Dawn of War 4 will give the Necrons a formidable late-game unit, the C’Tan Shard of the Void Dragon: a spear-wielding, machine-bound fragment of a defeated star god. Unlike comparable faction super-units, it resents the Necrons who deploy it as much as their enemies, reflecting the faction’s history of rebellion against the beings that once enslaved them. The unit matters because it combines a major battlefield advantage with a distinctive piece of Warhammer 40,000 lore.

The Necrons were once the organic Necrontyr, an ancient civilisation that exchanged their bodies for metal forms to escape death and later ruled much of the galaxy. The C’Tan enabled this transformation but enslaved them, prompting the Necrons to shatter the star gods after their war against the Old Ones and imprison the fragments in machines. According to senior game designer Elliott Verbiest, the Void Dragon shard is the Necrons’ most powerful unit in standard skirmish and multiplayer matches.