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 Wyzilla wrote:


Which you still don't seem to realize has absolutely nothing to do with efficiency? Machines are superior, it's an undeniable fact or how thermodynamics work, because living organisms need more energy to sustain than a machine and are far less efficient. This is also ignoring that the Tyranids are fething stupid to constantly devour organic tissue like they do right now in 40, it's not energy efficient and means they're always in a constant neck and neck race between starvation and life. Intelligently designed Tyranids that weren't seemingly designed by a child right after they saw ALIEN would feed off nuclear power or generate it themselves. Fusion power is as close to free as you get in the universe, and would ensure the Nids were never lacking any energy, ever. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it'd take billions of years until they ran out.

What you don't seem to get is that Tyranids aren't designed. They are evolved. Yes, machines are more efficient than living organisms. Notice how life on this planet hasn't evolved to be machines, despite it being more efficient?

While there are intelligent tyranids, it doesn't appear to be a long-term evolutionary benefit for all of them--just like here on earth. Locusts and sharks and beetles and amoebas get along just fine without much of it, thank you.

Things don't evolve to be 'the best'. They evolve to be good enough. The tyranid strategy is good enough to allow their 'DNA' (or whatever they have in place of it) to continue to multiply and survive. Sharks have been around quite some time, and still aren't perfect. But enough of them survive to reproduce (for the most part). It would be more efficient for them to be internally powered by fusion reactors, but that hasn't happened in millions of years. There's just no evidence, anywhere, that the tyranid ecosystem is constructed by some intelligence to be particularly efficient. In fact, it's BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS that efficiency isn't the goal (consuming all the sustainable biomass on a planet isn't terribly clever). The tyranid strategy appears to be rampant reproduction and a constant wave of growth/invasion. There's no evidence whatsoever that the tyranids are intending some sort of long term inhabitation of the planets/systems that they infect. The entire theme behind tyranids is diametrically opposed to efficiency. They are conspicuous consumption made manifest. You might as well point out that if the orks would stop fighting each other and cooperate they would be a lot more successful.

If there was some suggestion that the Tyranids were designed to inhabit ecosystems for a long period of time, I would agree with you, but there isn't. Who knows, maybe they were designed to wipe out life so a subsequent robot race could come in and live on nice, quiet planets.

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Oh. Because that “true vs poseur” terminology is strong in metal .

Nah, I think it's just that Metal is often very, very British.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:That is fine, except then it was shoehorned that the 'ancient ones' created the orks and eldar together to fight the Oldcrons, thus tacking it onto necron fluff, rather then the orks themselves being a specially bred genetic species of the cousin species of 'brainboyz' for tasks.

With the Orks being bred specifically to fight, and yet they and the Eldar weren't destroyed once the Enslaver plague washed over the galaxy and the Necrons didn't end up killing them either..? It just doesn't really add up in their fluff.

Heck, if the Orks were created to fight the Necrons, the spore on death would be absolutely useless considering that the Gauss Flayers stripped the flesh of a being down to nothing, there wouldn't BE anything left to spread, and the C'tan or Necrons would have identified it after a few battles and figured out how to purge them even if they didn't.

Actually, its because that was part of the Gorkamorka fluff, which was all built around introducing the Necrons. :p

The Brainboyz concept was introduced in an extract from a 'scientific journal'. Around the same time, the Diggas were introduced to Gorka Morka as a bunch of AdMech explorators who were shipwrecked on Angelis and moved into their dig site under the pyramids, where they encountered active Necrons. The Necrons for whatever reason allowed the Explorators to live in their tomb complex, and in fact actively defended them against the Orks, although they never left the complex.

This was back in the late 90s, when the design team actually put a lot of thought and work into their creations and additions to the game.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Nah, I think it's just that Metal is often very, very British.

British? But Blind Guardian, Rhapsody of Fire, Gojira, Iced Earth, usw!

 Wyzilla wrote:
Machines are superior, it's an undeniable fact or how thermodynamics work, because living organisms need more energy to sustain than a machine and are far less efficient.

I disagree, and I do not see the link between that and thermodynamics.

While there is a lot of bad fluff out there, to me the bit about the Imperium being stronger than ever in M41 is the worst. It's a perversion of the Warhammer 40,000 fluff and it is proof enough for me that the guy who writes the fluff needs to be slapped in the face with every 40K fluff book in existence and then fired.

i like almost all of the fluff, i'm very easy to please that way. i can even find some time for CS Goto - The Trial Of The Mantis Warriors is a good story even if the rest of his stuff is crap. But the thing that I do hate is most of the Space Wolves fluff. It's hammy even by 40k standards. i do like the HH Space Wolves books though, and the novel Battle For The Fang. So even then I'm not completely opposed to it.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 TheSilo wrote:
When machines and the creations of civilization are left alone there are two things that happen. The machines deteriorate and nature reclaims them.

Without constant attention most of our buildings, roads, and machines are indistinguishable from nature within a few decades. Life on the other hand is self-sustaining, it is efficient because organisms are driven to survive. Think of people as very complicated biological machines, every organ carefully crafted over millions of years of evolution, trillions of cells and bacterium in the body helping to digest food, prevent infection...nature developed whales long before humans ever created ships, and I'm guessing that whales will still be around long after all of our ships have rusted out.

Which you still don't seem to realize has absolutely nothing to do with efficiency? Machines are superior, it's an undeniable fact or how thermodynamics work, because living organisms need more energy to sustain than a machine and are far less efficient. This is also ignoring that the Tyranids are fething stupid to constantly devour organic tissue like they do right now in 40, it's not energy efficient and means they're always in a constant neck and neck race between starvation and life. Intelligently designed Tyranids that weren't seemingly designed by a child right after they saw ALIEN would feed off nuclear power or generate it themselves. Fusion power is as close to free as you get in the universe, and would ensure the Nids were never lacking any energy, ever. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it'd take billions of years until they ran out.

One reason that biotech is so inefficient is that each cell requires a certain temperature level to work efficiently, and given that tyranid biotech has to work in space, it will not always be getting the energy bonus of being on a planet. It will have to expend massive amounts of energy keeping warm. Non-biological technology only needs to keep warm certain relevant areas, not the entire structure.

And metal tends not to bleed.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:


Despite the fact that is very, very stupid. Considering it was said he was the one who put the fear of 'death' into every race Except the Orks, who still feel freakin fear! Heck several Ork players I know despite the Necron codex for trying to shoehorn them in a biological weapon against the Necron alongside the Eldar.

Blame that on inconsistency of fluff. Sometimes Orks are portrayed as utterly fearless in the face of death to the point of foolishness (Deff Skwadron, for example), and other times they're cowardly when not outnumbering their enemy a hundred to one.

I don't care about the feelings of buttmad Ork players.

Then there's the fact that Necrons, being metal tyranids never really suffered much of anything that could be considered a 'loss', they always won, it was a very Pyrrhic victory and that the Necrons aren't even hurt..

Mary Sue oldcrons pretty much, still don't like em.

They still barely ever suffer anything that could be resembled a loss.


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 TheCustomLime wrote:
I like the Newcron fluff. It at least gave players more options for how they want to present their force and gives reasons why Necrons would fight each other. If you love the Oldcron fluff it's still there for you to enjoy.

So yeah, more options is better.

More options is always better? No, it can make the faction aimless, and oftentimes stupid. The Space Wolves have the same problem. Too many different portrayals of the same faction.

"It's still there for you to enjoy" lol, yeah, in like a paragraph. A pretty huge chunk of the new fluff is about how the newcrons are metal men with feelings. Feelings that can be broken.

Making the Necrons a "sympathetic" faction was a big mistake. As was making most of the other content focused around them being Silver Age comic book villains.


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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

British? But Blind Guardian, Rhapsody of Fire, Gojira, Iced Earth, usw!

Scandinavia seems to more or less dominate the Metal scene these days.

If you really don't like the Newcron fluff you can just eschew it and go with the Oldcron fluff. I understand that some people may have preferred that the faction remain mysterious, unfeeling horrors as a whole but others would prefer robots with motivations they can identify with. Better yet, they gave you the option of going either way.

The difference between Newcron/Oldcron is that both can coexist while the contradicting portrayals of Space Wolves cannot.

They still barely ever suffer anything that could be resembled a loss.

I dunno, Sicarius took down a Transcendent C'tan on his self and people still complain to this day from that warzone.

But at least they can lose, before it was it doesn't even matter if you damaged the tomb world, they'd just go to any tomb world across the galaxy. Now things can mess up, or if it's not the right dynasty they can't just teleport in, one of the major Necron Leaders is severely inconvenienced by Orks, and Altioc is mentioned to have caused an intentional flayer curse across a dynasty to cause it hell.

remain mysterious, unfeeling horrors

Not really mysterious considering we knew everything in general about them, and the C'tan that controlled them, we even knew their motivation towards killing everything to try and eventually set up a web of Pylons that could shut the warp off completely.

 Selym wrote:
One reason that biotech is so inefficient is that each cell requires a certain temperature level to work efficiently

You mean those from earth. Not necessarily the fact for tyranid. Remember, those are made of handwavium, like every tech in 40k.

 Selym wrote:
and given that tyranid biotech has to work in space, it will not always be getting the energy bonus of being on a planet. It will have to expend massive amounts of energy keeping warm.

Wait, what, why?
I never heard that keeping the temperature to reasonable level was a big energy expense in flight in space. The organism that are going to travel directly in space could just have a very good thermal shell. But do they even need that? I mean space is full of nothing, and therefore has a very, very low thermal inertia, so would things cool off that quick in space?

 Selym wrote:
And metal tends not to bleed.

It tends not to grow back either.


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 Void__Dragon wrote:
Scandinavia seems to more or less dominate the Metal scene these days.

I guess it depends on which kind of metal you listen to .

Pfft, you don't have to be from England to be British.

All it takes is an innate sense of entitled superiority.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Pfft, you don't have to be from England to be British.

All it takes is an innate sense of entitled superiority.

And, judging by a friend of mine, a wierd semi-erotic fascination wit the lengfield bolt action rigel, which can supposedly be used as a sniper rifle, a carbine, a shotgun, and a machine gun. Bolt action machine gun

Well, the Lee Enfield is pretty awesome as a weapon of its time, but that's not needed to be British, lol. Just British and a gun nut.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Pfft, you don't have to be from England to be British.

All it takes is an innate sense of entitled superiority.

I'm entitled and superior, and I'm from England. Therefore I'm more entitled and superior than your alleged non-english, British people...... and therefore more British.

... now I'm trying to figure out a Britta Filter pun, but I'm not sure its worth it.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
... now I'm trying to figure out a Britta Filter pun, but I'm not sure its worth it.

Yes it is. It is totally worth it.

Space Marines winning impossibly uneven odds.

I understand GW is painting Space Marines as the 'good guys' and pushing them out to be the 'few against many' kind of dudes but it really gets tiring.

I'd like to change my answer to IH fluff changes. It went from independent SM clans with strong ties to Mars to another generic space marine/codex compliant chapter.

I kind of wish that GW would do more to make each chapter feel more like it's own force instead of a different paint scheme.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
If you really don't like the Newcron fluff you can just eschew it and go with the Oldcron fluff. I understand that some people may have preferred that the faction remain mysterious, unfeeling horrors as a whole but others would prefer robots with motivations they can identify with. Better yet, they gave you the option of going either way.

The difference between Newcron/Oldcron is that both can coexist while the contradicting portrayals of Space Wolves cannot.

Oh well I'd prefer the Grey Knights be a cabal of Slaaneshi Marines who rape Eldar children in mass orgy sacrifices. I mean really, all Grey Knights are rigidly determined and strong-willed individuals who live under an iron-clad code of honor, but that's boring, I want to make the Grey Knights a fractured group of varying individuals and allow room for, indeed, Slaaneshi Grey Knight pedophiles. I guess that justifies rewriting all of the fluff in favor of this want, but I'll leave a short blurb that says that there's this one small company of Grey Knights who act like the old Grey Knights do somewhere in the codex. All for the sake of variety.


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 ZebioLizard2 wrote:


I dunno, Sicarius took down a Transcendent C'tan on his self and people still complain to this day from that warzone.

They've almost always lost in Black Library against the protagonists. Or did you forget that Uriel Ventris scared the Nightbringer away in the first Ultramarines book?

In actual codices though? They have a few losses sure. But they also do silly gak like conquer a hundred worlds in what was it? Three months or less? A rate of conquest that would make Macharius green with envy. IIRC they were Imperial worlds too.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
If you really don't like the Newcron fluff you can just eschew it and go with the Oldcron fluff. I understand that some people may have preferred that the faction remain mysterious, unfeeling horrors as a whole but others would prefer robots with motivations they can identify with. Better yet, they gave you the option of going either way.

The difference between Newcron/Oldcron is that both can coexist while the contradicting portrayals of Space Wolves cannot.

Oh well I'd prefer the Grey Knights be a cabal of Slaaneshi Marines who rape Eldar children in mass orgy sacrifices. I mean really, all Grey Knights are rigidly determined and strong-willed individuals who live under an iron-clad code of honor, but that's boring, I want to make the Grey Knights a fractured group of varying individuals and allow room for, indeed, Slaaneshi Grey Knight pedophiles. I guess that justifies rewriting all of the fluff in favor of this want, but I'll leave a short blurb that says that there's this one small company of Grey Knights who act like the old Grey Knights do somewhere in the codex. All for the sake of variety.

Draigo broke when he saw Slaanesh's appearance of a small boy. There may be something there.

I think the prologue in the Ultramarines Omnibus is pretty awful. Can we pretend that it never happened?

If I want to watch Rambo, I'd turn on the damn tv and watch Rambo

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
If you really don't like the Newcron fluff you can just eschew it and go with the Oldcron fluff. I understand that some people may have preferred that the faction remain mysterious, unfeeling horrors as a whole but others would prefer robots with motivations they can identify with. Better yet, they gave you the option of going either way.

The difference between Newcron/Oldcron is that both can coexist while the contradicting portrayals of Space Wolves cannot.

Oh well I'd prefer the Grey Knights be a cabal of Slaaneshi Marines who rape Eldar children in mass orgy sacrifices. I mean really, all Grey Knights are rigidly determined and strong-willed individuals who live under an iron-clad code of honor, but that's boring, I want to make the Grey Knights a fractured group of varying individuals and allow room for, indeed, Slaaneshi Grey Knight pedophiles. I guess that justifies rewriting all of the fluff in favor of this want, but I'll leave a short blurb that says that there's this one small company of Grey Knights who act like the old Grey Knights do somewhere in the codex. All for the sake of variety.

If the Necron's main theme was that they were an unfeeling and unthinking army of robots then you would have a point. As far as I can tell, their role in 40k as the guys with the "More Advanced Tech than anyone else" hat remains despite giving their higher ups a face and a name.

 Brometheus wrote:
I think the prologue in the Ultramarines Omnibus is pretty awful. Can we pretend that it never happened?

If I want to watch Rambo, I'd turn on the damn tv and watch Rambo

I have not read this omnibus, but is it really talking about PTSD and reintegrating into society after the war ? Or did you mean Rambo 2/3 “one man army” ?
My bet is on Rambo 2/3.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

If the Necron's main theme was that they were an unfeeling and unthinking army of robots then you would have a point. As far as I can tell, their role in 40k as the guys with the "More Advanced Tech than anyone else" hat remains despite giving their higher ups a face and a name.

Well let's be clear about something here: That was their point. The "more advanced tech than anyone else" aspect was still true then, but it was given far less page-time than the grimdark, cosmic horror story aspect, nor did it get as much page-time as their coldly robotic presentation. Which of course tied into the advanced tech aspect you mentioned.

Now the alien cosmic horror aspect is gone. Now their ranks are filled with silly, delightfully quirky supervillains, with only like, two Necron characters (Imotekh and Szeras) having any of the oldcron feel. Now they wear silly, garish lolEgyptian outfits instead of the more subdued aesthetic with subtle implications of an Egyptian influence over their design.

Their higher ups having a face and a name? Ah, so we go back to this criticism that I've never made, considering the Necron leaders have always had personalities. While they were never so stupid and cartoonish as some of the robots with feelings you'll find in the newcron codex, they had a level of independence considerably greater than the Warriors, and the lack of focus on that was a big flaw with the third edition, and focusing more on the Necrons themselves is just fine. But the way they did that revamped everything about the faction's feel and presentation. They're not Necrons anymore. They're silly robots with funny hats and goofy character quirks who bombastically blare their orders along the battlefield. Even though part of the oldcrons appeal was how silent they were during battle, the only sound being the blare of their gauss weaponry. It made them intimidating, unsettling. Now they're just like any other faction.

I think the new fluff sucks, by and large. But if people like it? Hey man, that's fine, I might try to debate you on the topic but even I don't think the newcron codex, in of itself, is truly terrible. Just please don't insult my rather considerable intelligence by even suggesting the newcrons aren't a vast departure from what was presented in the third edition codex. They are.

Hahaha no I just don't like how "I'mma kick errrrrrybody in the face with my big boot and shoot errrrrrrrrrrrbody with my bolter real quick" was like 3 pages.

 Void__Dragon wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

If the Necron's main theme was that they were an unfeeling and unthinking army of robots then you would have a point. As far as I can tell, their role in 40k as the guys with the "More Advanced Tech than anyone else" hat remains despite giving their higher ups a face and a name.

Well let's be clear about something here: That was their point. The "more advanced tech than anyone else" aspect was still true then, but it was given far less page-time than the grimdark, cosmic horror story aspect, nor did it get as much page-time as their coldly robotic presentation. Which of course tied into the advanced tech aspect you mentioned.

Now the alien cosmic horror aspect is gone. Now their ranks are filled with silly, delightfully quirky supervillains, with only like, two Necron characters (Imotekh and Szeras) having any of the oldcron feel. Now they wear silly, garish lolEgyptian outfits instead of the more subdued aesthetic with subtle implications of an Egyptian influence over their design.

Their higher ups having a face and a name? Ah, so we go back to this criticism that I've never made, considering the Necron leaders have always had personalities. While they were never so stupid and cartoonish as some of the robots with feelings you'll find in the newcron codex, they had a level of independence considerably greater than the Warriors, and the lack of focus on that was a big flaw with the third edition, and focusing more on the Necrons themselves is just fine. But the way they did that revamped everything about the faction's feel and presentation. They're not Necrons anymore. They're silly robots with funny hats and goofy character quirks who bombastically blare their orders along the battlefield. Even though part of the oldcrons appeal was how silent they were during battle, the only sound being the blare of their gauss weaponry. It made them intimidating, unsettling. Now they're just like any other faction.

I think the new fluff sucks, by and large. But if people like it? Hey man, that's fine, I might try to debate you on the topic but even I don't think the newcron codex, in of itself, is truly terrible. Just please don't insult my rather considerable intelligence by even suggesting the newcrons aren't a vast departure from what was presented in the third edition codex. They are.

I never suggested as much. The new Necron lore may be very different from the old but it's not a complete 180 like the Chaos Grey Knights example. They're still robots with fancy guns that want to murder things and that is and has been their "thing" like purging Chaos is the Grey Knight's "thing". Being cosmic horrors was the Tyranid's thing hence the sentiment that Oldcrons were metal Tyranids but if you feel that was an important part of the Necron lore then fair enough. You certainly are alone and I can see where you are coming from. I just disagree.

As for the leaders, my understanding of old Necron lore was that none of them had any personality to speak of and people liked it that way. If the major change with the leaders was to make them more cartoony then, yeah, that is pretty stupid.

So is the Celestial Orrery, the Fall of Orpheus, that infamous Blood Angel-Necron Alliance, their overdone Egyptian theme you mentioned and... okay, maybe you have a point.

pm713 wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 PhillyT wrote:
The Crimson Fist fluff is stupid for one reason: they had to have the Crimson Fist's own missile system be the reason they were put in a bad position by the invading orks. They couldn't actually have the orks get one over on a chapter, no, they had to put themselves in that poor position.

I don't know, the fact that the Orks took their missile system and managed to use it to screw them over is pretty good for the orks.

The orks tried to damage the missiles, causing a misfire. In that battle, the only thing the orks really managed was to kill some survivors.

If they caused the misfire then surely it's their fault the Chapter was blown up......

Don't think there was any direct involvement, unless something new has been mentioned

IA: Crimson Fists
The Crimson Fists' fortress-monastery had been destroyed. By infernal chance, a single warhead, launched from the Laculum battery, had faltered on its trajectory, falling from the edge of the stratosphere back towards the ground. One single missile should have proved insignificant to the mighty adamantium walls of the fortress -monastery, but this was not the case. The missile struck an unknown weak point, penetrating deep into the rock upon which the fortress stood.

Its fuse set to burrow through the metres thick armoured hide of a starship before striking the chapter's arsenal. The resulting protecting ordnance capable of crippling a capital vessel, ripping the heart out of the mountain on which the fortress stood. The arsenal, the fortress-monastery of the Crimson Fists, the mountain, and an area half a mile wide were atomised in a heartbeat.

But from Codex Assassins

Codex Assassins:

There are even rumours which implicate the Officio Assassinorum in the downfall of certain Space Marine Chapters - the mysterious loss of the Fire Hawks' fleet in the warp, the unexplained destruction of the Crimson Fists' Chapter fortress on Rynn's World, the disastrous ambush of the Angels of Retribution at Alantor X and several other less well-known incidents have all been laid at the assassins' door.

I never suggested as much. The new Necron lore may be very different from the old but it's not a complete 180 like the Chaos Grey Knights example.

Which if you actually read Grey Knights fluff isn't too odd, it's still a stupid meme propagated by /TG/.

The reality is if the GK can and gain resources to try and fight daemons, they will sacrifice their allies to do so, considering they used to purge Marines that they didn't want knowing about them, alongside entire regiments of IG, it really isn't that off.

Don't know if I've already posted this in the thread, but I'd add the failure Blood Ravens to this list. They're only slightly better than the Soul Drinkers, but are still pretty terrible.

 Happyjew wrote:

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Avatars and Battle Sisters, these things exist in 40k fluff for one reason, it seems:

To die in order to show how badass the enemy slaying them is.

Well of course. You aren't badass unlss you can kill human women wearing a suit of power armour. If they didn't kill Sisters by the drove, then they would overwhelm everyone and eventually destroy all serious threats to Mankind (IOW Tyranids, Necrons and Chaos).

Eldar are not included because the Sisters being girls would happily sit down to tea and the two of them would braid each others hair and talk about that Guardsman with the cute butt (you know the one).


Nah, just kidding.