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I've been gone from 40k for about a year and am just now starting to leak back into the game. It was a much-needed, refreshing break but I needed my fix for the Grim and Dark future. One of the big things I know happened in my absence was the new Necron Codex. I heard they changed a lot of the fluff. Anyone care to give me a crash course on the new Necron fluff? New stuff and old stuff that changed? What got retconned?

C'tan were shattered into pieces and are now used as slaves of the Necrons in war.

That's the biggest change.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
C'tan were shattered into pieces and are now used as slaves of the Necrons in war.

That's the biggest change.

So how does that affect the whole "Nightbringer released by the Ultramarines" and "The Void Dragon is the Machine God" thing?

I guess the biggest change is that individual leaders now have a personality of sorts. Gone are the emotionless hordes of metal men ... well, almost. The basic Necron Warrior is still as much of an automaton as ever, but the higher you go in the hierarchy, the more individuality you will find. I think you could sorta compare the Newcrons (hah!) to WHFB's Tomb Kings. Not only do they share a certain similarity in style (undead Egyptians!), now they are led by unique Lords who all differ slightly from one another in terms of ambition and practices. The new Necron Lords can get angry, arrogant, or even boastful.

That's the most important bit in a nutshell, I think.

*takes deep breath*

1) C'tan are no longer the masters. The Necrons revolted against the C'tan after obliterating the Old Ones and successfully shattered and imprisoned them. C'tan shards are now slaves.
2) Necrons now rely on the Webway for FTL travel via Dolmen Gates (these things rip a hole into the Webway allowing a brief window of time for Crons to send forces through) as Inertia-less drive has been retconned (DAMN YOU WARD!!!!!!). This of course is peculiar as they do have reliable time travel (Look at Orikan the Diviner for example)
3) Necrons have much more personality. Of course the Lords, Pariahs, and Flayed Ones had personalities before (to varying degrees) but this has been much expanded upon with Lychguard, Crypteks, Triach Praetorians, etc. and to a lesser extent Deathmarks and Immortals (well, let's leave at they're not mindless which really only the Warriors are).
4) There are no Pariahs in the book (aside from one picture) and no mention of anyone creating the Pariah gene. If anything, Pariahs are attempts for Necrons to reobtain bodies of flesh.
5) Flayed Ones are now insane robots infected by the remnants of an utterly destroyed C'tan who have the munchies. In other words, straight out of a B, no, C grade horror film (DAMN YOU WARD!!!!)
6) Wraiths no longer are former murders/some sort of violent psychopaths. They're Canoptek constructs (like Scarabs and Tomb Spyders).
7) Crons have seperate dynasties that make up their fairly splintered empire.
8) Destroyers are Nihilistic Crons that want to kill all life.
...

and that's all I got off the top of my head.

Lexicanum has been updated for Newcrons since December. Can just take a look there.

 Lynata wrote:
I guess the biggest change is that individual leaders now have a personality of sorts.

This has always been the case, it was just more understated in the older fluff.

Void__Dragon wrote:This has always been the case, it was just more understated in the older fluff.

Huh, really? I've always just seen them as legions of single-minded T-800 knock-offs, really.
I know as little about the 'crons as I know about the Eldar, though, so my insight is lacking. From how people have nerdraged about it, I thought it was a pretty major change.

That being said, wouldn't be the first time that a supposed retcon has actually been there all along and people simply skipped it.

 Lynata wrote:
Huh, really? I've always just seen them as legions of single-minded T-800 knock-offs, really.
I know as little about the 'crons as I know about the Eldar, though, so my insight is lacking. From how people have nerdraged about it, I thought it was a pretty major change.

That being said, wouldn't be the first time that a supposed retcon has actually been there all along and people simply skipped it.

They weren't the cackling, mustache-twirling, dastardly cartoon villains they are now, but the upper echelons of the Necrons have always had personalities, aka the Lords, Flayed Ones, Pariahs, and IIRC Immortals (Destroyers as well, being modified Immortals). They weren't quite what they were before they were encased in Living Metal, some decay of their persona occurred, but they were not mindless.