They have gone form been Necrons to been Tomb kings in space. There now nice and chummy with the other race's gone are the metal monsters of the past people loved now its oh hey guys can we come over for tea and to do each others hair. What was special and good about them has been replaced with raw stupid for no real reason its like GW was like hey the fans like Necrons but you know what they will love more if we change all most every thing about them and make them tomb kings.
LOL. This again. They went from being Vampire Counts in space to Tomb Kings in space. Who cares? And you forgot to mention that Eldar are High Elves in Space, Dark Eldar are Dark Elves in space, Orks are Orcs in space, the Imperium of Man is the Empire in space, etc. Oh and the new Imperial Knights codex? Bretonnia in space! This line of criticism is so uncreative it hurts. There was nothing special about the old lore. Actually there was no old lore. As a Necron player back then, I had no information whatsoever to build my army around. I was just the generic slave army of either of the two big star vampires, the Nightbringer or the Deciever. How can one call that special and good?
I got those ladies space tomb kings and now I'm set! New necron lore is horrible. They went from being mindless yet frightening enemy to "Who wants sum politics?" That said, old Necron lore had it's issues as well so really...both aren't exactly the best. Still, would prefer had they had something akin to their older lore then what is in place currently, but I also so the ability to turn their current lore into something better as well. I used to think the Necrons were pretty awesome but now they really don't rank on my radar that much as interesting. Don't get me wrong, many of the newer models and depictions add a bit of color and interesting detail to their visuals that was needed I think, and I'm not completely against the Egyptian motiffs as I feel it kind of works for some of it. Necrons represent what I generally am growing to dislike about how more recent events are being handled by GW. With no room to push the narrative forward and instead only filling in gaps we didn't know existed until created, things feel tacked on sometimes without any real depth. Both Necron and Tau could have benefited from the timeline not being completely stuck where it is or at the very least had a better bit of lore. Necron starting off enslaved to the C'tan and being mindless works to make then scary when facing a unified front that has no emotion to play off of, but I can understand the drive to move that idea to the next stage as well....we have the Tyranids that kind of fill that type. I'm not going to do some kind of huge (..well...bigger then this already,) post about how exactly I'd do the new Necrons, but I'd see it move from being 100% mindless to kind of what they have now but instead of it happening in the past, have it happen natrually in the more modern times. Necrons unified force smashing the imperium/eldar/etc... then something happens and a few of them start regaining their identities/etc and the Imps/etc start seeing new and different tactics from the Necrons as they begin reclaiming themselves. Just don't like the whole separate dynasties thing. But I'm rambling for the sake of putting my thoughts down. Necrons as PVE is fine just as Necrons for PVP is fine. They just have to be justified by Behaviour lore wise for GW to go "ok, Necrons go" whenever/if they ever are added to Eternal Crusade. I will say there's many other factions I'd like to see ahead of Necrons...but that's personal preference.
I agree with quite a few points you make. While I don't think the new lore is "horrible" (especially compared to the old one) - could it have been better? Most definitely yes. For example, I don't understand why the Pariahs were removed. They were a great piece of lore and an intriguing connection between humanity and the Necrons. Or how the regret of biotransference/Destroyer curse were handled. I would have much preferred the Destroyers not be considered mad, but a distinct political faction within Necron society that actively embraced biotransference, while other factions either were simply accepting of it or tried to reverse it. As it is now, the Destroyer curse just seems like a different version of the Flayer curse. And Deathmarks, I don't really like the concept of snipers in a Necron army, it doesn't really fit. But these are all really minor things. I think the general direction the Necron codex took was really good. While I agree, that the "terror of the unknown" element was removed by adding more information, it was really helpful and necessary for Necron players. And this brings me back to the point I mentioned previously in this thread. I have the strong feeling that most of the players criticizing the new lore and wishing for the old one are non-Necron players that enjoyed playing against them and the mysterious aura of the incomprehensible and unknown that surrounded them. While this might have been fun for your enemies, it was really annoying and boring for the Necron player. You didn't know anything about your own army. You couldn't situate it in the greater picture. The new lore gives so much detail and most importantly motivation for the Necron army. And your point about the Tyranids is very good. Back in the day, I remember a lot of people saying the (original) Necrons were just "shooty robo-Tyranids", right down to their masters wanting to consume all life in the galaxy and that they had to go dormant because nothing was left. And don't even get me started on the inconsistencies and outright contradictions in the old lore... (Did they go dormant because nothing was left to consume or because the C'tan had fought themselves to exhaustion/near extinction? And if nothing was left how did the Eldar/Orks survive so well? And what about the new threat of Chaos? Wasn't that the reason they went dormant?)
And Necrons are still scary. They do not bleed, sleep or need Food. They have no fear, feel no pain and they need no break. Marching in unison firing volley of gaus at the enemys. They get shot chopped and blasted to pieces, but they stand up again, and again. Only the higher ranking units present emotions, and that are of Honor. Destroyers of Hate. And the Lords of self presavation. Which could be also an instic. Warriors are somewhat mindless, but even Immortals can think and talk. But they choose not to.
The fact that there was so little knowledge about the Oldcrons actually was part of what made them so popular - they were an engimatic threat. Sure enough, they wanted to exterminate all life in the galaxy, their actions made that clear enough, but especially those following the Deceiver were always up to something and Emperor help you because you had no idea what kind of sheer horror they would up with next. You plainly could not understand them, nor relate to them, and that gave them a special theme of lovecraftian horror when compared to all factions that were somehow human (including Eldar, DE, Tau, and Orkz) or just singlemindedly stupid (Tyranids). Newcrons meanwhile might as well be replaced with regular humans. There's nothing alien about them. Trollzyn is ye olde insane curator, Zahndrek is just a senile old guy, and Imotekh is a saturday morning cartoon character. These guys aren't scary, they're laughable. The only remotely interesting Newcron is Orikan, who actually might be a C'tan in disguise. I'll happily admit that the mass retcon that accompanied the Oldcrons was outright stupid in many places (when in doubt, say the Deceiver did it), but you might as well replace the Newcrons with regular humans and nothing would change when it comes to their character.
its an undeniable fact that when humans (us) create stories about aliens we always tend to give them human like psychologies and motives...we have to, because its what we know, wether the newcrons are less scary then oldcrons in their back story is largely irrelevant to both TT and EC, thats more a concern with fluff writers, bottom line will always be the necrons are a TT PC race, and they were mentioned by Devs very early in the development as being slated for inclusion eventually
Oldcrons were basically the mindless Terminators of the 41st millenium. Newcrons, however, got some personality. Personally, being able to customize my armored chassis and throw some upgrades on my gauss flayer sounds purty nifty. Now, I prefer oldcrons because of their mystery. Unknown, unnamed race of robotic soul harvesters, led by unknown, unnamed generals. The only thing you need to know is that at the time their appearance was truely, absolutely terrifying.
