Half the book is Trazyn and Orikan yelling "Fuck you and I'll see you next decade!" and the other half is the other Necrons getting so pissed off at their constant backbiting they force them to work together as punishment.
And then the final part is Trazyn alternating between having a plan and yelling IT WAS JUST A PRANK BRO.
I have mentioned it before but the reworked Necrons are to me in the category of shit I think is perfectly fine in its own right but is so wildly out of whack with the 40k I started with it always feels markedly off to me even if I don't have any actual problem with it.
For cawntext the literal first White Dwarf magazine I acquired as a little baby infant child was
the one in which they were introduced for the first time, and I even acquired a dozen of the old school metal spiky models during a subsequent excursion to the local Games Workshop. At the time they were literally just spooky OP evil robots which while not exactly deep was kinda neat for my literal 6 year old brain. Couple years later they got their full elaboration into a vaguely lovecraft scented super OP and super evil robots which to my tween sensibilities that were a little more comprehending of muh lore was also kinda neat, and as the years went by and they featured in shit like the novels and Dawn of War and became steadily wanked ever more as the RealTrue main bad guys of 40k this characterisation set in for me even if I was growing a little bored of how they were increasingly revealed to be behind everything and anything bad and spoopy in the setting.
Cut to a couple years later still, and I have moved on from the tabletop but still keep abreast of the general 40k shitpost sphere and such as it was the golden age of post soulstorm SPEEEESSS MEHREEEEEEEN memes, and in one of several trillion threads throwing shit at Matt Ward I find out that his latest narrative clusterfuck is randomly making the Necrons and Blood Angels team up against the tyranids and then give one another the bro-tug and part peacefully as homies. Many dismissed this as just another entry in his catalogue of bullshit writing, but a few speculated if there was some rework of the faction coming out to make them cuddlier and friendlier. Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth the next year when this was confirmed to be happening...but then when it actually
happened it turns out it was not the utter shitshow that had been expected and there were many who actually kinda liked the new direction given how the Necrons now had personalities and purpose beyond exterminating everything on orders of the NotChaos Gods. There was still plenty of dissent, some of it autistic in nature, but generally the Oldcrons role overlapped both the Tyranids and Chaos enough that this retcon into mostly evil Spess Tomb Kings was a surprisingly smooth one.
In the here and now this retcon has solidified itself and earned its place at the proverbial table and yet to me it still feels inherently fucking weird reading about the latest wacky hijinks of Trazyn and friends when my subconscious still holds on to the soulless lovecraftian nightmare robot image I formed of them back when I was way too fucking young to be reading late 90s White Dwarf articles of them skinning space nuns alive en masse, even if there is still plenty of in-universe room for Oldcron style grimdark.
I kind of get it from a vibes perspective, but at the same time have to disagree because the setting doesn't actually support that being the case.
- Cadia destroyed, Iron Warriors now besieging the other systems and planets around the Eye of Terror.
- Literally half the Imperium in the dark, essentially lost.
- Terra itself very nearly had a civil war after Robute showed up because of the High Lords bickering and scheming.
- The Golden Throne is failing with maybe 200 years left before its dead and the Emperor with it.
- Parts of the Inquisition and AdMech positioning themselves against Robute and Cawl respectively, leading to more instability within the Imperium
- Tyranids starting to eat the galaxy from every direction all at once.
So yeah the Imperium has two Primarchs back.. one of which has actually done anything, and despite his best efforts and amazing accomplishments the entire thing is still barely holding on by a thread which wants to eat itself.
I
fully acknowledge this and agree that this is almost entirely a vibes perspective on my part. Honestly I think its probably like how some of the ultra crusty old niggas who were first introduced to the setting during the OG Rogue Trader era when shit was gloriously goofy and cheesy felt when it shifted to bleak ass and largely if enjoyably joyless grimdark in subsequent overhauls. Shit has moved on from the perpetual grimdark stagnation of Abaddon failing his 13th Black Crusade in 2003 and then everything just stalling for a decade, and while this was "my" era of 40k I am not so autistic to resent shit changing even if it feels downright surreal at times.
Besides, there are more than enough ACTUAL fucking complaints about retarded shit in currentyear 40k to focus on rather than bitching about the general feel of things.