The C'tan only turned on each other after the defeat of the Old Ones.

Actually, doesn't the whole BA and Necron "alliance" fit better with this new fluff now?

forruner_mercy wrote:Actually, doesn't the whole BA and Necron "alliance" fit better with this new fluff now?

Yes. The Silent King returned to the Galaxy after encountering the Tyranids in the Intergalactic void, and knew they were a threat to the Necron's goal of Apotheosis. So he "Reluctantly" allied with the Blood Angels to slay a Splinter fleet.

forruner_mercy wrote:Actually, doesn't the whole BA and Necron "alliance" fit better with this new fluff now?

It always fit perfectly fine.......

If 2 week kids are fighting each other, than they see a really big kid come over, about to beat the gak out of both of them, I think they would try to take out the big guy.........

Unless one of the kids is a mentally ill sociopath, which in this case would be the necrons, and the other kid was a religious fanatic who violently hated mentally ill sociopaths, which in this case would be the speyce muhreens.

They'd all just end up killing each other.

I see the necrons as Much more interesting now. They're purpose was to much like the Tyranid. So I was actually hoping for a change like this for their fluff. Not to mention, how would you change Tyranid purpose? It had to be the necrosis.

I really likebthat they can be reasoned with now, it makes them more like a race than just a bunch of...... metal people. I guess

Ok, a few things to clean up. The Necrons weren't entirely united before. Their C'Tan leaders actually hated each other. A lot. The Nightbringer hated the Deceiver infinitely. So the picture of perfect unity isn't quite correct. Take off your rose-tinted spectacles for a minute, please. Also, the new necrons have empires currently. Wait, empires? Oh, the old ones never had that. Eighty worlds isn't that much but it's pretty good for a short amount of time. Oh, and again, the previous necrons didn't have anything like this at all, they just had isolated tomb worlds. The Necrons definitely got bumped up on the power scale. All fluff aside, their new codex progressed them from just awakening to having been awake for a little while and starting to rebuild their empire. Still got the exact same tech. and everything minus the Inertialess Drive (Presumably) but that doesn't really matter since they can just jack into the webway now.

BUT the ctans all had the same goal etc where dynasties dont (and 2 factions is a lot less than now)

Also they dont have the same tech exactly, all their warriors and monoliths are weaker now, as (thanks to the changes in warhammer rulesbooks for vehicle rules) all gauss weapons are weaker than they were when necrons were added (they didnt bring them back to what they were tech wise at necron introduction) so a lot weaker now both galactically and locally sadly

I would reason that the new Necrons are at about the same level of galactic threat as before, but for different reasons as they clearly have a completely different racial profile now.
The old Necrons were dangerous because of the C'tan, but their potential full power was not known since their only achievement was to destroy the Old Ones (with huge help from the Enslavers) and fighting on equal footing with the Eldar. The only big thing they did on their own was to almost seal away the warp from realspace, and causing the Dark Age of Technology (Void Dragon).
Their threat to the IoM was identical to that of the Tyranids, only more potential threat rather than the immediate Hive-Fleet-Galaxy-Muncher-#4 horror.

Besides, the whole deal with the old C'tan/ necrontyr-deal was way to much mindless Lovecraftian copy-paste for my taste. C'thulthu-tan anyone?

With the new Necron codex we know what they can do at their full capacity. With the C'tan and without the Enslavers they made away with the Old Ones. The defeated the C'tan single-handedly with their new shiny metal bodies, Frankenstein's monster-style. This is perhaps the single most powerful display of power since Draigo.

Remember how the few remaining C'tan are shattered into a million pieces now? And that each of those pieces are as powerful as the old C'tan when they were weakened? Ye, that's right, the Star Gods are now as powerful as the Chaos Gods (to whom they have always been opposite and equivalent).
A shard (albeit a big one) fought on nearly equal footing with the Emperor and caused the Adeptus Mechanicum to exist! And the Newcrons banished them all (the ~4 that were left)

They have some serious dominating potential now, as shown by Imotekh being already a threat to the entire sector with only 80 worlds under his rule. That is crazy!

I'd say there's either equal or slightly less of a threat now. They're certainly more active, and the tales of Imotekh show how much even a small Necron Empire can cause stupid huge amounts of trouble.

They're not as united, but it's been made abundantly clear that Necrons only punch other Necrons when there's nobody else to punch. The overall goal, as encoded in every Necron, is to bring the Necrons back to being the big boss of the galaxy, and several Overlords are well on the way to doing that. Anrakyr and Imotekh for example. Work that in with the fact that they defeated the C'tan on their own, and have some disgustingly powerful technology at their hands and they're still a massive threat to the galaxy. Less mysterious does not mean less dangerous, and it's still clear that if all of them wake up, everyone's feth'd up. At the very least, they'll be obliterated in the crossfire between dynasties. The Necrons were united to face an outside foe once before in an "us vs. them" kind of way, there's nothing stopping it happening again.