Well, it's been an exciting day today if you are a 40K player, and even more exciting if you are a Necron player or fan.
Beasts of War have got a very nice scoop with leaked pictures of plenty of new Necron models, which will be available to purchase starting on November 5th.
So frantic and furious was the online activity that it actually forced
Beasts of War to shut down their front page just to support the leak, that's just how exciting this news is.
Sure, we all knew something was up, and many people were saying Necrons are coming, but it's been an extremely long time since this kind of leak has caused a flash fire to spread across the web so quickly and cause such an overwhelming response....presumeably of approval.
Some might say these are all new designs....but they are not all new concepts. In fact, quite a few of the images of the new necrons actually were conceived of conceptually when the Necrons were first developed, back in the early days of 3rd edition!
Now, let's take a journey into the past and have a look at something older.... pictures that go back to the development of the first Necron Codex... What I have managed to do is dig up some old concept art of the original Necron development, and will present to you just a few of those classic sketches so we can see how much they influenced the new range of models, and how far back they have gone for inspiration. I think you'll like what we find.
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| Original Necron Immortal Concept |
First, there is this Necron with the stubby looking heavy weapon, which bears a very striking resemblance to the new Necron Immortal with Gauss Blaster. There are some slight differences in the barrel, but all of the other implied shapes are present in this gun. And you can see the Egypto-tech style detailing on the shoulder and collar bone armour that is very similar to the details on the new special characters and the other Elite models.
Next we see a series of what are called "Barques" and "Barges" in the concept art. Notice the upright pilot position, and the almost perfect replication of that general control spine, as well as the ribbed shapes, engine nozzles, and gun shapes of each of the vehicles. Obviously the new models were heavily influenced, and in a couple of cases direct translations of some of these concept sketches, and what appear to be light to medium skimmer tanks.
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| Necron Deathbarque - Appears to be a light/medium tank - Inspiration for the Command and Support Barge? |
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| Funeral Barge - Necron armoured transport concept fundamental basis for Ghost Ark, combined with design below for ease of manufacture? |
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| Warmachine - Basis for Necron Doomsday Ark and Ghost Ark? |
So, is that the limit of what we could potentially see for the Necrons? Or is there more. The following sketches imply that we are still only scratching the surface of the Necron arsenal, and that the possiblity for heavy skimmer tanks, and even a super heavy monolith type of tank exist and may even be in development. What an awesome thought, that the Necrons could soon have some new Apocalypse level super heavy tanks
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| War Altar - Could this be a Necron heavy or super heavy tank with teleport gate concept? |
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| War Barque - Could it be a heavy or super heavy transport? |
I've shown you just a few of the concept sketches that I've found, as the rest deal mostly with stuff that has already been modelled, or has been done in an alternate form. But, this just goes to show that Games Workshop doesn't throw old ideas away, and in some cases, resurrects the good ones when the time, and the technology are right.... kind of like the Necrons are doing now it seems...
I for one am super excited about the new Necron line up. I especially like the new Arks and Barges and am happy that the generic Necron has not been radically altered, so there will be no "obsolete" models, at least it seems that way at first glance. I hope this gives Necron players a morale boost and we start seeing some of those old armies that are collecting dust get revitalized, repaired, and potentially repainted.
If you have a Necron project and you want to show it off, leave a comment here with a link. I'd love to have a look!
Links:
Games Workshop
Beasts of War
Copyright Notice: Original concept sketch images used for this article owned and copyright by GamesWorkshop PLC, and used without permission, for the express purposes of distributing hobby news, freely promoting the hobby, and the free exchange of hobby related ideas. No challenge is intended.
