Should the Necrons care about the Tyranids?

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**Sasori**

Tyranids pose a threat to the Necrons Apothesis, This is the main reason the Silent King wants to stop them. If there are no bodies left for the Necrons to transfer back to, then He will will forever live with the fact that he doomed his race to their current condition.

Military wise, the Necrons have very very rarely actually lost a battle to the Tyranids. Most of the Tomb Worlds destroyed by the Tyranids were dormant, I. E. the Charnovok Dynasty. The Necrons are at their weakest when just waking up and dormant. So it's no surprise that they lost a few planets to the Tyranids in this state.

One of the Main reasons that the Nids can't really beat the Necrons, is the fact that the Necrons Have by far, the most sophisticated and powerful Navy in 40k. IA12 is the best example of this, when one of the largest fleets ever assembled by the Imperium got decimated, by a Necron fleet less than 1/4th it's size.

Whoever mentioned the Inertialess drive as being retconned, is completely wrong, It's mentioned in both IA12 and in the new Necron codex.

**Manchu**

Tru/NewCron debate aside,

Sigvatr wrote:
the full and entire destruction of all life in the universe

is not the goal of the Tyranids.

That does raise the question, are tyranids capable of something other than their dormancy/devouring cycle in the case of food scarcity? Does that cycle imply "over-conscious"-level intel that the universe is teeming with life, i.e., food? Otherwise, one might expect the nids to practice agriculture and therefore exhibit at least a kind of insectile territorialism.

**Furyou Miko**

Or a lousy poseur...

**Manchu**

Huh?

**Wyzilla**

Yeah, Tyranids really aren't a threat. Or at least they shouldn't unless they drown you in such great numbers that you lack the ammunition to drop their fleets, but to the Necrons, Imperium, Tau, Eldar, and Chaos, they're a joke outside of numbers. IIRC Tyranid ships can only engage in very close distances, where meanwhile everyone else fights over ranges of hundreds of thousands of kilometers, going into light minutes. The Imperium, Eldar, and Necrons also play around with esoteric weapons such as weaponized black holes (what ship?) Nova Cannons, gauss flayers, warp rifts, etc, which pretty much ignore the durability of what they're pointed at altogether, and instantly kill it. Plus unlike everyone else, Tyranid ships are completely organic from some stupid, nonsensical reason, meaning they would constantly require energy to even stay alive. Let alone move. Oh, they'd also be highly vulnerable to radiation, meaning a gamma ray burst or something else that pumps out large amounts of alpha, beta, and specifically gamma rays would poison and kill it (corrupt the DNA and lead to it falling apart at the seams). And that's before the Tyranids have to support their massive numbers, meaning that they do have a hard cap on the amount of units they can bring into play, especially space, as they only have so much energy. And unlike Imperial or Necrons ships, you can't simply toss more hydrogen into the miniature star powering the ship, Tyranids need old-fashioned calories. Lots of them.

Oh, and Necron ships are certainly faster then Tyranid fleets as well, meaning they could simply play keep-away, constantly going in reverse while lighting up Tyranid Hive Fleets.

They found to their horror the image of a black fleet of unknown vessels silhouetted against the burning death-throes of the battle station, the ships travelling at such near impossible speeds they were in range of Amarah Prime in moments, and there was nothing that could be done to stop them, nor even time to give a warning. The enemy had appeared within the walls.

And typical Necron firepower, so much for those space stations.

Systematically, Amarah Prime was stripped of the defences that so much blood, treasure and time had forged, and Sentinel-2 then Sentinel-1 -- each a battle station with the firepower of an entire cruiser squadron in its own right--were blasted into a pyre of buring wreckage and left to hang like fiery omens in Amarah Prime's night sky.

A Necron fleet the quarter of the size of a major Imperial battlefleet, including sixty Imperial capital ships, makes a mockery of their imperial opponents and slaughters them.

With frightening speed the Necron fleet had closed the empty void between them and was entering extreme weapons range before any more orders could be given or carried out.
The Imperial armada though was first to speak its wrath. Hundreds of torpedoes spat from the launch tubes of the massed destroyers, frigates and cruisers of the Imperial force blazing straight and true on pillars of fire towards the black fleet that awaited them. The Necrons came on undeterred, and as the torpedo swarm drew closer they made no attempt to alter course or evade, and as hundreds of thousands of kilometers of distance was eaten away to tens of thousands, no avoidance maneuvers nor counter-fire issued from the ominous xenos warships.

On the flag bridge of the Arica Dominus, all looked on in breathless silence as the torpedoes entered terminal range. Suddenly, where hundreds of blue icons had flickered on the holo-sphere tracking the projectiles' flight, red alarm glyphs now flashed frantically and simply disappeared. Scores of torpedoes simply ceased to function, rendered inert and powerless by some agency the Imperial battle auspexes could not even detect, while others self-destructed or spun widely off course as if blinded. The few that flew true were simply avoided with contemptuous ease by the Necron vessels, which sped past them at unguessable velocities, or vented their atomic spite uselessly against the impassive black hulls of the great tomb ships, too few to have any real effect. Still the Necron ships, blacker yet against the darkness of the cold void, came on.

Within mere moments the two fleets neared the edge of lance range and the Necrons fired. On the bridges of the Imperial ships alarm sirens howled as massive gravitational distortions were detected hurtling towards them at speeds barely below that of light, and too late the struggling machine spirits and cogitators of the Imperial ships identified them for what they were- fragments of dead stars. These bolts of oblivion shattered void shields in bright actinic flashes and tore open the ships within with savage ease, and up and down the Imperial line, ships both great and small simply flashed out of existence. Alongside the Arica Dominus the battlecruiser Richtenback, which had served the Imperium since before the Great Crusade, was struck amidships and exploded, bathing the armada's flagship in fire and debris, shaking her to her core. Despite the tumult around him Carew issued the order for the armada to come about to broadside and fire at will, and the closing void between the two fleets became a blinding storm of blazing lance beams and plasma fire, hurtling macro-cannon shells and roaring missiles whilst the Necrons answered with a fury all of their own as blasts of emerald and amber light flickered out to splinter hulls and strip away decks. The two fleets interpenetrated and parted, raking each other mercilessly as they passed and Carew watched in horror as the holo-sphere resolved the chaoric details of the battle into some semblance of order, hte casualty lists flickering on it as strange Mechanicus-cant runes which only a trained and augmented eye had any hope of being able to interpret at such speed. Fully a quarter of his ships were registered as destroyed or crippled already compared to so few of the enemy, so very few. Horror mounted on horror for the admiral as the Necron fleet, having flown past, arrested its inertia and turned back upon their course, coming right back at the Imperial ships from behind. It was an utter impossibility and yet it happened before his disbelieving eyes.

Cairn-Class Tombships can one-shot Imperial battleships.

The second attack run was even more devastating than the first. The Imperial ships, caught unexpectedly from behind in their vulnerable rar arcs-blind shots created by their own drive flares-and already reeling in many cases from battle damage, were easy prey and dozens died before they realised the danger or heard Carew's emergency order to break formation. The Retribution class battleship Talisman of Grace was caught before the Sun Killer and sheared in half by its gauss rays, while the heavy cruiser Mendicatus was pulled apart mercilessly by a pack of Necron raiders like a wounded herd animal caught between predator beasts.

Necron Cairn-Class ship obliterates an entire Space Marine fleet in a couple volleys.

Two Necron harvest ships turned and opened fire into the onrushing Space Marine vessels. The battle barge Daughter of Tempests, once the pride of the Lamenters Chapter's fleet and taken as a prize during the Badab War, was blasted asunder and fell from the formation, its entire armoured foresection disintegrating in the Necron crossfire. But the Minotaurs did not relent, even when the Dead Hand's own weapons spoke and shattered the portside hull of the Fedelitas Lambda, and sent a trio of strike cruisers into fiery oblivion.

And this doesn't address how whenever the Tyranids actually manage to win a battle, it's almost always due to the utter incompetence of another party. Like how Iyanden just sat around and refused to heed the advice of Eldrad. Or how Hive Fleets can get stomped by Tau or even a single Eldar.

**Zaki66**

IIRC the last decree of the Silent King (or one of them) was to return to flesh bodies with souls.... and if the bugs nom nom all the fleshy things, there won't be any bodies to return to.

**Xyptc**

Wyzilla wrote:

And this doesn't address how whenever the Tyranids actually manage to win a battle, it's almost always due to the utter incompetence of another party. Like how Iyanden just sat around and refused to heed the advice of Eldrad. Or how Hive Fleets can get stomped by Tau or even a single Eldar.

They win the Satys and Cryptus system wars with no visible incompetence at all on the part of the Imperium and Necrons. In fact, the Necrons conclude that even with one of their supposedly superior-to-all fleets they cannot out-fight the Hive Fleet and so explode the gas giant in the Cryptus system causing a system-wide storm of destruction (and it's still not enough to put the Hive Fleet down).

**koooaei**

Sigvatr wrote:
koooaei wrote:

It's got retconned. Crons are now basically tomb kings in space who want to have their bodies and empire back.

Depends on whether you're TruCron or NewCron.

Is it something like 'True' goth?

**Furyou Miko**

No, its more like being a post-modern radical feminist.

**koooaei**

Furyou Miko wrote:
No, its more like being a post-modern radical feminist.

...i thought it's the same thing...

**Furyou Miko**

PMRFs are angrier about it.

**koooaei**

Furyou Miko wrote:
PMRFs are angrier about it.

OOOOH! Now i see the glaring difference.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anywayzy, the current fluff clearly states that crons - at least part of them - do care bout nids.

**Sigvatr**

koooaei wrote:

Is it something like 'True' goth?

If you're a non-Xenos, non-Eldar player, then go and check your privilege!

**Furyou Miko**

Check yours, Mr I-have-heavy-bolters-for-basic-infantry-weapons.

Just to remind you: I've been playing Necrons longer than you have, I just refuse to be all hipster about it.

**Wyzilla**

Sigvatr wrote:
koooaei wrote:

Is it something like 'True' goth?

If you're a non-Xenos, non-Eldar player, then go and check your privilege!

Chaos. melon-fething. Space. Marines.

The only other army that has been trashed harder by GW are the Sisters. And at least their army wasn't absolutely gutted and turned into a joke with their last Codex.

**Furyou Miko**

I dunno, our (Sisters) fluff was totally gutted and rewritten for Codex: Witch Hunters.

**Wyzilla**

Furyou Miko wrote:
I dunno, our (Sisters) fluff was totally gutted and rewritten for Codex: Witch Hunters.

What used to be four very unique factions and eight interesting sub-armies have been reduced to four different troop choices and one special unit each, and the sub factions entirely removed. Now the only way to get a proper Chaos Space Marine army is use an HH Traitor Legion.

**Furyou Miko**

Remind me just what Thousand Sons used to get that they don't now? I got maybe 1 game with the 3rd edition codex and that was agaisnt.

**Sigvatr**

Furyou Miko wrote:

Just to remind you: I've been playing Necrons longer than you have, I just refuse to be all hipster about it.

Furyou Miko wrote:

I've been playing Necrons longer than you have

Furyou Miko wrote:

I just refuse to be all hipster about it.

...so I'll be all hipster about it!

So you started during...Rogue Trader? Not sure how date of starting relates to acknowlediging the actual Necron fluff or the counterfeit one.

And in the end, Nids cannot do anything against the C'tan. They just don't stand a chance....then again, the same applies to all living beings.

**Furyou Miko**

You persist in ignoring all of the groundwork that was laid in second edition and early third, and then reinforced in the original Apocalypse release, that all pointed towards the newcron fluff.

That is why it is relevant. Because I was there to see that stuff.

Besides, calling the awakened might of the Necrontyr 'counterfit' is just ridiculous. Some things - like the C'tan - might be a mild retcon, but 'coutnerfit'? It's not like the new book was written Fames Workshop.

If I was being hipster, I would be ignoring the new fluff to claim that the older stuff was better and that I was better because I ignored the new stuff. Instead, I'm telling you I'm better because I know more, knowledge being the only measuring stick that matters in this discussion.

**King Pariah**

Can we drop the Oldcron vs. Wardcron stuff? This thread isn't even about that.

But since it was brought up, I feel the need to drop in my two cents.

And yes, even the Oldcrons would care (or at least the C'tan would) about the Tyranids. The Galaxy was practically a farm to the C'tan and it was time for another harvest. The Tyranids were like an uninvited guest sitting himself at your dinner table during a holiday and trying to make off with the whole turkey, pig, whatever.

Also the Oldcron C'tan were attempting to reform life in a way that would better suit them via Pariahs so they could pretty much deny the Chaos Pantheon a spot at the dinner table too. Not create new life, reform existing life. Nids eating all life throws a monkey wrench into those plans.

**Wyzilla**

While Tyranids certainly muck up the plans of the Necron civilization, they themselves are not a credible threat to the Necrons. I haven't taken a look at the New Codex, but I've heard how now Shards are capable of blowing up planets, and each Necron Dynasty typically has a weapon capable of blowing up entire solar systems.

**jreilly89**

Otto Weston wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:
Otto Weston wrote:
luke1705 wrote:
So you don't like Nids. We get it. But all of the recent fluff portrays them as the single largest threat to the Galaxy. Can't really just dismiss that and say "no Necrons would pwn them because I <3 Necrons". Regardless of the reason, if the Galaxy doesnt unite against the Tyranids (more or less) then the Tyranids eventually win. They are ruthlessly efficient and recycle the dead to make new living creatures from the biomass. No other army can just keep fighting while losing minimal strength like that

Actually... he isn't. He's provided clear and concise reasons as to why he believes Tyranids aren't a valid threat to the Necrons whereas you've not even responded to any of his points or provided counter-arguments of your own. In fact, you're the one dismissing his arguments because, "recent fluff portrays them as the single largest threat to the galaxy" and that the "Tyranids will eventually win if the Galaxy doesn't unite".

You've made these broad statements and backed it up with nothing valid versus the Necrons;
"Ruthlessly efficient and recycle the dead" - They'll only be recycling their own dead versus the Necrons and gauss weaponry destroys biomass so even if the Nids are 100% efficient, they'll still be losing significant percentages of biomass over time in a war with attrition against Necrons.
"No other army can just keep fighting while losing minimal strength" - I beg to differ. Tyranids keep fighting as long as they have energy and biomass, which in a protracted war against a non-organic foe would become problematic whereas Necrons keep fighting as long as they can keep repairing their losses at their tomb worlds. I can't rule either one better in this case but Necrons are at least on par with Tyranids for "just keep fighting while losing minimal strength".

The problem is nothing stays constant in regards to fluff, so setting a power level is difficult for any army, other than generalizations.

That is true but at least Wyzilla used logical arguments and examples from fluff to support his claims. I was simply saying that Wyzilla was actually debating reasonably and then Luke claimed that he was simply biased and doesn't like nids, without providing any valid arguments of his own. Even Leech got on the band-wagon claiming that you can't just say Necrons win.... when obviously Wyzilla wasn't saying that at all. I'm not a friend of Wyzilla's so I have no personal bias in this, I just get annoyed when people are maligned because they have a differing point of view.

Right, and I get that, but Wyzilla was definitely on the "Necrons will destroy everything" band wagon. There were definitely points where people refuted his claims and he came back with "Well Necrons will win because Necrons are metal and can't die."

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyzilla wrote:
While Tyranids certainly muck up the plans of the Necron civilization, they themselves are not a credible threat to the Necrons. I haven't taken a look at the New Codex, but I've heard how now Shards are capable of blowing up planets, and each Necron Dynasty typically has a weapon capable of blowing up entire solar systems.

I feel like that's a curse of the new codex. Codices are intentionally written with "yeah, look where this army fethed all this gak up". I mean, who wants a codex filled with "hey, here's where we got our asses handed to us"?

**King Pariah**

jreilly89 wrote:

Right, and I get that, but Wyzilla was definitely on the "Necrons will destroy everything" band wagon. There were definitely points where people refuted his claims and he came back with "Well Necrons will win because Necrons are metal and can't die."

Don't you know?

No one can destroy the metal. The metal will strike you down with a vicious blow

**Wyzilla**

The threat of Tyranids is seriously mitigated when you can lure them into a solar system, and detonate the star to kill everything within several lightyears.

**SomeRandomEvilGuy**

jreilly89 wrote:

I feel like that's a curse of the new codex. Codices are intentionally written with "yeah, look where this army fethed all this gak up". I mean, who wants a codex filled with "hey, here's where we got our asses handed to us"?

C'tan Shards were written as immensely powerful in 5th Edition codex, being used only when absolutely necessary due the great fear the Necrons had of one escaping and restricted only by their imagination and their memories. That said, certain Greater Daemons have also been shown as capable of taking planets single-handedly but most of them are not portrayed as being particularly impressive (insert something about how Daemons all used to be portrayed as more fearsome rather than most being cannon fodder). Perhaps it was a particularly powerful Shard.

Tyranid strength sways massively from having a super-genius leader (who then throws wave after wave of gribblies at the enemy anyway) to using lesser tactics than the average Ork and from having a single bio-titan capable of smashing through a Titan Legion to needing vast numerical superiority to actually get anything done. They're less consistent than the Imperial Guard. Necrons are generally portrayed as having a vastly superior navy to anyone else in terms of speed, armour, repair capabilities and armament. Combined with their ability to almost endlessly repair themselves via phasing out (I don't think the Tyranids are generally going to be penetrating the actual tomb complexes of most worlds they attack but even if they do the Necrons have the advantage) and potentially vast quantities of robots which don't seem to require a Necron mind (why they don't use more is confusing but only they and the Tau seem to be able to get away with robots) and I really can't see a full scale war ending well for the Tyranids.

Also, insert joke about how the Eldar Codexes have a lot of defeats and Pyrrhic victories.

**Furyou Miko**

Well, you say you don't know why Necrons don't just use more robots, but... wraithwing.

**jreilly89**

King Pariah wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:

Right, and I get that, but Wyzilla was definitely on the "Necrons will destroy everything" band wagon. There were definitely points where people refuted his claims and he came back with "Well Necrons will win because Necrons are metal and can't die."

Don't you know?

No one can destroy the metal. The metal will strike you down with a vicious blow

Everytime this song shows up it makes me smile

**Tyran**

Wyzilla wrote:
Yeah, Tyranids really aren't a threat. Or at least they shouldn't unless they drown you in such great numbers that you lack the ammunition to drop their fleets, but to the Necrons, Imperium, Tau, Eldar, and Chaos, they're a joke outside of numbers. IIRC Tyranid ships can only engage in very close distances, where meanwhile everyone else fights over ranges of hundreds of thousands of kilometers, going into light minutes.

That's not true, Tyranid ships have ranged weaponry.

The Imperium, Eldar, and Necrons also play around with esoteric weapons such as weaponized black holes (what ship?) Nova Cannons, gauss flayers, warp rifts, etc, which pretty much ignore the durability of what they're pointed at altogether, and instantly kill it.

Such weapons are not common and the Tyranids use swarms of smaller ships as ablative armor to counter such weapons

Plus unlike everyone else, Tyranid ships are completely organic from some stupid, nonsensical reason, meaning they would constantly require energy to even stay alive. Let alone move.

Everyone needs energy, even the Necrons. Also most of the Tyranid stuff is in hibernation when not in use

Oh, they'd also be highly vulnerable to radiation, meaning a gamma ray burst or something else that pumps out large amounts of alpha, beta, and specifically gamma rays would poison and kill it (corrupt the DNA and lead to it falling apart at the seams).

There are ways to protect against radiation, hell as far as we know, Tyranids can regenerate their DNA as fast as it degrade as I don't recall a single instance where they are affected by radiation.

And that's before the Tyranids have to support their massive numbers, meaning that they do have a hard cap on the amount of units they can bring into play, especially space, as they only have so much energy. And unlike Imperial or Necrons ships, you can't simply toss more hydrogen into the miniature star powering the ship, Tyranids need old-fashioned calories. Lots of them.

Why not? there should be ways to transform the energy.

**dusara217**

Tyran wrote:
Wyzilla wrote:
Yeah, Tyranids really aren't a threat. Or at least they shouldn't unless they drown you in such great numbers that you lack the ammunition to drop their fleets, but to the Necrons, Imperium, Tau, Eldar, and Chaos, they're a joke outside of numbers. IIRC Tyranid ships can only engage in very close distances, where meanwhile everyone else fights over ranges of hundreds of thousands of kilometers, going into light minutes.

That's not true, Tyranid ships have ranged weaponry.

They do have ranged weapons, but not even close to on par with factions like the Tau, Mechanicum, Necrons, etc. who would be their greatest competition.

Such weapons are not common and the Tyranids use swarms of smaller ships as ablative armor to counter such weapons

They're really not as uncommon as you would think, though they would be classified in the "rare" category. I'd say that things like blackhole guns would be standard fare in the Necron arsenal, and smaller ships can't negate a 10k km-wide explosion from a Black Holes Gun, nuke, etc.

Everyone needs energy, even the Necrons. Also most of the Tyranid stuff is in hibernation when not in use

Everyone needs energy, that is true, but the very equipment of the Tyranids needs energy the good-ole-fashioned-way. Whereas, for the Necrons, literally EVERYBODY and EVERYTHING can be powered up by a Nuclear Breeder (fusion and fission for potentially infinite energy without needing to worry about extra fuel), which is far cheaper, far more reliable, and far more effective than calories and biomass.

There are ways to protect against radiation, hell as far as we know, Tyranids can regenerate their DNA as fast as it degrade as I don't recall a single instance where they are affected by radiation.

This I agree with, as the 'Nids would be exposed to insane amounts of radiation every Standard Day just from being in Void Space, and Gamma Ray Weapons would be absolutely useless against them.

Why not? there should be ways to transform the energy.

There are; extracting calories from existing biomass, which will decrease available biomass, and weaken the Hive Fleet. In a long-term engagement, the Tyranids would get raped because of this.