Do you have any pics of the original Centurion design?

*rummages*

Just some very shaky pictures from a Games Day in 2004 - first ideas for something that in the end never surfaced. The Centurion of today is much bulkier, but I think you can see how they could be influenced by the older designs:

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I guess I like the Centurion well enough, though I would have fluffed it differently (basically a "Terminator -1"; an awkward hybrid between PA and TDA meant to counter the Imperium's loss of knowledge in regards to Termie production).

And BA and Necs fist bumping and rolling out without another shot fired. WHAT?? WHAT?!

As much as this is internet hyperbole, I admit I did not find that very fitting either. I could see a temporary alliance between those forces - but it would only be 40k if each side attempts to wipe the other out after they're done with the common enemy.

Well it is the Interwebs bad thing that you can find anything and almost everthing from it that has or has not anything to do with actual fluff/canon.

"cough" Like Female Rubricae Marines "cough"

There is this picture.

And then there are these pictures. I almost spilled my morning cereals when this popped into my screen and I'm pretty sure there is special place for people who make these in Equestria.

"I'm starting to think that I should propably burn my laptop"

I'm trying to better define the personality of my upcoming Salamanders Tactical Marine, a rather interesting question popped up (this guy is going to be interacting with quite a bit of xenotech aboard a RT vessel):

What do Space Marines in general think about the Machine Cult?

I know they look at the Emperor as more of a father figure than god, so I doubt they'd acknowledge the Omnissiah as a true god, but then how do they really view it?

Well machines obviously work, and Marines don't understand how, so they have a good reason for believing in Machine Spirits/the Omnissiah.

EDIT: The Necrons have indeed been completely and thoroughly reworked and have been extensively written up in this form in both Deathwatch and Black Crusade.

I'm trying to better define the personality of my upcoming Salamanders Tactical Marine, a rather interesting question popped up (this guy is going to be interacting with quite a bit of xenotech aboard a RT vessel):

What do Space Marines in general think about the Machine Cult?

I know they look at the Emperor as more of a father figure than god, so I doubt they'd acknowledge the Omnissiah as a true god, but then how do they really view it?

Well machines obviously work, and Marines don't understand how, so they have a good reason for believing in Machine Spirits/the Omnissiah.

EDIT: The Necrons have indeed been completely and thoroughly reworked and have been extensively written up in this form in both Deathwatch and Black Crusade.

On the one hand, assuming old chapters haven't purged their pre-Heresy history, a chapter like the Samamanders might still have records (or hell, even Dreadnoughts) dating that far back. And back then largely the same machines still seemed to work just fine without all the religious rites. For a chapter such technically-inclined as the Salamanders (they manufacture their own wargear, most of their members built/modified at least some of their own gear pieces themselves, I don't see that far-fetched for even the 'average guy' to know that there isn't that much truth behind the Machine-Cult.

On the other hand, I can totally see other chapters buying into it fully. Hell, IIRC the Sons of Medusa are the producst of a spilt within the Iron Hands based on some divergent doctrine within the Cult Mechanicus (that they can read the future in the Astronomican or something like that)

Samamanders

I pictured a guy named 'Sam' and a girl named 'Amanda' in power armor.

BFF chapter 4 life.

Well, the Salamanders do own the oldest Rhino, if one were to go by GW fluff. Then again, the fact that they had it up and running for eight thousand years kinda hints at the vehicle having become more than a mere tool of war.

"Rhinos can be salvaged and are brought back to the forge to have each wound reverently repaired by skilled artificers, the battle scars worn with pride and their war-spirits honoured with the Litanies of Battle. As a result, many Rhinos have remained in service for thousands of years, becoming holy relics amongst the Chapters of Space Marines and other Imperial servants who rely on them. The oldest Rhino in existence belongs to the Salamanders, and is known as Nocturne's Hammer. The Salamanders tell that it carried their legendary Primarch, Vulkan, into battle at the Siege of Devlin's Fastness, sallying cut through the gates of the Imperial fortress to attack the foe. Nocturne's Hammer has seen over eight thousand years of action and now has a place of honour in the Chapter's reliquary on Prometheus, its armoured hide scarred by millennia of war."

- WD #269 excerpt

The Salamanders also select recruits based on their blacksmithing skills rather than focusing on what makes a Space Marine a better warrior, so it does seem they are not as practical-minded at least in that version of the background.

In FFG's RPGs, both agents of the Adeptus Mechanicus as well as the Adeptus Ministorum are capable of calling upon visible and undeniable proof that their respective gods exist and infuse them with power. It does beg the question of how the Astartes would only recognise one but deny the other.

The powers come from her faith, not directly from the Emperor. They are being manifested because of the existential belief - and the quantity of it. As a result of the overflow of Emperor Worship in the metaphysical universe, it is becoming manifest in realspace.

So, I dont think she would lose her power. She would probably benefit from generating the power in the same way, albeit with a Chaotic overlord benefactor in place of the Imperial Cult.

I'd probably say she would, but only because, as I'm looking at it, it's her faith in the Emperor that gives her power. Whether the source is Him or her, it is the belief that manifests it, and if she stopped believing, power goes poof. Very few people are capable of understanding that power might come from them. It's sort of heretical to think, MIGHT be corruption, and on. So, if she stopped believing in the Emperor, she wouldn't believe in the power, and it would go poof. This is only my opinion, of course.

Oh, I wasnt aware of the changes. I dont keep up with the Necs. What happened?

Another opinion, they went to crap. If you know about Warhammer Fantasy, they finished their transmogrification into Tomb Kings in Space. Basically, they got personality, cowardice, backstabbiness, diplomacy, and a religion reboot.

K, the Necrons were mindless machines who implacably strode across the galaxy, killing everything. Now, we might believe that the software that connects them has finally reached a level of activity where it acts like people, rather than mindless automatons. This cyber-consciousness can think, laugh, cry, fear, and plot. Also, the C'Tans they once served now serve them. They killed their Gods, and split them up into peices, sort of like Khaine, and much like him, each piece can become a Nightbringer Shard, or a Deceiver Shard, and serves the Necropolis. It gets a bit more complicated here and there, but the Outer Reach is a good source if you are interested.

As an aside, I rather like the Dreadknights, mostly from the standpoint that they had to have something like this. There is no Grey Knight who wishes to become a Dreadnought; what is seen as an honor to others is a terrible sentence to the Knights. No Grey Knight has ever fallen to Choas, and none wish to be the first. Death is the ultimate release from this worry, knowing that they died pure, and will lay in repose with their fallen Brothers and Heroes. Being interred in a Dreadnought is a nightmare, literally thousands more possible years of service, of more chances to succumb to the Ruinous Powers, and of not getting to rest. However, each Dreadnought is also a potent weapons platform, and the Grey Knights fight things that make other Space Marines look like IG, so they can't shrug off the need for these weapons. Some will willingly become Dreadnoughts, of course, but it makes sense for the Knights to have a similar unit, but one that bears a still spry Grey Knight, who can still fight, and maybe die in service, and attain the reward of a peaceful rest.

Now, are they cheesy models? Well yes, possibly, but I mostly cared to justify their existence, not if they are good.

As for the Techmarines, much of what I've read says that, while they try to remain more Chapter than AdMech, their brothers will often look at them with suspicion, and treat them different. Of course, this might not happen, and it might just depend on Chapter (Iron Hands and Salamanders should LOVE their Techmarines, with the prior also being Chaplains, and the latter being so smithing-based, and Space Wolf Iron Priests are much more like their Brothers than like any Tech-Priest you'll ever see), but they were gone for a while, know weird things, believe some strange stuff, and so on.

Of course, I vote for team unity, and getting along, but this can be an interesting excuse for role-playing, and inter-character action.

The best thing about newcrons is they're no longer mechanical tyranids in terms of personality. A game only needs one "locust-like mindlessly-slaying, non-negotiating" type of race.

At least there are pros and cons to the newcrons.

I don't really see the cons in the RPG at any rate. The Outer Reach provides easy justification for discovered crons to be either mindless murderbots or acting under a big-personality murderbot. Good inclusion, that.

Any limitations found in the setting are limitations of the GM. And thus, the necessity for this site is doubled. It really helps us (especially un-seasons GMs like myself) get through any hiccups or road-blocks that we may encounter.

No, I'll give that my newcron whines are, for the most part, for the Table Top. The "original" Necrons would've been boring crap for an RPG setting, minus now I have seen people talking about wanting to play one, and that's terrible.

In the Table Top, I just don't like their fluff, quite as much, with their destroying their own gods, as if they were so weak, and writing out my Pariahs, one of my favorite units (the utility of that unit not always withstanding). While I like personality, some of their new moods just made me go "Tomb Kings in space", where they did have a bit of differentiation, before. "We toppled gods, but your little stuff can scare us." Not being a big Zerg fan, I rather liked a more futuristic horde of inconsolable, implacable death drones, who didn't speak, couldn't be reasoned with, and had some nifty abilities.

That said, I can tolerate their new computer-lingo fluff, and it is cool for use in an RP setting.

The "original" Necrons would've been boring crap for an RPG setting, minus now I have seen people talking about wanting to play one, and that's terrible.

From my experience, if it exists in the setting and it doesn't possess qualities that make it obviously unplayable (like mindless, permanently enslaved to another creature etc.) sooner or later somebody will want to play one. If it does, they'll want to own one.

I do like the sort of implacable killing machines they were before, but isn't there specifically a mention in the current fluff that there is a segment of the Necron forces that are explicitly still that?

In terms of how I play them in the RPG setting, I will probably blend the old and the new. The rank and file warriors are Terminator-style mindless drones who pew pew all living things and may occasionally make beep-boop noises, while the leaders are mustache-twirling villains possessed of insanely grandiose ambitions ala Cobra Commander.

I do like the sort of implacable killing machines they were before, but isn't there specifically a mention in the current fluff that there is a segment of the Necron forces that are explicitly still that?

The ones who don't have a sentient controller are basically working off of instinct, which is somewhat reduced to an animal level by the consciousness transfer process. I'd check out The Outer Reach because both kinds of Necrons canonically exist in the Jericho Reach, since the Dynasty there has had some issues in the past couple billion years of stasis.

Mostly, I still gripe about the loss of the C'Tan as cool, rather than yet another Chaos harnesses daemons angle, and the backstory that went with it, but mostly the loss of the Pariahs is what I whine about the most. Those things said, the one isn't a huge loss, as the C'Tan are still cool, and the Pariahs, while gone, could easily be slapped together in a game of DW. The Subhekar Dynasty isn't the ONLY one out there, even just in the Reach, and any other one might have had some "special project prototype" unit they had been working on. I made a Melfina for RT, a Necron who can see into the warp, to keep an eye on the enemy, so it wouldn't be at all hard to make a higher-end Necron, add the Untouchable template to it, give it the cool weapon, and run with it.

And speaking of Necrons, the Necromancer spoke his arcane magics, and raised this thread from the dead!

(Seriously, though this thread is old, it's nowhere near as ancient as the Necrons, hope it's ok)

So, two topics of interest in this thread, a rarity for sure:

1) Techpriests. The way that I see it (matters of interpretation and all) is that the reason they don't see the Emperor as a God is because they know better. Their own lore expressly tells them that they are the chosen sons, born of remnants of his own geneseed. Tough to believe that your own 'father' or however you want to perceive that is a diety. Not impossible, but hard.

Conversely, for technology mostly they *don't* know better. Obvious exceptions exist like the Iron Hands and Salamanders etc, but in reality, most of those exceptions, and especially the Iron Hands, buy into the religious aspect of technology More, not less. The reason anything works is because they do the things told to them by those who indicate that there is a greater power at play, and they not only have no information to the contrary, they have no reason to look for any.

In terms of history, it's like finding a knife labelled World War I on the blade. You know it's a fake, not only because they called it the "great war", but also because they had no reason to believe there would be a second. There would not be mission reports or records of machines working properly without the appropriate rites, because if they worked properly, there is nothing to report, and if there are no rites, there is similarly nothing to report, they had no way of knowing of future rites being an issue.

Secondly, it currently works. They leave the Ecclesiarchy alone, despite many players believing they are responsible for the stagnation and presumed eventual death of mankind, and despite absolutely no positive benefit. Why? It's not worth their time, they have other fish to fry. Even if they did have cause to believe the machine cult was full of it, and I maintain again they would not have such cause, it wouldn't change that the worst relationship they would maintain is a carefully cultivated non-aggression, and since the efforts of the machine cult are actively and vitally needed in maintaining their vehicles, titans, and other items of war, it behooves them more to cultivate friendship, or at minimum cordial ties. Why would anyone ever, out of the blue, start antagonizing recognized allies, for no discernable benefit?

In terms of the necrons: I agree with almost everything currently said. At least there's still the tyranids. In terms of existing canon, though, look back not just to why they "hibernated" in the first place, but before then, to why they were strolling across the galaxy in the first place, and the new fluff is not excessively incompatible with the old. They were also an inferior threat compared to the tyranids (albeit a very different one), and not excessively popular in sales. Taking them in the direction they did only makes sense, and I see nothing personally drastically wrong with it.