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You can actually combine the two Necron canons almost seamlessly.

The earlier version can be explained as the lowest level systems of the Necron Nodal Command coming online first, while the majority of the higher level units were still in stasis. The only major source of info for Xenos Inquisitors was the Eldar, and since they have their heads shoved so far up their own asses their GI tract looks like a Klein Bottle pretty much everything they said regarding the Necrons was uncut groxdung. After Necrons with more of their personalities intact started to wake up, the Imperium was able to hear the other side of the story and split the difference between the two to figure out what really happened.

The difference in Tomb Spyder design could be excused as the earlier model being a budget design, with the more intricate models representing a higher quality version that was logistically impossible to produce enough of at the time, but as the Necrons wake up they can produce enough new Spyders to replace the old low-bidder ones.

The only aspect of the Necron Canon Update that can't be easily explained is the Necron Pariah. Either they never existed, they still exist but are kept away from the fighting for some reason, or it was a case of Imperial observers mistaking a high-ranking Necron with a personality and a more 'fleshed-out' body for a Necron-Human hybrid.

Nah, the only thing that needs explaining between oldcron canon and newcron canon is how the C'tan were destroyed.

Oh, and Wraiths, I guess.

Pariahs are easy. They've been temporarily recalled to build up their numbers until they can be revealed again once their numbers are sufficient and they've got a hold on the whole "not linked into the ressurection protocol network" issue they were suffering from while deployed.

Even the "Imotekh's ship had shields" thing can be explained away by them being experimental 'cause he's the mother frakking Stormlord.

But......now we can't rage about it. What's the point?

Nothing needs to be reconciled really. The first shot was just a test drive. THey tried to explain the neuron, but it took all the flavor out of them and gave it all to the CTan, which was interesting but flawed.

They corrected it with the new book, though many liked the old fluff better.

You could also argue that the Imperium's first exposure to Necrons were to those being controlled by C'tan shards. The shard itself having prevented the reanimation protocol for the higher level entities in the Tomb World its forces came from.

There's no conflict. You're either TruCron or Newcron.

The old codex was essentially Codex : C'tan and their robot minions.

Kinda boring really.

Except that it wasn't boring for a lot of people.

I hope the next Codex takes us slightly back in that direction and away from Necron Lords talking too much. Also FTL travel would be nice to have back.

Maynarkh (Fall of Orpheus) is an actually good compromise for people who want a good mix of TruCron and NewCron.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Maynarkh (Fall of Orpheus) is an actually good compromise for people who want a good mix of TruCron and NewCron.

Very true. Love that book.

For every dynasty that controls a shard, there could be a shard that controls Necrons. Imagine if a shard came across an unawakened tomb world, or one in the early stages of reanimation. It would take its pawns and prevent a full awakening or destroy the upper echelons of the Necrontyr before they ever even wake. Possibly even force the stronger units to submit if their means fell in the right range.
The C'tan are pursuing their reassimilation, using Necrons as pawns. The Necrontyr are pursuing their own goals (reunification in the case of the largest subfaction), using the shards as a weapon. The two need not be mutually exclusive.

There could/should probably be a supplement pushing te C'tan angle when they update Necrons.

 Medium of Death wrote:
Except that it wasn't boring for a lot of people.

I hope the next Codex takes us slightly back in that direction and away from Necron Lords talking too much. Also FTL travel would be nice to have back.

I like that the Necron brass are charismatic.
It makes them interesting and fun. While also keeping them from being so relentlessly grimdark.

I agree. I like both types of fluff though and the new fluff allows for you to field either with equal ability.

The current is much deeper and more complex, which I appreciated.

Just as long as they never mention the krork again... Hate that part of the Oldcron background so much.

 Lord-Captain Cepinari wrote:


The difference in Tomb Spyder design could be excused as the earlier model being a budget design, with the more intricate models representing a higher quality version that was logistically impossible to produce enough of at the time, but as the Necrons wake up they can produce enough new Spyders to replace the old low-bidder ones.

Artwork in the Newcron codex (page 4 in particular) depicts canoptek constructs as a whole array of buglike creatures with no uniform design. The models in game are just representations.

zeromaeus wrote:
The Necrontyr are pursuing their own goals (reunification in the case of the largest subfaction), using the shards as a weapon.

In the Codex this is portrayed as a last resort though if I recall correctly. The Necrons are terrified of the C'tan reassembling themselves. Some of them investigate any possiblity of a free C'tan shard.

Though the Tesseract Vault background makes them seem much more like a weapon (deliberately setting C'tan shards free).

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:

zeromaeus wrote:
The Necrontyr are pursuing their own goals (reunification in the case of the largest subfaction), using the shards as a weapon.

In the Codex this is portrayed as a last resort though if I recall correctly. The Necrons are terrified of the C'tan reassembling themselves. Some of them investigate any possiblity of a free C'tan shard.

Though the Tesseract Vault background makes them seem much more like a weapon (deliberately setting C'tan shards free).

Yeah its a last resort, but a potent weapon in their arsenal nonetheless.
The more I think about it, the more I want a C'tan supplement. Or more in the next codex. A supplement is more likely.

dan2026 wrote:The old codex was essentially Codex : C'tan and their robot minions.

Kinda boring really.

What, you mean like Space Marines are basically Codex: Calgar and his armoured minions?

Medium of Death wrote:Except that it wasn't boring for a lot of people.

I hope the next Codex takes us slightly back in that direction and away from Necron Lords talking too much. Also FTL travel would be nice to have back.

Well, according to IA12, which post-dates the codex, we do still have our FTL inertialess drives. The Sautekh dynasty just kinda sucks. Comparing oldcrons, newcrons, and Maynarkh, it becomes increasingly obvious that Ward's pet dynasty are basically the Necron equivalent of an Amish commune...

 dan2026 wrote:
The old codex was essentially Codex : C'tan and their robot minions.

Kinda boring really.

BUT THEY WERE SO BADASS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ELc2zjd4dM

 Gogsnik wrote:
Just as long as they never mention the krork again... Hate that part of the Oldcron background so much.

How come? I like that ork are part of the bio weapons against the Ctan. They were supposed to be the final solution so to speak.

The problem with Newcrons is that they have no alien nature. They act exactly like humans In fact, they have no motivation at all rather than the utterly banal one of "return dynasties to glory" (why? You're 60 million years old and you care about something as petty as ths?)

They are absolutely the most human "alien" race in 40K, ironically.

The thing about Oldcron fluff is that, while it was awesome, it was kind of redundant with Tyranids. It's a bit silly to have two entire factions that were mindless hordes out to scour the galaxy of all life. The good thing about the update is that it doesn't invalidate the Oldcron fluff, it just shows that it's only one facet of the faction.

I do agree that inertialess drives were one of the coolest bits of Oldcron tech, and it's nice to see them mentioned in the Forge World stuff. Having them use the Webway is boring and silly.

 PhillyT wrote:
How come? I like that ork are part of the bio weapons against the Ctan. They were supposed to be the final solution so to speak.

Because it pooped all over the established ork background for no reason at all and that whole 'the Old Ones did it' is far too Star Trek for me (not that I have a downer for ST or anything) what's wrong with the various races being their own thing, why do they all have to be the creation of the Old Ones? To me, the whole idea is garbage. At least for the Eldar they were a race distinct from the Old Ones, they were simply helped along a bit because it was expedient for the Old Ones to do so. I don't say it was necessary to have the Old Ones do anything of the sort mind but fundamentally it didn't alter anything.

The next obvious question would be, if I don't like the RT Ork background having been so badly mauled by the Oldcron Codex how come I don't have an issue with the GorkaMorka retcon? Simple; that added to the Ork background positively and it makes more sense. RT had the orks go off into the wilderness to pup a yoof which they kept in a pouch like a marsupial and squigs were some kind of Tyranid creature. The 2nd Ed Codex briefly mentions ork mothers. GorkaMorka made sense of everything and made the orks more distinct.

It's the same for the Necrons, if we were to discount the entire 3rd Ed Codex and simply see the current Codex as the next step from the initial background presented in White Dwarf then there is a natural progression and the hints that were dropped all those years ago make sense, the dynasties, the Silent King, all of it. I will say that the Red Harvest was a section of that Codex which was good, and in what it did with Pariahs fit with what we had learnt about them in the 2nd Ed Codex Assassins (disappointingly damaged by the Horus Heresy novel Nemesis).

It's interesting that Alcibiades mentions that the Necrons are the most human of the races. Going by the Red Harvest background the C'tan ceded humanity with the Pariah gene but the War in Heaven occurred millions of years before humans existed. We could say that human evolution occurred as a direct result of whatever manipulations were carried out by the C'tan on some ancient creature at that time. It could well have been that there was more connection between the Necrontyr and Humans than overtly mentioned which also tied in with Mechanicum but that's by-the-by now.

 Lord-Captain Cepinari wrote:
You can actually combine the two Necron canons almost seamlessly.

The earlier version can be explained as the lowest level systems of the Necron Nodal Command coming online first, while the majority of the higher level units were still in stasis. The only major source of info for Xenos Inquisitors was the Eldar, and since they have their heads shoved so far up their own asses their GI tract looks like a Klein Bottle pretty much everything they said regarding the Necrons was uncut groxdung. After Necrons with more of their personalities intact started to wake up, the Imperium was able to hear the other side of the story and split the difference between the two to figure out what really happened.

The difference in Tomb Spyder design could be excused as the earlier model being a budget design, with the more intricate models representing a higher quality version that was logistically impossible to produce enough of at the time, but as the Necrons wake up they can produce enough new Spyders to replace the old low-bidder ones.

The only aspect of the Necron Canon Update that can't be easily explained is the Necron Pariah. Either they never existed, they still exist but are kept away from the fighting for some reason, or it was a case of Imperial observers mistaking a high-ranking Necron with a personality and a more 'fleshed-out' body for a Necron-Human hybrid.

THIS.

Pretty much sums up my thoughts.

I'm just going out an a limb and saying Pariahs still exist. They are one hell of an experiment, not really part of the Necron army, some crazy off shoot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alcibiades wrote:
The problem with Newcrons is that they have no alien nature. They act exactly like humans In fact, they have no motivation at all rather than the utterly banal one of "return dynasties to glory" (why? You're 60 million years old and you care about something as petty as ths?)

They are absolutely the most human "alien" race in 40K, ironically.

What if intelligent design is pretty much the same across the board, because of chaos influencing creation as a whole in this galaxy, thanks to the Necrontyr being one of the first races to start killing things? Before that, the Old Ones and their creations were all peaceful perfectly understanding of each other - there was no need for war because technology and spirituality was it it's peak?

Alcibiades wrote:
The problem with Newcrons is that they have no alien nature. They act exactly like humans In fact, they have no motivation at all rather than the utterly banal one of "return dynasties to glory" (why? You're 60 million years old and you care about something as petty as ths?)

They are absolutely the most human "alien" race in 40K, ironically.

Except their old version was 'Tyranids with a metal shell' except they just kill off a planet and move on.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
The problem with Newcrons is that they have no alien nature. They act exactly like humans In fact, they have no motivation at all rather than the utterly banal one of "return dynasties to glory" (why? You're 60 million years old and you care about something as petty as ths?)

They are absolutely the most human "alien" race in 40K, ironically.

Except their old version was 'Tyranids with a metal shell' except they just kill off a planet and move on.

In goals, yes. But they were very different in design. And so darn cool!

Except even the Oldcrons had a sinister use for the humans that they didn't kill off, according to the story by an Ulthwe farseer in the end of the 3rd ed codex, where Pariahs are herding humans into a monolith-style building.

Necrons were not ever going to just consume like the Tyranids. They were evil like the Chaos Gods' worshippers, where they wanted to do horrible things to appease their gods.

I think it's absolutely true that the Necrons are the most human (and by extension arguably least imaginative) of the alien races.

Their motivations as given in the codex are all completely human. And they're written just like humans. They even care about "honor." And collecting things! There's not even any of the inscrutability of the Eldar. They're just Dungeons and Dragons liches in space.

It is for this reason that I consider the codex to be unimaginative and bad, from a fluff POV. It really pisses me off.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Well, according to IA12, which post-dates the codex, we do still have our FTL inertialess drives. The Sautekh dynasty just kinda sucks.

Where is that mentioned? The Sautekh are the most powerful after the great sleep, and third most powerful before. They do not suck.

Alcibiades wrote:
(why? You're 60 million years old and you care about something as petty as ths?)

Most of them were inactive for those millions of years. How is it petty anyway?

 Bludbaff wrote:
I do agree that inertialess drives were one of the coolest bits of Oldcron tech, and it's nice to see them mentioned in the Forge World stuff. Having them use the Webway is boring and silly.

What was so good about inertialess drives? The ability to go anywhere in the galaxy in the blink of an eye seems silly for the setting and would make the Necrons unbeatable. Meanwhile having them use the webway sets up their slow awakening and more conflict with the Eldar in interesting environs.

Alcibiades wrote:
Their motivations as given in the codex are all completely human. And they're written just like humans. They even care about "honor." And collecting things!

And the Oldcrons cared about hatred and revenge. Very human drives.
The C'tan liked good food and the Deceiver was a lover of melodrama. Very human again.

Animus wrote:


Where is that mentioned? The Sautekh are the most powerful after the great sleep, and third most powerful before. They do not suck..

It doesn't outright say they suck. But the Maynarkh have FTL drives and the Solemnace can teleport across the galaxy, so it kind of becomes obvious. The only thing we have saying that the Sautekh are the 'most powerful' is a statement directly to that effect with no corroborating evidence, that is presented as the Sautekh themselves claiming it to be true!

In any case, I don't believe that the Dolmen Gates were meant to replace the Inertialess Drive at all. Well. Really, I think the problem is that Mat Ward never read the Battlefleet Gothic Necron stuff, but thats another matter. Assuming that he's not an ignorant moron, he probably decided that the Inertialess Drive has a limited range, and that they needed Dolmen Gates to travel between distant parts of their galaxy-spanning empire. After all, the dolmen gate above Sanctuary 101 was stated to be one of only four that the Necrons had access to at the current time, and the fourth one wasn't Sautekh in the golden age of the Necron empire! That means that the "third most powerful Necron dynasty", without FTL, would have had the ability to control three systems with just their own dolmen gates, which is nothing. Either the Sautekh are talking a load of gak, or they had Inertialess Drive to travel to systems nearby their Dolmen Gate 'transit hubs'.

Animus wrote:

 Bludbaff wrote:
I do agree that inertialess drives were one of the coolest bits of Oldcron tech, and it's nice to see them mentioned in the Forge World stuff. Having them use the Webway is boring and silly.

What was so good about inertialess drives? The ability to go anywhere in the galaxy in the blink of an eye seems silly for the setting and would make the Necrons unbeatable. Meanwhile having them use the webway set's up their slow awakening and more conflict with the Eldar in interesting environs.

It was something new, something that no other faction had. It was a unique selling point that made the Necrons a credible threat. By forcing them to use the Webway, even without the points mentioned above, you're basically saying that the awesome, massive Necron empire only came into existence in the what, hundred years between meeting the Eldar and entering the Long Sleep? Dolmen Gates force Necrons to play second fiddle to the Eldar, which means they can't be seen as a credible threat to them - despite the fact that they were.