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Vampires used to be a specific race in 40k



http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Vampire

Agiel wrote:
Dark Eldar kind of strike me as the Vampire counts of 40K. Particularly the Archons.

Indeed. Both in lifestyle and aesthetic preferences the nobles of Commoragh have a very Dracula-esque vibe going on.

Isn't this what happened in a way? The lords became the personality for the army leading their mass of mindless zombies?

They could have done it the other way though. I like the super villain vibe of the new crons, but I think they could have kept both if they gave the personality to the Ctan. You would have just added new Ctan and the ability to make your own Ctan. It could be even cooler because you can do way more wild things with space gods.

You could also get really cool gameplay out of this idea. Like if 50% of your points were tied up in your MC, you would have a very differently playing army.

I really like the idea of an actual undead army in 40k, I never saw Necrons as undead. I think it'd either be really cool or awful, depending on how it's done. By undead I don't mean zombie plague undead, that always felt odd to me.

Personally I prefer the Newcrons although they are definitely lacking the old horror edge they used to have, we were in on their end goal, the harvesting of life, but perceiving them from an in universe perspective was a creepy thought.

I feel like the Blood Angels have mostly abandoned the vampire aesthetic in favour of going OTT with the Angel theme instead, to make them seem less dark, which I can't say I like.

I do see the Dark Eldar Archons as the most vampiric of 40k currently, pallid, vain beings parasitising those they consider lesser.

Agiel wrote:
Dark Eldar kind of strike me as the Vampire counts of 40K. Particularly the Archons.

True, I guess the C'tan and Dark Eldar overlap a bit thematically. Still, ancient god-like beings controlling an unquestioning race that they have re-purposed completely for their own ends might differentiate them a bit from the backstabbing and scheming you get with DE.

nomotog wrote:
Isn't this what happened in a way? The lords became the personality for the army leading their mass of mindless zombies?

They could have done it the other way though. I like the super villain vibe of the new crons, but I think they could have kept both if they gave the personality to the Ctan. You would have just added new Ctan and the ability to make your own Ctan. It could be even cooler because you can do way more wild things with space gods.

You could also get really cool gameplay out of this idea. Like if 50% of your points were tied up in your MC, you would have a very differently playing army.

Yea, it sort of happened but with just elevated Necrons. The C'tan are relegated to a much smaller role. The other way is still more interesting to me, especially if, like you said, you make the C'tan themselves the focus of the army. And vampiric space gods are just more fun than pharaohs in space.

 EngulfedObject wrote:

Agiel wrote:
Dark Eldar kind of strike me as the Vampire counts of 40K. Particularly the Archons.

True, I guess the C'tan and Dark Eldar overlap a bit thematically. Still, ancient god-like beings controlling an unquestioning race that they have re-purposed completely for their own ends might differentiate them a bit from the backstabbing and scheming you get with DE.

nomotog wrote:
Isn't this what happened in a way? The lords became the personality for the army leading their mass of mindless zombies?

They could have done it the other way though. I like the super villain vibe of the new crons, but I think they could have kept both if they gave the personality to the Ctan. You would have just added new Ctan and the ability to make your own Ctan. It could be even cooler because you can do way more wild things with space gods.

You could also get really cool gameplay out of this idea. Like if 50% of your points were tied up in your MC, you would have a very differently playing army.

Yea, it sort of happened but with just elevated Necrons. The C'tan are relegated to a much smaller role. The other way is still more interesting to me, especially if, like you said, you make the C'tan themselves the focus of the army. And vampiric space gods are just more fun than pharaohs in space.

I think they made the choice like they did because of models. You can have easily make a lord kit with a ton of verity with multiple heads, weapons, and items. Then you have their court with different figures. You can also steal bit from your other models because they share a look. You can get a lot of model verity in a lord HQ.

The Ctan have finecast models with almost no customization. You would have to make whole new models for them that can be built with more verity. It would have been cool if they did it that way tough.

My initial thought was - Robot Vampires? Come on...

...but then, it really makes more sense than you'd initially expect. The C'tan basically are Vampire Lords in regards to what they do - they command an army that fully follows their will and they feed on energy, be it suns or life.

On closer inspection, however, the comparison falls apart. Vampire Lords are far from being as powerful as the C'tan. The C'tan are the most powerful corporeal beings in the entire 40k universe by a long shot and Vampire Lords aren't - they basically are powerful beings, stronger than most humans, but their power is very limited and not even close to that of actual gods.

Secondly, their army binding works differently. Vampire Lords bind their armies by their sheer will and have an unlimited supply of undead to raise. The C'tan don't actually command their army or bind them, as Necrons are robots. They have no soul, no mind and no will on their own, they just execute programs. Futhermore, their numbers are ultimately limited as in theory, if you destroy all tomb worlds, the Necrons are permanently gone, forever. Of course, the C'tan won't let that happen, but their numbers are unlimited, they just seem to be unlimited as Necrons always repair themselves and teleport away from battle in case of being destroyed, leaving no trace of their presence.

Vampire Lords act as generals that bind and lead their army, but the C'tan are gods that stay in the background and don't take a role on the battlefield, they leave it to the Necron's programming.

Vampire Lords need life beings to suck the blood out, but the C'tan can just consume suns if they want to.

I can see where you wanted to go with the comparison, but ultimatively, it doesn't really hold up.

Ctan took part in battles didn't they? I mean they had models and rules, or am I missing something here? (I a talking about old crons here. I know the new crons use shards some times.)

The entire C'tan model thing is rather weird and was well-debated. C'tan were overpowered in 3rd, but still, obviously, far from what their powers are lore-wise. You cannot properly scale gods to a tabletop level and it wasn't a good idea to begin with....that mainly, likely, came from wanting actual named leaders / HQ for the Necrons.

Lore-wise, of couse, the C'tan did and do take part in battles, but it mostly isn't for any higher goal and extremely rare. Given their powers, there just isn't a reason to meddle with the lower beings as The Nightbringer (let alone The Outsider!) could easily just destroy an entire galaxy in the blink of an eye.

 Sigvatr wrote:
The entire C'tan model thing is rather weird and was well-debated. C'tan were overpowered in 3rd, but still, obviously, far from what their powers are lore-wise. You cannot properly scale gods to a tabletop level and it wasn't a good idea to begin with....that mainly, likely, came from wanting actual named leaders / HQ for the Necrons.

Lore-wise, of couse, the C'tan did and do take part in battles, but it mostly isn't for any higher goal and extremely rare. Given their powers, there just isn't a reason to meddle with the lower beings as The Nightbringer (let alone The Outsider!) could easily just destroy an entire galaxy in the blink of an eye.

If you can't field them on the board, then they can't be the personality of the army. (At least not easy.) You would have to change them. Either they aren't the personality of the army, or they aren't above entering the field. Maybe they just like to play army guy, or maybe they aren't actually god strong. Maybe the unit on the bard is simply a projection or avatar.

nomotog wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
The entire C'tan model thing is rather weird and was well-debated. C'tan were overpowered in 3rd, but still, obviously, far from what their powers are lore-wise. You cannot properly scale gods to a tabletop level and it wasn't a good idea to begin with....that mainly, likely, came from wanting actual named leaders / HQ for the Necrons.

Lore-wise, of couse, the C'tan did and do take part in battles, but it mostly isn't for any higher goal and extremely rare. Given their powers, there just isn't a reason to meddle with the lower beings as The Nightbringer (let alone The Outsider!) could easily just destroy an entire galaxy in the blink of an eye.

If you can't field them on the board, then they can't be the personality of the army. (At least not easy.) You would have to change them. Either they aren't the personality of the army, or they aren't above entering the field. Maybe they just like to play army guy, or maybe they aren't actually god strong. Maybe the unit on the bard is simply a projection or avatar.

Huh? Lore and actual rules are two very different things. Imagine if Space Marines on the board were nearly as powerful as described in the fluff or imagine Necrons being as strong as in the fluff - being actually indestructible, Gauss weapons killing a Land Raider with a single hit, army-wide Fearless, immunity to all poisons etc. You could, of course, make rules for a model that represents the strength of a C'tan, but a model that costs over a million points and has the rule "If you field this model, you win the game." would not be /that/ much fun to play with or against

Sigh. Necrons are not, and have never been, aside from Scarabs, Spiders, and the other 'tomb'/'canoptek' units that came afterwards, robots.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Sigh. Necrons are not, and have never been, aside from Scarabs, Spiders, and the other 'tomb'/'canoptek' units that came afterwards, robots.

Semantics. Necrons are soul- and mindless metal automatons with no self-control or conscience, following their programme's code to the very line. Robot enough for me, not sure what's there to elaborate on. If you want to focus on the difference between "robotic" and "robot", yeah, feel free to do so, it's not leading anywhere.

An important differentiation, however, would be between the army Necrons and actual Necrons as, technially, the C'tan belong to Codex:Necrons and thus the army, but, naturally, aren't Necrons themselves, and neither are Scarabs.

Necrons are not robots. They are not artificial intelligences. They are transcended mortals in living metal shells. That in some versions of the fluff their souls were eaten by C'tan (not in the original, and not in the current, just in the middle one you like) is irrelevant, as is the fact that the vast majority of them are constrained by later programming when it comes to making their own choices.

Semantics. They're important. They let people know what you actually mean, instead of forcing them to wiffle around trying to guess.

The Necrontyr's bodies were fully destroyed and their souls consumed. There is no "transcendence" whatsoever. The entire race of the Necrontyr was extincted by the C'tan, purged from existance, permanently. There is nothing left from the Necrontyr, zero, nada. Necrons are (living) metal constructs that blindly follow their programming / command protocols whatever may come.

That goes pretty well with the definition of a "robot" both Oxford and Merriam Webster suggest, so yeah, close enough for me.

Now if you do want to split hairs, and I know you'd love to, then you could argue for there being an extremely small amount of Necrons that kept their intellect, or most of it, but since they still have to follow their protocols, it's pointless to argue.

The codex does not say that Necrons always follow their programming / command protocols whatever may come, or that C'tan can destroy galaxies in the blink of an eye.

 Sigvatr wrote:
The Necrontyr's bodies were fully destroyed and their souls consumed. There is no "transcendence" whatsoever. The entire race of the Necrontyr was extincted by the C'tan, purged from existance, permanently. There is nothing left from the Necrontyr, zero, nada. Necrons are (living) metal constructs that blindly follow their programming / command protocols whatever may come.

That goes pretty well with the definition of a "robot" both Oxford and Merriam Webster suggest, so yeah, close enough for me.

Now if you do want to split hairs, and I know you'd love to, then you could argue for there being an extremely small amount of Necrons that kept their intellect, or most of it, but since they still have to follow their protocols, it's pointless to argue.

Wow. I knew you were blinkered, but to actively ignore 90% of all Necron fluff ever written dating back to 1997? Bloody hell, Sigvatr, there are no words.

Necrons, even Warriors, retain some semblance of emotional responses and capabilities, if they become aware of their environs to the point where such things are triggered. This is why the Necron Warrior does not have, for example, the Fearless SR. Once broken, the Warriors may flee, regardless of the wills of their Overseers.

The higher up the chain of command the Necron is, the more of his/her personality remains intact. Praetorians, Lychguard and Lords/Overlords are basically the same with shiny new bodies.