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.

I finished reading the Necron codex a little while ago, and one change to their lore rubs me the wrong way, in particular.

Instead of the Enslavers specifically being the ones pointed out to have sent them into their tombs, they specifically point out that it was the *Eldar* for seemingly entirely no reason at all. I mean...if they have the numbers they do today, AND they were able to get around the Eldar and kill their creators (Old Ones) all those millenia ago, how the heck was this change in the war warranted? I know the old version might have implied the Enslavers had wiped out the rest of the Eldar to, but one could say with great ease that the Eldar would have largely escaped into the Webway and stayed there for many ages to survive.

So the question is, how does it make sense the Eldar could have driven them ALL back after the Necrons defeated the old ones AND what purpose does it serve for the sake of the game or lore to have written out the Enslavers?

It doesn't make any sense, correct. But Ward needed a way for the Necrons to go to sleep for millions of years while effectively removing the C'tan from the story.

Harriticus wrote:It doesn't make any sense, correct. But Ward needed a way for the Necrons to go to sleep for millions of years while effectively removing the C'tan from the story.

Because it completely drained the necrons, killing all the ctan. The necrons where wisps after that fight and the eldar took the high ground and started stomping the necrons iirc. The necrons had to hide and go into stasis to survive.

Don't forget that the entire Necron race was a retcon of the Eldar in the first place. In early gw publications, before the Necrons were even thought of as an army, the Eldar were the ones that went around the galaxy terra forming planets, leaving pyramids everywhere, having the highest technology level in the galaxy, having their souls put in different bodies( i.e. Wraithguard), and basically scaring the crap out of the Imperium.

Then GW gets the idea to put undead in the space game instead of just the fantasy game and next thing you know, the Eldar have the second best tech level, the Pyramids no longer belong to the Eldar, they now belong to the Necrons, and all of the super cool stuff that used to be attributed to the Eldar is now Necron.

I say it's poetic justice on the Necrons that the Eldar are now the reason why the Necrons went back to their tombs. Serves them right for stealing all the Eldar thunder.

But if you want a different reason it could be because the Necrons found out that the Eldar can actually permanently kill the Necron gods with the Blackstone Fortresses. That knowledge probably put a bit of fear into the Necrons.

Roadkill Zombie wrote:But if you want a different reason it could be because the Necrons found out that the Eldar can actually permanently kill the Necron gods with the Blackstone Fortresses. That knowledge probably put a bit of fear into the Necrons.

The new Codex says the Necrons killed the C'tan entirely on their own, actually, iirc.

It doesn't make any sense, correct. But Ward needed a way for the Necrons to go to sleep for millions of years while effectively removing the C'tan from the story.

Again...the Necrons killed the C'tan themselves, lol.

Because it completely drained the necrons, killing all the ctan. The necrons where wisps after that fight and the eldar took the high ground and started stomping the necrons iirc. The necrons had to hide and go into stasis to survive.

Actually...same thing, lol. I was going to say something different to you...oh yes; what do you mean by wisps after that fight?

Also @ Roadkill Zombie, that is crazy-interesting that the Necrons are a retcon 'splintering' of the old Eldar! Who would have thought, heh. I have to say it makes 40k more interesting to have the Necrons though; if all of that stuff was just Eldar stuff it would seem a far more bland story, no?

Anyway, the question remains, I think, given that the Necrons killed the C'tan themselves. Was it simply poetic justice after all, and made it so the Eldar could survive without going into the Webway (which was never made clear at all in the first place)?

Wow... that is poetic justice, Matt Ward basically retconned the retcon and restored some of the old fluff... huh...

The necrons were not strong enough to deal with the old ones, the C'tan AND the Eldar, all in short order.

The necrons did not kill the C'tan; they merely weakened them. They then had to spend their time and energy in containing the C'tan in quarantine. Now, you have to remember that the C'tan were gods to begin with, so the necrons took quite a hit during the fight. And the shards aren't a push over either, which would have weakened the necrons even further.
And all this was just after a huge war with the Old Ones.

I think with all of these factors combined, the necrons simply weren't strong enough to commit themselves to another galaxy wide war. Ironically, had the C'tan been at full strength, they would have helped the necrons against the Eldar.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:The necrons were not strong enough to deal with the old ones, the C'tan AND the Eldar, all in short order.

The necrons did not kill the C'tan; they merely weakened them. They then had to spend their time and energy in containing the C'tan in quarantine. Now, you have to remember that the C'tan were gods to begin with, so the necrons took quite a hit during the fight. And the shards aren't a push over either, which would have weakened the necrons even further.
And all this was just after a huge war with the Old Ones.

I think with all of these factors combined, the necrons simply weren't strong enough to commit themselves to another galaxy wide war. Ironically, had the C'tan been at full strength, they would have helped the necrons against the Eldar.

Yeah......alright... Ok I guess you're right. Well explained heh. Still though - they could have given the Enslavers *some* props. This means that they now never annihilated the galaxy single-handed at one point! ....right? I always thought that was cool...


And @ Chaos0xomega: ...huh? How?

Netsurfer733 wrote:oh yes; what do you mean by wisps after that fight?

I meant that it severely weakend the necrons to kill the Ctan, even when the Ctan had exhausted themselves against the old ones. This weakening allowed the eldar to en mass route the necrons galaxy wide, forcing them into hiding

And yes, the necrons killed the remaining Ctan off themselves. However, as a caveat, they where only able to manage this after the Ctan had exhausted themselves against the old ones. So technically the necrons couldn't manage the death of the Ctan themselves

Don't forget that the Eldar from the time of the War in Heaven, are not the Eldar we know today. They are Eldar from before,the fall, when they were one joined race, spanning the Galaxy and engaged in decadence and glory. Their numbers were greater than or enough to pose a legitimate threat to the now weakened Necrontyr who had to turn on their own C'tan weapons.

Wait the necrons turned on the C'tan? Interesting...think i might buy the necron codex even if i don't have a necron army yet

I gave up trying to make sense of it and have simply accepted the fact they are a cool army with garbage fluff....

Im surprised the Blood Angels chilling with the Necrons didn't irk you though since thats the biggest cock up in it to me.

Hasn't bothered me since the saguinar pretty much is the Deceiver.

Milisim wrote:I gave up trying to make sense of it and have simply accepted the fact they are a cool army with garbage fluff....

Im surprised the Blood Angels chilling with the Necrons didn't irk you though since thats the biggest cock up in it to me.

What are you talking about? On both fronts?

Hasn't bothered me since the saguinar pretty much is the Deceiver.

....clearly I'm missing some things that weren't in the 3rd and current edition Necron codecies?

Netsurfer733 wrote:

Milisim wrote:I gave up trying to make sense of it and have simply accepted the fact they are a cool army with garbage fluff....

Im surprised the Blood Angels chilling with the Necrons didn't irk you though since thats the biggest cock up in it to me.

What are you talking about? On both fronts?

Hasn't bothered me since the saguinar pretty much is the Deceiver.

....clearly I'm missing some things that weren't in the 3rd and current edition Necron codecies?

The Deceiver is a shape shifting manipulator.

What is more likely, that the Sanguinor is the manifestation of Sanguinius' noble nature or just the Deceiver hiding in a new form. Golden body, appears out of no where, barely a myth, conflict reports on his origins? Sounds like the Deceiver's work to me.

Wasn't this before the eldar fell? /I imagine they where quite formidable back then.

nomotog wrote:Wasn't this before the eldar fell? /I imagine they where quite formidable back then.

Very formidable and in much greater numbers. The bulk of the Eldar race died when Slaanesh was born and the home worlds of the Eldar all fell as the Eye of Terror enveloped them. The Eldar and Dark Eldar combined are but a fraction of what the Eldar Race once was. We have no idea what the Eldar were like at that time, except from what we can infer from the existing Dark Eldar and Eldar races.

Can someone write a letter to mister ward about if there are still enslavers or not?

Sure, let me find someone who cares and we'll get right on it.

Does it really matter? Does the Story of the Emperors origin have any more or less relevance now that it is not specifically spelled out for you in current 40k lore?

The stories till exist, they simply are no longer relevant to the game, and the fluff is meant to drive the game.

Lucre wrote:Can someone write a letter to mister ward about if there are still enslavers or not?

No need. Trazyn the Infinate has the ossified husk of an Enslaver in his collection.

Eh, the Enslavers were always a sort of deus ex machina reason for the Necrons to go into stasis anyway. So the Necrons are winning against everyone, everywhere, including the fledgling Eldar, and then random warp entities pop in and kill almost every sentient being? So the Necrons just go to sleep. Lame.

Ward's new fluff is, surprisingly, better (maybe just because it jives with what I always liked to think). This version of events implies that the Eldar myths about their gods are actually at least partially true. It's very cool to think that, if the Chaos gods can be real, why couldn't the Eldar gods have been real? If the Emperor is a god among men, couldn't the Eldar gods really have walked among the Eldar? Could their myths about their own creation have to do with the Old Ones, and their myths about the war in heaven actually be based in some fact, where they and their gods really did turn the tide against the Necrons and force them into stasis?

Nowhere in the Eldar myths does it say "we were losing the war in heaven really badly, and then all of our brains got eaten by warp creatures." The Enslaver fluff in the old Necron codex made the Necron backstory simple and clean, but left the Eldar backstory a garbled mess. Ward's new fluff, against all odds, reconciles both races histories.

There are many things that could open up a whole new thread about the fluff.
What I don't like is the reason the C'Tan are gone and only Shards of their power remain. I feel Ward could keep the C'Tan in the fluff with with only a little bit of retconing.
And if the C'Tan were still in the picture, things would be a lot simpler. After all, Necrons don't kill for fun: they kill to feed their gods.
If you come to think of it, the old codex did not actually make the Necrons totally genocidal. When they saw life was almost exterminated, they preferred to go into hibernation rather than kill everything of. Which (with the old fluff) they could easily.

Enslavers were possibly one of the reasons why the Old Ones were defeated

Codex: Necrons P7

Ultimately, beset by the implacable onset of the C'tan and the calamitous Warp - spawned perils they had themselves mistakenly unleashed, the Old Ones were defeated, scattered and finally destroyed.

This could be Enslavers or it could be Daemons or something else. In Liber Chaotica it's mentioned that when the Eldar asked their Gods to intervene during the war in heaven, Daemons came over from the Warp as well. Liber Chaotica is a bit nuts though, it's from the perspective of someone investigating Chaos who goes quite a bit bonkers.

I like the new reason myself. It makes sense to me, they were outnumbered, over stretched and surrounded. As immortal creatures why not wait? The enemy was flesh and blood, while long lived was just mortal. The Necrons could wait. The again part of it was pure remorse and depression on the silent kings part.

I myself am liking the new fluff better then the old fluff.

One thing I cannot completely understand is, how were the Necrons considered "weakened" as per the new fluff?

Their numbers decreased? Sure. But what about now, in the 41st millenium? I doubt procreation is something Necrons are into. Logically, if 1 trillion Necrons went into stasis 60 million years ago, 1 trillion would awake (except for Tomb Worlds that have been lost through destruction, malfunction or other occurrence).

So, given the fact that Necrons numbers can be considered static, since, barring total destruction they can always come back, wouldn't they know that, actually, they will always be outnumbered? (but never outgunned though )

So again, how would a race of robots that repair nearly all damage to themselves relatively easily, never tire and never need to eat, drink, sleep etc, and also have the absolutely best technology in the entire galaxy, be considered "weakened" or "exhausted"?

angelshade00 wrote:One thing I cannot completely understand is, how were the Necrons considered "weakened" as per the new fluff?

Their numbers decreased? Sure. But what about now, in the 41st millenium? I doubt procreation is something Necrons are into. Logically, if 1 trillion Necrons went into stasis 60 million years ago, 1 trillion would awake (except for Tomb Worlds that have been lost through destruction, malfunction or other occurrence).

So, given the fact that Necrons numbers can be considered static, since, barring total destruction they can always come back, wouldn't they know that, actually, they will always be outnumbered? (but never outgunned though )

So again, how would a race of robots that repair nearly all damage to themselves relatively easily, never tire and never need to eat, drink, sleep etc, and also have the absolutely best technology in the entire galaxy, be considered "weakened" or "exhausted"?

Just because they can repair, doesn't mean they will. Everything has a breaking point.

You also have to look at the silent king. He simply was tired and ashamed and wanted to just be gone really. He got everything he ever wanted and all it cost him was his, people and his soul. They were worn down, outnumbers and honestly mentally sapped.

So he left and told them to go to sleep. I think he may have over did the time, then again maybe not. The Eldra just killed themselves off less then 20k years ago, Orks are still booting around. sure he lost some and some of the people are in dire need or repair, but they are coming out with the old enemies gone.

No one is as butthurt over the Necron retcon as I am.

This part makes decent sense though.

The Necrons had to lick their wounds after shattering and imprisoning the C'tan, and couldn't do that while sustaining a war with the Eldar. Remember, the Enslaver Plague doesn't seem to have happened anymore, so the Eldar were not as weakened.

Speaking purely fluff wise, I felt that Necrons needed a dialing back on the "god-mode" factor. In a lot of ways, Tyranids and Necrons were filling the same niche. Walking, unstoppable plot devices. It... was getting pretty stale on both counts.

I'm glad the 'crons got the new paint job. That they lost to the Eldar makes them more likable to me than "We were winning so hard that when the Enslavers wiped everything out, we had to stop winning for a really long time so we could win hard some more later". That was just annoying.

And it isn't as if the Eldar have the same problem, being sacrifice/fail prone as they are. I mean damn, it isn't as if taking out a tomb lord in single combat is a fluff rite-of-passage the way kicking around an Avatar is.

No, chances are the C'tan Shards are going to fill that role.