AH: To be honest...

That's wrong, the dark eldar are full of references to 90s-2000s rivethead culture and their fluff is just as much of a parody of society as the Imperium's fluff.

For instance, notice how dark eldar kids are grown nearby torture chambers to ensure that they're born already addicted to pain and entertainment, and therefore will depend upon the haemonculi (and other institutions) to survive even though they don't inherently need it.

No, it's vaguely anarchic metal/punk influenced counter culture and satire. See also: 2000AD around the same time.

within the setting it is: notice the dart stuck into a portait of the Golden Throne

Nope.
>the actual reason it stopped being like that is because GW was sold to the soulless management tier who turned it into a cynical toy range around the late nineties/early 2000s

Dark Eldar were one of the last hurrahs before 40k became almost entirely po faced.

wrong. the dark eldar were introduced as just a bland equivalent of dark elves
they became actually edgy only around 2010

>the barbarian brute named after Margaret Thatcher is still there.
The point of the guy is not that is a brute but that he destroyed an industrial world

Can confirm. Delxar were boring AF until the 2010 release.

It was like the Necron release, except everyone agrees that the Deldar change was an improvement, while the Necron thing is still polarizing for some reason.

The necron thing is polarizing because they're now a lot less spooky and reek of Doctor Who type humor.

wasn't Armageddon an agri-world?

>dart stuck into a portait of the Golden Throne

That's extremely fucked-up. I genuinely feel uneasy.

So fucking punk, dude

I'm part of what some people call the alt-right and it feels punk as fuck :^)

>wasn't Armageddon an agri-world?
Hive world. They make all the tanks that the steel legion use, and then some.

But thraka's name is drawn from tolkein's black tongue, which was how GW/Andy C made the old ork language. It's not thatcher.

Necrons were never spooky though. Maybe in setting, but not to players.

>The necron thing is polarizing because they're now a lot less spooky and reek of Doctor Who type humor.
This. They're >reddit, the race

Nah, Armageddon has always been an industrial Hive world - one of the largest factories that's not a forge world, even (admittedly it's been "the biggest battle evar" for a long long time, since before forge worlds or the heresy were anything like as codified)

It also enabled the WWII history boner, with the Steel Legion and copying that time from the Eastern Front where tanks would drive right off the assembly lines to battle

Necrons began as Terminators.

>"Imagine a whole planet full of ancient sleeping Terminators starting to wake up!"

After a while, they became dinky Space Skeletons with a bit of an Egyptian thing.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

Oh they were spooky
I just re-read the 3rd ed codex and I really enjoyed how the lore is dealt out through documents, fragments of story and made you adopt the PoV of imperials and eldars. Good storytelling. Now the issue is that as soon as it delves into their lore in an objective way, you realize that it's all a bunch of canon-breaking nonsense, but still, it's presented in a good way. The 5th edition codex was dry, blunt and relied entirely on funny-sounding pseudoscientific words to convey atmosphere.
Also the art used to be a lot more ominous-looking.

Shift in perspective.

From the perspective of their enemies, the necrons are really badass and scary.
From an objective perspective, they're just fucked-up, pathetic and even more dysfunctional than the Imperium. Which feels like a downgrade, because unlike the Imperium, it doesn't result in impressive baroque visuals and decadent gothic imagery, they just look like generic FPS robot bad guys.

>Mag Uruk Thraka
>from the english north in the 80s
>not thatcher

I bet you think the dark angels aren't gay either

>the barbarian brute named after Margaret Thatcher is still there.
the guy who came up with the name said it's not related to her

that is bullshit

>I bet you think the dark angels aren't gay either

Wait. Is that their deep dark secret?

I'm not sure why you're attacking a straw man, but I'll take andy C's word over all the random yahoos on the internet parroting their fan theories.

>punk is dad

...

The issue with the "Terninators in spaaaace" design is that the faceless, mindless horde with eldritch ubdertones was done significantly better by Tyranids.

Necrons brought nothing new to the setting as they were.

>Necrons brought nothing new to the setting as they were.
i don't really agree with this but oldcrons could have been replaced with a single, mostly irrelevant xenos faction with just walking robot dudes

The Dark Imperium novel has A scene where some youths believe the lies of their instructors, and become terrorists demanding more rations and civil rights, and Calgar laments these children unwittingly being subverted to fight for a foreign religion's interest.

fuck off, they changed the lore to justify a cash grab

>wanting to play a necron footsoldiers+pyramids army for eternity
you must be fun at parties

>changed the lore to justify a cash grab

Could you elaborate on this?

Ancient horror of eldritch ancientness.

The tyranids are good at being eldritch, but they're new. Chaos is good at being horrifying but it's not austere enough. The Eldar are good at being ancient but they're too nice.

The necrons perfectly fill that niche. They had the zombie aesthetic of stuff like Nurgle but without the goofiness, and the futurism of eldar but without the gayness.

Really as far as I'm concerned, what necrons need isn't bigger warmachines and tougher-looking units, it's more rust, grimy textures and slouched postures.

gotta love that weak-ass comeback

>what necrons need isn't bigger warmachines and tougher-looking units
I think Necrons would work really well with the style of something like the titanite demon from dark souls, half broken down and in that state it's still strong enough to fuck your shit up.

oops, that was the thumbnail

you must be REALLY fun at parties

>what necrons need isn't bigger warmachines and tougher-looking units, it's more rust, grimy textures and slouched postures.

I'd settle for spookier faces and more interesting guns. Neon green is played out.
Good suggestions though.

Absolutely, that's the idea.

With the new codex there was a lot of debate about the "lovecraftian" angle they had and whether or not it carried over to their newer version. Now they've got more superficial references to the Cthulhu Mythos (Aza'Gorod, all the pseudoscientific weaponry etc...) but the feel is lost.
I mean let's go back to The Call of Cthulhu. It's a document that compiles several clues and reports pertaining to the same phenomenon. It's the literary equivalent of found footage or a mockumentary. A lot like the 3rd edition codex.
And it's about an undead alien god who comes back completely fucked-up but still has enough power to kill a dozen guys even if it's just a mass of rotting goop. older necrons were all slouched, lumbering and had thin limbs. The lords wore tattered robes. The undead aspect is very important and you just don't see it in the newer Necron releases, they all look like big beefy chad golems with perfect posture and pristine armor. The new lore emphasizes that they're all more or less crazy or mindless, but when you contrast that with their appearance, it's not scary it's just comical, because they just come off as retarded strongmen.

The pathos just doesn't work even though there's more of it

The Necrons were an excersize in simplicity. This gave them a unique athetic, but then 5th rolled around and Gw was adding new units to everything.

They looked at necrons and said "Oh noes, there's nothing to add! Let's retcon the entire thing so we can add new models and characters and shit!"

Let's add retarded pod-racers, and edglord teleporting snipers, and a flying saucer with a weapon literally called "death beam", and a god damn ribcage cannon because fuck subtlety!

And let's take away Pariahs and add in goofy mad scientist HQs! And let's resculpt wraiths so all your old wraith models look like shit!

Ah. I see.
Thank you.

Can you see them trying to undo the damage in the coming years? Do you think GW is happy with the current Necron aesthetic?

Yeah, that's a much better concept for them - still just about something you can represent, but as , says, generally they just go for big "elite" aesthetics like everyone else

That said, I like the deathmarks, new wraiths (and other canoptek things), and I really actually liked the Crypteks and their esoteric sciences

I'm sure they are. They purposefully scrapped every bit of concept art John Blanche had done for the 5th edition, and instead went for a clean bulky geometrical aesthetic that can easily be modeled with CG sculpting.

I don't see them going back anytime soon.

Call me crazy, but I think more implied motion would make Necrons a lot more threatening.

Of course they're happy. The current writers were never fans of oldcrons, and didn't know what to do with them. So they just changed them and shit all over anyone who liked the old asthetic.

>The current writers were never fans of oldcrons

Are Necrons interesting in book-form at least?

I get you're trying to make it sound silly, but as someone who was never invested in oldcrons, that stuff sounds legitimately cool.

But she didn't. She destroyed an improductive extraction business.

inb4 "but during the 2nd edition they were really big and bulky too and the lord had a scale cloak so the newcrons are really just an updated version of 2nd ed necrons!"

that is true, but they were also a lot more detailed, heavy-looking, and looked less toy-like.

Also the lore was written the same way as in the 3rd edition.

So really newcrons are the worst of both worlds: the simplicity of 3rd ed designs without the elegance or creepiness, and the bulkiness of 2nd ed designs without the imposing postures and industrial look.

That's because you're thinking in Ork wackiness terms instead of focusing on how to best implement the concept of alien undeads into 40k

Fuck no. Instead of the faceless encroaching death, they're wacky crazy people.

One Necron Overloard is so crazy that doesn't even realise that he's dead, and invites his enemies over for banquets the night before the battle. Because "muh honor".

And he eats and drinks, with wine sloshing through his jaw and everything.

>that is true, but they were also a lot more detailed, heavy-looking, and looked less toy-like.

Yeah, they were great.

See that concept could work if visually he looked the part. If he looked all fucked up it would be disturbing. But since he looks super big and strong and pristine it's just silly, like a bodybuilder who doesn't remember where he lives.

Wait... is he supposed to be Don Quixote?

Not really, he's supposed to be more of a tragic character, but he really does come off as a buffoon like Don Quixote.

but there's worse: there's the necron lord who collects people for his holographic wax museum. Sounds creepy, right? Well turns out he's written as a wacky hobbyist who pranks everybody, uses pseudonyms that everybody sees through, and doesn't actually know much about history so his museum isn't even accurate. He's a space neckbeard.

The only newcron lord who actually kind of works is Imotekh because he's just a stereotypical ruthless overlord. There's not much else to him so you can't really fuck it up. He's bland but he's not goofy.

>Not really, he's supposed to be more of a tragic character

He's obviously supposed to be a funny one.
Necrons are not supposed to be overly serious.

Tragic isn't overly serious, you know.

And no, he's not obviously supposed to be comedic.

>Nemesor Zahndrekh
>Tragic figure

But that's literally wrong though.

>Tragic isn't overly serious, you know.

Yes it is.

>And no, he's not obviously supposed to be comedic.

He obviously is.

>Zahndrekh literally has a Lychguard Butler stopping all the Necron Assassins from removing the crazy old man from power.
How do people think that's supposed to be a serious character?

I don't know, it takes a special kind of tone deaf to read this and arrive at the conclusion of tragedy.

...

Can any Britbongistani resident explain to me what's the problem with Thatcher? She was the most powerful woman of the 20th century bar none, stood up against Argentina, was the iconic face of post-war Britain around the world and saved its economy from becoming the sick man of Europe. Why the hate? Is it because she cut back on gibsmedats?

She killed industry, broke the unions and implemented unpopular taxes.

She crushed unions with iron heel. And because they were bloated to monstrous proportions the task was only possible with some radical means that also impacted negatively on general population. Taxes were raised, jobs were lost and it took a while before new were found. They hate her now because she can take it, but she did what was necessary to protect the country from something far worse.

>because she can take it

She's dead.

She also exhibited all the usual unfavourable tory traits of buddying up to dictators, shitting on the poor/disabled in order to buff the rich (particularly her own clique) and other very right wing things that usually centrist UK population doesn't like. The infamous Poll tax was pretty much peak of her fuck-the-people approach and went down like a lead balloon to the point of genuine riots against it. She presided over huge social upheaval and instability, of which she can be considered a direct cause of. And we don't really go in for that over here as a matter of course so shit was pretty bad for it to get pushed that far.

And her own party eventually ousted her.

She might have an international image of a strong leader, but a lot of that was down to her opposition being shite and a brutal disregard for much of the kingdom (especially Northern Ireland). Falklands would have gone down the same with any other leader as a matter of national pride.

Exactly. I'm not even a brit but even I know people are a lot better at taking criticism when they're dead

>Was early Warhammer "political"?
About as much as Judge Dredd, at least. Though arguably a lot clumsier.

I assume they backed off from the more obvious satire because most of the kids playing these days are simple and need the Imperium to actually be "good guy", otherwise they just wouldn't understand the setting. So it has become less political and more watered down in general.

>a brutal disregard for much of the kingdom
If it wasn't a city, she didn't give a fuck, if it was a city she only gave a fuck about the middle and upper class.

i dont think its political in that a special real life imperium is portrayed. But more a conglomeration of all the bad things of different ones.

What could be said was little things like rainbow warriors space marines existing. (The rainbow warrior was a greenpeace ship that got attacked in the 80s) or the early 40k orks as proto nazis with their bullyin the weak, stormboys and general WW2 german imagery like stickgrenades, halftracks and these helmets. But that has been toned down since forever. Just like there are no more human bombs.

So the setting is more escapism then a political statement. It also is liked by many on either sides of the political spectrum.

I remember stumbling on a Web 1.0 blog that decried 3rd edition for turning Chaos into "Saturday morning cartoon villains". It really comes down to portrayals. There was some grim stuff in Inferno! and Warhammer Weekly despite that guy's lamenting

Old school player (been playing since 2nd 1993)

Am I the only one who actually liked the change in 'Crons?

For me the miniatures were cool but the faction lacked personality compared to Imperium, Chaos, Eldar, Nids and even Tau.

I love Vargard Obyron and Trazyn, as their is that little bit of humor that was in their character that was present in characters like Doomrider, Ghazghkull and Makari, or even Tuska Daemon-Killa. 40K always had an element of tongue planted firmly in cheek without over doing it.

Further more it gave the Necrons motivations beyond "Kill all living", reasons for Narrative fags to have Cron vs Cron games.

Not saying the change was perfect but it was IMO an improvement of what was there previously and probably the only improvement fluff wise to a faction Matt Ward has ever contributed.

I never liked the original C'Tan did everything lore.

Same, it was one dimensional and as I said earlier made the Crons lack the personality of other factions.

And before I get gimped I should remind everyone this is a hobby of "your guys". Hate the new fluff all you like but it gave you the option of playing souless space zombies, Senile Space Pharaohs and everything in between. It gave you the option to paint them differently, decide what your motivations and back story are, and gave you a reason to identify with them for whatever reason you choose to.