Welcome to another episode of "rambling about races in a sci-fi universe that focuses entirely on warfare", after six episodes I bring to you the final episode of this series!

And today we're talking about my personal favorite race in Dawn of War, the ~~boomer skeletons~~ Necrons!

DISCLAIMER: Warhammer 40k has some good amounts of blood and violence, if you don't like these things I recommend you stop reading from here. You've been warned.

The Necrons are one of the more "unique" races in 40k, despite the fact that they're just a combination of a lot of different things (Egyptians, Terminator, Zombies, etc.). Technically speaking, they're the undead faction and that's their general theme.

The Necrons are an ancient civilization who had some major disagreements with their gods (known as C'tans) and in the process they left their old bodies for the mechanical ones you see today (basically, they were human-like people who became robo-skeletons after a while).

When they first showed up in the setting, they were just soulless robot machines of death that wished to destroy anything organic in the galaxy but now they've been rewritten to be an actual race who simply wish to rebuild the Necron empire again (the one they had before they became robo-skeletons).

The way Necrons work is that a long time ago (before the age of humans), when they became skeletons they simply went to "sleep" in planets known to them as "Tomb Worlds". Only to rise again when the correct time comes or when an unlucky sob steps on a Necron limb and ends up awakening the entire planet's worth of undead robots, this is what happened here in Dark Crusade; it ends up being that Kronus (the world the game takes place in) is a Tomb World.

One thing to note here is that the Necrons in this game (Dark Crusade) are the old necrons, the ones focused on death and destruction, whereas the newer Necrons can have their own different goals or simply want to kill everything in the same old way.

I could go on about these robots but the Necrons in the old lore are pretty simplistic. Of course, since they're old they do have their fair share of mysteries and what-not but if you remember what i just said then you'll realize most of those secrets "disappeared" with their old selves during the re-write.

What do these spooky skeletons do?

The Necrons are one of the three most overpowered armies in the entire game, this because most of their units are considered "Heavy Infantry" and because of how their most basic infantry is effective against other types of infantry.

Let me explain.

This is a Necron Warrior Squad, these guys belong to the "Heavy Infantry" types of units and are effective against normal and heavy infantry.

Basically, not only do these guys have a lot of defense, they are also good at dealing with infantry (which makes up most of an army) and heavy infantry (usually the heavy hitters of an army).

They are also the basic Necron infantry.

The Necrons are so powerful because their units are strong, it's that simple. When pinned against things like the Imperial Guard they have the advantage during the early parts of the game because of their Heavy Infantry status and effectiveness against normal infantry. Against a real player? this may be enough to end the game, against the computer? you may stand a chance depending on difficulty.

_{A squad of Immortals.}

Most Necron units are made for a specific role, like the Immortal Squad which is effective against vehicles and buildings, but extremely fragile so it must be handled with care.

_{Some Flayers chillin'.}

The Flayer Squad, which is basically a group of Necrons who desperately want a blanket made with the flesh of their organic enemies, devastatingly effective in melee and capable of destroying a squad's morale (which makes them drop like flies) and can also teleport to any location in the map the Necron player can see.

_{Pariahs, standing menacingly.}

Pariahs, who focus more on melee and debuff the enemy. Their debuff lasts until the death of the Pariah (or the debuffed unit)

And then you have the "Hero" unit (Commander unit in this case) the Necron Lord of Kronus the most popular and versatile unit in the Necron army. A lot of people spawn him first and that's because he's a great unit during the early game when the Necron's have an absolutely slow build speed and he's also great at "harassing" the enemy.

_{The Necron Lord.}

An interesting thing to note is that the Necron lord is the only commander unit that doesn't speak at all in the campaign mode. During the campaign, the character that speaks is "Thomas McAbbe" the human turned into a Pariah who was responsible for waking the Necrons. Thomas doesn't even have a unit in the army and doesn't even appear outside of the campaign.

Then, you have the "vehicle" units.

The Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers are Necron Warriors and Immortals mounted on levitating machines that are effective against Infantry and Vehicles/Buildings respectively.

_{A Destroyer.}

_{A Heavy Destroyer.}

The Tomb Spyders allow the Necron player to "recover" Necron Corpses and produce units right in the middle of battle. It can also make little scarabs that shred vehicles/buildings but suck completely against infantry.

And finally, the Lord Destroyer, a Necron Lord mounted in the same platforms that the Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers have with the ability to take control of enemy vehicles for a short amount of time, imagine doing that to a Baneblade.

Last but not least, is the strongest unit in the Necron Army: The Necron Monolith.

_{The Necron Headquarters, with all of its upgrades.}

Devastatingly effective against all types of units, capable of knocking back any type of infantry, can teleport AND produce Necron units in the middle of the battle it's currently at. The downsides are that it's extremely slow so it must use extensive use of it's teleporting abilities and that it's still your headquarters so lose that and you lose the game (the monolith actually teleports back to the location you built it first when it reaches a low amount of health, but you'll lose a lot of momentum in a battle if that's the only thing backing your Necrons).

The Necron Stronghold:

Normally i'd be invading this part with the Necrons, but since you can't invade a race's Stronghold with the same race I'll just use the canon "victors" of the Dark Crusade, The Space Marines.

Yeah, this game actually has a canon ending, according to Dawn of War 2 the Blood Ravens were successful in purging Kronus and they were responsible for dealing with the Necrons. I'll also be playing this stronghold at the normal difficulty just to play the game the way it's intended.

As soon as the stronghold loads you're treated with a cutscene were your basic infantry gets murderized by a bunch of Necrons, already setting up how this entire thing goes.

This stronghold's goal is to ~~play counter strike as the terrorists~~ place a bomb deep within the Necron's base and then leave as fast as possible. The other goal is to make sure your commander unit survives this kerfuffle.

So basically, plant a bomb and make sure this guy lives:

_{Yours truly, Force Commander Brother-Captain Davian Thule of the Blood Ravens 4th Company.}

As with every stronghold ever, you must face an initial assault by the enemy, depending on how far you've gotten with your faction this will either be easy or hard. In my case, it's a little difficult, but i managed after a while.

This stronghold doesn't have as many strategic points as others do, so that means you must spend whatever resources you have at hand wisely. My strategy here was just to "turtle up" and develop my army slowly while defending my base, eventually i had a sizable force of Marines with weaponry capable of making a dent in the Necron lines.

_{There's three squads of tactical marines here, that's 30 marines with apothecaries all loaded up with plasma weapons.}

While also getting some "guards" for Thule, just in case.

_{Thule, next to some Grey Knights, a Veteran Marine and an Apothecary (to heal them all).}

I wish i could say it was easy, because the Marines were capable of cutting through the Necrons like they were butter, but they also had some losses and the Necrons had tricks up their sleeves. Like these things:

Necron artifacts which allow them to resurrect, become invisible, or to stop time for some units.

Regardless, the Blood Ravens succeeded, and despite their losses they simply pushed forward, shooting at the endless waves of Necrons as they progressed deeper into the caverns.

_{The Blood Ravens, doing what they do best; Purging Xenos.}

The best part of this entire stronghold though, has to be when the Necron Monoliths get involved.

_{Constant streams of plasma, fire and bullets fill the Monoliths as they approach. Thule is the first to charge towards them.}

The Marines just charge at them, with no care in the world. Yeah that's right, I said them, the AI always cheats during Strongholds so they use several monoliths, sometimes two at the same time.

Eventually, after a lot of fighting, the Marines make it to their goal, which is where the final assault takes place:

_{All of the Marines are charging towards the Essence of the Night Bringer.}

The Necron Lord's final form is here, these guys don't care at all if they die fighting this thing, it's just in their way.

Thankfully, the Marines don't have to fight it, just place the bomb and get out, which is exactly what they do. All with the help of pretty well placed Rhino Transports which let all of the Marines escape the Necron Tomb. Unfortunately, some brothers gave their lives so that the rest may escape, their sacrifice will never be forgotten.

Overall, this stronghold pretty much encompasses everything that makes the Necrons Necrons. Heck, the bomb thing is pretty much how everyone deals with Tomb Worlds anyway, the bomb is an EMP-like device that will power down the Necron's home base, effectively removing their source of power and killing them once and for all.

Since this is the last episode of this series, it feels difficult to come up with something to say here.

I wish I had something special to say, something witty or something great to finish the post with, but I just don't. Instead I'll just say what I always do: Thank you so much for reading my posts and I hope you have a fantastic day, I hope you join me again when I talk about the two new races in Dawn of War's next expansion Soulstorm. _{hopefully never}

And now, the final cutscenes of the stronghold: