Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV - Faction Deep Dive - Necrons

Hi everyone,

The whole KING Art team is hard at work putting the finishing touches to Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV, and we can’t wait to get the game in your hands on September 17th! To help pass the time, we’ve been introducing you to all four of the game’s factions, and today we’d like to talk more about the immortal android revenants: the Necrons!

Watch our latest trailer now and read on for our overview and some brand new screenshots.

The Necrons are all about slow but steady expansion, developing a malignant, snowballing threat that gradually consumes the battlefield. Your strategic centre of operations for this relentless march is the immensely powerful and upgradeable Tomb Citadel, which also serves as the production engine for your units.

As you grow your Necron base, you’ll also spread the Power Matrix. Many Necron buildings can only be constructed on top of this powerful field, but each building also spreads it further. The bigger your Power Matrix, the more Dominion resource you’ll gain for your war effort.

The influence of your Power Matrix extends to buffing friendly units on it. Your units already benefit from out-of-combat healing, but by imbuing themselves with the energy of the Matrix, they heal more quickly, grow even tougher, and become even harder to kill.

Along with their intimidating arsenal of war machines, the Necrons can also build Resurrection Galleries that allow them to bring back fallen units for free.

Once constructed, you select a preferred unit type you want to receive whenever a unit of that type falls in battle. So even if you lose one of your tough units, you can bring it back for free.

To keep things fair for everyone else, though, you’ll find that Necron units - with a few exceptions - are relatively slow compared to the other factions’ armies. By carefully balancing extraordinary resilience with a slower overall pace, we’ve been able to make our Necrons feel like an ever-present threat that grows surely and steadily into a truly unstoppable force - take your eye off a Necron opponent at your peril.

When it comes to your tactical options, one of our favourite Necron strategies involves using very cheap, very small units called Scarabs. These swarms of insectoid constructs are one of the faster Necron units in your roster, and can be very tricky for an opponent to deal with. This cheap unit can engage enemy ranged units in melee combat, preventing them from using their strongest weapons and granting your slower, deadlier units more time to close the gap.

Your Deathmark sniper units are more than capable of outranging and eliminating enemy commanders and elite infantry from a safe distance. Then there are the Doomstalkers, the colossal constructs who roam the battlefield with their Doomsday Blasters, making explosively light work of anyone or anything that dares to cross them.

While the relentless Necrons are tough to kill in their territory, we still need to make sure the faction can keep up in the late game, where battlefield hotspots can change rapidly. The Necrons can use advanced technology to reach even the furthest corners of the map in a flash.

First, there are the Canoptek Spyders, units that are capable of building Tomb Pylons anywhere on the map. These pylons spawn a new patch of Power Matrix and act as a translocation target for any units entering your Tomb Citadel.

Next, there’s a Stratagem - or unlockable ability - called Translocation Science. By activating this, you can teleport up to five units from anywhere on the battlefield to any other visible part of the map!

Finally, we have the Monolith, an imposing machine with its Eternity Gate that acts as an exit point for units placed in reserve at your Tomb Citadel. Having teleported this gigantic vehicle behind enemy lines, you’ll be able to field even your slowest units from your base of operations straight into the current battlefront.

That should give you a pretty good taste of how it feels to command a Necron army, but what about the role they play in Dawn of War IV’s story? We know how excited many of you are for the massive campaign we’ve been cooking up, so we want to tread very carefully when it comes to spoiling the surprises we have in store for you.

It’s enough to say that the Necrons have received a mysterious signal originating from Kronus, a planet they’d long assumed held nothing more of interest for them. However, Kronus is a dormant tomb world, and wherever there are hidden tombs, you’re sure to find Necron units and war machinery of immense power.

Like his enemies, our first Necron Commander, the Chronomancer Thothmek, is keen to seize that power for his dynasty’s wider war effort. In combat, he wields a devastating suite of chronomantic powers, manipulating time itself to confound his enemies and further his dynasty’s ambitions.

As for our second playable Necron Commander, Ahmnok is much less inclined to manipulate the battlefield from afar. Where Commander Thothmek bends time itself to empower his legions and confound his enemies, Ahmnok is more than happy to let their bloodied claws do the talking instead.

Fortunately, there’s not too much longer to wait before all of Dawn of War IV’s mysteries are yours to uncover for yourself! Before then, of course, there’s still one faction we’ve yet to take a closer look at: the Space Marines. In our final faction preview, we’ll be lifting the lid on our vision for Warhammer 40,000’s most iconic warriors.