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I keep reading that people liked the Oldcron lore because of the "Unfathomable, cosmic horror" aspect, and I thought that was the most limiting (read: not worst) parts of the lore. Any interaction with Oldcrons in the lore borderline-necessitated their enemies be Mary Sues/clad in Plot Armour, because of how much the lore hyped them up. Simultaneously, there's a reason why Lovecraft's stories always end the same way. While the interactions of others with them may differ a multitude of ways, there's genuinely not a lot you can do with these types of characters in of themselves.

 Phaeron Gukk wrote:
I keep reading that people liked the Oldcron lore because of the "Unfathomable, cosmic horror" aspect, and I thought that was the most limiting (read: not worst) parts of the lore. Any interaction with Oldcrons in the lore borderline-necessitated their enemies be Mary Sues/clad in Plot Armour, because of how much the lore hyped them up. Simultaneously, there's a reason why Lovecraft's stories always end the same way. While the interactions of others with them may differ a multitude of ways, there's genuinely not a lot you can do with these types of characters in of themselves.

How's that changed? When they can time travel for lolz there's no reason for them to lose now either.

Cryptek of Awesome wrote:

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:
Oldcrons all the way - but if they were to retcon them I would keep Trollzyn, he is hilarious.

"I don't like the new fluff, but if they were to change them back I'd keep the one character who most epitomizes everything they changed about the fluff because he's awesome".

Nice strawman there...

Trazyn can easily be shoehorned into the Oldcron background. In fact, I made such an assertion earlier this week

 Grimtuff wrote:

pm713 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The new Necron fluff works at least though, where you have the Lords with their own motives, and some still under the impression they're slaves to the CTan.

As well, no matter how you feel, Trazyn is like the best piece of fluff to exist in this game and anyone that disagrees is wrong.

I've always found Trazyn to be really stupid and the liking for him just goes over my head. But then I like Space Wolves so apparently I'm weird.

He has been memed to death somewhat but he is definitely an interesting character that fits well with the Necrons, both old and new. He is preserving history (or as he puts it "collecting time"), the grand curator of the galaxy's most significant events and individuals preserved for all time by him.

This is great with the unknowable foe of the Oldcrons as I suspect we would get no greater insight as to why he is on this quest? To appease his C'tan masters? Because his programming said so? Some more sinister reason? So the Oldcrons are harvesting you atom by atom, but there's this one guy who wants one specific person. Why? The horror element that can come from that is wonderful

As for the Newcrons. The same. But he has a certain... majesty about him that his quest is somewhat noble in his own head. He is preserving all this for the benefit of his own species, for when they all finally reawaken. His meeting with Bile in Clonelord highlights the horror element again. Trazyn appears to study his targets for some time before "preserving" them. Bile even in a way calls out the meme

“Madness,’ he said flatly. ‘All of this – madness. You boast of power, but you are nothing more than a thief. And perhaps not even that.’
Trazyn stiffened.
‘Are you the being you were, before you were poured into the metal sarcophagus, or are you merely the ghost of who and what you once were?’ Fabius turned slowly, keeping the pacing metal figure in sight.
‘The same might be said of you – are you even yourself, or are you merely a copy of a copy of a copy, the faded imprint of a thing long dead?’ Trazyn said.
Fabius froze.”

That seems a little terrifying to me, an eccentric; somewhat unstoppable alien being that has intel on his target well before he goes in. How long has he been watching you for?

Don't get your background from gakky Youtube shows and 1D4chan. Trazyn is more than a meme and can fit the Oldcrons to a T.

Yeah, collecting stuff and putting it in a museum is actually a pretty machine thing to do. Just see it as data collection and storage.

I've looked at it as Oldcrons was from the 3rd Edition fluff, and almost all of 3rd Ed codices was written from the perspective of the Imperium. In 5th Edition, they started writing the codices from the perspective of the faction itself, as if you were the member of the faction getting your historical primer. Nothing is lost except innocence.

Oldcron fluff is not superior to Newcron fluff, nor is it inferior. They are just from a different perspective. Everyone loves hot dogs until they learn how they are made. Oldcron fluff was bare-boned, that is not superior as it requires the reader to fill it in. Newcron fluff is deemed inferior because it shows an aspect of a horror that isn't really that horrifying.

 Duskweaver wrote:
The Oldcron fluff was massively superior. Unfathomably ancient cosmic horror beats Tomb Kings In Space every time.

But hardly anyone wanted to collect and play them. Their sales figues were abysmal. When I worked for GW in the 3rd/4th edition days, I don't think I encountered anyone who denied that the Necron fluff was awesome, but nobody I knew actually played them as an army. There was no real room for thematic customisation, since the entire faction had exactly two properly sapient characters that you could include in your army. You either played the Deceiver's mindless puppets, or the Nightbringer's mindless puppets, or just a bunch of mindless puppets out on their own for some reason. And the people who didn't mind playing an army of mindless puppets already had perfectly good Tyranid armies. The old Necrons and C'tan were fantastic as part of the setting's background. They utterly failed as a playable faction.

GW didn't change the Necron/C'tan fluff because people disliked the old fluff. They changed it because the old fluff didn't encourage people to collect and play Necrons. And that's the only reaason for fluff to exist, as far as GW is concerned. It's just marketing for the minis.

Not true. The actual statement would be that the Oldcron fluff didn't encourage anyone to collect and play them despite their mechanical deficiencies. If they had released the 5th Edition codex without changing the perspective of the fluff (which would chop out about 90% of the fluff there), but kept the mechanics, you would have seen the same rise in popularity as they experienced. If the fluff of the 5th Edition Necrons was available in 3rd Edition, they still would have been as sparsely seen.

The 3rd Ed Necron's mechanics were extremely strong, but severely limited by a lack of customization outside of the Lords and one single rule: Phase Out. Aside from the Lords, the only customization in the army was to basically give melee gauss to a couple of units or for Destroyers to include a Heavy Destroyer in the unit (which was a Destroyer with a heavier gun). With the Phase Out rule, if you added a powerful C'tan, Monolith, or Pariahs, you made your army much easier to defeat. If you added another, you were even easier to defeat. As someone pointed out, you only had to kill 75% of the NECRON models, of which the C'tan, Monolith, and Pariahs were not.

So, no. Fluff had little to do with the lack of Necron players or their increase. It was all about the customization and the mechanics. At the most, the only new fluff that affected customization was the introduction of the Dynasties and their various colour schemes. Since this is already a game which encouraged you to paint your way, that was a minor consideration.

And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.

 JNAProductions wrote:
And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.

At least they have a lot more options than they used to, even if customization within those options are minimal. The entire stat page of the 3rd Ed army was a little less than half a page at large font. Troops was literally one single unit. Elites, Heavy Support, and Fast Attack were three units each, with Pariahs being a one choice per army. And at least the old Phase Out rule isn't affecting army builds any more, either.

 Charistoph wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.

At least they have a lot more options than they used to, even if customization within those options are minimal. The entire stat page of the 3rd Ed army was a little less than half a page at large font. Troops was literally one single unit. Elites, Heavy Support, and Fast Attack were three units each, with Pariahs being a one choice per army. And at least the old Phase Out rule isn't affecting army builds any more, either.

Yeah, as someone who played 3rd ed necrons, I can say that the main problem wasn't the fluff or the lack of customization, but the army structure.
The gauss rule was nice and compensated for the lack of special weapons options, but you still had fewer unit types than everyone else, they were pretty much all metal in single blisters, and ergo bloody expensive, and you had that stupid phase out rule which pretty much gimped your army if you wanted to take any of the more interesting options.

The fact they didn't get a new codex until near the end of 5th didn't help matters.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.

At least they have a lot more options than they used to, even if customization within those options are minimal. The entire stat page of the 3rd Ed army was a little less than half a page at large font. Troops was literally one single unit. Elites, Heavy Support, and Fast Attack were three units each, with Pariahs being a one choice per army. And at least the old Phase Out rule isn't affecting army builds any more, either.

Yeah, as someone who played 3rd ed necrons, I can say that the main problem wasn't the fluff or the lack of customization, but the army structure.
The gauss rule was nice and compensated for the lack of special weapons options, but you still had fewer unit types than everyone else, they were pretty much all metal in single blisters, and ergo bloody expensive, and you had that stupid phase out rule which pretty much gimped your army if you wanted to take any of the more interesting options.

The fact they didn't get a new codex until near the end of 5th didn't help matters.

Phase Out could be quite easily mitigated with taking 2 of each unit and Tomb Spyders. Both helped dramatically in making sure your units remained on the board.

I have played necrons since 3rd edition and they were my first army. Absolutely loved the faceless, high-tech, robot, borg, terminator vibes the faction had. The only thing that the newcron lore does better than the oldcron lore is the fact that lords are sapient and actually have a personality, which IMO should have been a thing in the oldcron lore. If I could take oldcron lore with sapient lords, and none of the internal strife or "diplomaticness" of the newcron lore I would do so in a heartbeat.

People made fun of the Blood Angels and necrons teaming up to take on the tyranids back in 5th edition or so, but I thought it was a cool story that breathed a little color into an otherwise kinda lifeless faction. I think they went a little overboard with how willing they were to make necrons that diplomatic in the newcron lore. Necrons working together with humanity should be the once in a blue moon exception, rather than the somewhat common thing it has become. Outside of those exceptions they should consider us pond-scum, maybe interesting and "novel" pond-scum, but still pond-scum that needs to be wiped out of existence. Think janeway making a deal with the borg collective in voyager, like that kinda thing. Outside of those interactions their only communications to humanity should be along the lines of "you will all be exterminated". They should also absolutely despise the Eldar considering that the Eldar fought alongside the old ones. I also miss their mastery over digital technology, and think they should subvert Imperial machines that rely on digital computers like aircraft or advanced vehicles by "hacking" them by simply being around, it should confuse the gak out of the tech priests.

w1zard wrote:
I have played necrons since 3rd edition and they were my first army. Absolutely loved the faceless, high-tech, robot, borg, terminator vibes the faction had. The only thing that the newcron lore does better than the oldcron lore is the fact that lords are sapient and actually have a personality, which IMO should have been a thing in the oldcron lore. If I could take oldcron lore with sapient lords, and none of the internal strife or "diplomaticness" of the newcron lore I would do so in a heartbeat.

They did put in the sapient lords into the Oldcrons. It was in either the 4th or 5th ed rulebook where they described how the phase out process removed a degree of the Necron's intelligence each time it happened- hence why the chaff units like Warriors were mindless automata due to being destroyed multiple times and higher ups like the Lords retained much of their personalities from their previous lives.

 Grimtuff wrote:
They did put in the sapient lords into the Oldcrons. It was in either the 4th or 5th ed rulebook where they described how the phase out process removed a degree of the Necron's intelligence each time it happened- hence why the chaff units like Warriors were mindless automata due to being destroyed multiple times and higher ups like the Lords retained much of their personalities from their previous lives.

There was no 4th edition necron book, and the 5th edition necron book was the start of the "newcrons".

w1zard wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:
They did put in the sapient lords into the Oldcrons. It was in either the 4th or 5th ed rulebook where they described how the phase out process removed a degree of the Necron's intelligence each time it happened- hence why the chaff units like Warriors were mindless automata due to being destroyed multiple times and higher ups like the Lords retained much of their personalities from their previous lives.

There was no 4th edition necron book, and the 5th edition necron book was the start of the "newcrons".

RULEBOOK my friend. Rulebook.

There was a primer for each army in the Rulebooks. Just like there is now.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.

At least they have a lot more options than they used to, even if customization within those options are minimal. The entire stat page of the 3rd Ed army was a little less than half a page at large font. Troops was literally one single unit. Elites, Heavy Support, and Fast Attack were three units each, with Pariahs being a one choice per army. And at least the old Phase Out rule isn't affecting army builds any more, either.

Yeah, as someone who played 3rd ed necrons, I can say that the main problem wasn't the fluff or the lack of customization, but the army structure.
The gauss rule was nice and compensated for the lack of special weapons options, but you still had fewer unit types than everyone else, they were pretty much all metal in single blisters, and ergo bloody expensive, and you had that stupid phase out rule which pretty much gimped your army if you wanted to take any of the more interesting options.

The fact they didn't get a new codex until near the end of 5th didn't help matters.

Phase Out could be quite easily mitigated with taking 2 of each unit and Tomb Spyders. Both helped dramatically in making sure your units remained on the board.

That still doesn't leave much room for anything else though, unless you are playing higher than 2k points.
Remember that Necron warriors were 18pts each, had a base unit size of 10, and were the only troops choice.
360 points had to go to troops alone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimtuff wrote:

w1zard wrote:
I have played necrons since 3rd edition and they were my first army. Absolutely loved the faceless, high-tech, robot, borg, terminator vibes the faction had. The only thing that the newcron lore does better than the oldcron lore is the fact that lords are sapient and actually have a personality, which IMO should have been a thing in the oldcron lore. If I could take oldcron lore with sapient lords, and none of the internal strife or "diplomaticness" of the newcron lore I would do so in a heartbeat.

They did put in the sapient lords into the Oldcrons. It was in either the 4th or 5th ed rulebook where they described how the phase out process removed a degree of the Necron's intelligence each time it happened- hence why the chaff units like Warriors were mindless automata due to being destroyed multiple times and higher ups like the Lords retained much of their personalities from their previous lives.

Huh, that does sound right. I could have sworn reading something like that prior to the reboot.
I'm too lazy to go dig up the books though.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

Phase Out could be quite easily mitigated with taking 2 of each unit and Tomb Spyders. Both helped dramatically in making sure your units remained on the board.

That still doesn't leave much room for anything else though, unless you are playing higher than 2k points.
Remember that Necron warriors were 18pts each, had a base unit size of 10, and were the only troops choice.
360 points had to go to troops alone.

List at 1750pts I used to run (going from memory here) in 5th ed. was

Deceiver, Destroyer Lord with res orb and warscythe, 2x units of 5 Immortals, 2x units of 10 warriors, 2x units of 3 wraiths, 2x units of a single heavy destroyer and 2x tomb spyders.

Did quite well with it as Deceiver was there to feth with deployment (esp. when playing dawn of war deployment in 5th. Deploy first and put a single unit of warriors as far forward as possible (enemy couldn't deploy within 24" of them) then use grand illusion to pull them back) and the spyders helped dramatically with stopping units from being deleted. Remember that you only had to have a another Necron unit of the same type on the battlefield (and the spyder in range) rather than 6" as the spyder teleported them over.

Ah, well at my GW gaming store at the time there was a limit of 750pts. That was the highest they'll let anyone play.
So my options were a little more limited.

Ah, that'd kill Necrons right there. I brought up that point in my initial post ITT. The army really didn't get interesting till you hit 1000pts+

 JNAProductions wrote:
And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.

I feel like a measure of uniformity is important to the theming of the army. I certainly wouldn't want the tenth guy in a Warrior squad to have a special weapon.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.

I feel like a measure of uniformity is important to the theming of the army. I certainly wouldn't want the tenth guy in a Warrior squad to have a special weapon.

It would probably be fine for Immortals and Destroyers though.
Immortals are the sort of unit that would have a special or heavy weapon, being "basic soldiers" and destroyers should have access to melee weapons, tesla destructor and pretty much heavy weapon bar the deathray and doomsday cannon. Though knowing destroyers, there's bound to be one crazy bastard trying to weld a Doomsday Ark to himself.

It would probably be fine for Immortals and Destroyers though.
Immortals are the sort of unit that would have a special or heavy weapon, being "basic soldiers" and destroyers should have access to melee weapons, tesla destructor and pretty much heavy weapon bar the deathray and doomsday cannon. Though knowing destroyers, there's bound to be one crazy bastard trying to weld a Doomsday Ark to himself.

(Mad) Idea: What if one in every 10 Immortals could be upgraded to a Destroyer?

I don't think I'd want to see Immortals with a special weapons guy either; imo the general mechanical theme of the army (other than being sturdy) is "we don't need special weapons because our basic guns are better than yours". I'd rather GW took the steps to make sure that is actually true (IE fixing the gauss and tesla rules to be more practical) than to give the fifth Immortal a plasma gun.

I'd definitely approve of Destroyers having different weapon options for melee and tesla in the same vein as Immortals having different options for their basic gun, though. It is pretty weird that Destroyers have so much counter synergy with the Destroyer Lord.

 Phaeron Gukk wrote:

It would probably be fine for Immortals and Destroyers though.
Immortals are the sort of unit that would have a special or heavy weapon, being "basic soldiers" and destroyers should have access to melee weapons, tesla destructor and pretty much heavy weapon bar the deathray and doomsday cannon. Though knowing destroyers, there's bound to be one crazy bastard trying to weld a Doomsday Ark to himself.

(Mad) Idea: What if one in every 10 Immortals could be upgraded to a Destroyer?

Nah, that would be clunky. Destroyers have double the movement and are like 3 times the size. It wouldn't play well, both physically and mechanically.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.

I feel like a measure of uniformity is important to the theming of the army. I certainly wouldn't want the tenth guy in a Warrior squad to have a special weapon.

Oddly enough, some of the customization has changed since 3rd Edition to 5th Edition, and I'm not even talking about what the Lords could do.

Immortals changed to Troops, now there is a choice of Troops.

Warriors and Flayed Ones lost Disruption Field options.

Immortals, Wraiths, and Spyders gained new gun options.

Pariahs downgraded from their anti-psyker role and converted to Lychguard who can choose between Halberds and sword and board.

And that's just what existed from before. The addition of the Praetorians, Blades, Scythes, Crytpeks (who lost customization in 7th), Deathmarks, Stalkers, Arks, and Barges helped provide considerations as to what to include in each slot.

Sure, it doesn't match what options a Space Marine Squad can do internally (nor should it, unless we go Eldar and have adding Lords/Crypteks to units as sergeants/champions), but it is a far improvement of customization over their early beginnings.

Nah, that would be clunky. Destroyers have double the movement and are like 3 times the size. It wouldn't play well, both physically and mechanically.

I was assuming there wouldn't be any new Necron models any time soon, but if we're presuming GW will stop making Primaris Lieutenants long enough to put out some Necron Models, there are
probably better options.
Also, the D-Lord just needs to have an Extermination Protocol version of My Will Be Done. Hell, I'd take a (tiny) points hike for that if needs be.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.

I feel like a measure of uniformity is important to the theming of the army. I certainly wouldn't want the tenth guy in a Warrior squad to have a special weapon.

Oddly enough, some of the customization has changed since 3rd Edition to 5th Edition, and I'm not even talking about what the Lords could do.

Spyders gained new gun options.

.

Not quite. They gained twin particle beamers, but they lost the particle projector

 Charistoph wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
And there's still not enough customization for Necrons. Seriously, it's ridiculous how little choices they have.

I feel like a measure of uniformity is important to the theming of the army. I certainly wouldn't want the tenth guy in a Warrior squad to have a special weapon.

Oddly enough, some of the customization has changed since 3rd Edition to 5th Edition, and I'm not even talking about what the Lords could do.

Immortals changed to Troops, now there is a choice of Troops.

Warriors and Flayed Ones lost Disruption Field options.

Immortals, Wraiths, and Spyders gained new gun options.

Pariahs downgraded from their anti-psyker role and converted to Lychguard who can choose between Halberds and sword and board.

And that's just what existed from before. The addition of the Praetorians, Blades, Scythes, Crytpeks (who lost customization in 7th), Deathmarks, Stalkers, Arks, and Barges helped provide considerations as to what to include in each slot.

Sure, it doesn't match what options a Space Marine Squad can do internally (nor should it, unless we go Eldar and have adding Lords/Crypteks to units as sergeants/champions), but it is a far improvement of customization over their early beginnings.

This isn't really the type of customization I'm talking about; it's more the "four of your dudes have a crappy gun so the fifth guy has a really good gun" most other armies use. Lychguard can choose to have the shield or the warscythe, but you can't give your fifth lychguard a voidscythe. Necrons don't have sergeants and you're generally encouraged to use the same wargear on every model in a unit, which is a mechanical choice that leads to a distinct aesthetic that is very different from most other armies in this game that I really like.

While Oldcrons had cool lore and models, the lore really couldn't GO anywhere, there is only so much that cold, emotionless, robots bent on harvesting souls for their ever-hungry star gods could actually do. TBH it was a boring faction that was pretty much the same as Tyranids in goals. Terminators are cool, don't get me wrong, but even Skynet had more personality than the Oldcrons did.

While I AM biased since my army in WHFB was Tomb Kings, I like the Newcrons beyond just the similar styles in models, their personal goals just make much more sense. There are glitches from the Great Sleep, many Lords and Overlords have outright gone mad, those that hadn't are lusting for power beyond their original station. It is all just more interesting IMO. I love that old timey Feudal feel of it all. I like that C'Tan have been powered down as well, playing the Galactic Embodiment of Death Itself, didn't really fit on the tabletop TBH, and now that it is just a SHARD of the Nightbringer, it makes its power feel more realistic (as realistic as it can get in 40k lol).

I understand a lot of older Necron players preferred the Old Lore and everything, and I am not trying to knock it, but I understand WHY GW retconnned them. They still have a lot of the old Terminator vibe to them (Like Destroyer Cults in the Lore), it is not like they completely abandoned the main story points.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
It is pretty weird that Destroyers have so much counter synergy with the Destroyer Lord.

I think a big part of the problem is the new fluff.

Previously, Destroyer Lords were just the equivalent of jetbike HQs for other factions. The only difference was that, being machines, they swapped out their legs for a Destroyer body, rather than riding something.

In the new fluff, Destroyers (including Lords) are practically a different species of Necrons. They're now insane dalek things that just want to exterminate everything.

The problem is that this has left the Destroyer Lord isolated from everything else in the army. So rather than being able to buff anything, he's limited to buffing two ranged units - in spite of the fact that he can only be built as a melee unit. He'd be infinitely better if he had the same reroll 1s to-wound aura as the Necron Lord. That would let him buff stuff like Wraiths and Scarabs.

Of course, there are parts of his design that can't be blamed on the new fluff - like the fact that his aura only buffs ranged attacks. Yeah, that's fun on a melee unit.

 vipoid wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
It is pretty weird that Destroyers have so much counter synergy with the Destroyer Lord.

I think a big part of the problem is the new fluff.

Previously, Destroyer Lords were just the equivalent of jetbike HQs for other factions. The only difference was that, being machines, they swapped out their legs for a Destroyer body, rather than riding something.

In the new fluff, Destroyers (including Lords) are practically a different species of Necrons. They're now insane dalek things that just want to exterminate everything.

The problem is that this has left the Destroyer Lord isolated from everything else in the army. So rather than being able to buff anything, he's limited to buffing two ranged units - in spite of the fact that he can only be built as a melee unit. He'd be infinitely better if he had the same reroll 1s to-wound aura as the Necron Lord. That would let him buff stuff like Wraiths and Scarabs.

Of course, there are parts of his design that can't be blamed on the new fluff - like the fact that his aura only buffs ranged attacks. Yeah, that's fun on a melee unit.

Yeah, that's weird. There's a lot of design flaws with the necron codex. Whoever designed it didn't think things through.

The "newcrons" have some horror all their own, but it's kinda subtle.

The necrons are machines, but they are also driven by all to human failings. Arrogance, greed, selfishness, hate, pettiness, spite, cruelty, etc.

They embody the soullessness of machines and the worst of humanity, no compassion, no empathy, but still capable of all the negative aspects of being people.

They are the worst of both worlds in a sense. They're even in some ways worse than tyranids. As Ripley said of the Aliens: "At least you don't see them XXXXing each other over for a goddam percentage."

The necrons will eagerly XXXX each other over for less than a percentage, for spite, jealously, selfishness, etc.

Another aspect of the necron horror is that they may still retain some decency, some spark of "humanity" inside them, and that can still feel remorse, sorrow, loss,. pain, etc.

The Silent King himself disdained the destroyers for being too cruel, and said "I am a soulless machine, yet even I pity their victims."

The silent king may retain enough of himself to realize what a horror his people have become and be driven to do all he can to repair the wrong he lead them to, yet be doomed to be forever unable to.

So yes, the newcrons have a certain horror to them, made more evident by the fact the AM rushes to attain the state they have achieved, not knowing what awaits them.