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How powerfull were the old ones? The deceiver said that C'tan waged war with the Old Ones and lost. If so, can the Old ones be stronger than C'tan? Or they won only with the help of their technology? In the Liber Chaotic, it was said that the Old taught the Eldar to create their gods to fight against C'tan.

Well they created things like Eldar and Orks and seemed to have a lot of psychic power in a time where they were free of drawbacks so pretty powerful.

The old ones are responsible for the webway, the eldar and the orks.

But the ctan making the necrotyr into the necrons was the war in heaven. The necrons/ctan won that and made the old ones extinct. Then the crons turned on the ctan and won that.

So how powerful were they? Weak enough to loose to a united ctan necron force.

 Lance845 wrote:
The old ones are responsible for the webway, the eldar and the orks.

But the ctan making the necrotyr into the necrons was the war in heaven. The necrons/ctan won that and made the old ones extinct. Then the crons turned on the ctan and won that.

So how powerful were they? Weak enough to loose to a united ctan necron force.

Which is pretty damn powerful, all things considered. A united necron force would be stronger than any other current faction save maybe the tyranids, and that's with the enslaved and shattered c'tan at a fraction of their true power. The Old Ones would likely annihilate any of the current status quo factions, which puts them at least at the level of the gods of the setting. It's difficult to say past that, since the power level of a god is pretty nebulous and likely depends on who can leverage their specialties better (Khorne would likely always win a fair and honorable duel against any other opponent, Tzeentch would likely always come out on top if you assume prep time for planning and scheming, etc).

Oh yeah, not saying they were weak. Just noting what was above them. The necrons are the tippy top of the power scale besides nids and maybe the chaos gods themselves.

It's important to remember that the Necrons are the only faction in the game that ever managed to actually kill a god as far as we know.

just remember that's the story the nectons want you to believe. There are no unbiased accounts of the war in heaven. SO we actually just don't know.

Older fluff (which may or may not still be canon now that the whole C'tan/Necron relationship has been retconned) stated that the Old Ones and their creations were winning against the C'tan and Necrontyr until their weaponisation of the Warp brought about some sort of cataclysm (possibly the birth of Chaos) that either killed all the Old Ones or caused them to abandon the galaxy.

 Lance845 wrote:
Oh yeah, not saying they were weak. Just noting what was above them. The necrons are the tippy top of the power scale besides nids and maybe the chaos gods themselves.

It's important to remember that the Necrons are the only faction in the game that ever managed to actually kill a god as far as we know.

Two sets of gods. It's one of the only things I actually like about the Newcron fluff. The fact that they not only genocided the Old Ones but the C'Tan as well.

Don't feth with Necrons.

It's also worth mentioning that it wasn't the Necrons and C'Tan alone that caused the downfall of the Old Ones (although they were still indirectly responsible). The whole galaxy erupting in a war unlike any other in the history of the 40k galaxy fethed up the warp too. Where once the Old Ones were able to draw upon the warp safely, like traversing a tranquil sea, they were now confronted with the messed up horror-dimension that we know and love today.

If I recall correctly, the Old Ones were also weakened by the arrival of the Enslavers (mind-controlling warp leeches), that at the very least, reaped a terrible loss among the Old Ones warrior races. The Old Ones, as they were portrayed most often in the past, were creators, explorers, not really warriors. Sure they could annihilate most enemies if they chose, but that wasn't their way. Hence, they created warrior races to fight on their behalf.

 Earth127 wrote:
just remember that's the story the nectons want you to believe. There are no unbiased accounts of the war in heaven. SO we actually just don't know.

Except the necrons don't go around telling everyone their history. It's not necron mythology being passed down over generations. Every Necron who was there is still here now. And all the fluff we have about the war in heaven isn't being told from in universe sources. It's being narrated to us by the out of universe authors. It's actually one of the most reliable stories we have in the 40k universe.

The emperor defeated the C'tan shard (although with great difficulty)
If the Old Ones were much more powerful psykers than he, perhaps they could defeat the full-fledged C'tan

Per the deceiver (major unreliable narrator warning probably not necessary given his name, but here anyway), the old ones beat the C'Tan in a war, and the C'Tan were in the state the Necrontyr found them in because the C'Tan were in hiding. The C'Tan really did hate the old ones though, and were pretty prideful, so it's probably not something he would lie about.

Imagine beating beings created at the beginning of the universe, who were embodyments of fundamental aspects of reality. Beings that can travel time, create and destroy matter at will, change the laws of nature, etc. The old ones however had their kryptonite, the warp. Being soulless beings I guess they were somehow vulnerable to the energy of the sea of souls (what the warp was called back then). The old ones were the undisputed masters of the warp, and apparently used that ro to roll the C'tan. They probably could have killed them, but killing C'Tan is bad for reality, when the flayer died the laws of physics changed but nobody can remember how.

So as others have said the old ones were pretty beef.

 Lance845 wrote:
The old ones are responsible for the webway, the eldar and the orks.

But the ctan making the necrotyr into the necrons was the war in heaven. The necrons/ctan won that and made the old ones extinct. Then the crons turned on the ctan and won that.

So how powerful were they? Weak enough to loose to a united ctan necron force.

Actually they lost because the Warp did become a nightmare under the War in Heavens and they basically were killed by it.. If the Warp wouldn't have become that horrible thing, they could probably have won.

Oh yes, ultimately the Old One's own plans backfired on them and they lost their sanctuary. It's still unspecified if they were killed or left. But their home in the warp turned into literal hell and the galaxy has been burdened with it since.

 Galas wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
The old ones are responsible for the webway, the eldar and the orks.

But the ctan making the necrotyr into the necrons was the war in heaven. The necrons/ctan won that and made the old ones extinct. Then the crons turned on the ctan and won that.

So how powerful were they? Weak enough to loose to a united ctan necron force.

Actually they lost because the Warp did become a nightmare under the War in Heavens and they basically were killed by it.. If the Warp wouldn't have become that horrible thing, they could probably have won.

Maybe, but they had already retreated into the webway by the time the eldar ruined the warp, I'd say the poisoning of the sea of souls was more of a coup de grace than a turning point. They lost a lot of ground at the beginning of the war with the necron and C'Tan, so much so that the C'Tan forgot about them for a thousand years or so and fought a civil war amongst themselves. This reprieve presented the old ones with the chance to turn the tables, which they used to create the younger races. The younger races were the only thing that allowed the old ones to start the fight again, and they were a great enough threat now that the C'tan had to quit their civil wars and lavish red harvest to focus on the fight again.

This might be a little too All according to plan but the deceiver is the one who gave the old ones a reprieve by convincing the other C'Tan that C'tan were the other other white meat. Which means he probably didn't want to finish off the old ones too quickly, though his reasons are mysterious as always. He is also the instigator of the war between the eldar gods and the remaining C'Tan. It's almost as if he were setting the necron up to take out the C'Tan, by decreasing their numbers and making them waste their strength fighting the eldar gods. Maybe that was his plan all along, to use the C'Tan and necrons to get rid of the old ones, then use the necrons and the eldar to get rid of the other C'Tan, and finally use the eldar (who were doomed from the outset) to get rid of the necrons. In true trickster style though he overestimated his value to the necrons and got broken into shards with the rest of the C'Tan.

It's like that scene in dark knight where the clown posse keeps killing each other so the joker is the only one who gets away with the money.

Not an original idea but I think the Old Ones will turn out to be the Tyranids. They will kind of parrelel the Necrons, necrons sacrificing their souls and bodies for immortality, while the Old Ones sacrificed their bodies for immortality within the Hive Mind.

 Grimgold wrote:

 Galas wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
The old ones are responsible for the webway, the eldar and the orks.

But the ctan making the necrotyr into the necrons was the war in heaven. The necrons/ctan won that and made the old ones extinct. Then the crons turned on the ctan and won that.

So how powerful were they? Weak enough to loose to a united ctan necron force.

Actually they lost because the Warp did become a nightmare under the War in Heavens and they basically were killed by it.. If the Warp wouldn't have become that horrible thing, they could probably have won.

Maybe, but they had already retreated into the webway by the time the eldar ruined the warp, I'd say the poisoning of the sea of souls was more of a coup de grace than a turning point. They lost a lot of ground at the beginning of the war with the necron and C'Tan, so much so that the C'Tan forgot about them for a thousand years or so and fought a civil war amongst themselves. This reprieve presented the old ones with the chance to turn the tables, which they used to create the younger races. The younger races were the only thing that allowed the old ones to start the fight again, and they were a great enough threat now that the C'tan had to quit their civil wars and lavish red harvest to focus on the fight again.

This might be a little too All according to plan but the deceiver is the one who gave the old ones a reprieve by convincing the other C'Tan that C'tan were the other other white meat. Which means he probably didn't want to finish off the old ones too quickly, though his reasons are mysterious as always. He is also the instigator of the war between the eldar gods and the remaining C'Tan. It's almost as if he were setting the necron up to take out the C'Tan, by decreasing their numbers and making them waste their strength fighting the eldar gods. Maybe that was his plan all along, to use the C'Tan and necrons to get rid of the old ones, then use the necrons and the eldar to get rid of the other C'Tan, and finally use the eldar (who were doomed from the outset) to get rid of the necrons. In true trickster style though he overestimated his value to the necrons and got broken into shards with the rest of the C'Tan.

It's like that scene in dark knight where the clown posse keeps killing each other so the joker is the only one who gets away with the money.

Civil war between С'tan-old knowledge. . On the new Necron rebelled against С'tan and smashed them into pieces. There was no break in the war

darkoms wrote:

Civil war between K'tan-old knowledge. . On the new Necron rebelled against С'tan and smashed them into pieces. There was no break in the war

There was indeed a break in the war, otherwise the old ones would never have had a chance to manufacture the young races in numbers high enough to be effective. You can find how long it took the old ones to manufacture the younger races mention of it in Liber Chaotica : Echos of the Birth. Also pre-retcon and post-retcon lore are not always mutually exclusive. Take for instance the number of C'Tan, in the 5th ed codex it mentioned there used to be many more than there are now, and since C'Tan can't be killed without major consequences for reality (as proven by the flayer), the only other explanation is the C'Tan ate each other just as they did in the third ed lore. The war in heaven portions of the two sets of fluff generally match each other, It only gets weird near the great sleep. In 3rd ed the C'tan were running out of things to eat because of the enslaver plague, and went to sleep to wait for the galaxy to make more snacks, and in 5th ed the silent king put the necrons to sleep because he wanted to wait for the fall of the eldar and the end to the enslaver plague.

 Grimgold wrote:

darkoms wrote:

Civil war between K'tan-old knowledge. . On the new Necron rebelled against С'tan and smashed them into pieces. There was no break in the war

There was indeed a break in the war, otherwise the old ones would never have had a chance to manufacture the young races in numbers high enough to be effective. You can find how long it took the old ones to manufacture the younger races mention of it in Liber Chaotica : Echos of the Birth. Also pre-retcon and post-retcon lore are not always mutually exclusive. Take for instance the number of C'Tan, in the 5th ed codex it mentioned there used to be many more than there are now, and since C'Tan can't be killed without major consequences for reality (as proven by the flayer), the only other explanation is the C'Tan ate each other just as they did in the third ed lore. The war in heaven portions of the two sets of fluff generally match each other, It only gets weird near the great sleep. In 3rd ed the C'tan were running out of things to eat because of the enslaver plague, and went to sleep to wait for the galaxy to make more snacks, and in 5th ed the silent king put the necrons to sleep because he wanted to wait for the fall of the eldar and the end to the enslaver plague.

Liber Chaotica may not be quite accurate, the murder of Llandu'gor did not affect the reality, he just cursed the Necrons