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A long long time ago (from a certain company's product release schedule's point of view at least) in an edition that's all too similar and yet strangely different a friendly Necron player, let's call him Galorian, saw images of a soon to be released brand new model for his army- a "Transcended C'tan" it was called.

Galorian fell in love! The model was beautiful, its concept awesome, its visage projecting a feel of great power and its rumors hinting at doing the might spoken of in fluff a justice the C'tan Shard never did! Galorian's friends tried to dissuade him- "It's Apocalypse only, you'll hardly ever get to use it" they said, "So I'll play it only at Apocalypse events, there's one every year" he replied undaunted And so the moment a presale was announced, for the first time in his young career as a 40K player, Galorian put forth an order for a model who's rules he did not yet know. And not just the model mind you- if it wasn't enough that to get this beauty Galorian had to pay the price of its cage, he went the extra mile and ordered the Apocalypse book, cards and templates as well!

Time wore on, the pre-order arrived and Galorian gleefully began to meticulously clean and assemble his new model. Feeling his skills with the brush were not up to the task he then gave his model to a more skilled friend to do it justice and thus had to endure long weeks of waiting for the C'tan to return, but at last it return it did-



Beautiful!

A few months passed, the C'tan patiently sitting on a shelf, and a great rumor mill rose of the coming of Escalation. Galorian was intrigued- rules for playing superheavies in "normal" games? Mayhap he'll finally get to place his C'tan in a game! Galorian wasted no time and the moment the presale was announced he opened his wallet once more and coughed up the cash.

This time, however, things were not quite so joyous. Reading the book Galorian's eyes darkened- "This can't be right, these are just copy pasted rules from Apocalypse! I can't play something that OP against my friends!" he thought as that brief hope died inside him. Even worse, Galorian now found himself having to constantly reassure fellow players that he has no intention of fielding this model against them, even mentioning it earned him odd looks and all too often when arguing about imbalances in the game the mere fact he owned it was leveled as both argument and condemnation against him, a player who bought that model before anyone even knew its rules.

The C'tan languished on, finding but a small measure of freedom on the rarest of occasions, two so far, when a situation was found where he was deemed not "too OP" if deployed locked in his cage.



But lo and behold, it seemed things were to change- To celebrate 7th, Galorian's FLGS announced an apocalypse game! Galorian's heart soared, his hopes rekindled- "Finally!" he thought as he started drawing out an army list. Poor naive fool, his hope soon were dashed- "Don't play it, it's too powerful" his friends all cried, and one grudgingly added "if you'll take it's weakest powers maybe people won't mind as much".

One week to go and hope is fading away... tell me dear reader, will Galorian's favorite model ever soar free of its cage?

tl;dr
I can't ever play my favorite model because my friends deem it too broken even for Apocalypse and I'm not TFG. Even the mere fact I own it is all too often leveled as a kind accusation against me by others in the local 40K community (not that the fact I play Necrons doesn't draw a fair bit of that all on its own), and this all serves as powerful personal focus for my mounting frustration with GW's incompetent rules writing and blatant short sighted money grabbing.

What, they're insulting you over a model? "You own a model you like, scumbag!"

That's not very nice.

Try offering your opponents some kind of handicap. Don't patronise them, but just offering them an extra 500 points or whatever when you use it might even the odds and get you a game.

Insulting you is wrong, but D-Weapons *were* insanely broken and the C'tan was pretty overpowered, so I can't fault them for not wanting to play with it.

Tell your friends to sit on an umbrella and rotate.

Transcendent C'Tans are not OP...especially since the nerf to D weapons.

3+ Armor Save with a 4++ Invul? Not too hard to take down.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Insulting you is wrong, but D-Weapons *were* insanely broken and the C'tan was pretty overpowered, so I can't fault them for not wanting to play with it.

Yeah, but accusing him for owning th model..?

 thenoobbomb wrote:
What, they're insulting you over a model? "You own a model you like, scumbag!"

That's not very nice.

Not insults, accusations- to quote and roughly translate a recent one:
[a long argument where I accused GW of shoddy rules writing and breaking game balance even further]
Other guy: "where were all those complaints when they let you put the Vault in regular games?"

Sounds like you need some better friends.

If they're giving you grief for OWNING the model, they're not really your friends, especially if they knew you grabbed it rules unseen. This also sounds more like it's partly a problem with your community, not just GW's rules. Given how broken everything in Apoc is, the C'tan is nothing special. Last time I squared off with one, I just buried it under Predator Assassin and Librarius shooting before it got the template off. I've seen it murdered by daemonettes. (THAT formation is hilariously strong against gargantuan MCs). Two D weapons was great but other things could toss around Destroyer at longer ranges.

that is a sad story, indeed. maybe try to find other people to play with, or build a campaign around your c'tan guy, with him appearing in the last couple of missions...?

 Galorian wrote:
and this all serves as powerful personal focus for my mounting frustration with GW's incompetent rules writing and blatant short sighted money grabbing.

This has nothing to do with GW and everything to do with having whiney douchebags as 'friends.'

 Portugal Jones wrote:

 Galorian wrote:
and this all serves as powerful personal focus for my mounting frustration with GW's incompetent rules writing and blatant short sighted money grabbing.

This has nothing to do with GW and everything to do with having whiney douchebags as 'friends.'

Ehhhh...I think that's a bit of a strong assessment about the character of the friends given the limited knowledge about them.

Regardless, GW is to blame to some extent, and I'd argue is the source of the issue, and these group issues are a symptom. I don't know of any other games that result in that sort of ostracization.

 jasper76 wrote:
Tell your friends to sit on an umbrella and rotate.

Dont tell them you are gonna open it.


If you ever find your self in America, I herby give you permisson to put that model on the table against me. Something painted up so nicely shouldnt be on display.

Its just a bloody game.....

 Blacksails wrote:

 Portugal Jones wrote:

 Galorian wrote:
and this all serves as powerful personal focus for my mounting frustration with GW's incompetent rules writing and blatant short sighted money grabbing.

This has nothing to do with GW and everything to do with having whiney douchebags as 'friends.'

Ehhhh...I think that's a bit of a strong assessment about the character of the friends given the limited knowledge about them.

Regardless, GW is to blame to some extent, and I'd argue is the source of the issue, and these group issues are a symptom. I don't know of any other games that result in that sort of ostracization.

We know enough about them from the OP's post to draw the necessary conclusions. Just because you don't play many other games doesn't mean they don't exist. Just try playing Magic where the meta around one store/group is 'we only play with Type X rules, because only TFG plays anything else,' or Warmachines where 'Cryx is broken!' has become a watchword.

 Portugal Jones wrote:

We know enough about them from the OP's post to draw the necessary conclusions. Just because you don't play many other games doesn't mean they don't exist. Just try playing Magic where the meta around one store/group is 'we only play with Type X rules, because only TFG plays anything else,' or Warmachines where 'Cryx is broken!' has become a watchword.

Well, MTG isn't exactly a miniatures game, and I'm not overly knowledgeable of WM/H, but I've never heard it being so bad people would refuse games.

Anyways, I maintain you still know incredibly little about the OP's friends to label as 'whiny douchebags'. I may not agree with them, but I can understand their dislike of the model/rules.

Maybe I'm just not one to label somebody as a douchebag given an incredibly small amount of knowledge about these people in a single scenario about a particular model. There's more to somebody than their preferences in a miniature game like 40k.

Nice write up.

I'd give them a ridiculous handicap, like an extra 1500 points, to get them to play against it and let them see how easy it is to take down. Maybe that'll loosen them up a bit.

...even mentioning it earned him odd looks and all too often when arguing about imbalances in the game the mere fact he owned it was leveled as both argument and condemnation against him, a player who bought that model before anyone even knew its rules.

Wow, people are dicks.

Let the lesser races fear our transcendent pokemon!

Good they nerfed Str D; it probably helps with this issue a little. The trans. C'tan is probably still pretty invincible, even more so now.

 Truth118 wrote:
Good they nerfed Str D; it probably helps with this issue a little. The trans. C'tan is probably still pretty invincible, even more so now.

Loaded with high-test weaponry? Yes
Invincible? Not now, and not in 6th either. 3+/4++ is not what I would call invincible.

In Apoc, it's not bad at all. Apoc is meant to be overpowered models blowing chunks out of the other army.

For a basic 40K game, it might be a bit crazy. I haven't tried one yet because I don't have Necrons, though I do want to. Lots of small arms fire might even be enough to take it down.

It's funny people are mentioning opponents playing with a handicap. There's a particular mission in Escalation, that I want to try so bad with a Transcendent C'tan, where you take a Lord of War against an army with 1000 points more than the cost of the Lord of War, and the winner of the match is based on how long it takes to knock out the Lord of War. You might try that one with folks for a fun little match.

Wasn't there an old baneblade mission where the baneblade owner had to make it across the table alive, and the opposing army's objective was to destroy it?

Can't remember, but it sounds familiar. Same idea. Sounded like fun. Granted, baneblades are fairly tame.

Why not just use the model as a shard outside of apoc?

Portugal Jones wrote:

 Galorian wrote:
and this all serves as powerful personal focus for my mounting frustration with GW's incompetent rules writing and blatant short sighted money grabbing.

This has nothing to do with GW and everything to do with having whiney douchebags as 'friends.'

In most cases I can't blame my friends for not wanting to play against that thing- I took one look at the Escalation rules and immediately came to the conclusion I'll never field against anyone who didn't literally ask for it all on my own.

My hope was that I could finally play it in the upcoming Apocalypse battle, but people are so terrified of it that even that seems unlikely...

Crablezworth wrote:Why not just use the model as a shard outside of apoc?

Because they swing too hard in the opposite direction- Regular shards either take support powers and hide around somewhere or they're overpriced slow moving MCs with underwhelming firepower and melee damage output for their cost that usually get gunned down before they actually do anything worthwhile.

I Have a regular shard and I've tried using it a few times, but the conclusion is always the same (doesn't really help that we have a very shooty meta around here- last time I tried fielding it it died on the first shooting phase of the game).

A good example of how bad rules hurt casual players as well.

why is everyone so scared of what happens in a game?

 rryannn wrote:
why is everyone so scared of what happens in a game?

In my case it's because I only get 3-4 games a month, I don't want to waste my time with crap.


I also think 40k was a superior game to apoc, weird I know...

 rryannn wrote:
why is everyone so scared of what happens in a game?

My thoughts exactly. I don't pee my pants until after I played against something. If seomthing is truly, truly OP, its not fun for me, and its also not fun for the controlling player (assuming they are not a psychopath), and we won't try it again.

I have played many, many Escalation games with a Trancendent C'Tan, both against an opposing player with and without an enemy Lord of War. In zero cases was it a game breaking unit. On the other hand, in a few cases, it was even a liability. You have to dump tons of points to get it on the board, and if someone concentrates fire on it (which is what usually happens to any Lord of War), it dies rather easily, and takes some models out with it.

 rryannn wrote:
why is everyone so scared of what happens in a game?

Because a fair number of casual gamers, in truth want to win at all costs. They just lie about it and bully others players to get their way. They reveal themselves by whining about your army after they crush you on the table top, or ban your models from games. I've seen this too many times.

A competitive gamer would like to try and beat it

A fluff gamer would create a story about it.

And a real friends would try and help you use the models you love.

 Crimson Devil wrote:


And a real friends would try and help you use the models you love.

Only true friends play against 6 riptides, because entitlement us rule #1.

It has nothing to do with entitlement. It all about what kind of gamer you are. I'm not going to get butthurt because my friend wants to use a C'Tan or 6 riptides, or any other nonsense you fear.

I thought Canadians were nicer.

House rule it.

Make it weaker. Talk to your friends about how to fix the model (which is completely broken to the point of being, as you already found, unplayable) and enjoy it.

This is exactly what players are expected to do.

By the way...nobody around you is creating any home-rule? Ask the Chaos player if he wants to use some of the awesome Legion Traits you can find on the Internet. Ask the Mechanicus player if we wants to try some 40k with his 30k stuff... Quid pro quo.