Amarkun The Gatherer

Catacomb Command Barge:

The most aggressive Necron Overlords fight not on foot, but rather from the deck of a Catacomb Command Barge -- an armoured, dimensional repulsor-driven skimmercraft. In ancient times, this craft would hover high above the army, so that all Necrontyr could see their Overlord’s presence and take heart from it. Catacomb Command Barges are first and foremost a way to show how (literally) far above their servants and enemies a Necron Lord or Overlord is. For those Lords who prefer to keep their skeletal hands clean, a Command Barge can hover above the battlefield, allowing them to survey the combat and issue orders while avoiding the swirl of melee and all but the most dedicated of ranged attackers. Most Overlords can no longer directly inspire the soldiery as they once could though -- few Necrons still possess the capacity for such emotions -- but technology has filled the void.

A Catacomb Command Barge is nothing less than a giant carrier wave generator, equipped with sophisticated sub-frequency broadcasting equipment, omnivoxes, and hyperspace transmitters, that allows an Overlord to instantaneously issue commands to nearby troops, Necron forces in the local vicinity and even in orbit, regardless of conditions or interference. Even in the present age, when inspiration has little to do with visibility, an Overlord will often seek a raised vantage point from the battle’s start, so he might better define the enemy’s intended strategy before it unfolds.

The Catacomb Command Barge itself is a swift and manoeuvrable craft -- it has to be, for an Overlord must keep pace with the battle at all times. Though the Overlord is undeniably the Command Barge’s master, he does not operate its controls. Such work is beneath a member of the nobility, and especially below those of such esteemed rank as he. Rather, the skimmercraft’s controls are the charge of two slaved Necron crew who act as both pilots and as gunners for its underslung weaponry. These Necrons are hard-wired to the Overlord through the craft's mechanism and can react to his instructions in a fraction of a second. This does not, however, prevent the Overlord from issuing verbal commands -- old habits die hard in old soldiers. Indeed, it is often possible to hear the Overlord’s authoritative instructions or angry epithets echoing across a battlefield as he drives his crew hard up to, and sometimes beyond, their limits. Whether this is out of vanity, nostalgia for the time of flesh, or a damaged engrammatic synthapse, depends on the individual Lord.

Service aboard a Command Barge is considered to be a great honour, though it is not without its risks. Not only does it guarantee a place in the very heart of battle, but if the Overlord is slain -- or sometimes even if he is merely put to inconvenience through mechanical failure -- retribution falls upon his pilots. However, an Overlord can perform a symbiotic repair if the vehicle has its weapon or motor drives destroyed. This comes at a physical cost though for the Overlord himself, as he must give up a portion of his personal energy to repair the barge.

With his barge’s systems attended to by his minions, the Overlord is free to wield his Warscythe against his foe, for a Catacomb Command Barge allows a Necron royal to swiftly engage his foes in close combat. Sometimes he will disembark before doing so, preferring to face his chosen foe with feet braced firmly on solid ground. At other times, however, the Overlord will remain seated on his Catacomb Command Barge; choosing instead to strike at the foe with great sweeps of his blade as his barge screams past. While Catacomb Command Barges are typically employed in large-scale engagements, they might also be utilised whenever a Necron noble requires speed and manoeuvrability to accomplish his goals. The barge's transmitters can be useful for a Lord who wishes to conduct a more delicate operation from a safe distance. For a Lord taking a more personal involvement, the Barge’s speed ensures that no fleeing witnesses escape with their lives. The last sight of many an enemy has been that of a Catacomb Command Barge swooping out of the sky with the Overlord’s blade gleaming as it swings around in a decapitating arc…

A Catacomb Command Barge can be armed with either of these weapons mounted on its underside:

[*] Tesla Cannon – Tesla Cannons unleash bolts of living lightning that crackles from foe to foe after hitting its target, charring flesh and melting armour. Tesla bolts feed off the energy released by the destruction they cause, thus making their lightning become more furious with every fresh arc.
[*] Gauss Cannon – The same weapon as that wielded most commonly by Necron Destroyers, Gauss Cannons make for a reliable weapon that is easily capable of laying waste to enemy infantry through the molecular disassembling beams they deliver; reducing flesh, armour and bone to their constituent atoms.

Catacomb Command Barges are also protected by the following:

[*] Necrodermis - The armour of Catacomb Command Barges is made up of the same living metal Necrodermis that makes up all Necron bodies and vehicles. Its remarkable regenerative properties allow it to automatically repair damage to itself; whether this is the regeneration of parts of its hull, the reknitting of metal plates, and the reconnection of circuits and other delicate systems to bring its weapon online again.
[*] Quantum Shielding – Catacomb Command Barges are also protected by a layer of Quantum Shielding which exists out of phase from the rest of the vehicle until the moment of deflection. It can deflect the first shot that would otherwise penetrate the Barge’s armour, after which it cannot be used again for some time.

Lychguard

Extremely loyal, it is said that Lychguards remain incorruptible and highly dedicated to their cause; before, this saying was legendary, but careful manipulation of their engrams during the process of biotransferrence saw to it that the legend has become fact. While most Necrons wear a basic suit of living metal, the Lychguard wear huge suits of ancient armour, the likes of which are normally reserved for the nobility - all the better to enable them to protect their charges, who will need strong, hardy defenders in the heart of a battle. Furthermore, it allows them to keep much of their original personality. This allows a Lychguard to serve not just as a warrior, but as a lieutenant or an emissary for a Lord or Overlord when the danger is too great for him to appear in person.

Most Lychguards are equipped with the heavy but nigh-unstoppable warscythe, while a smaller number carry Hyperphase Swords and Dispersion Shields. This is usually due to the influence of the specific patron each Lychguard is assigned to, for it is from his armoury that the weapons are chosen. Trading away the warscythe will slow a squad down as it cuts its away through its enemies, losing some measure of offensive might, but gains tremendous hardiness, as the shield's interlocking force barriers protect them from anything up to and beyond the deadliness of a siege shell or the blast of a defense laser.

Regardless of their armament or duty, a Lychguard always favours a single, dismembering strike and unlike lesser Necrons, takes pride in his bloody work. They are perfectionists, seeking to slay their enemies with the most efficient attacks, standing still as the battle rages around them, waiting for the exact, right moment to strike. Anything less than an immaculate strike is a cause for shame to the Lychguards, some of whom will go so far as to seek out their sovereign and ask for their forgiveness.

Necron Destroyer:
A Necron Destroyer is a deranged agent of annihilation whose sole reason for existence is centred around an unshakeable yearning to quench the flames of life. A Destroyer cares not for borders or dynasty allegiance, nor does he make any distinction between the innocent and the damned -- all life is his enemy, and all living creatures are his prey. To this end, Destroyers regularly engage in modifications to their bodies that other Necrons would consider self-mutilation. This most commonly takes the form of replacing arms with weapons, legs with grav-platforms, and modifying heads and neural circuitry with advanced targeting systems.

Wargear:
Gauss Cannon - Gauss Weapons are the most common of all weaponry carried by the Necron soldiery and vary in appearance. Unlike more conventional directed energy weapons, a Gauss projector does not deliver a cutting beam of coherent subatomic particles or bolt of electromagnetic force. Instead, it emits a molecular disassembling beam, capable of reducing flesh, armour and bone to their constituent atoms. Destroyers make use of the destructive force of the deadly Gauss Cannon.

Night Scythe and Doom Scythe:

Night Scythe:
Night Scythe is the Necrons’ favoured tool of invasion, a variant of the Doom Scythe that replaces some of that fighter’s heaviest weaponry in favour of a troop transport capacity. This is not to say that a Night Scythe is in any way defenceless -- quite the opposite.

The Necron infantry units that Night Scythes most commonly carry into battle include Necron Warriors, Immortals, Deathmarks and Lychguard.

Should a Phaeron wish to reach out his hand and reclaim one of the planets sundered long ago from Necron rule, his first wave of attack inevitably includes a fleet of Night Scythes. Manoeuvrable enough to evade incoming fire from orbital defence platforms and swift enough to outpace mustering defenders, Night Scythes can ghost through a defence perimeter to deploy invasion forces directly at the heart of key enemy installations and strategic locations. Once a foothold has been established, coordinates are relayed to the main army, enabling Monoliths and other Necron forces to teleport into position, and the invasion to begin.

Notable Formations
Translocator Flight – Working in concert, a flight of Night Scythes can combine their wormhole projectors, creating a temporary hyperspace tunnel. Such constructs are relatively short-ranged and are also dangerously unstable. Traversing a hyperspace tunnel is almost instantaneous, but not without risk, for physical laws break down inside such a construct. Necrons, however, survive such journeys far better than mortal beings, for their metallic forms are more suited to enduring the forces within. Thus, when Night Scythes prowl the skies, Necron attack waves might redeploy in an instant, or bypass the main battlefront entirely.

Armament
[*] Twin-linked Tesla Destructor – A Night Scythe’s primary weapon is its twin-linked Tesla Destructor, which is mainly an anti-personnel weapon though only the most heavily armed tanks can risk its wrath with utter impunity. The Tesla Destructor employs much the same lightning-arc technology as found in the smaller Tesla Cannons and Tesla Carbines. Its energy discharges of crackling lightning can wreak terrible harm on living targets; searing their flesh, melting their armour and boiling their blood. Furthermore, the Tesla bolts fired feed off energy released by the destruction they cause, often meaning that the lightning becomes more ferocious with each arc. So powerful are the blasts from a Tesla Destructor and such is its shocking rapidity of fire, that the lightning emitted is capable of leaping from target to target before it is finally grounded; leaving a trail of smouldering carnage across a broad swathe of the battlefield behind it.

[*] Wormhole Portal – All Night Scythes are fitted with a captive wormhole portal bound into their lower hull. This portal serves as a dimensional passageway through which Necrons can move from their Tomb World to the target destination once the Night Scythe has landed. Because of the transdimensional nature of this transport "compartment," the Necrons "within" do not suffer any ill effects if the Night Scythe is destroyed. This portal is also capable of allowing Necron jump infantry, such as Triarch Praetorians with Gravity Displacement Packs, and Jetbikes, such as Tomb Blades, to pass through, as their bulky nature is not restricted by a small "interior space" that is the norm in the transports of other starfaring races.

[*] Necrodermis - The armour of Night Scythes is made up of the same living metal Necrodermis that makes up all Necron bodies and vehicles. Its remarkable regenerative properties allow it to automatically repair damage to itself; whether this is the regeneration of parts of its hull, the reknitting of metal plates, and the reconnection of circuits and other delicate systems to bring its weapon online again.

Doom Scythe:

A Doom Scythe is a Necron aircraft and Attack Craft capable of combat operations in both the void and within a planet's atmosphere. The Doom Scythe serves the Necron forces in the interceptor, starship assault and fighter-bomber roles. It is designed to range independently of the main Necron military force whilst visiting terror and destruction upon its enemies. Capable of destroying both infantry and vehicles alike from the air with impunity, a Doom Scythe is a dangerous foe that can often cause significant destruction to an enemy army on its own.

Armament:
[*] Death Ray – The Death Ray is a Doom Scythe’s primary weapon and is capable of vaporising whole battle lines with a single shot. Equipped as part of an underslung turret, a Death Ray fires a narrow beam of intense energy capable of passing through many enemy units and vehicles before the energy is dissipated, often leaving nothing but a line of ruin in its wake.

[*] Twin-linked Tesla Destructor – A Doom Scythe’s secondary weapon is its twin-linked Tesla Destructor which is also mounted upon the same underslung ventral turret as the Death Ray. A Tesla Destructor is mainly an anti-personnel weapon, though only the most heavily armed tanks can risk its wrath with utter impunity. The Tesla Destructor employs much the same lightning-arc technology as found in the smaller Tesla Cannons and Tesla Carbines. Its energy discharges of crackling lightning can wreak terrible harm on living targets; searing their flesh, melting their armour and boiling their blood. Furthermore, the Tesla bolts fired feed off energy released by the destruction they cause, often meaning that the lightning becomes more ferocious with each arc. So powerful are the blasts from a Tesla Destructor and such is its shocking rapidity of fire, that the lightning emitted is capable of leaping from target to target before it is finally grounded; leaving a trail of smouldering carnage across a broad swathe of the battlefield behind it.

[*] Necrodermis - The armour of Doom Scythes is made up of the same living metal Necrodermis that makes up all Necron bodies and vehicles. Its remarkable regenerative properties allow it to automatically repair damage to itself; whether this is the regeneration of parts of its hull, the reknitting of metal plates, and the reconnection of circuits and other delicate systems to bring its weapons online again.