. . . . "Necrons were once a living species, proud and intelligent, but became corrupted by the machinations of the C'Tan, the ancient star gods of the Warhammer Universe, and cast aside their mortal bodies for those of cold, immortal machines. Having laid dormant for eons, these terrible machines now awaken with the intent to snuff out the plague that is mortal life. Necrons are led in battle by Necron Lords, members of the Necron's former race who have kept both their intelligence and glimmers of their former personalities, or, rarely, by their C'Tan masters."@en . . . . . "Necrons"@en . . . . . . . . . "Necrons do not make good player characters. The typical Necron is a mindless automaton, its sense of self and personal initiative ground away to nothing by countless millennia of self-repair and resurrection. Of the entire Necron race, only the once-human Pariahs and the Necron Lords retain enough sentience and potential for growth to truly be considered \"characters;\" of these, the Pariahs have had their minds fundamentally altered from the human norm by their horrific transformation, and the Necron Lords couple resurrection-induced insanity with minds that were never human in the first place. This, combined with the significant physical differences between Necrons and humans, and the immense difficulties a Necron would have interacting with Imperial society (or practically any non-Necron society, for that matter), makes for an extremely difficult character to incorporate into a typical group of Acolytes or Explorers. A GM should carefully consider the sort of game he wishes to run and the potential ramifications of such a choice before allowing a player to play a Necron character."@en . . . . . "Necrons were once a living species, proud and intelligent, but became corrupted by the machinations of the C'Tan, the ancient star gods of the Warhammer Universe, and cast aside their mortal bodies for those of cold, immortal machines. Having laid dormant for eons, these terrible machines now awaken with the intent to snuff out the plague that is mortal life. Necrons are extremely powerful and capable warriors, armed with horrifying Gauss weaponry capable of ripping through an unfortunate target layer by molecular layer. Worse, Necrons can never truly be destroyed in combat; the shattered remains are teleproted back to their tombs to be repaired (even Necrons that had been reduced to puddles of slag). Necrons are led in battle by Necron Lords, members of the Necron's former race who have kept both their intelligence and glimmers of their former personalities, or, rarely, by their C'Tan masters."@en . . . . . . . . . . . . "Across the galaxy, an ancient and terrible race is stirring back to life. Entombed in stasis-crypts for millions of Terran years, they have slumbered through the aeons, waiting for the galaxy to heal from the wounds of a long and bloody war. Now, after sixty million years of dormancy, a great purpose begins. On desolate worlds thought long-bereft of all life, ancient machineries wake into grim purpose, commencing the slow process of revivification that will see those entombed within freed to stride across the stars once again. The unstoppable, undying Necron legions are rising. Let the galaxy beware. All Necrons, from the lowliest of warriors to the most regal of lords, are driven by one ultimate goal, to restore their ancient ruling dynasties to glory and to bring the galaxy under their rule once more, as it was in ancient days. Such was the edict long ago encoded into the Necrons' minds, and it is a command so fundamental to their being that it cannot be denied. Yet it is no small task, for the Necrons are awakening from their Tomb Worlds to find the galaxy of the late 41st Millennium as recorded by the Imperial Calendar much changed. Many Tomb Worlds are no more, destroyed by cosmic disaster or alien invasion. Others are damaged, their entombed legions afflicted by slow madness or worn to dust by entropy's irresistible onset. Degenerate alien races squat amongst the ruins of those Necron Tomb Worlds that remain, little aware of the greatness they defile with their upstart presence. Yet there is no salvation to be found in such ignorance. The undying have come to reclaim their lands, and the living shall be swept aside. Yet if billions of Necrons have been destroyed by the passage of eternity, countless billions more remain to see their dominion reborn. They are not creatures of flesh and blood, these Necrons, but android warriors whose immortal forms are forged from living metal. As such, they are almost impervious to destruction, and their mechanical bodies are swift to heal even the gravest wounds. Given time, severed limbs reattach, armour plating reknits and shattered mechanical organs are rebuilt. The only way, then, to assure a Necron's destruction is to overwhelm its ability to self-repair, to inflict such massive damage that its ancient regenerative systems cannot keep pace. Even then, should irreparable damage occur, the Necron will often simply \"phase out\" -- an automated viridian teleportation beam returning it to the safety of the stasis-crypts, where it remains in storage until such time as repairs can be carried out. The sciences by which such feats are achieved remain a mystery to outsiders, for the Necrons do not share their secrets with lesser races and have set contingencies to prevent their supreme technologies from falling into the wrong hands. Should a fallen Necron warrior fail to phase out, it self-destructs and is consumed in a blaze of emerald light. Outwardly, this appears little different to the glow of teleportation, leaving the foe to wonder whether the Necron has finally been destroyed or has merely retreated to its tomb. Victory over the Necrons is therefore always a tenuous thing, and a hard-won battle grants little surety of ultimate victory. For the Necrons, defeats are minor inconveniences -- the preludes to future triumphs, nothing more. Immortality has brought patience; the perils that the Necrons survived in ancient times carry the lesson their race can overcome any opposition, if they have but the will to try. And if the Necrons possess only a single trait, it is a will as unbending as adamantium. Only one hope can now preserve the other intelligent races of the galaxy from the Necrons' advance, from the endless legions of silent and deathless warriors rising from long-forgotten tombs. If the Necrons can be prevented from waking to their full glory, if the scattered Tomb Worlds can be prevented from unifying, then there is a chance of survival. If not, then the great powers of the galaxy will surely fall, and the Necrons shall rule supreme for all eternity -- undying, cruel and utterly implacable."@en . . . . . . . . . "Across the galaxy, an ancient and terrible race is stirring back to life. Entombed in stasis-crypts for millions of Terran years, they have slumbered through the aeons, waiting for the galaxy to heal from the wounds of a long and bloody war. Now, after sixty million years of dormancy, a great purpose begins. On desolate worlds thought long-bereft of all life, ancient machineries wake into grim purpose, commencing the slow process of revivification that will see those entombed within freed to stride across the stars once again. The unstoppable, undying Necron legions are rising. Let the galaxy beware."@en . "The Necrons' story is one of ancient betrayal. Aeons ago, the Necrontyr race clung to their short lives in fear of oblivion at the hands of their massive and ravaging star. They pushed the limits of science in an effort to lengthen their lives, but to no avail. In their desperation, the looked to their science and discovered ethereal beings feeding on the energies of whole stars. They named these beings the star gods, or C'tan. The C'tan offered the Necrontyr people immortality, but only at a terrible price. We will never know if the Necrontyr knew this price, but their race was completely purged and transferred into new metal bodies. The C'tan are enormous energy beings who were given physical embodiments by the Necrontyr. They encased the C'tan inside vast lumps of their living metal, the same material they used in their space faring ships. The metal mutated into the shape desired by the personality of the being inside. The Night Bringer was forged into a dark figure with a large cloak, adding to the fear it already inspires, and the Deceiver was formed into a wily shape. Originally there were a large number of C'tan, but due to the machinations of the Deceiver, this number reduced to four, The Night Bringer, The Deceiver, The Dragon and The Outsider. The Necrontyr accepted the C'tan's offer and their life essence was encased in living metal bodies. What they did not know was that the process dulled their minds and senses until they became slaves of the C'tan. The C'tan needed warrior-slaves to harvest the lifeforms of the galaxy so the star gods could feast on souls, and their new Necrons served this purpose very well. The Necrons burst into the Old Ones strongest fortresses and destroyed their magics and technology. The Old Ones were forced to seed planets with life to help fight the C'tan, including the Eldar and Krork. These races had the ability to use the warp to defend themselves. Gradually, the Old Ones were forced back by the relentless push of the C'tan and billions of souls were harvested for the Star Gods. The C'tan had been working on a plan to cripple the Old Ones, and eventually it came to fruition. They burst into and destroyed the webways discovered by the Old Ones. Without these portals, the Old Ones were unable to move troops throughout the galaxy. With the new races using so much warp power for the purposes of killing, the benign creatures in the warp mutated into the evil creatures they are today. Then the Enslavers came, and forced the Necrons back with their psychic powers. The 4 remaining C'tan went into stasis to avoid the Enslavers and allow the galaxy to repopulate without the psychic swarm, so they could emerge and reconquer their empire. In combat, the Necrons are unyielding war machines that bring swift death to their prey. Armed with Gauss Weaponry that strip an opponent's molecules one layer at a time, the Necrons have fearsome firepower. Also, the Necrons have a remarkable ability to repair themselves, a Special Rule known as \"We'll Be Back!\". This gives the Necrons incredible staying power in a battle, which makes them an enemy dreaded by all races. It is often said amongst commanders of more orthodox armies that the Necrons are an over-powerful force on the battle field, due to the fact even a basic warrior can tear through the strongest tanks in the game although Necron players dispute this rigorously. They also use a variety of deadly wargear, including some types which make the wearer immune to some assaults, and others that create deadly arcs of lightning. These are analysed within the Necron Armoury. The Necrons most often encountered by other races are warrior machines and are analysed in the Necron Army List. Necrons serving purposes other than purely warrior roles have not as yet been observed. The Necron fleet is a small but deadly force capable of destroying most ships very easily. They also don't make use of the same form of interstellar travel, the warp, as other races do, making them difficult to intercept. Their fleets are analysed in the Necron Fleetforge. Also, on particularly rare occasions, a super heavy Necron device called a Necron Pylon is seen. It is feared for its extreme power and ability to appear anywhere on the battlefield."@en . . . . "Necrons do not make good player characters. The typical Necron is a mindless automaton, its sense of self and personal initiative ground away to nothing by countless millennia of self-repair and resurrection. Of the entire Necron race, only the once-human Pariahs and the Necron Lords retain enough sentience and potential for growth to truly be considered \"characters;\" of these, the Pariahs have had their minds fundamentally altered from the human norm by their horrific transformation, and the Necron Lords couple resurrection-induced insanity with minds that were never human in the first place. This, combined with the significant physical differences between Necrons and humans, and the immense difficulties a Necron would have interacting with Imperial society (or practically any non-Necron "@en . . . "The Necrons' story is one of ancient betrayal. Aeons ago, the Necrontyr race clung to their short lives in fear of oblivion at the hands of their massive and ravaging star. They pushed the limits of science in an effort to lengthen their lives, but to no avail. In their desperation, the looked to their science and discovered ethereal beings feeding on the energies of whole stars. They named these beings the star gods, or C'tan. The C'tan offered the Necrontyr people immortality, but only at a terrible price. We will never know if the Necrontyr knew this price, but their race was completely purged and transferred into new metal bodies."@en . .