Necrons

"There is a terrible darkness descending upon the galaxy, and we shall not see it ended in our lifetimes."

- Inquisitor Bronislaw Czevak at the Conclave of Har

The Necrons are a mysterious race of robotic skeletal warriors that have lain dormant in their stasis-tombs for more than 60 million Terran years and who are the soulless creations and former servants of the ancient C'tan, the terrible Star Gods of Eldar myth. The Necrons are ancient beyond reckoning, predating even the birth of the Eldar. At long last, however, they are beginning to awaken from their Tomb Worlds, for the galaxy is ripe for the greatest harvest of sentient beings to feed the eternal hunger of the C'tan since the disappearance of the Old Ones 65 million standard years ago. The Necrons are a completely cybernetic humanoid species whose technological prowess is probably unmatched by any of the other intelligent races of the galaxy. Yet out of a desire for vengeance against the more fortunate long-lived ancient xenos race called the Old Ones, and the trickery of the godlike intelligences known as the C'tan, the Necrons shed their organic forms and lost all forms of compassion and empathy, becoming ruthless, undying killing machines who feed their endless appetite for the life energy of organic beings and whose different dynasties are determined to exert their mastery over the galaxy once more.

History
The Necrons were once a powerful humanoid species called the Necrontyr. They were one of the earliest sentient races to evolve in the Milky Way Galaxy, and are millions of Terran years older than even the ancient Eldar.

Birth of the Star Gods
The birth of the entities known as the Star Gods occurred at the same time as the moment of Creation itself, as they formed from the vast, insensate energies first unleashed by that churning mass of cataclysmic force. In that anarchic interweaving of matter and energy, the sea of stars began to swirl into existence and for an eon the universe was nothing more than hot hydrogen gas and light elemental dust ruled over by the gravitic force of billions of newborn suns. Long before the first planets had formed and cooled, the very first truly self-aware beings emerged, their thoughts encased within the lines of force produced by the plasma and electromagnetic flares of the stars themselves. In later times, these entities would become known as the C'tan, but early in their existence they were nothing like the malevolent beings they would eventually become. They were little more than monstrous energy parasites that suckled upon the solar energies of the stars that had brought them into existence, shortening the lives of otherwise main-sequence stars by millions of standard years. In time, these star vampires learned to move on the diaphanous wings of the universe's electromagnetic flux, leaving their birthplaces to drift through the cosmic ether to new stellar feeding grounds and begin their cycle of stellar destruction once more. Beings of pure energy, they paid no mind to the hunks of solid matter they passed in the vacuum of space, the blazing geothermal fires and weak geomagnetic fields of these nascent planets insufficient to be worth feeding even their ravenous hunger.

The Old Ones
Just as the stars gave birth to their children so the planets of the newborn galaxy eventually gave birth to lifeforms composed of matter which began the long evolutionary climb to self-awareness. The first sentient beings of the Milky Way Galaxy known to have developed a civilisation technologically advanced enough to cross the stars was a reptilian race of beings called the Old Ones by the Eldar, who knew them best. They possessed a slow, cold-blooded, but still deep wisdom, having long studied the stars and raised astronomy and physics to such a level that their science and technology appear to humanity like an arcane art. Their understanding of the workings of the universe were such that they could manipulate alternate dimensions and undertake great works of psychic engineering. Their science allowed them to cross the vast gulfs of space with only a single step through the myriad Warp Gates they built to connect the worlds of the galaxy in a vast network much like the Eldar Webway of today, though on a much larger scale. The Old Ones spread their spawn to many places in the galaxy, but they also knew that all life was precious. Where they passed, they seeded new intelligent species and reshaped thousands of worlds to make them their own according to their predetermined environmental and geographic criteria. It is believed by some in the Adeptus Mechanicus that even Terra felt the Old Ones' touch long before humanity's rise to self-awareness, though this notion is considered heretical at best by the Ecclesiarchy, as the Imperial Creed teaches that Mankind was made in the image of the God-Emperor before his spirit was incarnated in physical flesh millennia ago.

The Old Ones' civilisation reached its height in excess of 60 million years ago. The Old Ones were responsible for the creation or genetic advancement of most of the currently active intelligent species of the galaxy, including the Eldar, the Krork (the Orks' precursors), the Slann and the Jokaero, though it is unknown if they played any role in the evolution of humanity. The Old Ones were potent psychics who routinely used the powers of the Warp for a wide variety of technological applications. The Old Ones constructed a system of instantaneous faster-than-light portals through Warpspace that were ultimately adapted to create the Eldar's Webway (and was its more advanced precursor). These portals connected all of the Old Ones' colony worlds across vast swathes of interstellar space.

The Necrontyr
As the Old Ones spread across the galaxy, younger, fiercer intelligent races struggled upwards in their wake. The Necrontyr were one such species, born on a world scourged by an unstable star that drove their evolution forward with atomic winds, solar flares and plasma storms. What little information the Imperium has on the Necrontyr tells that their lives were short and uncertain, their bodies blighted and consumed at an early age by the terrible cancers and other illnesses linked to the high levels of ionizing radiation given off by their sun. Necrontyr cities were built in anticipation of their inhabitants' early demise, as the living were only brief residents living in the shadow of the vast sepulchres and tombs of their ancestors. On the Necrontyr homeworld, the greatest monuments were always built for the dead, never the living. Unable to find peace on their own world, the Necrontyr blindly groped outward into the universe to explore other stars. Using stasis crypts and slow-moving, sub-light, antimatter-powered torch-ships that were clad in the living metal known as necrodermis to resist the millennia-long journeys through the void, the Necrontyr began to colonise distant worlds. Sometime during their slow expansion, the Necrontyr encountered the Old Ones. The colonisation of much of the galaxy by the reptilian mystics had been immeasurably swifter and more expansive than that of the Necrontyr because of their Warp Gates and mastery of the Immaterium. That, and the Old Ones' incredibly long, if not downright immortal lifespans, kindled a burning, jealous rage in the Necrontyr, which ate at their culture spiritually as much as their physical cancers consumed their bodies. The Necrontyr were astonished to learn that another intelligent species enjoyed such long lives while their own were cut so brutally short. As their surprise turned to jealousy and then hardened into hatred, the Necrontyr turned their entire civilisation towards destroying the Old Ones and all of their spawn across the galaxy.

The War in Heaven
The terrible wars between the Old Ones and the Necrontyr that followed, known in Eldar myth as the War in Heaven, would fill a library in their own right, but the Necrontyr could never win. Their superior technology was consistently outmanoeuvred by the Old Ones thanks to their mastery of the Webway portals and Warp Gates. The Necrontyr were pushed back until they were little more than an irritation to the Old Ones' dominance of the galaxy, a quiescent threat clinging to their irradiated world among the Halo Stars, exiled and forgotten. The Necrontyr's fury was cooled by their long milllennia of imprisonment on their homeworld, slowly transforming into an utter hatred towards all other forms of intelligent life and an implacable determination to avenge themselves upon their seemingly invincible enemies.

From the earliest days of their civilisation, Necrontyr scientists had been deeply engaged in stellar studies to try to understand and protect themselves from their own sun's baleful energies. After long, bitter centuries of searching for some power to unleash upon the Old Ones, the Necrontyr researchers discovered unusual electrodynamic anomalies in the oldest, dying stars of the galaxy. In the complex skeins of the energetic plasma of these suns, the Necrontyr found a sentience that was more ancient than that of any of the corporeal species in Creation, including the Old Ones, entities of pure energy that had spawned during the birth of the stars eons before. These entities had little conception of what the rest of the universe entailed when the Necrontyr first found them, feeding upon the solar flares and magnetic storms of these bloated red giants. Here was the weapon the Necrontyr had long sought to bring about the downfall of the Old Ones, beings they believed were the progeny of the death-god they worshipped.

The power of these star-born creatures was incredible, the raw energy of the stars made animate, and the Necrontyr called them the C'tan or "Star Gods" in their own tongue. The C'tan were dispersed across areas larger than whole planets, their consciousnesses too vast for humanoids to comprehend. How the Necrontyr ever managed to communicate with them is unknown to the Adeptus Mechanicus. Understanding that such diffuse minds could never perceive the material universe without manifesting themselves in a materal form, the Necrontyr forged physical shells for the C'tan to occupy, cast from the living metal called necrodermis that they had once used for their colony torch-ships. Fragmentary Eldar legends tell of translucent streamers of electromagentic force shifting across space as the star vampires coiled into their new bodies in the physical realm across an incorporeal bridge of starlight.

Incomprehensible forces were compressed into the living metal of the necrodermis bodies which the Necrontyr had forged as the full power of the C'tan at last found form. As the C'tan focused their consciousnesses and became ever more aware of their new mode of existence, they came to appreciate the pleasures available to beings of matter and the other realties of corporeal life. The deliciously focused trickles of electromagnetic energy given off by the phycial bodies of the Necrontyr all about them awakened a new hunger in the C'tan very unlike the one they had once sated using the nourishing but essentially tasteless energies of the stars.

For their part, the Necrontyr soon fell into awe of their discoveries and the C'tan moved to take control over their benefactors. The powers of the C'tan manifested in the physical world were indeed almost god-like and it was not long before the C'tan were being worshipped as the Star Gods the Necrontyr had named them. Perhaps they had been tainted by the material universe they had become a part of, or perhaps this had always been their nature even when they were bound to the suns they fed upon, but the C'tan proved to be as cruel and capricious as the stars from which they had been born. They soon revelled in the worship of the Necrontyr and feasted upon the life energies of countless mortal slaves.

The Rise of the Necrons
Armed with weapons of god-like power and starships that could cross the galaxy in the blink of an eye through the use of quantum phase technology, the Necrontyr stood ready to begin their war against the Old Ones anew. But the C'tan had another gift for their mortal subjects. They offered the Necrontyr a path to immortality and the physical stability their race had always craved. Their diseased flesh would be replaced with the living metal of necrodermis that made up their Star Gods' own physical forms. Their discarded organic husks would be consumed and their cold, metal forms would then be free to pursue their great vengeance against the Old Ones and the rest of a hateful universe, freed forever from the weaknesses of their hated flesh. Whether the Necrontyr actually realised the price they would actually pay for accepting this pact with the C'tan is not known, but their species was utterly purged, their essences fused with the robotic necrodermis bodies their scientists had crafted through the power of the C'tan. The Necrontyr became the Necrons, cursed to the eternal servitude of their Star Gods. The C'tan feasted upon the entire Necrontyr race's life energies even as they made the transfers, leaving behind only the ghostly echoes of the Necrontyr's consciousnesses. Only a few of the most strong-willed Necrontyr retained their intellect and self-awareness and even they were but shadows of their former selves. purged of so much of what had made them unique individuals.

The Necrons cared not at all for their loss; all that mattered to them was that they would live forever without disease or death as their Star Gods had promised. Only one thing truly remained of the old Necrontyr - their burning hatred for all the other living, intelligent species of the universe. Legions of the undying living metal warriors set out into the galaxy in their Tomb Ships and the stars burned in their wake. The Old Ones' mastery of the Warp was now countered by the C'tan's supremacy over the physical universe and the ancient enemies of the Necrons suffered greatly in the interstellar slaughter that followed.

The Necrons Ascendant
The C'tan now dominated the galaxy. The last planetary bastions of the Old Ones were besieged and the intelligent races they had once nurtured became cattle for the obscene hunger of the C'tan. To the younger sentient species of the galaxy, the Necrons and their Star Gods were cruel masters, callously harvesting their populations at will to feed the C'tan's ceaseless hunger. The C'tan were figures of terror who demanded their adoration and fear in equal measure. For unknown reasons, but probably because their individual hungers for mortal life energies knew no bounds, the C'tan ultimately began to fight amongst themselves for both sport and out of spite as they unleashed destructive forces beyond mortal comprehension. Among the Eldar, an ancient myth holds that their Laughing God tricked the C'tan known as the Outsider into turning on its brothers and beginning their long war for ascendancy. In the course of the C'tan's struggle against one another, whole planets were razed, stars were extinguished and whole solar systems were devoured by unleashed black holes. New cities were built by the efforts of millions and then smashed down once more. As the "red harvests" of the C'tan and their Necron servants grew thin, C'tan eventually devoured C'tan, until only a few were left in the universe and they competed amongst themselves for a long age.

Eventually, even the Old Ones, who had once been defined by their patience and unstoppable will, became desperate in the face of the Necron assault. They used their great scientific skills to genetically engineer intelligent beings with an even stronger psychic link to the Warp, hoping to create servants with the capability of channeling psychic power to defend themselves. They nurtured many potential warrior races, among which were believed to be the earliest members of the Eldar species and many other xenos races, including the Rashan, the K'nib and many others. Millennia passed as the Old Ones' creations finally bore fruit and the C'tan and their Necron servants continued to extinguish life across the galaxy.

The Tide Turns
The Old Ones' psychically-empowered servant races spread across the galaxy, battling the advanced Necron technology with the psychic power of their Warp-spawned sorcery. Facing this new onslaught, the C'tan's empire was shattered, as the psychic forces of the Immaterium were anathema to soulless entities whose existence was wholly contained within purely physical paterns of electromagnetic force. For all the destruction they could unleash, they were unable to stop the Old Ones and the younger races' relentless advance across the stars.

The C'tan, unified by this great threat for the first time in millions of years, sought a way to defeat the soul-fuelled energies of the younger species. They initiated a great warding, a plan to forever defeat the psychic sorceries of the Old Ones by sealing off the material universe from the Warp, a plan whose first fruits can still be found on the Imperial Fortress World of Cadia in the form of the great pylons that litter the surface of that world in intricate networks and create the area of space-time stability near the Eye of Terror known as the Cadian Gate. With their god-like powers, it was only a matter of time until the C'tan succeeded and the greatest work of the C'tan was begun. But before it was complete, the seeds of destruction the Old Ones had planted millennia before brought about an unforeseen cataclysm. The growing pains and collective psychic flaws of the younger races threw the untapped psychically reactive energies of the Immaterium into disorder. War, pain and destruction were mirrored in the bottomless depth of the sea of souls that was the Warp. The maelstroms of souls unleashed into the Immaterium by the carnage of the War in Heaven coalesced in the previously formless energies of the Warp. Older entities that had existed within the Immaterium transformed into terrifying psychic predators, tearing at the souls of vulnerable psykers as their own environment was torn apart and reforged into a realm of Chaos.

The Enslaver Plague
The denizens of the Warp clustered voraciously at the cracks between the Immaterium and the material universe, seeking new ways to enter the physical realm. The Old Ones brought forth new genetically-engineered warrior races to defend their last strongholds, including the technology-mimicking Jokaero and the formidable, green-skinned Krork who were the ancestors of the present day Orks, but it was already too late. The Old Ones' intergalactic Webway network was breached from the Immaterium and lost to them, several of their Warp Gates were destroyed by their own hands to prevent the entities of the Warp from spreading to uncorrupted worlds and Old Ones' greatest works and places of power were overrun by the horrors their own creations had unleashed. The most terrifying of these horrors were the Enslavers, Warp entities whose ability to dominate the minds of the Younger Races and create their own portals into the material realm using transmuted possessed psykers brought them forth in ever greater numbers. For the Old Ones, this was the final disaster as the Enslavers took control of their servants. The Pandora's Box unleashed by the creation of the Younger Races finally scattered the last of the Old Ones and broke their power over the galaxy once and for all. Life had stood at the edge of an apocalypse during the War in Heaven between the Old Ones and the C'tan. Now as the Enslavers breached the Immaterium in epidemic proportions, the survivors looked doomed.

The C'tan and Necrons Entombed
The Necrons had been vindicated in their pursuit only of science and control over the material realm and certainly took pleasure in seeing the Old Ones' civilisation collapse as a result of their over-indulgence of psychic power. Unfortunately, it seemed that the last of their own masters' food supply would be lost along with it. The C'tan, however, had a solution to even this as a result of their immortal perception of the passage of time. They would allow the Enslavers to take what was left of the sentient life in the galaxy and let it become an interstellar wasteland; the psyker swarm would then die away and in time the galaxy would evolve new lifeforms for the C'tan to consume. It would take millions of years, but what mattered is that they and their Necron servants would be there to take advantage of it.

The C'tan chose to escape the great catastrophe that was coming by descending into Necron stasis-tombs that would be sealed for tens of millions of Terran years. Their machine slaves and Necron warriors would guard them while they slept on Tomb Worlds purged of all life to keep the Enslavers from their door. Only when they were distrubed by a sentient species with the correct physical characteristics that would allow them to be both mastered and consumed as the Necrontyr had been would the Star Gods reemerge into the galaxy. This plan worked with an amazing degree of success until the Necrons were awakened by the forces of the Imperium of Man in the late 41st Millennium to plague the galaxy once more. By that time, only two of the C'tan emerged. They discovered a new and unexpected age of interstellar civilisation and war much like the one they left behind 65 million years ago. The galaxy is blossoming with life once more but is still overrun with latent psykers and worshippers of the infernal Chaotic Warp energies unleashed during the War in Heaven. It will take time and a great many machinations for the C'tan to regain their rightful places as the rulers of the galaxy; the agents of Chaos must be overthrown; the dangerous Eldar, inheritors of the Old Ones' mantle, eliminated; the great work cutting off the material universe from the Warp completed and Mankind subjugated like the Necrontyr before a new age of red harvests can truly begin. But the C'tan and the Necrons are ageless and undying, their technology is still unmatched by any of the Younger Races and time is always on their side...

Necrons in the 41st Millennium
The Necrons are still a shadowy presence rather than a full-fledged force in the galaxy of the present time. They strike out of nowhere without warning, wreak havoc and leave before any major reinforcements can arrive. The origins of these various attacks and their motives are unknown, though it is known that the current Necron forces in the galaxy are only soul harvesters, not the full-fledged fighting machines of the C'tan.

They seem to attack from nowhere often simply appearing at nearly any location in the galaxy, no matter how well-defended. Once in the recent past they touched down on Mars, simply passing by the Imperial Navy fleets protecting the Sol System unnoticed, and ultimately casting doubt on the impregnable status of Terra itself. The Necrons reached the Red Planet's surface and explored its subterranean Noctis Labyrinthus, perhaps in search of one of their C'tan masters, believed to be the Dragon of Mars, before being destroyed by the agents of the Imperium. This incident, however, is a heavily guarded secret within the Imperium of Man, which greatly fears that the Necrons may awaken the C'tan known as the Void Dragon which inhabits a stasis tomb beneath the sands of Mars. At the same time, the Imperium has been unable to capture a Necron in an attempt to learn their secrets; entire Necron forces simply vanish into thin air using their phase technology -- and they always take their "dead" with them.

The Necron forces come from Tomb Worlds as yet uncharted by the Imperium. Their phase technology allows them to deploy anywhere in the galaxy, almost instantaneously through unknown means, since the Necrons are incapable of entering the Warp. In defeat, they "phase-out" and return to their associated tomb-world for repairs. Any Necrons that have fallen in battle can be repaired there and re-animated so their losses thus far have been minimal. Should a Necron be totally annihilated in battle, then they are truly beyond phase-out or repair, but again, often so little survives that Imperial or Tau scientists (the only two races that want to know more about these deadly enemies) have nothing to study.

The Necrons may have infiltrated the Imperium to an extent. Their elite anti-psyker troops, the Pariah, are an unholy cross of human mutant and Necron technology. It is as yet unknown if the Necrons developed the Pariahs by themselves or with the help of Imperial traitors (or possibly even the deviant members of the Adeptus Mechanicus who worship the Void Dragon as their Omnissiah). But it is believed by Mechanicus savants that the C'tan had the Pariah Gene engineered into what became the human gene pool over 65 million Terran years ago. This gene has since manifested itself in the agents of the Culexus Temple, the specialized anti-psyker assassins of the Officio Assassinorum.

Necron Combat Doctrine
Hibernating deep within the hearts of their Tomb Worlds, the Necrons have been dormant for more than 60 million Terran years. Scattered Necron raiding parties heralded the undying race's awakening to full activity once more in the late 41st Millennium, but now as their thirsty Star Gods, the C'tan, rise to a hungry wakefulness for life energy, the dreaded Necrontyr have returned to claim the galaxy for their own.

Every Necron Tomb World has been constructed to accord to a complex template that was devised by the Necrontyr at the height of their civilisation. Utilising physical principles and technology that have not been rediscovered by any other intelligent species since they began their long sleep, the Necrons created immense subterranean warehouses to store their race for the millions of years they would spend inactive. Using their mastery of advanced interdimensional geometry, the Necrons built massive chambers that could house tens of thousands of their kind in a space seemingly larger on the inside than without. Deep beneath these pyramidal structures, the Necrons stored their horrific weaponry and erected powerful temporal stabilisers that would shield these warriors and their savage weapons from the ravages of time much like a stasis field.

Each Tomb World, once it has been reactivated, awakens its sleepers in a rigid and predictable algorithmic sequence that is as inevitable as the dying of the stars. First, the Tomb World releases swarms of robotic Scarab and Tomb Spyder constructs to attend to the rudimentary needs of the stasis tombs. Soon after the Necron Warriors are reawakened and begin reconnaissance patrols of the region of the world surrounding their tombs. Using the information gained by these Necron Warriors' scouting missions, the Tomb World's automated systems assess the current circumstances that dominate its environment. According to ancient, pre-determined algorithms, the stasis tombs then bring on-line other Necron machineries and weapons as the circumstances warrant. The Necron Lord or Lords present on the Tomb World are encoded with this information and the data necessary to form artificial personalities so that when they awaken they can embody the singular purpose of the Tomb World and make independent decisions.

A large population centre of one of the galaxy's younger races, usually Mankind, may have been settled unwittingly on what is actually a Necron Tomb World. When this situation is encountered, the Tomb World's encoded programming reacts extremely aggressively to defend its hibernating charges. These Tomb Worlds are the ones that have activated the most rapidly during the current awakening of the Necrons and are now hives of activity for the undying race. As their automated systems delve ever deeper into their existing archives of data and storehouses of units and weapons, the Tomb Worlds whose areas of influence have been "invaded" by the younger races are gearing up to begin what will eventually become a full-scale retaliatory action against the Imperium of Man and any other organised force that stands in the Necrons' way. This is a programmed behaviour pattern that Imperial savants have dubbed "the Harvest." When it comes to pass, it will be a genocidal-level event on a par with the War in Heaven against the Old Ones millions of years ago.

Nodal Command
Necron Tomb Worlds appear to have no permanent organisation or command structure, nor is the interaction of the various forces altogether clear to the savants of the Imperium. The Necrons' form of warfare could best be described as a continuous process of causality, as each battle, campaign and Harvest produces preordained responses from the controlling program of the Tomb World. This evolving structure is made possible by a system similar to that used in the most complex assemblies of the Adeptus Mechanicus, which is known as Nodal Command. Nodal Command organisation allocates a strict hierarchy to all of the elements within it. This system grants greater operational and decision-making capacity to certain "nodes" whilst slaving the rest of the system to these nodes' autonomous command decisions. Necron Lords form the nodes of the command structure, allowing each Lord an allocated hierarchical value at any given time. Though the Adeptus Mechanicus can only guess at how this Nodal Command system truly operates, they have determined that there are at least four levels of hierarchy within the Nodal Command, which the Tech-priests have designated Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum levels, in ascending order of command priority. The Nodal Command system is also a communications structure and forms the basis for how intelligence information is gathered and orders issued to the necessary Necron units. The system is often likened to the ancient flow charts once used to design Cogitator algorithms during the Dark Age of Technology.

The decisions taken by a higher-level Necron Lord (such as a Gold-level), give a single, quick response. All relevant data and orders are then automatically disseminated to any subservient Lords -- the Silver-and Bronze-level Lords slaved to the Gold-level commander. In situations where speed is less important than processing all of the relevant information, decision-making defers across several Bronze or Silver-level Lords, and can even devolve down to the individual Necron Warriors at specific times during combat. This system allows for a great deal of coordination when required, but also still leaves room for independent action by distant combat groups should the need arise. A Platinum-level Necron Lord, also known as a Necron Overlord, has not yet been encountered by Imperial forces. Savant speculation indicates that this level of Necron Lord would command massive Necron fleets intended to Harvest entire swathes of the galaxy. Such a Necron force might prove unstoppable.

Escalation
After multiple encounters with the Necrons, it has become obvious to Imperial savants that as a conflict worsens, a Tomb World will temporarily withdraw its existing forces from combat before releasing a new, more potent army led by an extended Nodal Command. Essentially, the more a foe escalates its response to Necron forces, the more devastating will become the Necron offensive. In most situations, only a few Necron Warriors and specialist support units like Destroyers or Wraiths are deployed to defeat an emerging threat. But as resistance grows, so does the strength of the forces that will be released by the Tomb World's autonomic systems to the Nodal Command structure for use by the commanding Necron Lord or Lords.

Combat escalation with the Necrons of a specific Tomb World will grow in this exponential fashion until the forces that are capable of being deployed by the Necrons represent a level of destructive power that can surpass that of any other enemy Mankind has ever faced, including the Tyranids and the Forces of Chaos. Seemingly endless ranks of Necron Warriors will be transported into combat by armadas of newly-awakened Monoliths, while Immortals and Destroyers by the hundreds will be released in relentless waves against enemy troops. Scores of horrific Flayed Ones and Wraiths will terrorise civilian populations and destroy morale behind the front lines. It is believed by many Imperial savants that some Tomb Worlds still maintain a wide variety of units more powerful and destructive than the massed phalanxes of Necron Warriors and Monoliths that have been encountered by the defenders of the Imperium to date. All that is required for these unseen units to be committed to the fight is for the combat to escalate to a level that has not yet been attained. The mind reels from imagining what kinds of horrific machines the Necrons may yet unleash upon an unsuspecting galaxy when this unknown line is finally crossed in the not-too-distant future. The Dead Worlds that have been found close to many present Tomb Worlds scoured of all life are perhaps testaments to the true fate of those who oppose the undying Necrons.

Tomb World Nodal Command Stages

 * 1) Primary Awakeners - The first elements activated by a Tomb World's autonomic systems once the outside environment has been judged to be receptive to the hibernating Necrons' awakening are the Tomb Spyders. These robotic custodians begin the initial tasks of opening and performing basic maintenance to the Necron stasis tombs. Embued with the powers of Necron resurrection, the Tomb Spyders activate the Tomb World's initial reconnaissance forces, known as Raiders. Meanwhile, the second group of Primary Awakeners, the smaller robotic constructs called Scarabs, secure the interior of the stasis tombs. In massive swarms numbering in the thousands, Scarabs seek out intruders and carry out any remaining essential maintenance on the stasis tombs' defence systems.
 * 2) Raider Force - Made up of a small number of Necron Warriors and Scarabs, the Raider forces emerge into the outside environment with complete autonomy to carry out their mission as they see fit within the limits of their programming. The Raiders' purpose is to scout the surface of the Tomb World and any nearby star systems, seeking data on the location and status of the galaxy's other intelligent races. The destruction of a Raider force will produce one of two outcomes: the Tomb World may despatch a second Raider force to determine what happened to the first or the Tomb World may proceed immediately to the second stage of activation if a threat has been identified.
 * 3) Reserve Command - After the initial data gathered by the Raiders has been received by the Tomb World, the command of all Raider forces is subsumed under the Nodal Command of a Necron Lord, usually one tasked with a Silver-level of priority. When required, the Reserve Command will enter combat led by this Necron Lord, who also serves as a reserve commander who can take control of any already-deployed Necron forces should their primary Necron Lord be destroyed or incapacitated.
 * 4) Necron Line Formations - The majority of the units that make up a Necron field army are placed under this extension of the Nodal Command. Led by up to 4 Bronze-level Necron Lords, the Line Formations are made up of a wide variety of Necron fighting units. Ground forces are organised into units called phalanxes, which are made up of a core of Necron Warriors transported by Monoliths and supported by secondary fire support units like Destroyers, Immortals and so on. These phalanxes are often accompanied by units comprised of more specialised Necron troop types known as cohorts. The Necron Lords of the Line Formations serve as a battlefield command circuit that is able to pass data between themselves, upload data to the Platinum-level Necron Overlord or call upon the Reserve Command for reinforcements or a more in-depth analysis of tactical information. Each Tomb World may have dozens of full Line Formations, which are activated as needed by Tomb Spyders and inserted into or removed from the Nodal Command as the flow of combat dictates.
 * 5) Priority Command - Three Gold-level Necron Lords form the highest Necron command structure yet encountered by the forces of the Imperium on the battlefield. These Necron Lords are responsible for all strategic deciion-making and can override the command and communications of Bronze or Silver-level Necron Lords. They are also capable of committing and commanding the most powerful Necron units known to exist to combat, including the Pariahs, larger war machines like Tomb Stalkers, aerial forces and starships.
 * 6) Platinum-level Commander - No Platinum-level Necron Lord, known as a Necron Overlord, has yet been encountered by the Imperium and their existence has only so far been hypothesized from observing the actions of the Gold-level Necron Lords. It is still speculation amongst the few Imperial savants who have been trusted with data about the Necrons whether the Platinum-level Nodal Command is still hidden on a Tomb World or might perhaps even be the Tomb World itself. The Adeptus Mechanicus' Tech-priests, however, are quite confident that the Platinum-level Necron Overlord is not the C'tan, who do not interact with the Nodal Command structure in any obvious way.

The Forces of the Necrons
Most Necrons are tall, skeletal figures made of a living metal called Necrodermis that provides excellent protection in battle. It also has the special self-repair effect, which means even heavily damaged Necrons can quickly return to the battle. This ability seems to only work when the Necron is in the vicinity of other Necrons of the same type since the repairing Necron needs a "template" on which to re-create himself.

Another interesting phenomenon of the Necrons is that when a battle has turned strongly against them, the entire army will simply vanish from the battlefield using their unknown phase technology. This includes even 'dead' Necrons (those who have not yet repaired themselves) and those already engaged in close combat. Because of this, enemy forces like the Imperium have had great difficulty in obtaining Necron artifacts or "corpses" to study.

It should be noted that the terms for the weapons and Necrons that follow are given to them by their opponents, not the Necrons themselves. Aside from the C'tan known as the Deceiver, the Necrons never communicate with non-Necrons; and even then the Deceiver has only been observed communicating with non-Necrons rarely at best.

C'Tan
The C'tan or Necron "Star Gods", known in the Eldar Lexicon as the Yngir, are said to be the oldest intelligent beings in existence in the Milky Way Galaxy. It is said that they were created at the very beginning of the universe, spawned from swirling gases and enormous amounts of energy, and as such are etheric creatures by nature. In their natural form they are vast beings and spread themselves over the surface of a star, absorbing its solar energy to feed themselves. After a time, they learned to use diaphanous wings to travel to other stars to continue their consumption when their host star died. The matter around them was so insignificant that it did not register on their voracious appetite. They are able to interact with the physical world thanks to the technology of the Necrontyr which transferred their consciousnesses into robotic bodies made of the living metal called necrodermis. The C'tan used the hatred of the Necrontyr towards the ancient species called the Old Ones to help them gather the more appetizing energy of living beings that they came to crave. The C'tan hate the Warp and its psychic energies (even as they crave the living energies of organic beings) and have thus had the Necrons construct a series of pylons on the world of Cadia and other planets across several Sectors in the Segmentum Obscurus which, when completed, will close off the Warp from the material universe entirely, utterly destroying any living creatures with a soul, leaving all other life in the galaxy as nourishment for the C'tan.

After millions of years spent in their stasis tombs on the Necron Tomb Worlds, the four remaining C'tan in the galaxy include:
 * The Nightbringer - The Nightbringer has impressed its image as that of the grim reaper itself on the psyche of the younger races, apart from the Orks (since they do not fear death). Upon entering stasis it was almost destroyed and starved but was released accidentally by the Space Marines in the 41st Millennium, which caused the Necrons to begin to awaken from their ancient sleep.
 * The Deceiver - The Deceiver came out of stasis an unknown time ago and has been weaving plots ever since, including the destruction of the ancient Old Ones weapons the Eldar call the Talismans of Vaul and the Imperium knows as the Blackstone Fortresses which were designed to destroy the C'tan on their emergence.
 * The Void Dragon - The Void Dragon is the most powerful C'tan and still resides in stasis, theorized to be located beneath Mars and is rumoured to be the Machine God venerated by the Machine Cult of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
 * The Outsider - The Outsider became insane due to its consumption of other C'tan, a trick played on it by the Eldar Laughing God. It is currently imprisoned in a Dyson Sphere beneath the galactic plane. The Eldar Harlequins (followers of the Laughing God) whisper that "one dark night, it shall return."

Necron Overlord
Of all the Necron Lords, the Necron Overlord is by far the most powerful and dangerous. At his command are uncountable legions of Necron Warriors, terrifying war machines and a vast array of devastating weaponry that could shatter entire worlds given half the chance. When he marches to war, the Necron Overlord does so with the surety of victory -- he has cogitated and calculated every possible outcome in the ensuing conflict and formulated strategies to ensure that everything goes to plan. Only the most unlikely situations can outfox him and only the most potent foes have any chance of beating him in combat. Weapons glance off his armour or simply pass straight through him as he shifts in and out of reality using the Necrons phase shifting technology. In return, his own attacks are brutally meticulous as he severs heads, shatters armour and pulverises his foes with every swing of his ancient blade. Should a Necron Overlord rise to the position of Phaeron, and ruler of an entire sector, then few will have the strength to stand before his might.

Necron Lord
A Necron Lord is one of the most sophisticated of the C'tan's Necron servants. A Necron Lord serves as the commander and energy loci for the much larger Necron armies composed of the standard Necron Warriors. When the Necrontyr gave up their organic bodies to serve their Star Gods, they transferred their consciousnesses into bodies made of the living metal necrodermis. However, they soon discovered that over an extended period of time, their new robotic bodies dulled their minds and their ability to feel any type of emotion or pleasure. Over many millennia, the ultimate outcome of this process of gradual desensitization was that the Necrons became little more than the soulless warrior-slaves of the C'tan, harvesting intelligent life from across the galaxy to feed these souls to their insatiable masters. Only the most powerful and strong-willed of the Necrons, referred to as Necron Lords, managed to maintain their full sentience in the face of the growing dullness of their minds. Clad in crumbling vestments and wielding an ancient, arcane staff weapon known as a Staff of Light, the Necron Lord is a chilling sight to behold on the battlefield as they direct their Necron Warriors in unnatural silence. Their ancient metallic bodies are marred by the patina of age and they wear the accumulated power of millennia like a robe. With every silent gesture, glittering arcs of viridian energy surround them as their empty eye sockets burn with soulless fire. The Necron Destroyer Lord is an alternate form for a Necron Lord where the Lord's torso is mounted on a Necron Destroyer's anti-gravitic platform, allowing it to rise over the battlefield and dive down with frightening speed to destroy its enemies.

Necron Cryptek
Necron Crypteks are members of pan-galactic conclaves of Necron technologists whose purpose is to study and maintain the eldritch devices of their race. They are masters of dimensional dissonance, singularity manipulation, atomic transmutation, elemental transmogrification and countless other reason-defying technologies. In many ways, a Cryptek's powers mirror those employed by the psykers of other races, but with a crucial difference; instead of using a mutant mind to channel Warp energies, the Cryptek employs arcane science to harness the universe's fundamental forces. Such power is highly sought after by Necron Overlords, who will meet whatever demands are made by the Crypteks in exchange for their services.

Deathmarks
For countless millennia, Necron Deathmark Squads have served the Necron nobility as snipers and assassins. Even when they were beings of flesh and blood, Deathmarks had a reputation for cold-hearted precision and patience. Now, housed in tireless cybernetic bodies of necrodermis, Deathmarks are more deadly than they ever were in the Necron's Time of Flesh. Like most Necrons their technology lies far beyond the realm of human comprehension and they can effectively phase in and out of normal space-time at will. Their victims will assume that they have been ambushed, that the Deathmarks teleported onto the battlefield. The reality is that they were already there, waiting out of phase for just the right moment to slaughter their victims.

Triarch Praetorians
Triarch Praetorians hold a great responsibility -- to ensure that the ruling Necron dynasties never fall. When the Necron race entered hibernation after the end of the War in Heaven over 60 million Terran years ago, the Triarch Praetorians chose to remain awake. Now, as the Necrons awaken once more into a strife-torn galaxy, the Triarch Praetorians have also re-emerged to serve the Necron Lords' dynastic legions. They will rarely join a battle immediately, preferring to hover above the fray on Gravity Displacement Packs before launching themselves right into the heart of the enemy army. With the devastating weapon known as a Rod of Covenant at their disposal there is very little that can survive the assault of a Triarch Praetorian.

Lychguard
The Lychguard are the wardens of the remaining Necron nobility, said to be incorruptible and utterly dedicated to their charges. While most Necrons are sheathed in a basic armoured skin of living metal necrodermis, the Lychguard wear huge suits of ancient armour over their metallic exteriors, the likes of which are normally reserved for the Necron nobility. Most Lychguard are equipped with heavy-bladed Warscythes, which they use to inflict killing blows with every strike. Some will also carry Hyperphase Swords and Dispersion Shields, which are marginally less powerful, but offer increased protection.

Necron Warriors
Necron Warriors are the primary infantry troops of the soulless, robotic Necrons. They were created from the majority of the Necrontyr people who agreed to be bound to the will of their Star Gods, the terrible entities known as the C'tan. The Necrontyr's consciousnesses were transferred into robotic bodies made of the living metal called Necrodermis. Over a long period of time, the new unliving bodies dulled the Necrontyr's minds and their abilities to feel emotion or pleasure. Over many millennia, the ultimate outcome of this process of gradual desensitization was that the Necrontyr became little more than souless automatons, the warrior-slaves of the C'tan who scour the galaxy for souls to feed their insatiable masters' appetities for living energy. In battle, their massive numbers and superior firepower overwhelm their enemies before they retreat back to their Tomb complexes, awaiting the next call to battle from their Necron Lord. The skeletal forms of Necron Warriors are a spine-chilling sight to behold; kinetic projectiles and lasblasts bounce harmlessly from their metallic limbs. The Gauss Flayer which they wield is no less terrifying, as it strips its targets to atoms, dissolving skin and muscle in a heartbeat and then disintegrating bone until nothing remains.

Pariah
Pariahs are the result of a long-dormant, extremely rare and nearly undetectable gene hidden within the DNA of living human beings. The host of this so-called "Pariah Gene" may live their entire lives and never be aware of their abnormality. Outside of Necron influence, people who carry the gene are said to have "no presence in the Warp". This makes them immune to the influence of psychic abilities. It is when the essence of the C'tan transforms a person possessing this gene, usually after their capture by Necrons, that they will metamorphose into a Pariah. In battle Pariahs use their special genetic trait to negate the influence of psychic abilities and can cause any psyker in close proximity to completely lose their connection to the Warp, rendering him or her vulnerable and ineffective in combat. It is this particular ability that has prompted Eldar assassins to actively hunt down and kill humans possessing the Pariah gene--before they have even transformed or are even aware of their special status.

Immortal
The Necron Immortals are those favoured Necrontyr who were among the first to give up their flesh and embrace the necrodermis and their C'tan gods. For this, they were rewarded by being turned into Immortals. They are more durable, heavy variants of the Necron Warrior and they wield Gauss Blasters.

Flayed One
Flayed Ones are Necrons who retain some of their original consciousness and have been driven mad by their ageless imprisonment in unfeeling and emotion-dampening necrodermis. They are quite capable melee fighters, with claws and blades that can flay a man alive in seconds. They usually adorn themselves with still wet pieces of skin and hide from their latest victims. In such a state, they are a terrifying sight to behold, so much that enemy combatants lose their nerve by their presence, as they see pieces of old squadmates hanging from the undead machines approaching. Flayed Ones also frequently act in a manner similar to scouts, sneaking ahead of the main Necron force or even burying themselves in the ground, and use either method to gain the element of surprise during a battle.

Wraith
Wraiths are one of the more sophisticated Necron units. They lack legs or a body (except for the spinal cord) and hover over the battlefield, moving at supernatural speeds. They are fearsome close combat warriors, and they can phase in and out during their flight, becoming ghostly figures (thus the name wraith). This phase shift ability allows them to move through solid objects or even to avoid damage. It has been suggested that Wraiths were Necrontyr murderers and psychopaths before their entombment in their cold metal husks.

Destroyer
Necron Destroyers are basically the torsos of Immortals that have been fused to fast and agile anti-gravity hovercraft platforms. Equipped with Gauss Cannons and sophisticated targeting systems which enable them to fire while moving, Destroyers are ideal for hit-and-run attacks or disrupting enemy flanks. They also come in a Heavy Destroyer variant, which is armed with the more powerful Heavy Gauss Cannon, useful for destroying foes with the heaviest armour.

Scarabs
Countless small, beetle-like robots called Scarabs often appear on the battlefield; these clouds of Scarabs are termed Scarab Swarms by their opponents. These swarms rely on sheer numbers to make themselves difficult to destroy, and are useful for disrupting enemies who are caught unaware.

Tomb Spyder
Tomb Spyders are large, spider-like robots which are normally tasked with maintaining the Necron tomb complexes. They sometimes appear on the battlefield, where they make resilient fighters who have limited ability to augment the healing factor of the 'living metal' on nearby Necrons. They also can use their internal systems to manufacture Scarabs in the midst of a battle. However, this has the chance of damaging the Tomb Spyder during creation.

Tomb Stalker
The Tomb Stalker is the most fearsome, tireless guardian machine left by the Necrons to provide silent vigil over their Tomb Worlds. A Tomb Stalker is an enormous centipede-like construct that teems with multiple legs and is possessed of a murderous will, the Necron equivalent of an Imperial Titan. It has the ability to burrow through solid ground and can trail its prey using its powerful senses, detecting the rhythm of a faint heartbeat even through solid rock. Its immense size and innate ability to regenerate because of its Necrodermis shell makes it a nearly indestructible creature, fighting on even when severely damaged or dismembered.

Necron Fleets
While Necron forces are usually land-based, Necron space vessels are not unheard of, though are quite possibly much more common than people realize, and simply not seen. This is supported by the Necrons' terrifying ability to appear anywhere using their phase technology. There are more than two dozen records of Necron contacts in space in Imperial archives, and accounts of other intelligent races like the Orks, Eldar and Tau battling Necron fleets also exist. Necron technology is beyond anything the galaxy has ever seen, surpassing even that of the highly advanced Eldar. Their ships are stunningly fast and agile, equipped with propulsion systems which are capable of traveling interstellar distances without entering the Warp. This is achieved, as far as is known, by somehow making their ships unbound by inertia or mass, allowing them to accelerate almost instantly and infinitely, which explains why Necron ships are often seen to be visibly decelerating upon reaching the site of battle. This also protects them from many of the practical problems and dangers of Warp travel. All Necron starships are well-armored in necrodermis, equipped with self-repair systems and utilize some sort of advanced stealth technology which makes them difficult to detect for enemy targeting systems, granting Necron vessels surprising staying power. Although still devastating, Necron naval weaponry does not seem to match the raw power of some Imperial designs. However, the Necrons weaponry is known to bypass many conventional defense systems, such as void shields and even Eldar holofields, and strike with an unearthly accuracy.

In every battle so far the Necrons could only be defeated by superior numbers, and engaging Necrons on even terms proved to be suicidal. Fortunately, all of the Necron fleets encountered so far were small task forces that usually disengaged and phased out like their land-based counterparts, rather than putting up a full fight. But their frequency seems to be increasing and the possibility of a massive Necron attack is dreaded by the Imperium as well as other sentient races. Even as a raiding force, they are a serious threat because they are fully capable of outmaneuvering most other fleets (probably with the exception of the Eldar and their dark kin) to pick fights on an even footing. This often leads to catastrophic losses for enemy fleets and forces them to somehow stall with an utterly inferior fighting force for overwhelming reinforcements to arrive, at which point the Necrons simply disengage and phase away.

Necrodermis
Necrodermis is the xenos material created millions of years ago by the Necrontyr species that is often described as "living metal." Literally, the name means "corpse skin" (from Greek νεκρος and δερμις, or dermis). It was originally used by the Necrontyr to construct their massive sub-light starships that explored and settled the Milky Way Galaxy millions of years ago. It was later adapted to create the robotic bodies possessed by the C'tan and inhabited by the Necrontyr after they agreed to have their consciousnesses transferred from their short-lived organic forms. This process transformed the Necrontyr into the undying Necrons.

Necrodermis is a material of unknown origin and chemical or molecular structure that possesses the extraordinary ability to regenerate almost all damage instantaneously, "flowing" back together as if it were a liquid while closing bullet holes, mending gashes and tears, or even reattaching severed pieces with little delay. The material is also adaptive in some unknown fashion and can learn to repair itself given enough time from nearly any form of damage, even a blast powerful enough to reduce it to its constituent molecules or atoms. In addition to the bodies of the C'tan and the Necrons themselves, all Necron vehicles and starships are made from Necrodermis, including Monoliths and Necron Pylons. The Imperium's C'tan Phase Weapons are also crafted from Necrodermis. It should be noted that Necrodermis is not an alloy of other metals but a fundamentally new material created by the Necrontyr. Necrodermis is unbelievably resilient, and can absorb incredible amounts of damage and then reform all tears or punctures over a period of time.