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So, all the Necrons awake, scour the galaxy of all live, crush the tyranids, cut the galaxy off from the Warp, kill all the Orks... and then what?

What do the Necrons expect to get from conquering the galaxy? They don't eat, they don't have sex, they don't drink booze, do they? They don't have a need to spread their genes. So, what are they fighting for, past the fact they don't know what else to do.

The upper echelons of Necron society still have most - if not all - of their original personalities intact. Arrogance, ambition, pride, narcissism . . . memories . . .

If I recall correctly, the Necrons (or at least one dynasty - The Silent King's) want to reclaim the galaxy and find a new specie that's suitable for their biotransference back to an organic race where they can live as mortal beings and have conventional 'life' again. Of course, like any organization with power, there are those who have their own initiative to just watch everyone not in their club burn and die horrible deaths while they cackle, and grind their teeth in pleasure.

They just want to go back to bed.

I think it's arguable that any - aside from the likes of Destroyer Cults and perhaps some of those infected with the Flayer Virus - actually want to scour all life from the galaxy as the Wardcron codex implied that quite a few Lords, Overlords and Phaerons wanted to rule the galaxy and return to bodies of flesh and blood making sentient life necessary to maintain in hopes to return to such bodies. Some were shown to seem to not give two gaks about the galaxy as a whole rather keeping to themselves (Nihilakh Dynasty I believe it was kept to themselves in their own system or whatnot).

Heck, not even the C'tan led Oldcrons wanted to kill all life (just most of it, leaving enough for the galaxy to eventually ripen for another Red Harvest for the C'tan. Rinse and repeat. Also the C'tan were stated to want to create life that would best suit themselves).

To get their empire back, and to return to their time of grandeur.

To rule and impose their vision of order. They actually arnt that much different than the imperium of man, tau, or eldar at this point fluffwise.

Some Lord's want exterminate all inferior life forms, others are happy to rule over them.

 Desubot wrote:


They just want to go back to bed.

I want KegNaut to be my warlord.

Isn't this one of the things that made Oldcrons better? Like, they wake up basically senile with no instinct left other than to kill and conquer? Unfeeling, uncompromising, cold, psychopathic killer robots in space vs. Egyptian marysues in space.

OldCrons were metal Tyranids. Nothing really set them apart from a pre-existing army, other than the look.

 Psienesis wrote:
OldCrons were metal Tyranids. Nothing really set them apart from a pre-existing army, other than the look.

I like the idea of a faction of von Neumann machines better than Tomb Kings in SPAAAAAAAAAACE!!!!

Once again, we return to the fact, so frequently ignored, that the Necrons were always Tomb Kings in Space, back from when they were first introduced in 1997, with their death masks and ankhs decorated with gold and lapis lazuli, before the Tomb Kings had their unique identity as a separate faction from the Undead.

Even the 'Dynasty map' isn't new fluff - it appeared with different, Imperial-given, labels in the original Apocalypse book, and even that was a reprint from an earlier White Dwarf article. Oldcrons were harvesting populations for research purposes and to use as slaves.

The only differences between oldcrons and newcrons, fluff wise, is the dolmen gate idiocy (now thankfully retconned to allow for the older BFG fluff), the C'tan sharding, and that the Overlords have now woken up and taken control.

I agree the new Necrons aren't that different from the old. The old writing was just better.

Also, the Egyptian aesthetic was far more subdued before 5th edition. Now its blatant, and rather garish at that.

Fact is, the presentation of the Necrons did a complete 180. They went from eldritch horrors to comic book villains. For me personally that's what I dislike. The old fluff wasn't perfect, but the new didn't really improve on it in any discernible way.


But I think this has already been debated to death already anyway. So to answer the question, I think you could ask the same thing about other races. They just want to rule the galaxy, because reasons. Live and let live isn't really the policy of anyone in this universe, they want to own it all. Necrons are basically Eldar now. An ancient civilization that wants to return to its former glory.

 Delicate Swarm wrote:


Also, the Egyptian aesthetic was far more subdued before 5th edition. Now its blatant, and rather garish at that.

Fact is, the presentation of the Necrons did a complete 180. They went from eldritch horrors to comic book villains. For me personally that's what I dislike. The old fluff wasn't perfect, but the new didn't really improve on it in any discernible way.

As far as the aesthetic goes, The ankh on every single model, scarabs and giant pyramid, I mean monolith would like to have a word with you about the definition of subdued. When 3rd edition Necrons came out it was like someone fllipped through a book about ancient egypt to find things they can turn into units. They newer models have been moving further away from an Egyptian aesthetic while still adhering to the Necron visual canon.

They were more comic book villainy before where they were did evil because they were evil for no reason. Like they literally were doing it for no reason just cause. At least the tyranids had a reason for killing everything, oldcrons not so much...

 EmpNortonII wrote:
So, all the Necrons awake, scour the galaxy of all live, crush the tyranids, cut the galaxy off from the Warp, kill all the Orks... and then what?

What do the Necrons expect to get from conquering the galaxy? They don't eat, they don't have sex, they don't drink booze, do they? They don't have a need to spread their genes. So, what are they fighting for, past the fact they don't know what else to do.

As a couple of others have stated, while accomplishing all of the above they hope to find (and if not, they may have to create) a suitable organic race for them to transfer their minds back into. They can then get on with living their lives in absolute safety and (presumably) end up like the Time Lords; unchallengable masters of time and space, free to do whatever they want whenever they want (though for the Time Lords that turned out not to be the case of course, heh heh heh).

Didn't the pre-ward Necrons have a drive to purge all that live, because they had fuzzy memories of how terrible living was for them? But they wouldn't, because their masters craved for the essence of the living?

The best Necron fluff was when they were mysterious robotic raiders and not much was known about them. The stargod fluff already weakened the terror of the Necrons by making them pathetic slaves, the newest space egypt stuff is kinda better than that but there's even less mystery and no sense of dread whatsoever.

Their motivation is as old as civilization itself: to get these damn kids off their lawn, do something about that mold infestation and oh my god, where did all these bugs come from?

This is the weak point of the new Necrons. They don't have much of a motivation at all.

In additionally, they are probably the least grimdark faction in the setting today, ironically.

Now, the Mechanicus, based on the codex -- that's grimdark.

Trystis wrote:

 Delicate Swarm wrote:


Also, the Egyptian aesthetic was far more subdued before 5th edition. Now its blatant, and rather garish at that.

Fact is, the presentation of the Necrons did a complete 180. They went from eldritch horrors to comic book villains. For me personally that's what I dislike. The old fluff wasn't perfect, but the new didn't really improve on it in any discernible way.

As far as the aesthetic goes, The ankh on every single model, scarabs and giant pyramid, I mean monolith would like to have a word with you about the definition of subdued. When 3rd edition Necrons came out it was like someone fllipped through a book about ancient egypt to find things they can turn into units. They newer models have been moving further away from an Egyptian aesthetic while still adhering to the Necron visual canon.

They were more comic book villainy before where they were did evil because they were evil for no reason. Like they literally were doing it for no reason just cause. At least the tyranids had a reason for killing everything, oldcrons not so much...

As for the second edition Necrons, they all had death mask mantles draped over their shoulders to hang the ankhs off!

 King Pariah wrote:


Heck, not even the C'tan led Oldcrons wanted to kill all life (just most of it, leaving enough for the galaxy to eventually ripen for another Red Harvest for the C'tan. Rinse and repeat. Also the C'tan were stated to want to create life that would best suit themselves).

so the oldcrons where basicly mass effect reapers? (or maybe the colelctors)

Kind of, only less "preserve" and more "tasty!"

The reason depends on the overlord that controls the dynasty. And of course there is that caretaker AI with a god complex that wants to assimilate everything into it's own collective. As it discovers more sleeping tombs it subverts control, wiping the minds of all the entombed 'crons. Then when it encounters the awakened tombs it takes them over by force. Sounds alot like the borg to me

Then there's the tomb world that can cause any star in the galaxy to go supernova but are eccentric and see themselves as gardeners pruning a bush.

To crush their enemies, see them driven before them, and to hear the lamentations of their women.