REAL-LIFE BIOTRANSFERENCE: the Multiple REDESIGNS of the NECRONS! | Warhammer 40,000 Retrospective 

What about Stargate as an influence? The movie came out in 1994, with Egyptian themed bad guys using staff energy weapons?

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

I love these features discussing iterations of lore and models through the years. Please do more!

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!

Ian: “Yeah History of 40K is all well and good, but what about Historiography?”

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.

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!

You and codex compliant are probably the only channels to cover the meta development of warhammer. Love your work.

Loving the incredibly telegraphed puns.

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 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.

The use of translucent green plastic in the 3rd Ed range was absolutely inspired!!

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.

If we're going to mention influences on the Necrons, it's probably worth mentioning Tomb of the Cybermen from Dr Who.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

Stargate the movie was probably the influence. Early 90s film. Space Egyptians.

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

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

Man I remember when the Necron Codex came out, one of my mates had the Nightbringer, that thing was scary on the tabletop!

I still remember the White Dwarf issue that came with a free metal Necron warrior to promote them. good times!

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.

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!

I suspect the 90's GW team heard the Judas Priest song 'Metal Gods' at least once before creating the Necrons. Love these retrospectives!

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

love a repair ability called "I'll be back" brilliant !!!

Ehh. It's not a bad thing that they were given personalities, it's a bad thing that they were given personality through some of the worst writing GW has ever shat out. It was just a blunt, shameless retcon, when there would have been way better ways to go about it that would have resulted in a more flavourful faction overall. PS Green rods will always be cool, don't even @ me

Just fun fact: chaos android (in dormant state) appears in quite new book Genefather :)

While I recognize the 3rd iteration is the healthiest for the wargame and suits the narrative the best, I was completely disenfranchised by the change and eventually sold the army after years of disuse. I loved the Ancient Unknowable Evil from the 2nd and 3rd ed, that filled a niche that tyranids didn't. Tyranids are uncaring eating machines, Necrons wanted to utterly destroy all life just to destroy life. Turning that into just another shades-of-grey ancient tech faction was the worst decision in my mind, they just became less interesting Eldar at that point. Since leaving and returning to the hobby I now have an army's worth of Necrons again thanks to Indomitus and Imperium Magazine, but they're still all unbuilt in a box in the closet and I keep debating selling them yet again. Necron dynasties just aren't as interesting as the old days.

I still think of the Tau as the new guys, quite shocking how old they are :D

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

"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

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.

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".

As someone who only got into 40k semi recently, I love seeing how things have changed irl over the years.

as one of the grognards of the era who was actually playing Necrons (kinda. I had an army of robot orks using the necron rules) I fell somewhere in between the two. On the one hand, I'd already Made My Own Characters and Given My Robots Little A Awareness (As A Treat) I didn't object to that part a whole lot (although again, it didn't feel like "Oh here are new options we're giving you" it felt very "This Is How It Is Now, and we stuck a little footnote in there in case you need your robots to be kinda robotic in nature, you buffoons") I didn't like that my Badass C'tan went from being "One Of The Scariest Things In The Galaxy' (and damn was the third ed version of that model a beast even in 5th ed) to "Something Duped And Captured By The Race So Daft As To Trust Space Vampires To Make Them Into Space Undead" Mostly though, as you say, the Tau had just happened (and while I have come to appreciate them more recently, at the time I did not like their tonal impact on the setting) so to have one of the other races (not to mention, a race whose entire schtick was built around words like Unchanging and Eternal) and perhaps more importantly, the Oldest Known Elements Of History In The Setting, completely upended to what seemed, at the time, a more Hopeful tone (plus of course, this was around when they shifted from "Space marines lose A Lot" (and probably not coincidentally "Space Marines Aren't Supposed To Be 'The Good Guys'")) felt like they were intent on shifting the entire setting away from the stuff I liked about it (plus I was, at the time, still realling from the change from 2nd ed, and the tonal shift in orks away from Goofy Football Hooligans to Raging American Football Rioters. Hypocritical of me? Nah, a girl can Contain Multitudes!) so the ret-cron really did feel a bit like The Sky Was Falling. Also, the "this race is now a mover and shaker, becoming more important and making bigger and bigger impacts on the setting" is something I -currently- don't like much. I don't think the Necron based storylines are particularly good, I don't like any of the established necron personalities, and I really wish the mechanicus would occasionally engage in something that Doesn't Turn Out To Be Necrons once in a while.

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.

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.

You forgot MorkaGorka. They was in that game. They shown of the destroyer for a white dwarf magazine game. Before the white dwarf codex.

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.

Chaos squats as a faction now please; it’ll be the new “reset the clock” meme! 😂

Surely after "millions of years" rather than "thousands of years"?

I’m one of those guys that prefer the 3rd addition iteration of the necrons.

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.

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 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!

Ian this is yet another series you are smashing out of the park! Really looking forward to more factions and tidbits

Oooh perfect. Love some Chaos Androids

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.

great series! would love to see an admech retrospective!

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.

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.

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

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 know Ian I really enjoy your videos! Thank you.

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.

They were also present in Gorkamorka

Looking at how lore has been changed and iterated upon over time are my fav videos you do. It's so interesting.

Ngl, the biggest surprise is Graham Mcneill used to have hair (11:52)

Believe it or not my first 40K army was Necrons in 3rd edition. I just wanted to dip my toe in. 🙂

god I actually remember a lot of this, I was just getting into the game in 97. I feel old now.

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

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.

That was enjoyable. Thank you for that bit of lore history.

chaos android: CHEESE? chaos squat: no, chaos android, that's _promethium._ chaos android: HATE SELF. HATE SELF. WHY CHAOS ANDROID EXIST?

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!

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.

It's pretty funny. Necrons before Matt Ward had more personality than newcrons. Turning K'tan into Pokemon was one of GW's biggest mistakes.

Ooo im at the five minute mark looking forward to hearing some Gorkamorka!

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!

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.

3rd ed 4eva!

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.

I still have a squad of the original hunchbacked robots from 1998 and a necron destroyer (speeder!!)

Historiography at its best. Fantastic video, Arbiter!

It... didn't stay dead for long... eh... ehh..? I said ... IT DIDN'T STAY DEAD FOR LONG...

I think the first Black Library book with actual Necron characters was "Hammer and Anvil" by James Swallow. Which narates the re-establishment of Sanctuary 101, by the Adeptus Sororitas. Spoiler: the Necrons were back

You’re becoming my favourite Warhammer RU-vidr, keep this format up

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.

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.

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.

Every time I hear disingenuous goobers whining about how one paragraph of retcon is gaslighting and ruining everything I just have to laugh. Clearly these kids don't remember squats and necrons, to say nothing of rogue trader silliness

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

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.

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.

I really love videos like this about the development of something in Warhammer,, but you missed a number of important things:Necrons appeared in GorkaMorka (GW still refer to their appearance there), and you also didn't say anything about the first pariah and its miniature,also, being a fan of the old necrons, I got acquainted with them when they were relevant. (I met Warhammer during the 4th edition),I do not agree that the old necrons were mindless drones like tyranids and that redcon made them better, the old necrons already had a personality, lore constantly demonstrated that pariahs and lords possessed it (the Lord from xenology is literally a cosmic aristocrat), necrons can be developed as characters without throwing the old lore and atmosphere into the trash(Necrons lost pariahs and a lot of other things that made the old Necrons interesting),a good redcon should not devalue old lore.

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.

Nice video. It was nice to learn about space robot skeletons. Thank you for making this video concise. Keep up the good work.

Instead of massively overhauling the 3rd Edition lore, they could have woven in the characters and personality more gently instead of doing a 180. It can be done. You just need to know on how to manage details well, which... Matt Ward didn't know how to do that at all.

Lets be honest the reason why most of Necron change hate ended is cause Trazyn the Infinite Troll just made things better in the whole setting.

You know after watching this and the end of pariah nexus video, do you think it is possible that we could see some revival of the chaos android idea through Vashtorr or the dark mechanicum in the future as a new unit or maybe a killteam?

The Forge World Chaos Decimator looks somewhat like the old chaos android art, so that makes might be considered a continuation of the concept

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

heh. I just finished reading The Infinite and the Divine last night. Good times.