The Necrontyr and as a result they were able to coax the C'tan into
the material universe using 'The Star Bridge'. As the
In the universe of Warhammer 40,000, little is known awesome power of the C'tan became material, the about the origins of the ancient race known as the Ne- Necrontyr began to see these new beings not as crontyr. They were one of the earliest sentient races in guests, but as gods. The Necrontyr began to worship the galaxy, older than even the ancient Eldar, appearing the C'tan as such, wanting them to destroy their hated only a few million years after the birth of the stars. Their enemies, the Old Ones. The first C'tan to pass into world was scourged by the radiation of the massive, vio- such a body was the Nightbringer, an incredibly pow- lent star it closely orbited, cursing them to experience erful being who found the sweet lifeforce of the Ne- drastically short lifespans. The Necrontyr spent eons crontyr far more to its liking than the tasteless energy expanding their technology in an attempt to extend their of the star and massacred many to satiate its appetite. lives. Their technology developed Necrodermis, a It was only after considerable persuasion and pledges "living metal", for constructing their ships with which of servitude that the Necrontyr were able to stop the they were able to leave their planet. These slow "tomb Nightbringer long enough to bring to its attention the ships" full of cryonically frozen Necrontyr were sent to Old Ones and the other races in the galaxy. populate the stars over 60 million years ago. It was dur- ing their first difficult steps out into the wider galaxy Soon after, the Necrontyr made contact with several that the Necrontyr first encountered the Old Ones. The more Star Gods, including the Deceiver. The De- differences between the two races were vast; where the ceiver, a weaker and far more insidious being than its Necrontyr had short painful lives, the Old Ones were companions, was much more popular with the Ne- blessed with incredible longevity, and where the Ne- crontyr to the point where it had to send many wor- crontyr were impatient, the Old Ones were infinitely shippers to pay homage to the other C'tan lest they understanding and patient beyond measure. grow jealous of him. He offered the Necrontyr a way to win the war: they would assume bodies of Ne- The Necrontyr grew bitter and jealous towards the Old crodermis, built for war, and live forever, unbound Ones, and it was not long before this jealousy lead the by their deformities. Necrontyr into a futile war against the Old Ones' civili- zation. The Old Ones were powerful psykers and had an The Necrontyr agreed to the process and their con- unmatched strategic advantage in the form of the web- sciousness were transferred into bodies made of Ne- way portals which allowed them to outmaneuver the crodermis. However, the transformation dulled their Necrontyr at every opportunity. These significant advan- minds and senses. As such they became the Necrons, tages won out over the Necrontyr's superior technology. warrior-slaves of the C'tan, harvesting life across the Then, scientists studying the Necrontyr home star dis- galaxy. With the assistance of the C'tan the Necrons covered a being of incredible power feeding off its mas- won victory after victory against the Old Ones and sive energy output. The full weight of Necrontyr science had pushed the Old Ones to the brink of extinction. was put behind detailing this discovery and it was not At this time the C'tan started to feed off each other. long before the Necrontyr realized the potential such an Before long there were only four of the C'tan remain- incredible power might have on the war against the Old ing (The Nightbringer, The Deciever, The Dragon Ones. and The Outsider), the others having been devoured by their fellow gods. C'tan The Old Ones, desperate to survive, cultured life Being a huge mass of energy, without form, the Necron- forms with ever closer links to the warp. The Eldar tyr forged Necrodermis bodies for the C'tan to inhabit were their proudest and most powerful creations dur- ing this period, and the first to create beings of power to fight the C'tan. This period came to be known Awakening as the "War in Heaven". During the war the Eldar Now, many millions of years after the Enslaver war god Kaela Mensha Khaine, first and most Plague, the Necrons and their masters have finally powerful of the beings created by the Eldar, awoken to reclaim the galaxy, and begin, once fought the Nightbringer and won a Pyrrhic vic- again, to herd the living as their cattle. Finally, tory. As the Nightbringer's Necrodermis shat- after so long, the galaxy is ready for the return of tered , the Nightbringer exploded into shards of its the Star Gods of the Necrons. The deadly power deathly essence, which then shot into Khaine, per- of the invincible Eldar Empire is long gone and manently tainting him, while the Nightbringer their race is scattered, the unstoppable might and simply transferred its conscious into another wait- momentum of the Emperor's Great Crusade has ing body. C'tan, being solely of the material realm, had 10,000 years to grind to a bloody and brutal were extremely vulnerable to psychic based weap- stalemate against the inimical forces of the galaxy, onry and feared psychic weapons so much that and the Orkoid races have long since lost what- they banded together to split the warp from real ever cohesion they may ever have had. Even the space. It was never completed due to the growing Tyranids have shown an aversion to the Necrons, cataclysm in the warp. as well they might; since Necron metal could not be absorbed and digested, Tyranids could neither The Enslavers replenish their losses against the Necrons or engi- Then the Enslavers appeared. The increased psy- neer organisms designed to fight them. All who chic link that the Old Ones had nurtured mirrored might have opposed the C'tan are either gone or the destructive impulses of the warring races in humbled, the galaxy is a swirling maelstrom of the warp. Rage, deceit and despair (and later, lust) regional and factional conflict and the lives of its took their first steps to sentience, feeding on the trillions upon trillions of inhabitants are ripe for raw emotion and mass influx of spirits resulting the picking. The deathly silent ranks of the Ne- from the War in Heaven. These entities eventually crons stalk forth across their tomb worlds once became the Chaos Gods Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle again, to reassert their masters' rule and inspire and Slaanesh. fear in the living.
Meanwhile, the Enslavers began to dominate the The Necrons in the 41st Millennium psychic races for their own agendas. They pushed At present, the Necrons are more of a shadowy their way into the real world, killing millions and presence than a full-fledged force. They strike entering the minds of any living creatures, which from nowhere and without warning, slaughtering they drove to fight and die for them. The Old their enemies and departing before reinforcements Ones' places of power fell to the horrors of their can arrive. The origins of these attacks and their own creations. The Old Ones tried to save them- motives are unknown, though it is clear that the selves by creating new races to defend their Necron forces in the galaxy are but the first strongholds, but it was too late. glimpses of the full might of the Necron war ma- As for the C'tan, the sentient beings of the galaxy chine. Of the four remaining C'tan, only two are were being culled by the enslavers. While enslav- active: The Deceiver and the Nightbringer. The ers could not harm the C'tan, the C'tan's sentient Deceiver has been active for much longer than the food was disappearing. Instead of returning to a Nightbringer, infiltrating various cultures and ma- bland existence suckling the energy of stars, the nipulating events. The Nightbringer was later in- C'tan elected to enter stasis, and await a new gal- tentionally awakened from its tomb on Pavonis by axy where sentient life teemed again. the Deceiver, as the cunning C'tan knew it would need to draw on more of the Necron forces to take on the current war-torn galaxy. The other two are the Void Dragon and the Outsider: both are cur- rently dormant.
Necron scout ships recently bypassed the fleets
and defenses protecting the Solar System, reach- ing the very surface of Mars (homeworld of the Adeptus Mechanicus) itself before being de- stroyed. Some reason the landing is linked to the resting place of the fourth C'tan, the Void Dragon, entombed deep beneath the Martian surface. Un- derstandably this casts doubt on the supposedly impregnable status of Holy Terra, and the incident remains a heavily-guarded secret within the Im- perium.
Necron forces originate from uncharted tomb-
worlds. Their phase technology allows them to swiftly deploy anywhere in the galaxy. In defeat they "phase-out" and return to the tomb-world for repairs. Any Necrons that have fallen in battle can either be repaired there and it will continue to fight or it will phase out and return to its tomb world to be rebuilt by the Tomb Spyders there. Very rarely does anything remain of the Necrons after an attack regardless of whether it was suc- cessful or not. Other than direct battle, the Necrons have infil- trated the Imperium to an unknown extent. Their elite anti-psyker troops, the Pariahs, are a cross- breed with human genes and it is as yet unknown if the Necrons developed the Pariah project by themselves or with the help of Imperial traitors (or possibly even Adeptus Mechanicus). It is known, however, that the C'tan had the Pariah gene placed in the human gene pool several million years ago. This has since manifested itself in the agents of the Culexus temple, specialist anti-psyker assas- sins and Untouchables such as Alizebeth Bequin, one of Inquisitor Eisenhorn's entourage Necron Bestiary Strength in Numbers What follows is a listing of the two most common If part of a group of necrons (5+) and more than Necron encounters, the Necron Warrior and the 25% of the force is "killed" then all remaining Scarab. Future Apocrypha Articles may deal with necrons must pass an average WP test to avoid other sorts of Necron encounters. phasing out of action and vanishing. If 50% of the group are taken out then the WP test becomes Necron Warrior Challenging, if 75% are killed then all of the re- maining Necrons phase out and vanish. Necrons are the unholy relic of some past conflict ages past. Living Metal given a human shape and Scarabs weapons capable of shredding a man to the bone and beyond. Due to their mechanical nature Ne- Before the incursion of Necrons it is said that crons are slow and clumsy in close combat and we these small insect like creatures appear, paving the would advise Acolytes to target them this way but way for the assault. Not terribly deadly in single for one thing, these unholy creatures are extremely numbers, these creatures rely on sheer numbers to sturdy and reliable, they do not know fear or pain, overwhelm infantry but can be deadly against ar- there bodies repair themselves rapidly and the moured vehicles or anything reliant on technol- technology of their weapons gives them lethal ogy, they use some unknown device to penetrate firepower and hand to hand capabilities. deep into the workings and cause them to overload or just fail. It is advised that Acolytes requisition any other Imperial Forces using the Exterminatus Protocol They take the form of small shells of silver with and engage these foes with overwhelming num- many legs, easy to mistake for a field of Debris bers and firepower. until they activate and jump upon their target. Acolytes who sight these creatures are advised to send a distress signal to their commander instantly and be alert for any reports of power fluctuations in nearby settlements or outposts. Extreme caution is advised. AP - 7 (all locations), Wounds - 12, Size - Hu- manoid
Trappings - Gauss Flayer
Traits - Armour Plated, Auto-Stabilised, Fear 2, AP - 5, Wounds- 6, Size - Miniscule/Tiny
Dark Sight, From Beyond, Machine (5), Unnatural (strength, toughness), Unnatural Senses, Sturdy, Trappings - Natural Weapons - Insectoid Legs Regeneration and Mandibles, Inbuilt disruption field Special Rules - Traits - Strength in Numbers, Mysterious and Mysterious and Unknowable, when a Necron is Unknowable, Machine (5), Fear 1, From Be- finally killed it must pass a WP test to avoid phas- yond, Regeneration, Sonar Sense, Strange Physi- ing out and vanishing to wherever it was sent ology, Unnatural Agility (x2), Natural Weapons from, whether this is a Tomb World some light years away or one of the vest Necropolis ships. Disruption Fields Optional Rule - Scarabs can be represented as a swarm of creatures, in this case count each indi- Used primarily on Scarabs but known to be used vidual as having 2 wounds but use the profile on other Necron troops as well, these small de- above to represent the swarm, once the swarm vices are mounted internally and create an elec- loses 2 wounds then it can no longer regenerate tronic field which destabilises or damages me- them. chanical systems, with little effect on natural tar- gets. Scarabs tear into the hull and roam inside the Therefore A scarab swarm with 16 wounds takes machines workings, triggering this device repeat- damage from lasgun fire, it has 16 wounds so edly and doing what they themselves can to dam- there are 8 scarabs in the swarm, it takes a total of age vital components. 5 wounds and so loses 2 members and one mem- Qualities - Reliable, Recharge, Machine Domina- ber is damaged, the swarm can now only regener- tion ate up to 12 wounds. Machine Domination - for use without the Weapons Apocrypha: Vehicles and Riding Beasts. Gauss Flayers On a roll of 9 or 10 on the damage dice this ma- chine penetrates armour utterly and goes to work The basic weapon of the Necron menace, effective on the electrical systems of a vehicle, preventing it and brutal it literally tears chunks off its victims from moving or firing depending on circum- and draws them back into the weapon itself. What stances and location. Otherwise it will do 2d10 it does with the contents is so far a mystery... damage to vehicles with 6 penetration, as the field works mainly on technical objects it will do only Special 1d5 damage to organic targets in the form of flash Recharge, Reliable, Unbalanced, Unholy Tech- burns On a damage roll of 10 flayers count as Warp Weapons, allowing them to ignore all mundane Machine Domination - for use with the Apocry- armour and reduce it to little more than shreds of pha: Vehicles and Riding Beasts. material, if using the Righteous Fury special rule then if the next shot hits consider that location to Disruption fields work purely on mechanical ob- half its AP permanently. jects, affecting anything reliant on electricity but doing little damage to people or organic objects, Using weapons in Close Combat - Necron weap- apart from some flash damage as such they do ons are used as clubs in hand to hand, counting as 1D5E damage to organic targets. They will not improvised mono weapons, effectively removing affect guns unless these use electrical components, the Primitive quality from them and increasing such as las weapons, any gun affected by a field damage will suffer from the Unreliable quality for 1d5 rounds.
Gauss Flayer For the purpose of affecting Tech Priests or Servi-
Class Range RoF Dam Pen Clip Wt tors with a lot of electric equipment, treat any Basic 120m Sing 1d10+6 R 4 - 15kg damage as Fatigue.
Against vehicles the disruption field works best
Disruption Fields when the scarab has infiltrated the vehicles hull, Class Range RoF Dam Pen Clip Wt using its claws the scarab will dig inside and acti- Pistol 5m S/-/- 2D10E 6 - 4Kg vate the field to disrupt the target. To dig inside the vehicle the Scarab must spend 1 full action to dig into vehicles with AP 15 or less, 2 full actions to dig into vehicles with up to AP 20 and 3 full actions to dig into vehicles with up to AP 25, with this following the same trend as the AP value increases (AP 40 will require the scarab to spend 6 rounds digging into the vehicle). If the Scarab is hit by enemy fire while perched on the vehicle it must pass an agility test to stay perched on the vehicle.
Once the Scarab has dug in it then spends a full
action to crawl inside and trigger the disruption field, roll once on the d100 damage chart to see what happens to the vehicle, reducing the damage by the AP of the location (to a minimum of 1) to see what affect the field has this turn, the damage is a result of both the Scarab running around in- side the hull tearing at things as well as the field itself.
If the Scarab is in a passenger compartment or the
hull itself (anywhere there are passengers or crew) then it can be targeted as normal, but firing at a small robot in a confined space is not without its dangers... Not to mention what happens if the Scarab chooses to attack the driver...
