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Is C'TAN.

Points:330 WS:3 BS:6 S:6 T:8 W:5 I:3 A:3 LD:10 SV:3+/5+

Number of squad:1

Weapons:
Essence of Guass (counts as a Gauss weapon): Fires a condensed beam of Guass Energy through his eyes.
range:48"; Strength:X; AP:4, sniper wounds on a 3+
When firering at half range or less use the blast template on a hit. (Doesn't scatter)

special Rules:
Necron. Void Dragon follows the Necron special rules.

System Takeover: When this power is used in the shooting phase you roll 2D6+3 against an armored unit. On a glancing blow roll on the Glancing Table. For a penetrating hit Choose to roll a D6 on 5+ unit is destroyed, or control the units next movement phase, or choose to control units next shooting phase. Range is 24".

Wargear:
Phylactery

Resurrection Orb

Disruption Field

WORKING UNDER THE ASSUMPTION IT HAD BEEN WOKEN UP, SO DON'T BITCH ME OUT FOR IT!!!!

Essence could probably stand to be AP3, it's what, 1 MEQ dead per turn, for a 330 points creature?

System takeover is neat, control an enemy rhino for a turn, or, if you're both ballsy and lucky, an enemy land raider or leman russ.

I like it though.

EDIT: I really like the idea you've got going on here. I don't think he's over powered, but somethings stick out as un-C'tan-like against the Deceiver and the Nightbringer.

If he's a C'tan, drop the Necron Lord wargear and the Necron rule, then give him the standard C'tan rules (MC, move through impassable terrain, etc.). I'd also raise the WS to 4 and the BS to 7.

I like the System Takeover, very appropriate for the Void Dragon/Machine God. If you want to keep the powers of the wargear, why not give him an ability to roll WBB at 3+ within 6" that is cumulative with a Res Orb? That way it's different, but still enabling to the units around him.

Essence of Gauss is a little clumsy though, not intuitive. I'd avoid the anti-scatter rules, but raising the BS to 7 will give you minimal scatter with a large blast - 5" at the most and no scatter on average. Maybe try this instead?

Essence of Gauss: The Void Dragon has complete mastery over the Gauss energy powering it's necrodermis and is able to emit beams from it's eyes, reducing infantry to atoms and armor to slag. Choose either a focused beam or a blast before declaring targets.

Focused Beam - Range:48"; Strength:10; AP:1, Lance, Gauss

Blast - Range: 24"; Strength X; AP:3, Large Blast, Gauss, Wounds on 3+

What do you think?

Focused Beam - Range:48"; Strength:10; AP:1, Lance, Gauss

No, no, no, no, no.
Way too powerful.
S8 AP2, Lance, Gauss.
Or
S10 AP1, Gauss

a S10 lance is way too powerful, even for 330 points.

That's true, personally I'd keep the Lance and go with S8 AP2.

Focused beam: Range 36" S8 AP1 Lance, Gauss

If you really want to make this guy interesting, then how about some truly nifty powers. Don't give him vehicle-friendly lash, this is just sort of boring, and a rehash of a power given to another army. How about something that works at a truly horrifying level...

As long as he is on the table, all Necrons may re-roll their failed WBB rolls, and/or treat all of them as though they were within effective range of both a tomb spider and a res orb.

C'tan are meant to hit the table and give you a nice big radius of denial. If you can't kill it in short order, you're going to end up with a lot of dead (insert unit of choice here), plain and simple... and as far as your "essence of Gauss goes, try this in your playtesting:

Essence of Gauss: The Void Dragon has complete mastery over the Gauss energy powering it's necrodermis and is able to channel it with apocalyptic potential, reducing infantry to atoms and armor to slag. It may choose to fire it with one of these 2 profiles:
Focused: The Void Dragon unleashes it's energies in a series of blinding, focused arcs. Range: 24" S9 AP3 Assault D3, Gauss, Lance, Blast
Scattered: The Void Dragon sends it's Gauss arcs sparking and striking all enemy units within 18" of it with the following profile: S6 AP4 Assault 2D6, Lance, Gauss

Not too bad there. I would make the scattered version of that a little more comparable to say the Monolith's Gauss Flayers (striking every unit within a set distance with 1d6 hits) or Yriel's lightning eye (place the large blast over the model and resolve hits). Also, drop Lance from it - that's for focused, penetrating attacks.

I didn't want to go overboard with the focused version in terms of attacks per round, favoring a slightly longer range and high penetration (Lance/Gauss), but I like the idea of it being a variable Assault d3. I'd lower the S9 to S8 and drop Blast since it's meant to be a focused beam. Combined with Lance, it'll penetrate a Landraider 33% of the time. This makes it as tough as a Brightlance with the potential for more attacks.

Alternately, you could do the Scattered attack like a series of "flamethrower" attacks like this:

Scattered: The Void Dragon sends it's Gauss in broad arcs. S6 AP4 Template, Assault 1d6, Gauss

Gavin Thorne wrote:EDIT: I really like the idea you've got going on here. I don't think he's over powered, but somethings stick out as un-C'tan-like against the Deceiver and the Nightbringer.

If he's a C'tan, drop the Necron Lord wargear and the Necron rule, then give him the standard C'tan rules (MC, move through impassable terrain, etc.). I'd also raise the WS to 4 and the BS to 7.

I like the System Takeover, very appropriate for the Void Dragon/Machine God. If you want to keep the powers of the wargear, why not give him an ability to roll WBB at 3+ within 6" that is cumulative with a Res Orb? That way it's different, but still enabling to the units around him.

The Void Dragon Still is a C'tan with all of their normal abilities. On the thought of dropping the wargear It is designed this way to signify it as more-or-less the creator of their equipment hence making it part of him. I did it this way as war gear that way People wouldn't have to read a whole paragraph on his abilities but just look in the section for what it does.
The necron rule is their to signify it as being mostly machine and there by making it much eaisier to repair itself on the battle field.

Ok, I get that, but the Necron Codex is very specific about the differences between the (existing) C'Tan and their followers, the Necrons. Neither the Deceiver nor the Nightbringer use the Necron rule and have their own special rules that are common to all C'Tan as stated in the codex. Just pointing that out since your proposed rules omitted that information.

As far as the wargear goes, if you're going through the effort of making a new C'Tan that has abilities that are not defined in the current codex anyway (essence of gauss and system takeover), why not go the extra mile since you're going to have to refer to the new abilities anyway. As it stands, he's basically a buffed Lord with standard wargear, an innate attack and a special ability. If you're going to give him wargear, make it a little buffed so it stands out against any lords you would field with him. Remember that none of the current C'Tan bother with wargear so seeing it on one almost makes it lackluster: rather than spicing up the necron list with something new you're offering something they already have...

I'm not busting your chops over the rules you've written - they're very in tune with what I'd expect of the Void Dragon, just making suggestions to bring your proposal more in line whith what we already know about the C'Tan and how the rules for them have been written. Do you have any feedback on the proposed alterations to your entry? How do you view the Void Dragon as you've designed him working in conjunction with the current codex, i.e. what niche does he fill?

Gavin Thorne wrote:Ok, I get that, but the Necron Codex is very specific about the differences between the (existing) C'Tan and their followers, the Necrons. Neither the Deceiver nor the Nightbringer use the Necron rule and have their own special rules that are common to all C'Tan as stated in the codex. Just pointing that out since your proposed rules omitted that information.

As far as the wargear goes, if you're going through the effort of making a new C'Tan that has abilities that are not defined in the current codex anyway (essence of gauss and system takeover), why not go the extra mile since you're going to have to refer to the new abilities anyway. As it stands, he's basically a buffed Lord with standard wargear, an innate attack and a special ability. If you're going to give him wargear, make it a little buffed so it stands out against any lords you would field with him. Remember that none of the current C'Tan bother with wargear so seeing it on one almost makes it lackluster: rather than spicing up the necron list with something new you're offering something they already have...

I'm not busting your chops over the rules you've written - they're very in tune with what I'd expect of the Void Dragon, just making suggestions to bring your proposal more in line whith what we already know about the C'Tan and how the rules for them have been written. Do you have any feedback on the proposed alterations to your entry? How do you view the Void Dragon as you've designed him working in conjunction with the current codex, i.e. what niche does he fill?

Thanks for the feed back I'm trying to make it better and don't worry about busting my chops you've got good feed back.
I was thinking of having the Void Dragon work as the ultimate in tank busting and long range warfare as used with the Essence of Guass.
Instead of Having war gear how about phrasing it as some more special abilities such as:
For the resurection orb having "reboot" All Necrons on the table reroll failed wwb rolls and can roll for istant kill.
Just scrap the disruption field.
AS for the Necron rule instead state it as "Molecular rebuild" If the Void Dragon loses all of it's wounds it may take a single wwb roll as if it has Phylactery.
Let me know what you think of these changes and tell me if they seem too much like a Lord still.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gavin Thorne wrote:EDIT: If he's a C'tan, drop the Necron Lord wargear and the Necron rule, then give him the standard C'tan rules (MC, move through impassable terrain, etc.). I'd also raise the WS to 4 and the BS to 7.


Essence of Gauss is a little clumsy though, not intuitive. I'd avoid the anti-scatter rules, but raising the BS to 7 will give you minimal scatter with a large blast - 5" at the most and no scatter on average. Maybe try this instead?

Essence of Gauss: The Void Dragon has complete mastery over the Gauss energy powering it's necrodermis and is able to emit beams from it's eyes, reducing infantry to atoms and armor to slag. Choose either a focused beam or a blast before declaring targets.

Focused Beam - Range:48"; Strength:10; AP:1, Lance, Gauss

Blast - Range: 24"; Strength X; AP:3, Large Blast, Gauss, Wounds on 3+

What do you think?

I would never have thought to have given him a higher power stat but whoam I to argue. To the point though I do like how you reworded the description making it much more descriptive. I had wanted to make it to where it was like its weopon was so powerful that when a unit got to close instead of just one figure absorbing the hit it would essentially just explode on contact hence the use of the small blast template instead of the large.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Heres my thoughts so far for how I'd change it.

Void Dragon(C'tan) Points:330 WS:4 BS:8 S:6 T:8 W:5 I:3 A:3 LD:10 SV:3+/5+

Number of Squad:1

Weapons
Essence of Gauss: Being in complete control of the immense amounts of Gauss power coursing through its necrodermis it may fire a super condensed beam of Gauss through its eyes and rip apart a character atomic layer by layer. The beam is so powerful that when an enemy unit dares to encroach too closely to it The essence will spread explosively towards the fellow soldiers in the unit.


When an enemy unit is hit at 18"
Focused Beam: Range:48", S:9, AP:2, Lance, Gauss

Scatter beam: range:24", S:7, AP:3, d3" blast (similar to death strike.)

Special Rules:
System Takeover: When this power is used in the shooting phase you roll 2D6+3 against an armored unit. On a glancing blow roll on the Glancing Table. For a penetrating hit Choose to roll a D6 on 5+ unit is destroyed, or control the units next movement phase, or choose to control units next shooting phase. Range is 24".

Rise of the Machine: All units you control on the Field (excluding Monolith) receive WBB. As well all Necron units will be able to take a WBB as if using a resurrection orb and roll for sweeping advance.

The Eternity of a God: When the Void Dragon Loses all of its wounds it may roll a die to see if it will return to the battle field:
1-2: remove unit from the field as normal 3: has one wound 4:has 2 wounds 5-6:has three wounds. It may reroll an initial failed roll. If this power is used the Void Dragon counts as being pinned for the turn.

This actually sounds very good. The BS 8 is a tad high, I'd leave it at 7, keep the WS at 4. Otherwise, the stats are nice.

System Takeover is well written and effective - if you penetrate (using half the model's Strength no less) you then have a better chance to destroy the model, or alternately control either the shooting or movement phase of the model in question. Is there a range to this ability? I'd assign one just to make sure - as it is you'll have the opportunity to destroy a model if you make first turn by moving it off the table.

Rise of the Machine is another good one - particularly since it makes non-Necron models Necrons. That's good news for Pariahs, Tomb Spyders, and Scarabs and makes them tougher. I might put a range limitation on this as well - say 18". It's a good alternative to just using a Rez Orb and has a bit more thought in it. I like it a lot.

The Eternity of a God is a nice buff to the normal Phylactery with the re-roll, but I'd assign it 1-2 Remove, 3-4 1W, 5: 2W, 6: 3W. The pinning is a nice limitation to the ability.

Overall, nice improvements! Find someone to test it with and let us know how it goes.

I have managed to run my new model through a 1000 pt Last stand mission with it today with me on the defending side of the battle. The S:8 actually proved to be just enough to deal with some of the more powerful units I faced such a Daemon princes and IG Basilisk.

The range on the "System Takeover" is 24" and was unable to put use to in this battle.

As for "Rise of the Machine" it worked really well to help and make my units much more durable in the battle. It especially helped my parriah unit to stay alive. (they ussually get massacred) As for putting a range limit on it I found that as the battle progressed that if ther ewere to be a limit tot he range that it had it would have caused wide spread damage through out my army.

The roll settings for "Eternity of a God" work out quite nicely because out of eight rolls I got one 4, and three 3's, aswell as two failed rolls that rerolled for one of my threes and my six. In the sixth round I failed both rolls. So I believe that the current settings the roll stats work pretty fairly.

Out of a six round last stand mission I survived 5 of the rounds against 2000 pts worth of IG& Chaos space Marines with only 29 units counting towards phase out. The pariah, the one turn that I got to use them effectivly managed to take out half of the wounds in a Daemon prince with only three of my six parriah. Without the "Rise of the Machine" ability I would have been lucky to have lasted 3 rounds.

The "Essence of Guass" is most certainly a bad ass at being a antitank unit, I killed a Basilisk the second time I shot it, the first stuning the crew.

We were able to start another game and in the first turn I was able to use my "System Takeover" to stun the crew of the rhino.

I haven't had a chance to use the scattered version of "Essence of Guass" yet. Every thing else though is doing great especially after I managed to iron out a few of the Kinks. I did find that being treated as pinned after using "Eternity of a God" got to be more than a little irritating but not only did it help to keep the game fair but it also did what I really needed it to which was help alot to keep my units alive.

Sounds great! Now, in the spirit of playtesters everywhere, do it again and again and again. Play at as many different point levels as you can, play under conditions that seem unfair to you, then under conditions that seem unfair to your opponent - and tell him he's a good sport for doing so. The only way to really know if it's balanced is to put forth this kind of effort to make sure that the RAW stand up to abuse and being abused.

most cetainly. trust me thats the plan. thanks for all of the help towards making the void dragon a better unit.

On a slightly random note, never, ever play parriah unless they can some how roll for WBB.