Transcendant C'Tan Woes?

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**Galorian**

krodarklorr wrote:
Punisher wrote:
harkequin wrote:
Pretty even if not for the DK pinging off a wound or 2 in shooting, and the fact he is so much more mobile, he'll probably get the charge. The T C'tan is good, just outclassed by other melee units In codex (wraiths) and out of codex (DK etc.)

But yeah ad T'ctan could easily hold his own vs most things in CC, but our true champion is the nightbringer

Gaze a dreadknight/wraithknight, 1-2 wounds, then fleshbane. If only he wasn't so damn slow.

Well if you want to take shooting into account then theres a small chance like 10% of the c'tan just D shotting the dreadknight off the table. In combat the knight and the c'tan are pretty close the problem with the c'tan is it dies to regular troops too easily and poison weapons/snipers are it's bane.

I actually thought about it, and you can't really complain about the nature of the random attacks. If you're shooting at an infantry blob, you have a 66% to get a useful power. If you're shooting at an MC or a light armored vehicle, you have a 50% chance to get a useful power. That is not bad. Just don't try and shoot a Land Raider and hope for Time's Arrow (Besides, our whole army kills land raiders, derp).

To quote myself:

An an analysis of the reliability of the C'tan powers table-

Targeting light infantry? Roll 5 or 6 and you'll kill maybe one model, up to 3 if you roll 6 and are otherwise very lucky.
Targeting MEQ? Roll 1 and you're golden, anything else and you're looking at around 1-3 unsaved wounds unless you get very lucky with the dice.
Targeting TEQ? Don't expect more than 1-2 wounds to stick no matter what you pick.
Targeting AV12? Roll 3 and you'd be lucky to make a more than a glance or two, roll 2 and even a glance is a long shot.
Targeting AV13? Results 2 and 3 are now right out, result 4 has a less than 50% chance of glancing even if all three blasts land on the vehicle.
Targeting AV14? Don't bother with any result other than 5 or 6.
Targeting multi-wound models with T4 and Sv4+ or worse? 1, 3, 5 or 6 will wreck its day something fierce, 4 might get a couple of wounds in, 2 will at best get 1.
Targeting multi-wound models with T4 and Sv3+? It's your lucky day! Roll 1, 5 or 6 for a decent shot at ID, rolling 3 could get you 2 unsaved wounds, otherwise don't expect more than 1 wound (if that).
Targeting multi-wound models with T5-6 and Sv3+? Any result other than 5 will net you somewhere between 0 and 2 wounds on average.
Targeting multi-wound models with T7 or higher and Sv3+? Rolling 5 remains the same, other results get that much worse.
Targeting multi-wound models with T4 and Sv2+? Rolling 5 or 6 have a good shot at ID, rolling 1 may get ID but doesn't get through the armor save, rolling 4 averages at around 1 unsaved wound, anything else and you're out of luck.
Targeting multi-wound models with T5 or higher and Sv2+? Rolling 5 is still the same, rolling 6 gets you a decent shot at a single wound and an long shot chance at lucking out with 3 (don't bet on it), anything else and you may as well not bother.

So the only things that it's really reliable against are AV10-11 vehicles or T3 Sv4+ (or worse) multi-wound models, and it does passably well against T4 Sv4+ multi-wound models. Why the hell would Codex: Necrons of all armies pay premium price for THAT?

When the best you can hope for is a 2/3 chance to roll a power that is effective against your chosen target (and that's before things like rolling to hit or to wound) that's unreliable as feth. If that wasn't enough the only things you're even that reliable against are Fire Warriors, Guardsmen, Necron Warriors, SM scouts, rock bottom AV vehicles and the like, which are generally a waste of points to shoot at with the C'tan given his own price and the overabundance of other models that do it better in the Codex.

Against other more worthwhile targets your odds at getting an appropriate power drop to 1/2 or 1/3 (the latter being more common), which is downright abysmal for something that hasn't even rolled to hit yet...

The Nightbringer is decent because it has a fairly reliable way of inflicting wounds on worthwhile targets to make up for the unreliability of its shooting power, the Transcendent C'tan does not.

**Alcibiades**

The Transcendent C'tan has a very reliable way of inflicting wounds on worthwhile targets to make up for the unreliability of its shooting power. Beating them to death.

**Galorian**

Alcibiades wrote:
The Transcendent C'tan has a very reliable way of inflicting wounds on worthwhile targets to make up for the unreliability of its shooting power. Beating them to death.

Right... On turn 4 maybe... 3 if you're lucky... 5 or even 6 if you're unlucky...

I for one am dubious of the reliability of counting on managing to assault a desired target with a 6" move model.

**skoffs**

If a non-serious game, I'd see if your friends wouldn't mind letting you house rule it to be "roll first, then pick target" to see what it would be like. Once you see how awesome they COULD have been if whoever was in charge of that codex entry hadn't fethed it up, you won't want to go back ...

**Oberron**

It does stink that it is pick target then roll for power but I still don't think it is as bad as everyone is saying The C'tan shard is good anti horde since all but two attacks are large blast or assault 10.

The bigger thing that would help the c'tan from going to "alright" to good/great is fixing it's armor save or give it FNP and giving it better movement, 12" would be fantastic but even making it a JSJ MC would be great too.

It isn't tourny must have powerful but if used right in a casural game it is still a solid unit and far better than the 5th ed C'tans for on average the same cost.

With the T'Ctan being a new animal all togeather it is a huge hit to necron apoc games.

It seems to have a mixed personality on what it wants to do, it tries to be the melee up in your face C'tan with the deepstrike and s8 and another wound but other than that extra wound it isn't any better than the others, infact I'd even argue that the other two are better in melee then the T'ctan since the nightbringer has WS6 fleshbane, and gaze of death gives it more kill power and healing abilties while the deceiver has hit and run and Dread is good maybe even great for moral checks. The night bringer can stand his ground if locked in melee and the deceiver can just run away if needed, the T'ctan just doesn't seem to bring anything to help it out.

The writhing worldscape is ok for the first round of combat if the enemy charges at the T C'tan but then has nothing else a bump in it's toughness just like it's S8 would be nice and with the god shackle brings it to a S9 T9 that way making it in some regards like it's old self as well as fix it's weakness to small arms fire.

Aside from all that I use the nightbringer pretty frequently and I find it really useful when used right but hiding it in ruins and out of LOS seems pretty embarrassing from a fluff standpoint