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 Hellebore wrote:

It makes 0 sense

The entire 40k setting in a nutshell.

But putting on my neck beard hat and... beard - why should the setting still have the c'tan as active, ultrapotent gods? That makes just as little sense in the current setting and power levels to have gods active that need little tin men to march around for them and do their deeds. I think it's fair game for gods to rise and fall in 40k backstory, given the eldar effective created one.

 RustyNumber wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

It makes 0 sense

The entire 40k setting in a nutshell.

But putting on my neck beard hat and... beard - why should the setting still have the c'tan as active, ultrapotent gods? That makes just as little sense in the current setting and power levels to have gods active that need little tin men to march around for them and do their deeds. I think it's fair game for gods to rise and fall in 40k backstory, given the eldar effective created one.

And those gods don't rise and fall, they're just always there as threats. The ctan were no different and allowing the necrons to defeat them undermines the power level of the setting. As I said before it was done purely in the age of Ward's one-upmanship style of writing where every one had to be betterer than everyone else and it undermines the very things it's trying to achieve.

The man himself discusses that here, the whole interview is well worth a listen
https://youtu.be/2iWfxcYF7FI?si=a6l5I-Fo6YqSZe_U&t=2133

I'm referring to what was printed and it's effects in the setting, not what his intentions, directions or GW decision making was.

The style of 40k background writing is very distinctive in that era with rather juvenile comic book esque concepts like THE sanguinior carrying a bloodthirster into the air, marneus punching out an avatar, Draco carving a name into a daemon primarchs heart, or necrons being the bestest Eva with i win magic space buttons to detonate anything they want but somehow never do, either making it a useless weapon that can't do anything and therefore is pointless or the end of 40k in its entirely just waiting to happen.

It was all style over substance and the setting suffered from it.

Pretty much everything from that era has been walked back except the necrons because it was intertwined with their redevelopment making it harder to remove.

 BorderCountess wrote:
World Eaters. They're just so boring.

Don't get me wrong - there's a certain appreciation for running forward and hitting things, but when that's pretty much all you do? Ugh.

It's one thing to pick up a box of Berzerkers to include with a CSM army, but I can only tolerate them in small doses.

Bonus anti-points for Angron being essentially required.

I should also reiterate my stance of being comically anti-Nurgle.

I'll second WE here. They're just so one-note and really don't lend themselves to interesting stories. Kind of like Angron himself. He *had* a cool story, but it's basically over now. Now he's a stale, one-note screamy guy. It's like an army of toddlers having a collective tantrum.


I'll also throw custodes out there. No shade to those who like them, but I feel like they never should have been a full army. Their whole identity is basically being a +1 version of marines, and marines already struggle to be interesting once you get over their paper doll gimmicks and tired child super soldier thing. Custodes are like an army invented for that guy whose marines didn't feel special and unique enough, so GW rolled out the super-duper transhumans that are like marines except their stats are all a little better.I feel like this has also made it really hard to sell marines as the "elite super soldier" faction. Because no matter how much you pump up their stats, they're always just, by definition, going to be less strong, less tough, less elite versions of custodes. Custodes would have just worked way better as imperial agents that you get like, 1 of in your army. Maybe 1 character and a single small infantry squad. This would make their presence feel more notable/impressive (the same way having an assassin is impressive) and help preserve their mystique. They're *rare*. They're *special*. They're not an army with a dozens strong death pile at the end of a 2k game.

And as touched on earlier, marines are kind of boring. I don't hate them, but their lore is a dry well. Most of their stories boil down to them just being whiny idiots who clearly missed some very important lessons in kindergarten. The other stories are just them yelling, "Vengeance!" and "Honor!" at eachother for a few hundred pages while miraculously taking way fewer casualties than they probably should.

 RustyNumber wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

It makes 0 sense

The entire 40k setting in a nutshell.

But putting on my neck beard hat and... beard - why should the setting still have the c'tan as active, ultrapotent gods? That makes just as little sense in the current setting and power levels to have gods active that need little tin men to march around for them and do their deeds. I think it's fair game for gods to rise and fall in 40k backstory, given the eldar effective created one.

I'm with Hellebore on this one and the NuCrons are totally lame.

As for gods ... the setting already has the big four warp gods doing their thing. The C'tan I saw as the mirror of those (because there were originally four named) but in realspace.

Also the older lore hinted at the Necrons sort of being "life energy harvesters" for the C'tan. Gauss weapons were seen to pull the victims to the gun, and that "essence" would in turn be later given over to either Monoliths or the Pylons, which would then beam that harvested energy into space and an orbiting Necron ship. I have only vague memories of this. Some combo of the 3rd ed codex, BFG and maybe an Imperial Armor book.

I dont really dislike any faction per se, and in fact, the more the merrier would be my stance for their existence, both in lore and on the tabletop.

If there is something which rubs me the wrong way is what has happened to Orks since the glory days of "Ere We Go", "Waargh The Orks" and "Freebooterz". I dont like the way modern ork miniatures look, everything besides the KT21 Kommandos look wrong. Also, whatever happened to all those cool things we had back then, like Tinboyz and stuff? Bring them back!

On the Necron? The two backgrounds aren’t mutually exclusive at all.

In achieving biotransference, the Necrontyr swapped their fleshy bodies for metallic ones. And their minds for programming, allegedly based on their neural engrams and that. The lower down the pecking order, the less fancy your new bod was, and the more simplistic your programming. Of particular interest is The Silent King having a command protocol which rendered his entire species utterly subservient to his will.

In the original background, the C’Tan were greatly reduced in number when The Deceiver convinced them to start cannibalising each other, until only four remained. The Nightbringer, The Deceiver, The Dragon and The Outsider, with the last one devouring so many of his kin he went completely insane as lingering facets remained within his essence.

In the new background, the Necron, at massive cost, turned their wonder weapons on the C’Tan. Most were shattered and the shards kept in Tesseract Labyrinths. Some were eradicated entirely. And this is what the Necron believe.

But revisit my first observation. The bodies and minds of the now Necrons are programmed. And at one time, The Silent King’s whims were obeyed without question because of that programming.

How easy would it be for some cunning sod, perhaps a star god who’s idea it was in the first place, and perhaps who’s name suggests you really can’t trust him, to retain the option to alter the memories, in a cascade download starting with The Silent King.

That can get us to the same status. Most, but not all, C’Tan gone, with only shards of the majority of the unlucky ones left. Which could be scraps from a feast. And any surviving ones have gone into hiding, even in plain sight having used the same technique to just sort of tell the Necron “this is definitely a shard, we’re totally in control”.

Unfortunately, Grotsnik, the omniscient narrator is a thing.

Like a few others have said, there aren't many factions I dislike, though probably a few I wouldn't personally collect.

The overall problem for me is Marine Ubiquity. I don't dislike Marines, and certainly wouldn't want them cut. But the other factions really do need the chance to catch up.

Every edition, there's a brief moment where I think: "What if THIS is the edition where GW realize that marines don't need to be in the launch box and don't need to be the first dex, and don't need to be the main characters of licensed IP."

I feel like steps have been made: Kill Team has facilitated the expansion of non-marine armies on the sly. Craftworlds are, at last, getting some MUCH needed attention...

But we have father to go.

As for other factions:

Harlequins- I would love to see some expansion here, but I lack the painting skills to do Harlequins well.

Nurgle- Don't want it to go away, but the aesthetic has limited appeal to me.

Ok yeah, if we start nitpicking, I wish Necrons leaned way more into Canoptek stuff. At one point, I was seriously considering collecting a Canoptek-only Necron army, but the model selection is pretty nonexistent unless you addd the FW resins to the mix..

I basically detest the whole Necron warrior look and feel like they should have stayed in someone else's IP

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Unfortunately, Grotsnik, the omniscient narrator is a thing.

Yes and no in 40K.

The way I see it? The original Necron background is their history viewed from outside. The newer one is their history viewed from the inside. The overall beats are the same (jealousy, war, a bad deal struck, regret), but the motivations and agency after The Old Ones are defeated is where we see it drift. And we’re only ever a single revelation, hinted or blatant, that both are indeed true, and the manipulations of the C’Tan continue to this day.

I'm perhaps in the odd position of not loving the 5th edition Necron re-write - but hating the "C'Tan are behind everything in 40k" world we were heading to before that. The C'Tan should never have been on the scale of the Chaos Gods, and I'm much happier with them being reduced to Pokemon.

I've never liked Grey Knights and Space Wolves. I used to actively hate them about a decade ago, but its softened since then. Not sure why these two alienate more than other Marines - but suspect its just that I don't get the theme. Like others I think Grey Knights should have been a squad - or rather a handful of characters like Assassins - that you slotted into Imperial Armies.

I don't really like Knights either. Nothing really to do with the lore or models, but the boring decade long complaint but I just don't think they belong in 40k as a game system.

I can't see myself ever collecting Custodes or Voltan - but I don't dislike them at the same level.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On the Necron? The two backgrounds aren’t mutually exclusive at all.

In achieving biotransference, the Necrontyr swapped their fleshy bodies for metallic ones. And their minds for programming, allegedly based on their neural engrams and that. The lower down the pecking order, the less fancy your new bod was, and the more simplistic your programming. Of particular interest is The Silent King having a command protocol which rendered his entire species utterly subservient to his will.

In the original background, the C’Tan were greatly reduced in number when The Deceiver convinced them to start cannibalising each other, until only four remained. The Nightbringer, The Deceiver, The Dragon and The Outsider, with the last one devouring so many of his kin he went completely insane as lingering facets remained within his essence.

In the new background, the Necron, at massive cost, turned their wonder weapons on the C’Tan. Most were shattered and the shards kept in Tesseract Labyrinths. Some were eradicated entirely. And this is what the Necron believe.

But revisit my first observation. The bodies and minds of the now Necrons are programmed. And at one time, The Silent King’s whims were obeyed without question because of that programming.

How easy would it be for some cunning sod, perhaps a star god who’s idea it was in the first place, and perhaps who’s name suggests you really can’t trust him, to retain the option to alter the memories, in a cascade download starting with The Silent King.

That can get us to the same status. Most, but not all, C’Tan gone, with only shards of the majority of the unlucky ones left. Which could be scraps from a feast. And any surviving ones have gone into hiding, even in plain sight having used the same technique to just sort of tell the Necron “this is definitely a shard, we’re totally in control”.

The concept of both being true isn't a problem for me, it's which one takes the lead position and the way the c'tan function that does.

Wardcrons turned c'tan into mcguffins for the necrons, and eventually literally pokemon. The omniscient shenanigans of the deceiver are now but playthings for the wardcrons. The technological dominance of the dragon is now a cute historical footnote. it was c'tan retconning that I objected to through the necron retcons.

You shouldn't be retconning corporeal gods into plot points after they were already established as galactic players.

Ergo, the default necrons ARE the oldcrons, because you can't actually defeat the c'tan like they believed. Thematically newcrons are like the world eaters breaking khorne and firing bits of him at their foes, no one would like that change. Khorne can't be defeated by mortals, it's one of the cosmic horror elements that you can't conquer chaos. You shouldn't be able to conquer the c'tan either - their ability to ignore the rules of reality make the idea you could technology your way to victory pretty dumb. Everything the necrons have was from them, they could easily ignore or reabsorb it.

As I said earlier, the dynastic necrons are totally fine, so long as they are the exception and not the rule. Tomb worlds that woke up without a c'tan's control or presence (for whatever plot reason) that regained some of their consciousness and then attempted to rebuild what was lost, hoping in terror their literal gods didn't show up at their door and demand obeisance.

You then actually create two faction of necrons, one cosmic horror and one grey and potentially allyable, that could be seen as freedom fighters from their enslavers. A much more narratively satisfying concept than one super robot dude had a magic control that his gods couldn't do anything about and singlehandedly undid omnipotent power and then necrons through.... robo fists and gauss flayers? defeated star gods? The silent king's creation is classic wardian era GW - super character that has the special abilities to do stupid things so he looks cooler than the others.


They could have totally reinvented the necrons and added dynasties etc, without needing to massively retconn the puissance of the c'tan and make the necrons stupidly powerful as a result. It turned the war in heaven from the gods clashing (old ones and c'tan) with their followers dragged along, to a boring normal war where the necrons seemingly did everything and the c'tan were just.... there.

Tyel wrote:
I'm perhaps in the odd position of not loving the 5th edition Necron re-write - but hating the "C'Tan are behind everything in 40k" world we were heading to before that. The C'Tan should never have been on the scale of the Chaos Gods, and I'm much happier with them being reduced to Pokemon.

That wasn't a problem of their power, it was a problem of GW not being creative with their writing. When all they had was chaos, it were behind everything as well, because it was the only big bad they had. This was no different.

The c'tan were an interesting concept because they were gods of reality, which was just another way of saying they were creatures that ignored physics, giving them massive advantages over everyone else. They weren't depicted as being on par with the chaos gods in the current setting (at the height of their power during the war in heaven yes, but they were literally striding the galaxy fighting a god war so what do you expect? and the chaos gods weren't really a threat then because even they grow in power and aren't constant). They actually harken back to the chaos vs law concept that GW dropped, which I think is really interesting because they managed to find a way to grimdark Law in the form of realspace gods that consume energy to survive. Realspace vs Warpspace, rather than law vs chaos.

Modern 40k they were the equivalent of Cegorach, Khaine or Ynnead, able to affect reality and exert their influence, but not at the scale of Tzeentch or nurgle.

Their 'behind everything' thing was really only a couple of things that were done in the past when they WERE literal gods, not the half starved shadows they are now. the two that come to mind are the fear of death and the pariah gene, both of which were implemented millions of years ago and not some new machination.


It's clear GW prefer their new incarnation and I doubt we'll see this change any time soon. But there was a time in 40k when the cosmic horror was ratcheted up a lot higher and the world seemed a lot more frightening. The necrons have imo become a bit of comic relief due to the infinite and divine and other stories, which is a bit sad.



Ultimately, the 'c'tan behind everything' was replaced with 'wardcrons behind everything' - they alone in the setting are responsible for more things than any other, and possess other stupid things they shouldn't have. It Also screws with the other factions by having them be this powerful - literally galaxy ending buttons and god pokeballs and yet they went to sleep? Eldar and orks clearly not going to win against that, but 60 million years of the galaxy being in their hands.

The logic of - c'tan and necrons defeat old ones, warp goes nuts, enslavers kill people, c'tan slaughter one another in desperation to not starve, eventually all necrons go to sleep to hope for a better harvest, everyone is left alone to repopulate (60 million years is now filled with an indeterminate post apocalypse that means the necrons are mostly forgotten), necrons wake up and are like yay our gods will eat everyone and not us.

makes a lot more sense than - necrons defeat old ones, then defeat c'tan, then decide to go to sleep because being god killers it's still too hard to fight eldar and orks (but they're not tough enough to actually wipe out the sleeping necrons for 60 MILLION YEARS), apparently instead of expecting life to flourish they expect it to whither? wake up and wonder why leaving life around means it's still there... and just exist.

I disagree.

The original Necron army had zero agency of its own. No character, no agenda beyond “feed the C’Tan”.

Now? There’s at least the suggestion of independent agency, though it could be an illusion.

They also serve to give some kind of hope in the background that, ridiculously powerful as the entities are? Maybe it is possible to Avatar the Chaos Gods, shattering their spiritual cohesion into smaller, hopefully less individually malevolent chunks. How do you do that? Seems nobodies figured it out beyond “well, Slaanesh kicked Khaine’s arse hard enough for it to happen”

Naturally that’s not to say “therefore you am the big wrong”. Just that we’d not going to agree on this one, and fair enough.

As for the rest? The Necron were all but exhausted. Sure, there are still untold billions, possibly trillions of them - but we don’t know what percentage of their original populace that represents, because all such things are relative.

It could even be The Silent King, disgusted with himself for agreeing to biotransference, ordered his people to sleep so as few as possible would be destroyed entirely before they found a way to reverse biotransference. That the gamble was that the races created by The Old Ones, now bereft of their guidance and leadership, would hubris themselves into obscurity given enough time.

And that’s at least partially played out.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I disagree.

The original Necron army had zero agency of its own. No character, no agenda beyond “feed the C’Tan”.

Now? There’s at least the suggestion of independent agency, though it could be an illusion.

They also serve to give some kind of hope in the background that, ridiculously powerful as the entities are? Maybe it is possible to Avatar the Chaos Gods, shattering their spiritual cohesion into smaller, hopefully less individually malevolent chunks. How do you do that? Seems nobodies figured it out beyond “well, Slaanesh kicked Khaine’s arse hard enough for it to happen”

Naturally that’s not to say “therefore you am the big wrong”. Just that we’d not going to agree on this one, and fair enough.

As for the rest? The Necron were all but exhausted. Sure, there are still untold billions, possibly trillions of them - but we don’t know what percentage of their original populace that represents, because all such things are relative.

It could even be The Silent King, disgusted with himself for agreeing to biotransference, ordered his people to sleep so as few as possible would be destroyed entirely before they found a way to reverse biotransference. That the gamble was that the races created by The Old Ones, now bereft of their guidance and leadership, would hubris themselves into obscurity given enough time.

And that’s at least partially played out.

By that argument all chaos armies have no agency, all requiring that they feed their gods more chaos and souls. It's literally the same thing.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I disagree.

The original Necron army had zero agency of its own. No character, no agenda beyond “feed the C’Tan”.

Now? There’s at least the suggestion of independent agency, though it could be an illusion.

They also serve to give some kind of hope in the background that, ridiculously powerful as the entities are? Maybe it is possible to Avatar the Chaos Gods, shattering their spiritual cohesion into smaller, hopefully less individually malevolent chunks. How do you do that? Seems nobodies figured it out beyond “well, Slaanesh kicked Khaine’s arse hard enough for it to happen”

Naturally that’s not to say “therefore you am the big wrong”. Just that we’d not going to agree on this one, and fair enough.

As for the rest? The Necron were all but exhausted. Sure, there are still untold billions, possibly trillions of them - but we don’t know what percentage of their original populace that represents, because all such things are relative.

It could even be The Silent King, disgusted with himself for agreeing to biotransference, ordered his people to sleep so as few as possible would be destroyed entirely before they found a way to reverse biotransference. That the gamble was that the races created by The Old Ones, now bereft of their guidance and leadership, would hubris themselves into obscurity given enough time.

And that’s at least partially played out.

By that argument all chaos armies have no agency, all requiring that they feed their gods more chaos and souls. It's literally the same thing.

Not really. Chaos Marines still have individual agency. 3rd ed Necrons, much as I liked them, were basically mindless slaves

Astra Militarum / Imperial Guard


Just go play Bolt Action or something. That gak just doesn't fit 40K. Story. Theme. Rules. Visuals. It's just a stain that feels off in every conceivable way. But I guess it makes sense from a business perspective to catfish the more historical wargame / model kit minded into 40K.

As Facebeard said, Chaos forces do have agency. Up until the point you take a God’s Mark, you can, to some extent, pick and choose who’s name you’re doing what in.

And unlike the Necron? Chaos Marines and Cultists tend to follow that path willingly.

There is a question of how freely of course. No cult expands with “Smash Face and Eat Babies, Khorne R Grate” or what have you. They’re a good bit more insidious than that, it being a typically long road to damnation. The Gods and their mortal agents having ways to encourage going ever further.

But Necrons in the original? From the moment of biotransference, zero personal agency. They became remote control toys of minimal sentience.

Not to say that doesn’t have an appeal. But they just kind of felt like mechanical Tyranids, constructs used by an overruling intelligence with no say in their actions or instincts.

 Hellebore wrote:
You shouldn't be retconning corporeal gods into plot points after they were already established as galactic players.

Ehhhhh, they decided to make up/retconn/open a mystery box. There's nothing to stop them next year starting a new faction and saying "surprise! remember that *weird space mystery thing* we mentioned in passing in the 6th era BRB fluff section because it's fun to have mysterious throwaway lines? well turns out it's a god and it's connected to THIS FACTION which is actually a big deal!" Which is why I never see much of a point in getting wrapped up how things were in their IP, outside of your own personal preference of the setting of course.

 Cap'n Facebeard wrote:


Not really. Chaos Marines still have individual agency. 3rd ed Necrons, much as I liked them, were basically mindless slaves

They had varying levels of sentience and free will. In the great GW tradition, it depends. It was not a static value across all of them. But in the great GW fandom tradition, it was flanderised down to 'lol zombie robots' and that was then used as a strawman against them.

All chaos worshippers have pledged their souls to chaos. What they are free to do is limited by whether it helps chaos or not. They can't become farmer hermits, because that doesn't further the cause of chaos (unless you're tzeentch and there's some plot afoot...). They have agency within the limitations of their enslavement (literally slaves to darkness). They willingly do this for temporal power. But they are not free and never have been.

The necrons willingly underwent biotransference in all versions of the story. And just as with many chaos followers that aren't astartes, some regretted the decision to damn themselves for temporal power but it was too late.

Necrons with a c'tan present were just as restricted in action as berserkers with Angron present, they MUST do what the deceiver/khorne wants. But without a c'tan they were more free to pursue the goals of their lords. In fact a c'tanless necron lord had far more discretion than an angronless berserker lord, because the berserker lord's overriding need was to spill blood for Khorne, while the necron lord's sentience gave them the ability to do anything until a c'tan showed up.

So yeah, I would argue that even in 3rd ed, a necron lord had more freedom to command his troops to do what he wanted than a berserker or plague lord had.

Chaos Cultists can be literally anyone. That’s what makes them so dangerous.

Granted sooner or later it’s Loony Tunes everywhere when the uprising hits. But cult members can live their entire life out before that day comes, and to most seem like productive citizens.

Ritual here, marking there, the odd sacrifice of some sort. It’s not 0-100 in 2.5 seconds.

Whilst I don’t think it’s come across to 40K, we see this in the Tzeentch Arcanite Cultists in AoS. The models are all ripped, Greek Adonis types. But that’s part of their magic. Outside of battle? They look like any other citizen, only hulking out when it’s action o’clock.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The original Necron army had zero agency of its own. No character, no agenda beyond “feed the C’Tan”.

I think you could have rectified this without reducing C'tan to Pokemon, though.

Have some Necrons retain some of their personality (or even gain new personalities/awareness). Maybe it's not even clear why it's happening - only that some Tomb Worlds seem to awakened with much more sapience than others of their kind.

It would allow for Necron special characters and for players to give their lords distinct personalities, without completely wrecking the Star Gods in the process.

As a bonus, it also sets up a potential mystery of why some Necrons have retained their personalities.

My point is if Khorne berserkers and plague marines with narrow focuses and an inability to deviate from them, are acceptable, then limited freedom necrons should be no problem.

And tyranids can't do anything BUT tyranid and they're fine. Necrons having limitations being a problem seems pretty arbitrary in the scheme of 40k factions.

and as I said, the range of sentience amongst even the warriors was varied, GW loves to avoid standardisation and they said that necrons all had varying levels of consciousness.


C'tanless necrons? Well they look just like Wardcrons.

Necrons with a c'tan? Well no one can truly break a c'tan and their control was built into the fabric of the necrons, no shenanigans can avoid that so they must do what their c'tan wants.

The advantage? There are only 4 c'tan left, meaning that there are plenty of tomb world without a c'tan to control them, who only fear one of the 4 showing up to take control of them.


No faction in 40k should literally hold i win buttons or be considered capable of defeating things like C'tan and expect the setting to matter. the existence of wardcrons destroys the power balance of the setting.

My 2 cents - Custodes/Sisters of Silence (just put them with the Sisters of Battle) - both really don't need their own army. Grey Knights are the same, Deathwatch too.

Although that being said, I'm really sick of every starter box being 'Ultramarines vs _____'

Not sure why GW doesn't just...idk, make TWO different starters sets - with 4 armies involved, I wouldn't be against one being space marines, but do tyranids vs orks or guard or tau. You could literally even do the same terrain, rules, etc. I find the absolutely least value in the starter sets that are space marines vs chaos space marines.

Pardon my ignorance on the subject, since I'm not up to date on the Necron lore, how did a player in the Atlanta GT run a 6 C'Tan Necron List, if there aren't that many C'Tan total?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Pardon my ignorance on the subject, since I'm not up to date on the Necron lore, how did a player in the Atlanta GT run a 6 C'Tan Necron List, if there aren't that many C'Tan total?

Newcron C'Tan are the pieces of the original C'Tan, which the Newcrons smashed into shards. So each C'Tan became a whole bunch of shards.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Pardon my ignorance on the subject, since I'm not up to date on the Necron lore, how did a player in the Atlanta GT run a 6 C'Tan Necron List, if there aren't that many C'Tan total?

You're mixing up 2 things

1) Game and lore

2) Old and new Lore

The game and the lore are separate. Thus its possible to do things in the game that are impossible in the lore. Like having characters who would never meat (geographically and temporally too far away from each other). Or having multiple heroes in the same place which would never happen in the lore etc.... Heck the fact that Marines appear in a VAST number of real world games already goes against the lore of them being the super rare super elite. Many worlds and many Guard regiments will fight and hold and conquer many worlds and never see a Space Marine.

Secondly the Old Lore had the Ctan as still alive gods of the Necrons so they were all named with limited numbers. The new lore has the Necrons defeating them and shattering them into shards. So what you get on the table isn't an entire Godlike Ctan, but a shard. That's why there's the generic one in the Obelisk and how the Emperor was able to bury a shard on Mars to help form the Mechanicum and later the mechanicus cult (Also pretty sure this is something no one barring the Emperor and readers/narrators know about and might even only be heavily hinted at)

That last bit about the Emperor, is that another retcon, seeing as the Mechanicus had Machine God worshipping WAY before the Emperor's unification.

Heck, when they came across Ryza, it didn't believe the Emperor was the Omnissiah.

That's why I never understood this Dragon bit, as you had Mechanicus units from the Dark Age of Technology and the Age of Strife out and about in the galaxy. That wouldn't be reinstated to Humanity for a very long time, but had the Machine God thing.

This C'tan stuff is all very confusing.

The lore has both ret-cons and "stuff we added later that was never elaborated on before."

Also don't forget that we as readers often know more than most in the setting. The Mechanicus have the Omnissiah - the Machine God.

We as readers understand what they think of as that Machine God is the result of the influence of the one of the Shards of the Dragon Ctan, that the Emperor found and buried deep on Mars.


The lore is touched by Chaos - its a bit wibbly wobbly crazy
Add onto that the fact that most of us have NOT read anywhere near all the lore. So we all have BITS of it from various sources that we've read over the years and miss rememberd; then read online from places that might have reported accurately or made it up etc... So it all becomes one big confusing melting pot. Remember as a hobby most of us are not studying the lore formally - we read bits; remember them as best we can and chat about it