Necron 5th edition codex (SPOILERS)

[Connor MacLeod]

I just included the spoilers tag because discussion probably means spoilers. I've been following White Rabbit's start on detailing the new codex.. was wondering if anyone here had seen it and what they thought.

The biggest change seems to be in the FTL department, so far. On the other hand there are potentially millions of tomb worlds out there, so they really got amped-up scale wise.

[Rabid]

Given the nerd rage about this new codex, I'm probably going to be stoned for this, but...
Never having read the old Necron Codexe(s?), I find myself liking the summary he's doing of this one. Yes, the Necrons may have been a bit nerfed (which is arguable, given how widespread and numerous they are, when you take into account their tech base), but they seems to now possess a real "personality", and this, as far I'm concerned, makes them more attractive than before : they now possess some semblance of free will, instead of merely being the puppets of their Star-Gods. I think it's a good thing.
Also, I like the fact that they are now, like the Eldar or the Imperium, a "dying" specie, which is only fighting for their survival instead of some grand plan for universal conquest. Given their relation toward death, this add an interesting "twist" to their flavor, and makes them, in my eyes, more likeable.

Now, sure, some details seems a bit ridiculous, and a lots of things are inconsistent with previous bits of fluff about the 'crons ; but in the other hand, coooome oon : It's Warhammer 40000 we're talkin' about here ! What were you expecting ?

[Connor MacLeod]

well from what I hear Ward didn't do the fluff.. he did the rules.. this was a collaborateive effort.

[NecronLord]

The FTL thing is a bit mindbending, given that we have seen in numerous sources that they have non-webway FTL. I can only assume that the 'Dolmen Gates' piece exaggerates. Certainly in Hammer and Anvil, Imotekh was able to reach Sanctuary 101 even though its Dolmen Gate was definately offline and inert, so he at least has access to an FTL vessel.

Elsewhere in the codex their portals are said to be able to teleport to distant worlds, so it's unlikely it's really meant to indicate that Dolmen Gates are their only means of FTL.

I would certainly say that nine out of ten of the changes are for the better, (and have bought a ludicrous amount of new necron kit today) and I like all the new special characters (especially Trazyn) and their backstories, but one or two technical details, like the supposed dependence on Dolmen Gates, rankles.

[Rabid]

well from what I hear Ward didn't do the fluff.. he did the rules.. this was a collaborateive effort.

Trying to understand what you said here... Are you saying something to the effect of "Matt Ward wasn't alone in writing the Codex so it may explain why the fluff may be good" ?

The FTL thing is a bit mindbending, given that we have seen in numerous sources that they have non-webway FTL. I can only assume that the 'Dolmen Gates' piece exaggerates. Certainly in Hammer and Anvil, Imotekh was able to reach Sanctuary 101 even though its Dolmen Gate was definately offline and inert, so he at least has access to an FTL vessel.

Well, the Tau don't have psykers of their own and still manage to have FTL, so there may be an explanation along the same lines.

[NecronLord]

Well, the Tau don't have psykers of their own and still manage to have FTL, so there may be an explanation along the same lines.

Sanctuary 101 is far across the galaxy from his empire, though, which is apparently out by Ultramar. It also mentions in Hammer and Anvil that he's out in space in a space ship.

[NecronLord]

That said, all prior examples of super-FTL can probably be reconciled as C'tan artifacts anyway, the C'tan are a distinctly different race now, and can definitely assfuck time and space (One C'tan Shard option kills people by projecting them back in time "to before there was time." The original codex did mention "ships that can cross the galaxy in the blink of an eye" in the context of a boon of the C'tan after all, and Dark Apostle mentioned that the C'tan had devised the drive of the Undying One's ship, so quite possibly only scattered examples of such C'tan devised FTL remain.

[Rabid]

*shrug* Well, I don't know.
My knowledge about 40K stuff is limited to a few Cain books, the first Gaunt's Ghosts and the first HH novels, the 5th edition rulebook, the 5th edition IG codex, and a few stuff gleaned on the Lexicanum wiki and here. So I defer to your's and Connor's judgment on these matters.

Speaking of that, I remember that in the "Caves of Ice" novel, in the Cain's series, the 'Crons were using some sort of warp gate. Given how notoriously unreliable the narrator is, which can explain any incoherency with the new stuff, we can suppose it was one of those "Dolmen Gate".


Edit : Also, the Necrons are capable of teleportation, without access to the warp, and they are able to somehow fit it on their standard foot-soldiers ; so I think we can assume they were able to derive a form of FTL drive from there.

[NecronLord]

It was probably not. A Dolmen Gate is described in Hammer and Anvil in great detail. It is a huge artifact that occupies the interior of a hollowed out moon and is at the very least, many miles across.

[Srelex]

Given the nerd rage about this new codex, I'm probably going to be stoned for this, but...
Never having read the old Necron Codexe(s?), I find myself liking the summary he's doing of this one. Yes, the Necrons may have been a bit nerfed (which is arguable, given how widespread and numerous they are, when you take into account their tech base), but they seems to now possess a real "personality", and this, as far I'm concerned, makes them more attractive than before : they now possess some semblance of free will, instead of merely being the puppets of their Star-Gods. I think it's a good thing.
Also, I like the fact that they are now, like the Eldar or the Imperium, a "dying" specie, which is only fighting for their survival instead of some grand plan for universal conquest. Given their relation toward death, this add an interesting "twist" to their flavor, and makes them, in my eyes, more likeable.

Now, sure, some details seems a bit ridiculous, and a lots of things are inconsistent with previous bits of fluff about the 'crons ; but in the other hand, coooome oon : It's Warhammer 40000 we're talkin' about here ! What were you expecting ?

I dunno, the general consensus I've been seeing is that the new fluff is an improvement, with the odd vocal exception nostalgic for the old. All in all GW basically brought them closer to their roots as the Tomb Kings counterpart for 40k than yet another omnicidial race of faceless goons.

[Connor MacLeod]

Yeah there were a bunch of rumors about it, and having Matt Ward's name attached tended to exacerbate the negativty. From what I see most of it is actually pretty good.

and since it should be technical...

"Canoptek Scarabs are constructs, designed to break down organic and non-organic matter into raw energy. This harvested energy can then be woven into fresh forms at the direction of the Scarabs' controller."

"TEctonically unstable planets crushed Necron STrongholds slumbering at their hearts; stars went supernova, consuming orbiting tomb worlds in their death throes"

"Though a C'Tan shard has the power to reduce a tank to molten slag with but a gesture..."

(the context of this one is, they have that pwoer, but becuase the fragment may not realize they could do it because of the origin of their shard - eg the C'tan they were descended from basically wouldn't have thought of it or something to that effect)

"A single doom scyche can carve its way through an entire armoured column so long as its death ray remains operational, and a full squadorn can reduce the sprawling spires of a hive city to fulminating slag in less than an hour"

"EVery thirty-three weeks, another vast stasis-ship would launch from the dockyards of Seidon, carrying a legion of Immortals to some distant planet."

(They use torch ships, and this was apparently a big Necron shipyard so..)

"Thanks to the ruthless precision of his android brain, the pilot can simulate billions of possible strategies in the span of a few nanoseconds"

(said of a Doom Scythe fighter/aircraft thingy)_

This is only just one thing.. there's lots of weird stuff. They have nanoscarabs and automated factory capabilities, they have mind control scarab thingies for making compliant populations, they have Necron snipers who can step into and out of pocket dimensions, they use pocket dimensions as garbage cans (sort of an exaggeration, but not much) and they have something called a "tachyon arrow" which can pierce the heart of a mountain. Oh and there's a time travelling necron lord who has Farseer-like predictive abilities. There's tons of fluffy stuff to digest in that book and they've expanded greatly on the character of the Necrons.

Edit: Oh and WR mentioned the Celestial Orrey.. the "point and blow up any star of your choice" device.

Hell if anything this is the sort of stuff that has been predicted for them for awhile now (Fall of Damnos, HEllforged, etc.)

[Connor MacLeod]

It was probably not. A Dolmen Gate is described in Hammer and Anvil in great detail. It is a huge artifact that occupies the interior of a hollowed out moon and is at the very least, many miles across.

the Dolmen gates are pretty odd/interesting things in what they are stated to be capable of.

reminds me alot of the Golden Throne, in fact....

[Sharp-kun]

I've not read the detail yet, but the general gist sits well with me.

It's nice for Necrons to get some more personality as an army.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

I have to say I like the changes, and not just because they gave the Necrons a personality.

It turns out that the Necrontyr leader, the Silent King, realised too late what the C'tan had done to his people, and got back at them by turning on the C'tan and shattering them after the Old Ones were defeated. After that, he ordered the Necrons into their tombs to protect them from the vengeful Eldar (and others) then destroyed his command codes and left the galaxy. I liked this in particular, not only because of the air of tragedy about it, but also because answers the question as to why the Necrons, if they are so overwhelmingly powerful, haven't wiped out the Imperium yet. Without central leadership, they're as likely to fight eachother as anyone else, and some dynasties aren't interested in expansion. Also, it helps to move the 40k universe away from the grimdark that has been threatening to overwhelm it for quite some time. Rather than just another all-destroying force, the Necrons are a part of the wider fabric.

As for the C'tan appearing from time to time, the explanation is that they are actually shards of the original C'tan, potent but nothing like as powerful. This was a nice touch, as it makes it less of a retcon than a reimagining, easing the new Necrons into the universe without destroying too much of what went before.

[Ahriman238]

I just want to know what the point of the Overlord is. What, precisely do they do that the regular Lords weren't already doing?

[Todeswind]

Its pretty much the same thing they did with chapter master versus captain in the SM codex. They have similar profiles but give different passive bonuses / war gear choices.

[NecronLord]

Primarily the Overlord concept allows you to take a lot of lesser lords that can be split off as squad leaders, etc.

[NecronLord]

Another thing that jumps out at me, we may have a necron who may have visited Earth in the form of Trazyn, who is noted for traveling under aliases from "necrontyr mythology" including Nemesor Koschei and something the Deathless, presumably suggesting that he is the inspiration for Koschei the Deathless, a figure from Slavic mythology who is an unkillable being and who is often depicted as a skeletal figure. One can't tell is this is merely an intertextual reference or a deliberate suggestion that in universe, Trazyn visited Slavic peoples on Earth sometime before M2.

[Todeswind]

Its pretty much the same thing they did with chapter master versus captain in the SM codex. They have similar profiles but give different passive bonuses / war gear choices.

Having had a chance to actually read the codex I take this back. The Lord now seems closer to either the wolf guard from the SM codex or the Commissars from the IG codex in how you would use them in your army.

[SylasGaunt]

I love Trazyn's crazy 'steal all the cool things' motivation.

That and the explanation for why C'tan shards from the same C'tan can have such variable powers (there's scads of them, yes the C'tan could throw you back to the start of time if it wanted.. unfortunately this shard isn't the bit that knows how to do that).

[Serafina]

Yes, fluffwise the new Codex seems to be pretty good. They pretty much did some of the things i would have done (and recently named in a Testing-thread) with it, such as reducing the C'tan to "Avatars" (called "Splinters").
There are a few annoying things that just seem over-the-top (such as the Stormlord or the Celestial Orrery), but i can live with that.

Rulewise it gives a Necron army MUCH more variety. You can now actually build some pretty fast units, such as Immortals transported by Night Scythes (Deep-striking transport vessels with 36 inch movement), which is really a big change for Necrons. The new vehicles will certainly be welcome additions, but i am a bit dissapointed that all of them are so much more fragile than the Monolith (they're all open-topped and have 13 armor - which gets reduced to 11 after the first penetrating hit), a bit of middle-ground would have been nice.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It makes sense I think - you have the Monoliths for heavy combat and fast and mobile transports. What else do you need?

[starfury]

Also, it helps to move the 40k universe away from the grimdark that has been threatening to overwhelm it for quite some time. Rather than just another all-destroying force, the Necrons are a part of the wider fabric.

Yeah, this also removes the necrons from competing with Chaos for the role of great evil, something that they and the Tyranids in their older fluff tended in general to overshadow Chaos as the great threat to the galaxy, they mirrored the Tyranids and the old C'tan fluff was a rather direct rival to the chaos gods.

[Stravo]

I have yet to receive my codex but the models look gorgeous. The death marks and Lychguard in particular are models I am going to be getting. I'm even seriously considering starting up a Necron army but then I hear my wife bitching about the almost complete Ultramarine and half completed BloodAngel armies starting to clutter up the apartment so that's probably a no.

Unlike some of the Necron fans screaming on other forums about how they messed up their army and made it Tomb Kings in Space I really like the snippets of the fluff I've caught so far. Here's an army with a distinct personality that would be fun to play and paint unlike the relatively monochrome Necrons from the past.

[SpaceMarine93]

What a grand ruining of the Necron's history