So, this thread is sort of attached to the Conquering the Reach thread earlier. In that thread, various peoples have weighed in on the strength, tactics, and whatnot of the Reach's principle players; the Imperium, Hive Fleet Dagon, the Tau, and the Samech of the Ruionus Powers, but few have mentioned the Necrons, which WE also know are out there, and which are starting to stir.

Eventually, the Phaeron's forces will rouse, and take stock of things. When they finally decide to kill all of the living in the Sector, who will they hit, first? They have good reasons to hit both Chaos and Nid forces, while the Tau will crumble under them, and the Imperium, furthest back, might even get to see one of its foes bested. While Newcrons are more personality-driven, criven, and such than older-gen versions, Nids aren't diplomatic, Chaos is sort of the Enemy, and Tau...(breaks for much laughter), so they will resolve to use military force. How do you see that going? They MIGHT not have the same limitless resources as the Nids, but their tech is cheese, and their "magic" is almost on par with Sorcery, so Chaos might hurt. Input?

Necrons... didn't think about that but yeah it makes sense. The Necrons are old and ready for war. It really depends where they are because in most Necron wakings they clear their sector and go to sleep again making the Imperium not really notice. When they do come the Crusade will fall.

If the necrons attacked the nids first, bad luck because this is not going to be a pushover. The Imperium will actually be lucky because the war with the nids and the necs is going to become attritional. The nids will have to backtrack as planets they thought eaten start being filled up with uneadible metal beings that have a hard time staying dead. This will give the Imperial forces a breather to prepare and rest.

If the Chaos get hit then it will be different. The necrons can't hit from the middle because of the Hadex Anomaly but they can easily surround the Chaos forces and take out their fortress worlds. This means Imperial worlds as well. They will force out the stretched Imperial forces and either lead a spearhead in to the hadex anomaly or move out to take the Iron collar and the warp gate. They can easily kill the chaos forces so this will only be stopped because of the daemon worlds which will make conquest a challenge.

If the Necrons hit the Tau... lets say that it will be a bloodbath.

A real interesting thread that I hope people will pick up. Time to awaken the Necrons in Jericho Reach...

If the Imperium is aware of the awakening Necrons of the Outer Reach and the potential threat they pose, they should be doing everything in their power to channel the Necrons into the Tyranids; let the Irresistible Force meet the Immovable Object, then hammer what's left of the 'winner'.

Well, the crusade presumably has the power to stall, if not defeat, the necrons - at least in conjunction with the other threats currently in the reach; it's heavily hinted in the background that what's happened in the Achillus crusade to date is due to the eldar poking key events to ensure that there's a massive imperial force deadlocked in the reach when the dark pattern comes on-line.

Almost every book hints that one more empire/warband/fleet is capable of destroying the Imperial forces outright. An extra Chaos warband won't change much but an entire ork Wagghh... or a Necron battle fleet will bring the Achilus Crusade on its knees. Also think about Necrons are the best infiltrators in the Galaxy. Most can only send in a squad or two but the Necrons can infiltrate an entire army.

'let the Irresistible Force meet the Immovable Object, then hammer what's left of the 'winner'. ' Adeptus-B said this.

That is exactly what any Imperial commander hopes for. The tyranids drawn back meaning a massive pressure would be lifted. In fact the Orpheus Salient is the most attritional warzone of them all because for every man eaten another nid comes. This allows forces to attack the Tau and Chaos, forcing them both back.

'Well, the crusade presumably has the power to stall, if not defeat, the necrons ' Magnus Grendel said this.

I doubt it. Like I said before almost every book mentions that one more empire would destroy the Achilus Crusade. The Necrons would burn all. Personally I think the Necrons will attack near the Warp Gates and the Iron Collar. This will destroy the Imperial Forces as their centre gets attacked.

Crusade as it is has failed already. Look at the spread of tyranid infestation on the Reach map - without some sort of stupid plot armor like at the battle of Ultramar crusade is doomed. They didn't have manpower to overwhelm Samech or Tau before Dagon, and they surely don't have it now. Tyranids, being rational, attack worlds with more biomass and softer defences, and reclaimed worlds fit right here. At the same time crusade leadership degrades to either paranoia, despair or borderline treachery while morale of the troops goes south. You want to imagine what happends to crusade when necrons awake? Think of nazi army groups "north", "center" and "south" decimated and overwhelmed on eastern front by 1944. Now imagine D-day.

While I personally have little hope for the success of the Crusade, even beyond the aspect of "they wrote it that was so that they can keep writing it for more books", the Imperium MIGHT actually be okay off, at first. I imagine the map as sort of a half circle. The middle of the straight line is the Gate, and an area around it is Imperium-based holdings. Filling up some of the left third of that side is Tau, the middle third solid Chaos, and the right third solid Nids. If the Imperium is lucky, the Necrons, who seem to be further away from the gate than everyone else, will be on the other side of the Tyranids or Chaos from the Imperium, and thus hit one of them, first. Being methodical, they might focus on that one enemy, and between inability to negotiate with the Hive Mind, and unwillingness to deal with the servants of the Warp, it'll basically just be bloodshed. Unless the Imperium does a typically stupid thing, and then goes out to engage true threat #4, they might get the respite of however long it takes for the Necrons to kill one of the others, and then maybe move on to the second, being closest. They con hope, anyway.

You are missing one thing - nids make decisions based on hunger and growth of biomass. Necrons are not organic and hit back hard, so Hive fleet will effectively avoid direct clashes, further focusing on roflstomping orpheus salient.

Chaos is invulnerable unless necrons appear right inside the anomaly and make it their primary objective - strategically unsound decision if they want to reclaim their promised land.

You have to remember the priorities of the different factions here; right now, the Imperium is only trying to survive (which means whipping out the nids who will most likely win out in any war of attrition, and containing the other parties until they can be grounded into the dust), and gains nothing in engaging the Necrons, while the Necrons just dislike them like most other creatures, so they'll exterminate them, but it's not a rush. However, if the Imperium reveals it's cards, and demonstrates it's Exterminatus capabilities (the planet cracking kind), they just became the only credible threat to the Necrons apart from their ancient nemesis, and that makes them #2 on the annihilation list, meaning proactive destruction of strike capabilities.

The same is the case for the Tau and heretics; the nids are the biggest threat because it needs to be eliminated before it grows out of control, but both lack the sufficient resources to destroy the nids. They might not want to admit it, but they'll probably also lose if the Imperium loses, unless the nids can be dealt a severe blow before than, which is exactly what the Necrons can do. Again, the Necrons, whether old boogeymen or newcrons, don't particularly want to kill them (the Tau might even make interesting test subjects, what with their accelerated evolutionary rate), and since these factions lack serious planet cracking firepower or the means to contain a full-on Necron awakening, the Necrons don't see them as credible threats.

The Tyrannids don't want to directly engage the Necrons (it's a total loss for them, with no biomass gained and all loses being permanent as the combat organisms are atomized), but ultimately lose if they can't contain the waking tide or escape it's spread (a little ironic, that the Great Devourer is fleeing from something). Moreover, they lack the planet-cracking firepower to seriously phase the Necrons. This places the nids in a difficult place, where they must harvest the most of the sector while limiting contact with the necrons to maximize their chance of survival, potentially by sacrificing segments of the swarm in delaying tacticts.

The actual Necrons see the other species as pests, with some rare ones having the means to truly hurt them, which only makes them more annoying (like having a poisonous spider in your home; someone might get bit, and even die of it, but then you'll proactively look to eliminate them). They have night-unlimited reinforcements but limited manpower and extremely good maneuverability, which means that while they may not have the means to invade whole planets, they have the capacity to wage devastating guerrilla campaigns which the other factions cannot hope to win, and wear them down until they are whipped out or are forced to flee. Only their own hubris (or single-minded obsession with killing for oldcrons) is stopping them. The Imperium and the Tyrannids are the only credible threats to them, with the later being somewhat more annoying due to being dangerous to the ultimate survival of the crons if they wipe out all life in the galaxy before biotransferrence can be reversed.

However, if Necrons wake in large numbers, and, more importantly, with largely functioning infrastructure they have pretty much already won; the Imperium can contain their spread somewhat, but they lack to means to seriously threaten a fully awakened Tomb World unless they get serious help from the Eldar, but the Eldar are far from their days of glory, and probably can't afford a war of attrition with the Necrons, even if they are using the humans as expendable pawns. All in all, Necrons are bad news for everybody, but so are the nids, and both have to be controlled before they spiral out of control; however, if left to engage each other, the Necrons will assuredly win (thereby removing a big thorn in everybody's side), and, their expansion might be controlled if the Imperium can concentrate their efforts on the task, which is unlikely.

Very well reasoned and thought out MorioMortis...but you used a qoute from me as your signature line?!?! LOLOLOL

Of course I do, Rogue Traders aren't in the business of admitting things like that too often! Plus, it reminds me that there is no such thing as too many layers in a plan, especially when dealing with good players...

But back to the business at hands, another important is experience fighting wars, especially on a massive scale; the Imperium and Chaos may have been at war for 10 000 years, humanity may have been conquering the galaxy for twice that time, and the Tyrannids may have a hive minds capable of waging wars simultaneously throughout most of the galaxy, but no one alive has experience fighting a total war on a scale quite like that of the War in the Heavens. The Eldars barely remember it as a legend, and a few ancestor spirits deep within the Webway may still hail from those dark days millions of years ago, but every single necron is a veteran of this conflict, and although most may have forgotten nearly all of it, some still recall them, and these generals are the survivors of millions of years of conflict against everything the galaxy could throw at them, from the wrath of the Old Ones themselves and their myriad pawns to the bling fury of the betrayed C'tan. This makes the Necrons by far the supreme strategist in the galaxy, with only their own pride and time honored traditions stopping them from truly unleashing this advantage. Of course, some factions can counter this; the Eldars have a much greater understanding of divinition, allowing them to more or less cheat, and the Orks are entirely unpredictable to logic, making them relatively hard to counter reliably despite millions of years fighting their progenitors.

Moreover, it is important to consider is the "wildcard" technological factor. Necrons are the undeniable masters of technology in the setting, and, unlike most other species, have a rather open mind when it comes to exploring different branches of science. With thousands of competing Cryptek conclaves, each revolving around one of dozens if not hundreds of esoteric disciplines unimaginable by the rest of the galaxy, the Necrons not only have an advantage in potency, but also in technological variety. As such, although this is not really well covered by the crunch, it is impossible to reliably predict what technological marvels or horrors a necron force may carry, and what new or previously unknown devices they might choose to unveil. Therefore, with the exeption of the Eldar (who probably have records of most of the necron's capabilities lying around in some dusty corner of the Black Library) and the Tyrannids (who can evolve fast enough to reliably counter newly appeared technologies in future encounters), most factions involved in the conflict simply cannot reliably predict their likelihood of success in any single encounter with members of the upper Necron hierarchy, which seriously undermines any attempts at waging a serious war effort against them.

Finally is the questions of weapons of mass destruction; most species in the 40k universe can ravage planets, and possibly destroy a few using convoluted methods (asteroids, gravitational tears, warp portals, etc.), some, like the Imperium and the Eldar, even get planet cracking firepower relatively easily, but usually in limited quantities and flavors, but the Necrons remain the best at both scouring the life from a planet and utterly annihilating them. The War in the Heavens involved titanic clashes in which the very stars were extinguished and used as weaponry, astrological phenomenon including black holes where mastered and used as tools of war, and the very universe was torn asunder when the Immaterium was torn from the Materium. Although they might lack the power (in raw energy or soul powered C'tans) this weaponry, or at least to knowledge to create it, because the Necrons who fought in the War of the Heavens are the same ones as today, still lies within the depths of the Necron tombs, and, here again, only the bickering and pride of a decaying culture is stopping them from making full use of them.

tl:dr Necrons have the best strategists in the galaxy, have the best technology (and no one else really understands it, which makes countering it a *****) and the best super weapons if they can find them, and that's a big problem for everybody else in the galaxy if they could just wake up from their nap and stop bickering like 5 year old children with a holier than thou complex.

Necrons are overpowered and capable of mass destruction. No argueing and no negotiating. Thats that. This is how Gw would like everyone to think. I don't support that Necrons are all powerful but I have to admit, the way they are being described makes the Necrons rising up like Doomsday. (Maybe Terra is infested)

If the Necrons woke up the sad fact would be bloodbath. The other groups in the JR would crumble. Sad but true. However there is one salvation. So simple, so effective, the Grey Knights!

Necrons are overpowered and capable of mass destruction. No argueing and no negotiating. Thats that. This is how Gw would like everyone to think. I don't support that Necrons are all powerful but I have to admit, the way they are being described makes the Necrons rising up like Doomsday. (Maybe Terra is infested)

If the Necrons woke up the sad fact would be bloodbath. The other groups in the JR would crumble. Sad but true. However there is one salvation. So simple, so effective, the Grey Knights!

Last time I checked, Grey Knights don't fare a whole lot better when faced with atomization. Sure, the fact that they are psykers might give them an edge, but it also make the Necrons more motivated to kill them, and the Grey Knights' training and battle style is really not adapted to fighting Necrons (all the specialized daemon slaying equipment is useless, and teleport abuse and alpha strikes don't work too well when the other side can do the same, and probably better too), except to nuke Tomb Worlds before they wake (in which case the DW have better training to do the job). Moreover, the Grey Knights cannot win in a battle of attrition against any one (they don't have the numbers or the big guns to really compensate), much less the Necrons, and the Imperium really needs them to fight what they're good against.

Good reasoning, but I refer to what those money loving GW writers wrote (I think). If the Necrons woke up in the Reach the Eldar might help (maybe). They hate the Necrons and will ally to stop them. If someone finds good reasons for them not helping then goodbye Achillus Crusade, we are going to miss you.

The big probleme with an alliance with the Eldar on any scale larger than direct assistance on isolated battlefields and secret contacts between more or less independent agents of both sides is Mr. Archpuritan Lord Ebongrave; unless you can make him disappear from the equation, any real alliance is unlikely.

On the other hand, if he where to disappear, than a 3-way alliance between the Imperium, the Eldar and the Tau could probably defeat the nids quickly enough that the Necrons could be contained to a limited amount of worlds, thereby allowing the remaining belligerents to slug it out relatively safe from annihilation at the hand of cosmic horrors (the reverse is also possible, but seems less likely due to the pressing nature of the Tyrannid threat and the fact that some Tomb Worlds are already well on their way to wakefulness).

The big probleme with an alliance with the Eldar on any scale larger than direct assistance on isolated battlefields and secret contacts between more or less independent agents of both sides is Mr. Archpuritan Lord Ebongrave; unless you can make him disappear from the equation, any real alliance is unlikely.

On the other hand, if he where to disappear, than a 3-way alliance between the Imperium, the Eldar and the Tau could probably defeat the nids quickly enough that the Necrons could be contained to a limited amount of worlds, thereby allowing the remaining belligerents to slug it out relatively safe from annihilation at the hand of cosmic horrors (the reverse is also possible, but seems less likely due to the pressing nature of the Tyrannid threat and the fact that some Tomb Worlds are already well on their way to wakefulness).

Ah! Too much pro-Xeno propoganda! Burn the alien!