REAL-LIFE BIOTRANSFERENCE: the Multiple REDESIGNS of the NECRONS! | Warhammer 40,000 Retrospective
Вставка
- Опубліковано 19 вер 2024
- The Necrons are major players in the evolving galaxy of Warhammer 40k - but they started out very differently, released as a curio, and they went through multiple BIG lore and design changes before they became the grumpy old robots we know today.
Support the channel:
Patreon ► / arbitorian
Get your discount HOBBY FIX (and buy me toys in the process!!)
Firestorm Games ► www.firestormg...
Elsewhere on the internet:
Twitter ► / arbitorian
Instagram ► / arbitorian
Copyright: Unless noted in the video, all images © Games Workshop 1987-2022. Title music is 'Black Rainbows' by Karl Casey @White Bat Audio
#warhammer #warhammer40k #warhammerlore #necrons #spacemarines #history #lion #horusheresy #imperium #astartes #boardgames #tactica #letsplay #tabletopgaming #warhammer40k #warhammerworld #gamesworkshop #warhammer30k
What about Stargate as an influence? The movie came out in 1994, with Egyptian themed bad guys using staff energy weapons?
Was thinking that
Probably not much my dude.
I always thought someone marathoned Terminator and the Mummy before going "I've Got It!"
@@singtothesilence "I've got it! The Mumminators!" 😄👍
I feel like they had a flying/hovering pyramid in that movie too... and the ancient alien skimmer craft are kinda like the Necrons flying croissants of doom... plus the whole "tech so advanced it may as well be magic" trope...
man that 3rd edition necron codex art is still one of my absolute favourite pieces of 40k art, really sold the whole faction for me back then
It’s still used all over the place. Also I’m not surprised, we had to look at it for 9 years 🤣
It's a masterclass in mood building.
Not to mention those 3rd/4th edition Necrons were game breaking OP.
Ian: “Yeah History of 40K is all well and good, but what about Historiography?”
What's the 40K equivalent of a Dramaturge? Hobbyturge? Nerditurge? Gorkamorkaturge? ... Hammerturge?
Ian you have just dated for me my entry into the hobby. January 1998 my dad took me to WHSmiths in Kings Lynn and brought me this very issue of white dwarf. I was 10 years old. I remember the shop, the necron on the front holding his rifle in the air looking very terminator. Thank you, absolutely made my day. Cheers Ian!
I distinctly remember that issue being one of the first ones I borrowed from the kid in High School that introduced me to Warhammer. I bought the Eldar codex of of him and was thinking about getting started when 3rd edition was announced and we split the box. An amazing time to get into the game
Same here buddy!! Except it was later that year, here in the states, and I was nine haha.
You went the whole video without mentioning the Gorkamorka - Angelis link. There's a necron head in some artwork for the Diggamob expantion, and it is strongly suggested that the human faction were digging up a Necron tomb when the hulk crashed. Great video though!
There’s a great finale scenario for Gorka, where all your warbands team up in an unwinable battle against endless Necrons. Beautiful.
There’s a great finale scenario for Gorka, where all your warbands team up in an unwinable battle against endless Necrons. Beautiful.
Necrons predate WD 217 in Jan 1998. They actually make their first appearance in Gorkamorka's "da uvver book" from 1998. A necron is pictured on page 17 with early lore about them in the sections about the Diggas and a bit about a Mechanicus expedition to some Necron tombs in the appendices.
I love these features discussing iterations of lore and models through the years. Please do more!
hard agree. I find the history and evolution of the game more interesting than the lore itself tbh
I second this, the retrospectives on how Warhammer evolved in real life are always a treat to watch.
It's some of my favorite videos to see from Ian. It's easy to just represent the lore as depicted in any given book. It's another entirely to show how "The Lore" is a living document, subject to change and revision as new writers appear and priorities shift.
I concur!
Agree with this! These are my fave videos from Ian.
The use of translucent green plastic in the 3rd Ed range was absolutely inspired!!
Loving the incredibly telegraphed puns.
While I totally understand why they wanted to give the necron more personality, I really loved the mindless mysterious horde of 3rd edition.
While tyranids were like fast wild animals consuming every bit of biomass, necrons were like the slow methodical sociopathic killer constantly walking towards you. Their vibe really gave off a feeling of existential dread that the tyranids don’t.
Everyone can understand an animal eating things, but watching a skeleton with empty eye sockets methodically slaughtering everything in sight while seemingly feeling nothing and having no purpose to its slaughter, and then all of them suddenly vanishing is a real special kind of existential horror.
cant you just RP your necrons as "mindless" due to their lords being eccentric madmen with dysfunctional or sabotaged mind Engram electro-brains, also in the lore I think its mentioned that some Tomb worlds are partially ruined due to random super novas or some catastrophic asteroid impact, while the defense malfunctioned and the Necrons slept in eons past
@@gawkthimm6030 I mean sure I could rp them as such, but I feel like that misses the mark. Because it’s not them being mindless that I miss, it’s the MYSTERY which made them so compelling to me. Seeing all that methodical slaughter and not knowing why they are doing it is what is so terrifying to me.
Are they mindless husks killing at random? Or is there a pattern to these seemingly random attacks? Do they want? Do they feel? Is there humanity trapped inside those metal bodies? Where do they come from? Why are they waking up now? Why did they just slaughter so many in our platoon but then just vanish when they could have killed us all? Is there a purpose to any of this?
Not knowing the answers is what is terrifying, and what can drive someone insane. But like I said, I totally get why they changed it, because you can’t really expand on the lore or bring out new models if you are never allowed to answer these questions.
@@turtlemop8712 during my years of reading 40k books there is a sort of niche of enemies which can be used which lies outside the commonly depicted but is there in the background lore; minor xenos, chaos tainted xenos tech misused, age-of-strife human experimental archeotech -those types of things have been mentioned and used by various authors in a myriad of "mysterious" ways.
@@turtlemop8712 Not all were mindless. They did have some personality but it was fractured and fragmented and would come and go over time.
The 3rd edition Necron codex is still one of my favourite codices ever just because of the amount of menace and atmosphere they managed to put into all the fluff and artwork.
I'm curious about a timeline where instead of characterizing the necrons, they worked on the C'tan as characters
They would be hard to parse as they are almost equivalent to chaos gods, but having gods on the table would be quire cool
@@ismael9914 They tried that a bit with the Deceiver in some of the novels, but they kinda put themselves in a corner with there only being 4 confirmed surviving C'tan, of which one was purely genocidal, one was insane, and one was asleep.
I understand the lore change since they probably couldn't have kept up the mystery forever, and they did kinda tread on the toes of the Nids as the "faceless unfathomable evil" faction, but I do still miss the old days.
@@Gh0stClown Yeah but looking at the 5ed rewriting of necrons they could've redo them a bit, and make it so its not only 4 C'tans (maybe working on the shards thing and how each have a Nightbringer shard that kills to deny chaos of souls, while another is conquest and power)
Again I love current necrons, but the what if shall forever be in my mind
You and codex compliant are probably the only channels to cover the meta development of warhammer. Love your work.
Don't forget Jordan Sorcery!
They sometimes gloss over certain details to fit their bias but then who doesn't.
@@ianalexander7082 yeah he’s also great
I remember when the Necrons first came out, there was so much mystery behind them, virtually little to no information. It was around that time I dropped out of collecting Games Workshop models, moved on to other interests. It wasn't until about 20 years later I dived back into the hobby to discover the Necron's couldn't have been more different. I guess for a lot of people that change may have been unwanted, I bet a lot of people would have felt too much had been revealed. For me, it was like finding the answer to an age old mystery from my past, made it more fun in a sense.
I miss the sense of the unknown from the 2nd / 3rd edition era version. Mysterious race of killer robots raiding isolated backwater worlds was cool. Back when the universe seemed big and a named character didn't crop up all over the galaxy for every major conflict.
One of the big complaints at the time with the 5th edition codex was that a lot of people felt like it had stripped a lot of the horror out of the faction and in many ways it had but more recently, particularly with the 9th edition indomitus launch, GW has made a lot of effort to inject those horror elements back into the faction which I am personally extremely grateful for.
I always liked having multiple "soulless drone" factions (Tyranids and Necrons) because it showed just how big the galaxy is and just how much of it remains unexplored. There isn't just one group of aliens set on consuming all life in the galaxy, there's two (maybe more!). It lends itself well to concepts like the Dark Forest in 40k. How many other aliens are out there hiding from the Necrons? Are there other races that evolved into efficient killing machines because that's what survives in the Milky Way?
That's fucking horrifying. It's like finding out there's multiple active serial killers in your hometown. Backtracking on the "mindlessness" of the faction in 5th. always felt like a cop out, instead of trying to come up with telling stories of the truly alien.
No, the horror remains stripped out of them. They were made less imposing so space marines so they could be just more chumps for the boys in blue to beat up, having worse tech than the Imperium despite being the lore.
The Necrons and the Tau reached New Zealand pretty much on top of each other and I remember saying at the time that the Necrons fitted into the game way better than the Tau. These days I'm haunted with a niggling suspicion that I was wrong; the War in Heaven seems to upset the strategic balance between humanity and Chaos, whereas the Tau fit into the mythos well as idealistic ninnies who don't realise what they've gotten themselves into.
Space skellingtons! I was originally a necron player back in 4th then had a big ole break from the hobby. Imagine my surprise when it turns out that the hecrons suddenly had personalities!
I'm 90% certain the first instances of necron was in gorkamorka.
Also I remember a white dwarf short story about a year before the first necron model from the point of view of an eldar trying to get humans to stop digging into a pyramid incase it wakes the ancient enemy.
This is hazy memory stuff to be honest. Will do research when I get a chance
IIRC the first mention of evil robots in Gorkamorka was in the Digganob supplement, and that came out the month AFTER the original 'Free Necron' in White Dwarf!
@ArbitorIan yeah I was just doing some googling as I had a feeling this wasn't right. Thanks.
Likewise I remember the "Awakening of the Shining Ones" mentioned from the POV of an Eldar Farseer in the story piece with a battle report. Trying to find out which one it was.
If we're going to mention influences on the Necrons, it's probably worth mentioning Tomb of the Cybermen from Dr Who.
I still remember the White Dwarf issue that came with a free metal Necron warrior to promote them. good times!
Always love the meta retrospectives of the game itself and not just the lore.
SHout out to Ian for agreeing on the fact that The Mummy is one of the best movies of all time. We all have a little Rick O'Connell in us.
Personally, I think that Rick's "none taken" response to all the "Bloody Yanks! No offence." comments is because he's Canadian.
Also, my library school class of 2002 voted it the best "librarian" movie of all time. :)
Ive always taken the fifth edition “retcon” as the imperium learning more about the necrons, initially only lords and basic necrons awakened, so only that was written about, the imperium saw massive gods called the ctan and assumed those were the necronss’ leaders, not realizing those are mere shards controlled by unseen overlords
No retcon
Agreed. 40k doesn't do retcons or even have a canon because everything is canon, but not everything is true.
Your buddy's fluff about his super-secret-special primarch legion where they're the best space marines ever using geneseed made from the Emperor and Horus and Vulkan and Custodes is canon, even though it makes your eyes roll. It can be explained as a guardsman's impressions of what a Space Marine is. He's bragging about how his dad works at the Imperial palace to his fellow conscripted around a campfire.
Having conflicting stories about a race as alien as the Necrons makes sense. We've only uncovered a small percentage of the animals and plants that lived on Earth 65 million years ago. I can't imagine trying to excavate and research an entire civilization that spanned the galaxy.
That's one way to explain it, but it is a retcon by the intent of the designers.
love a repair ability called "I'll be back" brilliant !!!
Man I remember when the Necron Codex came out, one of my mates had the Nightbringer, that thing was scary on the tabletop!
It still is. Which is funny because the scale has changed so much. He's still a bringer of death on the tabletop. Hopefully he and the Deceiver get a glow up and join big brother Void Dragon in modern plastic.
I suspect the 90's GW team heard the Judas Priest song 'Metal Gods' at least once before creating the Necrons.
Love these retrospectives!
head canon accepted. it's one of their best songs
"Where are my faceless drones and unfeeling machines???"
Uhm, you can still have that. My necrons are still faceless, unfeeling drones with no named characters and tons of warriors
Nah, GW has made it clear that you can't run hordes of life-destroying Necrons controlled by C'tan. It was Ward specifically shitting on Andy Chambers' ideas since he left.
@terraneaux You needing explicit instructions on how to make up a story about your own miniatures is the exact problem, maybe try using your own imagination for once instead of following GW authors like a beaten dog.
@@TheKsalad They specifically say that what I want is impossible within the setting. Which is fine, but let's be clear about what they say is the case.
Also you should show some respect.
Stargate the movie was probably the influence. Early 90s film. Space Egyptians.
As someone who only got into 40k semi recently, I love seeing how things have changed irl over the years.
I remember the OG Necron models and I always thought they looked like Preston from Wallace & Gromit, only just realised they were both riffs on Terminator.
I still think of the Tau as the new guys, quite shocking how old they are :D
I wasn't part of the online whining about the new necron lore, I understood the need for such an evolution. But I will simply say this : I miss the necron Pariahs.
Loved the model and the idea
This was a fun trip down memory lane and you've filled in the 5th-7th edition knowledge gap for me too, thank you.
While facing Necrons in 3rd ed was horrendous, their "expanded" lore actually made me like the Tau more. The appearance of a short-lived xenos species with little/no warp signature to their souls who had advanced faster than naturally credible made far more sense when soon after, up rose an ancient xenos species with short life-spans (until becoming immortal robots), little/no warp presence and a distinctly more lively unit called Pariahs with face plates that were oh-so-similar to Tau heads. For me it added a sinister undertone to the Tau as potentially the unwitting pawns of the outnumbered Necrons too; my assumption was that the ethereals were necrons in new bodies, just like Da Wreckers of Angelis/Gorkamorka came back from the depths of the pyramids ... changed.
But then I really enjoyed the little implied lore connections of that era, such as the Tau codex's linguistics page suggesting heavily that they were the makers of Necromunda's Spyrer suits. Maybe that tendency is still there, like with the link you make between Votann and the Men of Stone in your Men of Iron video, but the price of the hardback codices means I buy fewer and so don't see these tidbits first-hand. So im all the more grateful for your lore videos, thanks again!
Great video, loving the retrospectives. I'll point out that, at least in Australia, there was a massive interest in Egypt at that time (which, asking around, no-one remembers why) which properties like Stargate and the Mummy (also, yes, best film) capitalised on. For a while in early primary school, this cultural obsession was so prevalent that most of the kids in my year level, including me, were determined to be Egyptologists when we finished school... the one (1) other option was Marine Biologist. I blame "Ocean Girl".
There was a big Tutankhamun that came to the Australian museum in I think in the late 90s? I believe it was huge because the actual death mask was on display and was one of the few times it had been loaned out. I remember the huge lego exhibit that was done at the same time which was massively popular with schools.
@@m41282 Y'know, I vaguely remember that... you might be right, but it might have been like a "Cool Japan" type tourism push by the Egyptian government which culminated in the loan or something? I dunno, hard to say given how young I was.
3:47 - Peak presenting!!! Love it!
I still remember bobbing in to a Games Workshop on a school trip to Chester and having one of the redshirts tell us about the new Codex rumours coming out... We'd seen the earlier stuff, but cool new Necrons? STAR GODS? All we could talk about on the coach home.
Amazing video! Necrons were my first army, and I grew up pouring over that 3rd edition codex. The art in there is really exquisite and they do an excellent job emphasizing what an ageless and alien horror the necrons were in that iteration. My opinion is certainly bias, but I think something not touched on in this video was the drastic change in design philosophy the 5th edition codex brought and how the most recent necrons releases are returning to something closer to their original theme.
The 3rd edition models had an element of body horror. Why drive a vehicle when you could be the vehicle? The old wraiths and destroyers are great examples and the monolith was basically a sentient pyramid with guns. The 5th edition revamp definitely brought character to necrons but it also made them very human. All the vehicles had pilots, the wraiths were big spider things now, and the necrons with modified bodies were the outcasts.
The newest models have been fantastic and definitely go in the direction of the original aesthetic and feel for the necrons. Decrepit warriors, enhanced destroyers, twisted and alien cryptects, war of the worlds walkers. From an old guards perspective, it's been great to see the necrons get back a bit of that alien/body horror and lean into the idea of why drive a killing machine when you can be a killing machine.
Again, really enjoyed the video! Great work!
Really enjoyed the terminator look of 2nd edition. Definitely agree with the Stargate influence comment. And I believe it was a 60 million year nap not thousands. Not trying to be a dick. Enjoyed the vid Ian!
Just fun fact: chaos android (in dormant state) appears in quite new book Genefather :)
I've been collecting necrons since 3rd ed. Now that i have a 3D printer i'm really looking for the first terminators, it's really teh best design the unit ever got, but they are so few online and never cheap.
Ian this is yet another series you are smashing out of the park! Really looking forward to more factions and tidbits
As a long time necron player, I still prefer the old lore with the continued Red Harvest. I've kept that lore with my dynasty where they still worship the Nightbringer and their goal is to cleanse the galaxy of the lesser weeds and sacrifice their souls to the Nightbringer. Hence why I prefer Destroyer Cult units
You’re becoming my favourite Warhammer UA-camr, keep this format up
I, from time to time dig out my Amiga 600 from the mid 90s and the game I gravitate towards is Space Crusade (Among others), I still can't believe how much the lore has changed since that game.
I would love to see a video like this for the changing nature of the T'au, including the addition of the Apostrophe Of Much Controversy
Chaos Androids that hew closely to the original designs could be a fun re-addition, possibly as either units that could be taken by Chaos Marine armies (definitely something up the Iron Warriors alley) or a Kill Team. Forgefiends already keep the idea of daemon-fueled machines alive.
Could be daemon engine infantry for an Iron Warriors or Vashtorr book. And/or Chaos Ironkin maybe?
The recent Genefather novel got a chaos android
@@Xick I was surprised Vashtorr didn't coincide with the reveal of a playable Dark Mechanicum faction
Looking at how lore has been changed and iterated upon over time are my fav videos you do. It's so interesting.
I loved how the Necrons were incorporated into Gorkamorka and the Cthulhuesque nature of their first codex. I would have liked GW to have developed them more in this direction since I think that would have been more interesting than the Egyptian comedians that we ended up with. But maybe I'm just one of a certain group of people
You're not alone. There's a bunch of others that hate the way they've been portrayed recently.
god I actually remember a lot of this, I was just getting into the game in 97. I feel old now.
I'm one of those who never quite got onboard with the "newcrons". I think it's mainly because I wanted them to use Necrons to explore the phenomenon of artificial life instead of making them yet another faction of, well, dudes. I was influenced by a tabletop minis gamed called AT-43 at the time, which had this horror-themed posthuman cyborg faction called the Therians. They had a bunch of lore talking about how they mostly existed in their own cyberspace, then would download into individual bodies to fight, etc. There were stories of new individuals emerging from different code builds from others merging and splitting, and how combat was almost like a game to them. I thought was really interesting, and more unique than what we later got with Necrons. I REALIZE I AM A WEIRDO.
Chaos squats as a faction now please; it’ll be the new “reset the clock” meme! 😂
Great stuff. But I'd assumed the Doctor Who story Tomb of the Cybermen (1967) had a pretty big influence on all this. British sci-fi, whether 2000AD, or Moorcock's novels of the '60s and '70s basically informed Rogue Trader. That's in no way a criticism, just demonstrably true. And it explains the whimsy of the early days.
I remember the 3rd edition codex coming out and thinking it was all brand new. I'd no idea there was as much history behind the Necrons as there actually is.
This is great. I started playing 40k when necrons were new. They were my first army. Honestly I really enjoyed the first codex. They were so scary and perfect and advanced that they didn't need chapters. Like the Terminator movies. The lack of factions feels very soulless and creepy like a machine. And the lack of personality just kinda worked. Their only units with personality were the gods of death and deception. That isn't a mistake. That's a souless machine to a tee. Idk, maybe I'm in the minority but the first real interpretation of these guys were so creepy. The lack of info made them feel so much more powerful. And they were just waking up. Not even at full power and already terrifying.
Yeah, I remember being very excited seeing my old Space Crusade androids coming back as something quite different and I was absolutely one of the people who disliked the change from evil, quiet waves of Terminators to Tomb Kings in space.
But I also thought there always was a bit of the Stargate movie in the early Necrons, so I eventually was kinda OK with the sweeping changes to the faction. It certainly helped that through the Total War video games, I started to like the Warhammer Fantasy lore of the Tomb Kings a lot more.
Still, I want my standard Necrons to be mindless and hopeless thralls of a conniving ruling cast.
Oooh perfect. Love some Chaos Androids
We need to see them again.
@@joshgrillo2482the recent Genefather novel got a chaos android
I'm glad you're doing retrospectives on 40k armies. Lore is easy to find, but production history is obtuse and I always feel left out of conversations with gamers who saw how factions changed and evolved in earlier editions.
I have to admit while I left the hobby toward the end of 2nd edition I was aware of the Necrons becoming a full faction shortly after, but coming back in 9th edition was the first time I thought they were actually cool.
Necrons were my second ever faction in 40K, and it was because of White Dwarf 217 and my Aunty's copy of Space Crusade. Really good video and trip down nostalgia lane!
It was mentioned in third edition that the Necrons commanders were merely bronze level lords.
Silver, gold and platinum lords had yet to be discovered.
Take your pick as to what levels the named characters are but lmotekh is definitely platinum.
This channel is a very interesting thing for me, personally. I love all the work put into the videos and all the details presented. But so very often I have different opinion on the particular topics. Like her - for me the 3rd edition Necros were way better. They had a specific character, and later just became similar to other factions. Super advanced aliens with little traits that differentiate them. Eldars are also super advanced, ancient aliens. Now we have Leagues of Votann, who are also super advanced, but not really alien. Having named characters and sub factions indeed defines the 40k factions, but it also makes them very similar to each other. I liked the idea of nameless undead machines. And I always feel a bit sad when this kind of opinions (like, some past things had character) is described as bickering. Or being old. Well, maybe I am old. Either way, a lot of great work was put into this video, as always!
That was enjoyable. Thank you for that bit of lore history.
I was a Necron player in 2nd, and the Dark Times of 3rd when I stopped playing. I saw the new Necron stuff in the Recent edition and could not mirror that with my shambling hordes, as I had missed their evolution.
This explanation was great and makes me want to dust off my "Terminator" models and see how well they compare to the newer stuff
You forgot MorkaGorka. They was in that game. They shown of the destroyer for a white dwarf magazine game. Before the white dwarf codex.
They were also present in Gorkamorka
Ian, if you are looking for the Necrons predecessors in miniature, then you should google The Machines faction in the game Legions of Steel. Many of the Machines leader units also have an Egyptian styling. And they appeared in 1992.
Wow I had forgotten about those Space Crusade models. Still remember being a boy and seeing that Space Crusade advert for the first time it was my introduction into the world of 40k. Ah nostalgia
Trying to remember the book about the Death Korps and a Necron awakening on a hive world. Can't remember the name for the life of me, but lord that was good.
Book:Dead Men Walking.
You know Ian I really enjoy your videos! Thank you.
Nice video. It was nice to learn about space robot skeletons. Thank you for making this video concise. Keep up the good work.
I still haven't gotten back into Necrons since the second codex, which is probably a shame. I love their new lore, but what I enjoyed about playing Necrons was the vibe of steadily increasing threat their awakening posed. The idea that the Galaxy had to deal with a threat that to me reprensented entropy as well as one that is basically a galactic scale introduced species. Two threats that ultimately have the same outcome but from completely different directions.
Ultimately, I feel for the business the Necrons turning into Space Tomb Kings is the better option. You can't have stories about C'tan and have them interact with your normal scale people. It blows the entire story out like a birthday candle and an LED light in the same shot blows out the brightness, you can't clearly see either because of the vast difference in capabilities. There is a lot more ability to have characters in the modern Necron faction than there was in their first codex, it's why in Dawn of War they had a Pariah as the narrator for the Necron faction. They couldn't have anyone else.
Thing is, the Lords and Nobles DID have personality but it was fragmented and would come and go over time and some of them would speak if they felt the need to. A lot of people just tend to overlook specific things said in the Codex just to suit their "generalised" presentation.
The Forge World Chaos Decimator looks somewhat like the old chaos android art, so that makes might be considered a continuation of the concept
I will always love that 3rd edition Necron Codex, it was my first that I picked up on my very first trip to a GW with my dad. Including fabulous things such as how to have a battle against Warhammer Fantasy lizardmen (??) and the nonsensical Pariahs
I can’t believe I’m as old as the first necron codex!
I remember when that 5th Ed codex dropped, and the whole place just went silent as we realised the impossible had happened: Matt Ward, the most hated man in the hobby, had actually done a good job. I was one of the people who missed the eldritch horror aspect to the Necrons, but they gave that back to us with the Fall of Orpheus, so I suppose that was all good. The only thing I don't like now is that they still haven't given back Pariahs.
Historiography at its best. Fantastic video, Arbiter!
I have some of those old metal skellies, including the lord and a scenery piece with a scarab on a dissecting board. I don't know where it fits in the timeline but they show up vaguely in Gorkamorka as a source of gubbinz
I was adamant there was an image of a 'Chaos Android' in Rogue Trader (in a group shot with a few other odd aliens) but now I can't find it.
Are you sure it isn't the "Other Dangerous Aliens" picture from third edition?
@@Powogathat’s the one, thank you!
I’d love to see one of these videos about the orks! WAAAGH!!!
I remember in 5th or 6th grade me and some friends were passing around the Necron release for 2nd edition, thinking how cool it was. My brother had a little Necron army that I would fight my orks against.
Really liked the Lovecraftian vibe of the C'tan, and wish they stuck with that instead of the current lore, though I understand why the current lore has its fans.
Thank you for this! As someone who discovered Warhammer as the 8th Edition pettered out, I find this incredibly interesting!
Please keep doing videos of the Meta history of 40k!!
Enjoyable video, thank you! I will say, I’m one of those that wasn’t thrilled with the lore redirect of 5th ed although i loved the models. I think part of it wasn’t just inserting personality, but that they were suddenly loaded with what felt like goofiness in the place of ominous terror, which was a major curveball. I’ve come to appreciate them more, and the 8th ed. readjustments helped a little more, but yeah, the screeching veer into a different direction was rough, although has produced some cool things (i love the skorpehk stuff for example) and they’ve tempered it since.
Old enough to remember getting the white dwarf with the mini and rules I remember playing a mini game with a mate lone neon verses a few blood angels
I am reading the first Gaunt trilogy (as per your recommendation) and when he encounters the “Men of Iron” (spoiler) I kept thinking that they sounded exactly like Necrons. Considering that the book was released 3 years before the first Necron Codex I guess there was an idea to have “terminator” (the film, not the WH40k version) models but there was no certainty if they were going to be Necron or Men of Iron.
3rd edition necron art and lore > than anything that came after.
Having two armies like nids and necrons being similar is great. I love how the issue was they were to similar to nids. So they game them personally and sub factions, and now they are just like every other army. Also, them having funny amd quirky characters that are sprinkled into more lore fundamentally goes against the grim dark of 40k.
great series! would love to see an admech retrospective!
What a wholesome video!
I wish this could be a series for other factions
As someone who was definitely among the loud and angry the Necrons were suddenly more than soulless soul harvesting Terminators, there's just no arguing they're so much cooler now.
You have it backwards with the fall of cadia and the infinite and the divine, fall of cadia, the fall of cadia happened in gathering storm released in 2017, the infinite and the divine didn't come out until 2020.
I love these retrospectives about the history of warhammer 40k. With the recent release of the end and the death, perhaps you could do one on the portrayal of emperor or the imperium.
Glad we finally got this video! Very interesting legacy. One of my mates and I were really big into Necrons during 3rd and 4th. We were very happy about the change and often sighted that they were no different than Tyranids (my other army at the time.)
Good stuff as always Ian, keep it up!
That old battle report was recreated in last years tale of 4 warlords section of white dwarf.
I assume Stargate influenced the Necron's on some level, the original film came out in 1994, I always assumed it was a mix of Stargate and Terminator that were the chief influences outside of the Undead in Warhammer fantasy.
IaD needs to be adapted as a live action movie. Stellan Skarsgard as Trazyn, Christian Bale as Orikan, Gary Oldman as the Shard of the Deceiver. Andy Serkis as the Top 5 Pranks Gone Wrong In The Galaxy Genestealer.
Nah, big budget Hollywood musical. Ariana Grande as Orikan. Idina Menzel as Trazyn. Hugh Jackman as the Shard of the Deceiver and Christopher Walken as the genestealer.
Love a cheeky bit of retrospection. Real world influences and changes. Phwor!
Love that you mentioned the Chaos Androids; I happened to get into GW's stuff right when Chaos was introduced to Epic and used to run a Thousand Sons army at that scale which was, tbh, MOSTLY chaos squats and androids because their stats were so much better than Chaos Space Marines XD XD
Also, wasn't there a time when the backstory was that the Men of Iron rebellion was caused by mass-demonic possession with some of the Chaos Androids being surviving MoI? Idk maybe my brain just made that up :T
Many thanks for this fascinating video!
@ArbitorIan, we need your take on biotransference and souls both being very real in 40K. I cannot be the only one finding the idea confusing or needing some further development. I don't expect full coherence, but...
-How come are they tricked into Biotransference (I know Szarekh and Szaeras had a hand on it, but...)? They built bodies for the Ctan and they supposendly gave the necrontyr the secrets of biotransference?
-If most of their souls were lost, what are those Necrons aiming to revert the process hoping to achieve?
-Blanks being a thing... what's a soul then? Mind? Personality? Memories?
-Their sleepover being over, their minds damaged. Is this quest to revert biotransference just some kind of grimdark wild-goose chase?
All good questions. Unfortunately, the black library writers aren't very good at philosophy and metaphysics 😁 Which is totally understandable, this is cheesy space opera, but it's also why there's a lot of incoherent ideas of what a "soul" is.
@@Nukefandango All true. I merely ask for a morsel of in-universe consistency
@@alejandrorp5160 I agree, that'd be great.
The Ciaphas Cain novels get a bit of the "we are leaning more," where Cain has a conversation with a Necron in one book and he was like, "never met a Necron that had a personality and wanted to do anything but kill. And Inquisitor Vail does state this as recently learned information.The odd thing is it chronologically comes before anther book where the characters don't bring this up (Vail says she wonders why, but she doesn't either)... and the latter book also mentions Sanctuary 101 as the first confirmed encounter with the Necrons.
"Necrospective", nice.
I like the note on the cover of Whitedwarf #217, "No Blister Pack? It is probably just a coincidence, but the shop staff have lots of Necrons - why not ask them for one?" (or maybe it is a bit passive-aggressive management bollocks?)