Why Necrons?

I used to collect Warhammer Fantasy in high school. I had an Empire army, maybe 3-4k points. While the game was a lot of fun initially, over time I found myself enjoying painting more. Over time I got into converting, then non-metallic metal and object source lighting, and I had a lot of fun.

As my passion for painting and converting increased, my interest in the game decreased. A mixture of overt randomness, rules open for interpretation, friends leaving the game, an obnoxious competitive scene at my locale at the time, made me paint and collect rather than play. That lasted for a long while.

Fast forward into graduate school, where I found myself missing something relaxing. All work and no fun can last only for so long. In the meantime, I played a few video games set in the 40k world, and I came to appreciate the lore a lot. After a long time of pondering about getting into this expensive hobby, I decided to jump right in.

Even though the hobby is expensive, I wanted to put in an enormous amount of work into each and every model. This means that I would be buying kits slowly and over a long period of time. In addition, this meant that I would be getting many hours worth of activity per kit.

Why Necrons? Because, at the time, they were the most interesting army that would be updated to 7th edition. All plastic (except special characters) is a plus. Elaborate, finely detailed vehicles instead of steel boxes. The fact that their default color scheme is so boring made it possible to get creative and really make them look good.

In addition, I loved the lore behind Destroyers. Crazy murderous robots that started replacing their own limbs with tools that make them kill more and faster is bad ass. I loved the idea of applying this theme to the rest of my army: like warriors were being torn apart limb from limb and integrated into vehicles in order to make them better killing machines.

I know that this is not the classical way Necrons are represented. In my mind, these Necrons have no sympathy or nostalgia for life. They did not wake from slumber as rusty and ruined people in metallic bodies. Instead, they are killing machines through and through, with only the elite having any sense of self-awareness, the rest only obedience and anger.

No army in 40k resonates with me as much. I like Space Wolves too, and Imperial Guard would have been fun to collect but far more expensive. Given that I wanted to paint and collect, not so much to play, my choice of Necrons was set.

- B