no wonder this thread is constantly on the front page.. but anyhoo, have no real interest in Necrons myself, though it's pretty though if you ask me. i means they would make for perfect alternate NPCs controlled by the devs along side the Nids for some added variation. But at the same time there are plenty of players that would love to play as them(though personally that would seem pretty boring, most are pretty slow!) will be interesting to see what comes of this.
Eldar are kind of the exception to speed. Besides them, and units with fleet/slow and purposeful, all units have the same average movement speed (going off of the TT).
What dynasties would most likely come out and how would they do that? or would they just have one dynasty?
No my argument is that thematically the behaviour of the old Necrons as a remorseless and implacable force utterly inimical to the living was clearly and unequivocally horror based, not that they come back after being killed. The fact that they are effectively portrayed as undead first and foremost is what I was alluding to by comparing them to the zombies of modern horror cinema. This was drawn from Terminator the movie which is primarily a sci-fi with some horror elements but was rendered secondary to the egyptian undead theme, but you are correct the "They can't be killed" trope is often used in horror, though it really depends on the main factor of horror (the utterly inimical) to be considered as such. They could not be described as mindless since they clearly displayed intelligence and adaptability on the battlefield, they were however soulless meaning that they simply sought to kill and could not be swayed by emotions of pity or remorse. Yes this is a primary theme in demonic horror and can be seen to some extent in the Chaos army, though that primarily evokes "The corruption within" trope. You are absolutely right there, they weren't expanded on correctly, MW did a godawful job. So bad infact that he effectively made the Necrons unique among the races of the WH40k universe in displaying imagery that goes completely counter to the themes of that army. As I have pointed out - At great length and in great detail - the basic theme of the old Necrons behavior was entirely horror based. A lack of substance in horror is no barrier to it's being considered as such and failing to maintain this essential thematic core to the Necrons was the sign of a tin ear and poor writing. Basically if you cannot see that there is an underlying horror genre theme to the Necrons as were, then you shouldn't be writing fiction, as the ability to understand and write to a genre is paramount, especially for genre crossovers. Well the fact that your above points missed the mark in nearly every regard really renders the above claim a bit baseless wouldn't you say! And that's all it takes. Keeping the outward appearance of horror in terms of imagery while abandoning the actual horror tropes and themes effectively renders the horror aspect impotent. The appropriation of imagery from horror (zombies, mummies, vampires, wolfmen e.t.c.) deprived of the meat of what makes it scary is a popular children's activity around this time of the year. This is what I mean by kiddification, something can have a mind and still be rooted firmly in the horror genre (Freddie in nightmare on Elm Street for one) all it requires is for the enemy to be absolutely intent upon your destruction with no possibility of quarter or the ability to call a truce, only the faint hope that you can drive it away! Removing this underlying theme effectively renders the Necrons as the new theme (military) dressed up in halloween costumes. I feel you are deliberately trying to avoid my basic point. It doesn't matter if I or anyone else can cling to the belief that my Necrons are still horror themed when nearly every true horror theme has been entirely removed from the army as a whole. As I have said there are numerous ways in which a writer could make the Necrons more interesting while staying true to their original theme, failing to do so in an adaptation and expansion results in gains in variety at the cost of integrity, and therefore quality, since not having a tin ear to the thematic elements of an army must be considered a minimum requirement for a successful embellishment.
Actually, my point was the old codex did not succeed in making them menacing, and the old codex did not expand upon their themes well enough for it to work. And what I meant by mindless was only the higher ups had any form of sentience. Now, you do make some very good points (and the tone of your post is much more reasonable than how you started), but I think you are looking at the new version in the wrong way. Instead of thinking of the new version as a continuation of the old, think of it as its own product. Taken aside from the original, it has variation, substance, integrity, and quality. And that is what it is, not a modified version of something old, but something new. If you want to continue this discussion, I suggest we do it via PM, so as to avoid further derailment of this thread. It is meant to be a discussion on how they would be implemented in game after all.
I would credit your basic failure to recognise the horror elements in the original Necrons with why you fail to appreciate the cause of many people's dislike of the NewCrons. Now I have hopefully proven that your claim that the old Necrons were not based on horror was wrong as you have backed away from this claim, but unfortunately you appear instead to be falling back on sophistry by picking away at my use of the the term 'menace' - possibly in the hopes of dragging the issue into the fuzzy territory of 'feelings' rather than facts in the hopes that by attempting to make the issue about whether you 'feel' that the Necrons were menacing you can sideline this debate and reduce this to a matter of personal opinions. The quality and integrity (lol) issue aside (and believe me you do not want to get me started on the failings there! but if you want a point by point break down on the brain hurtingly stupid inconsistencies and WTF moments you could do worse than to read THIS) let's consider the argument by appeal to 'feeling that they lacked menace' - I would point out firstly that it is not a matter of personal opinion whether something that ticks all the boxes of a horror theme and involves an implacable, undying, remorseless foe of all that lives can be considered a menace, since this is pretty much the definition of menace, being... "a threat or possible danger to.. OR a person or thing that is likely to cause harm; a threat or danger." Of course the degree to which the menace inherent in the theme is conveyed is partly down to how well that theme is developed, and therefore is open to being improved upon without discarding that theme!. It is also partly personal opinion, but as I've pointed out opinions are not facts and so this 'personal factor' in whether one finds a thing menacing can be ignored. More importantly however is the fact that this is completely irrelevant to my basic point that it is the abandoning of this basic thematic element that is one of the main reasons why people who liked the original Necrons (or as in my case at least appreciated what they were trying to do with them,) feel that the inability of the writers to actually recognise and honour the original themes is a kick in the teeth, a massive and unnecessary change and therefore a very worrying trend in the evolution of 40k as a whole. Finally (and I agree that this 'discussion should come to an end as you obviously aren't following my points) you state that this should be taken as a new product, but clearly it isn't. There are many players who bought Necron armies on the strength of the original thematic background even if they didn't consciously appreciate what it was about the original they liked... What of them? Are they to just be happy that you have drawn an imaginary line between the original and the new? What if they don't like this change and feel betrayed? Sure if they don't like it they can still play 4th edition Necrons, but what about the people they are playing with who are moving on to armies that haven't been retconned?
