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Probably a terrible thread title sorry having largely stayed in the 30k sphere for quite a while, I seem to slowly dragged by my friends back into 40k... as such I've recently been thinking about Necrons, but I always preferred the "Oldcron" background and so have a few questions...

As I understand it, the new lore allows for a C'tan dominated/enslaved Necron tombworld, although there are no canon examples? If I can fit my preferred take on Necrons within the current lore that would be preferable to me.

With that in mind, are there any of the new (relatively speaking - maybe "current" would be more accurate!) units which definitely wouldn't fit with this theme? E.g. whilst Lychguard look the most like the old Pariahs they obviously aren't the same but I think lore-wise my tombworld would probably still have some lychguard but maybe not the praetorians? Not 100% sure on that. Obviously all of the named characters are out, other than the C'tan shards - though I'll need to settle on one to be leading my tombworld. I'm vaguely aware that the Destroyer/Flayed one lore has been fleshed out, but haven't quite got my head around what that means - whether that means they fit (or not), or whether it is particularly relevant to a C'tan enslaved Necron?

And finally, whilst I appreciate that none of the new BL necron-centric novels are going to look at the kind of Necron army I want, are there any novels that folks would recommend that I'm not going to hate...? :p So just wondering if any present the new-type lore in a way which might help be get up to speed on recent lore but do it well enough that I might be able to enjoy it despite reservations (or that you think might even change my mind!)?

Any thoughts gratefully received!

Oh hey you, long time no see!

I wouldn't have thought Crypteks were particularly appropriate for a C'tan-led Oldcron force, if I was a god I wouldn't want people able to twist physics wandering around.

Tesseract Vaults are powered by a captured C'tan so...not great for the army, unless it's a rival C'tan, I guess? but the alternate build of an Obelisk should be fine

For the Oldcron theme you're going to want lots of Canoptek units, and basically anything that was available back in 3rd edition. Flyers should be fine, as should any of the other vehicles

Is there actually background for c'tan dominance?

Because they were all broken into underpowered shards, making them no threat to the necrons. So I'm not sure how a shard can dominate any necrons.

With this new character coming out with a bromantic crush (special rule) on the nightbringer, it seemed more a voluntary alignment of shared ideology than a please enslave me daddy kind of scenario...

I would also love to see the oldcron perspective more prominent, but I've not seen anything that explains how they would be enslaved.

Charax wrote:
Oh hey you, long time no see!

I wouldn't have thought Crypteks were particularly appropriate for a C'tan-led Oldcron force, if I was a god I wouldn't want people able to twist physics wandering around.

Tesseract Vaults are powered by a captured C'tan so...not great for the army, unless it's a rival C'tan, I guess? but the alternate build of an Obelisk should be fine

For the Oldcron theme you're going to want lots of Canoptek units, and basically anything that was available back in 3rd edition. Flyers should be fine, as should any of the other vehicles

A very long time! Hope you're well and keeping as pestilent as ever!

Interesting point about Crypteks, though weren't they originally the Necrontyr priesthood - so could you maybe have some still worshiping the C'tan?

Lots of Canoptek units makes sense, and probably going to go with the new monolith (or two) over the obelisk...

 Hellebore wrote:
Is there actually background for c'tan dominance?

Because they were all broken into underpowered shards, making them no threat to the necrons. So I'm not sure how a shard can dominate any necrons.

With this new character coming out with a bromantic crush (special rule) on the nightbringer, it seemed more a voluntary alignment of shared ideology than a please enslave me daddy kind of scenario...

I would also love to see the oldcron perspective more prominent, but I've not seen anything that explains how they would be enslaved.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought it was possible - in theory - for shards of the same C'tan to be absorbed together and grow more powerful (like the Transcendent C'tan) and so you could perhaps have a tombworld where (by accident or design) a few too many shards were combined together and it was able to take control. I imagine it's the sort of occurrence the rest of the Necrons would be quite keen to stamp out however.

It does seem like the introduction of the Void Dragon was a missed opportunity to really make this more of an option, but it will be interesting to see where they take things with that new Destroyer character and the Nightbringer...

Surely it's possible for a lord's enslaved C'Tan shard to slowly go from a useful tool to an indispensable ally to an equal partner to an unquestioned master.

The C'Tan originally came to dominate the necrons because of their technomagic mumbo-jumbo, not brute force, and it's easy to imagine a shard pulling the same trick with a single lord who failed to learn his lesson.

I would argue it was both. They were realspace gods for whom natural laws were more like guidelines.

They didn't have a society that developed technology, their inherent structure allowed them to manipulate matter in a high tech kind of way.

But they weren't door to door salesmen idly eating stars waiting for someone to ask them about their great idea for a business

When they coalesced they leant their extreme power to fighting the old ones. But the technological power they granted was more infusing necron tech with the reality defying ability of ctan energy.

I don't think there is ever an implication that the crab coalesced and begin drawing up blueprints for technology they had designed.

Given that 40k is a sandbox, there's no reason your specific Tomb World can't be dominated by a C'tan that's broken free.

There are examples of powerful C'tan shards overriding control on lower caste Necrons in the midst of battle (most notably The Deceiver).

There's a good reason that the C'tan are kept bottled up in Tesseract Vaults and have their powers dampened by Canoptek constructs. They could and would enslave the Necrons again, given the chance.

Given that the Silent King is also currently busy with a civil war enacted by Imotekh the Stormlord, he's also going to be distracted if your C'tan did start moving around, taking territory, and enslaving worlds again.

See to me that's part of the issue with modern necron writing. Because what you've described is contradictory.

If the necrons can control the ctan shards and have that technology, the ctan can't also then control them. Either one of them can dominate the other or vice versa. They can't both be equally dominant trading control.

The necron tech allows them to control ctan. Breaking free of that doesn't make you capable of anything except being redominated. The necrons don't lose their ability to control them because they broke their handcuffs once.

If it does then it means the ctan aren't actually being controlled, but rather allowing themselves to be. Which is a very different power dynamic. Like superman wearing handcuffs as a symbol of being arrested.

Except it's not because the whole point of sharding a C'tan is that it makes it weaker and therefore controllable.
If a C'tan absorbs more shards of itself, it becomes stronger.

Not sure what's contradictory about that.

1 shard - Has power, but is weak enough to be controlled.
50 shards - Problem.

To use your line of thinking, standard handcuffs will work on Average Joe. They will not work on Steroids McGee, who bench presses cars for fun.

Yes but then the ctan couldn't have been handcuffed in the first place.

For this to work it needs to have a shard that's controlled, to break the control it's too weak to break in order to absorb other shards to make it too powerful to be controlled.

Except that the necrons have the power to shatter the ctan at their most powerful or they couldn't have shattered them in the first place.

So I don't see where the logic is

C'tan powerful.

C'tan get broken into shards to be less powerful and can be controlled by Necrons.

If C'tan shard A absorbs shards B, C, and D it gets more powerful.

C'tan can still be broken again but the more shards it has makes it harder.

You don't have to like the newer Necron background but there's literally nothing stopping you from making your Tomb World ruled by a C'tan.

You know what, I'll do it just for kicks.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
If there can be a Dynasty ruled by a Tomb World's Canoptek caretaker program, a Dynasty can be ruled by a C'tan.

It is also unclear how the Necrons actually shattered the original C'tan, and they only ever destroyed one C'tan, Llandu'gor. Even then it managed to create the Flayer Virus. I think the reason the current Necrons get so nervous and jittery around C'tan shards, and especially the prospect of multiple shards being active at once on a battlefield, is because they might not be able to shatter them again if they found a way to re-coalesce. Perhaps the weapons that shattered them or killed Llandu'gor were unique and cannot be recreated by the current Necrons, who are shadows of their former selves.

In my headcanon, these weapons were more like a reality edit, and perhaps required special conditions or pre-requisites to be in place before being able to work. Whatever deleted Llandu'gor from existence was perhaps more like a persaonalized techno-ritual combined with other super science indistinguishable from magic and required the right alignment of stars or cosmic forces. That is why the Necrons did not and could not just go around destroying all the C'tan as no generic C'tan shattering or killing weapon existed. If these weapons required specific pre-requisites perhaps they are also not usable any more as such pre-requisite conditions do not and maybe never can exist again.