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Calling all Necron players. I have a problem with the current C'tan shard in the Necron codex. It's overcosted, and nowhere near as good as any of the "big bad" monstrous creatures out there right now. So looking into the future and hoping for a new codex next year, what are you're guy's opinions on what they should do to make the C'tan more competitive, or not even competitive, just playable!

I think it's wrong to compare the C'tS directly to other MCs. It doesn't have the same function as, say, a Carnifex.

Like most Necron close-combat units, it's defensive. It's meant to slow down or destroy anything that tries to assault your units.

It is, in fact, an MC whose dedicated role is beating the crap out of other MCs and walkers Something that it does very well. That's why it has all those options that have a short-range bubble effect. It's a bodyguard.

Definitely, biggest problem is that Necrons are a 5th Ed dex and the C'Tan Shard isn't on par with the 6th ed Monstrous Creatures, actually it was very overcosted/understatted similar to the 5th Ed Carnifex wherease it should have been closer to the Dreadknight. What they needed to do was give it T8 and a 3+AS. Rework its upgrades to be point balanced and give it some mobility options.

Or alternatively, stat line but add a 2+AS or a 3+AS and 5 Wounds. Again, upgrades need to be better and/or better costed and a mobility option would have be huge ie Jump MC upgrade, or Jetpack MC style movement Upgrade.

Man, makes me reminiscent of how hard to kill Nightbringer was in 4th.... T8 4W and a 4+ for 365pts, and that's it! How things change over time.


That is the problem with edition changes, the value of particular units changes with the rules, some start cheap get better and better and others start overcosted and get worse to be overshadowed by other units of the same type. Ie Annihilation Barge, Cattacomb Command Barge, and Night Scythes vs C'Tan. Happens in every dex and with every edition change.

 Zagman wrote:
Definitely, biggest problem is that Necrons are a 5th Ed dex and the C'Tan Shard isn't on par with the 6th ed Monstrous Creatures, actually it was very overcosted/understatted similar to the 5th Ed Carnifex wherease it should have been closer to the Dreadknight. What they needed to do was give it T8 and a 3+AS. Rework its upgrades to be point balanced and give it some mobility options.

3+ AS instead of an IV defeats its beat-the-crap-out-of-other-MCs purpose, which is what I believe it was made for (see post above).

Alcibiades wrote:

 Zagman wrote:
Definitely, biggest problem is that Necrons are a 5th Ed dex and the C'Tan Shard isn't on par with the 6th ed Monstrous Creatures, actually it was very overcosted/understatted similar to the 5th Ed Carnifex wherease it should have been closer to the Dreadknight. What they needed to do was give it T8 and a 3+AS. Rework its upgrades to be point balanced and give it some mobility options.

3+ AS instead of an IV defeats its beat-the-crap-out-of-other-MCs purpose, which is what I believe it was made for (see post above).

No where did I say it should lose it Invuln, it should just have an additional Armorsave from the Necrodermis.

Alcibiades wrote:
I think it's wrong to compare the C'tS directly to other MCs. It doesn't have the same function as, say, a Carnifex.

Like most Necron close-combat units, it's defensive. It's meant to slow down or destroy anything that tries to assault your units.

It is, in fact, an MC whose dedicated role is beating the crap out of other MCs and walkers Something that it does very well. That's why it has all those options that have a short-range bubble effect. It's a bodyguard.

I know you can't really compare them, in fact I've thought about a C'tan going up against most really good dedicated CC models in the game, and he could actually live a good while. A big issue though are his abilities are really expensive, and a lot of them are situational. Plus, he can still be gunned down by bolt guns, so he never makes it into combat in the first place.

 Zagman wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:

 Zagman wrote:
Definitely, biggest problem is that Necrons are a 5th Ed dex and the C'Tan Shard isn't on par with the 6th ed Monstrous Creatures, actually it was very overcosted/understatted similar to the 5th Ed Carnifex wherease it should have been closer to the Dreadknight. What they needed to do was give it T8 and a 3+AS. Rework its upgrades to be point balanced and give it some mobility options.

3+ AS instead of an IV defeats its beat-the-crap-out-of-other-MCs purpose, which is what I believe it was made for (see post above).

No where did I say it should lose it Invuln, it should just have an additional Armorsave from the Necrodermis.

Oh sorry, my mistake.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

krodarklorr wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
I think it's wrong to compare the C'tS directly to other MCs. It doesn't have the same function as, say, a Carnifex.

Like most Necron close-combat units, it's defensive. It's meant to slow down or destroy anything that tries to assault your units.

It is, in fact, an MC whose dedicated role is beating the crap out of other MCs and walkers Something that it does very well. That's why it has all those options that have a short-range bubble effect. It's a bodyguard.

I know you can't really compare them, in fact I've thought about a C'tan going up against most really good dedicated CC models in the game, and he could actually live a good while. A big issue though are his abilities are really expensive, and a lot of them are situational. Plus, he can still be gunned down by bolt guns, so he never makes it into combat in the first place.

I think he's intended to be hanging around with your Monoliths and infantry, keeping people from getting to them. That's why he has that anti-Deep Streike ability, the anti-melta one, why he's so slow, all that stuff. He's not supposed to be trying to get into combat.

If you run the math, I think you'll see that he beats the living $&%* out of just about any other MC, and it's because of the Inv Save. If you give him Entropic Strike, walkers disintegrate when he hits them..

I have recently begun building a Necron army and I fully intend to run the C'tan shard. I know that he is not optimized for any role really and most people write him off, but I have come to a conclusion about MCs in general. If an MC was written for 5th edition or earlier (TMC's, C'tan, Avatar, etc.) then expect them to kinda suck. A T6 4W MC used to be something to be feared, the C'tan shard even ups that by having T7, but by today's standards it is absolutely nothing. The rapid arms race that this game has become means that anything with less than a T6 5W 3++ is going to be left in the dust. There is so much high powered/low AP shooting that MCs are a thing of the past without the proper protection, like an even higher T or an invul of some kind.

What the C'tan needs to be more competitive is a price reduction and some better abilities and that is about it. As a primary Tyranid player I WISH that my MC's were as good as the C'tan Shard, which says a lot because the C'tan shard is still worlds away from a Riptide/Wraithknight.

I'd trade a Shard for a Flyrant any day.

I was thinking about this. I think the C'tan shard suffers from a general problem with the Necron Codex, which is that it is designed around a kind of army that Necron players don't actually play. It's not the only unit that suffers from this.

The Necron army, as envisoned by the designers, seems to be a mid-range walking gun line (as it was in the earlier codex).

Their idea of a Necron army was basically the following:

3-6 squads of Warriors or Immortals supported by Res Orbs and/or Ghost Arks
1-2 Monoliths, perhaps supported by repair spyders

advancing implacably up across the board destroying.things with mass gauss or tesla as they get in 24" range.

This army is vulnerable to 3 things: long-range heavy firepower, short-range heavy firepower (= melta, the only grave threat to a monolith), and assault.

Therefore, it should include 2 other kinds of units
Ranged-fire delayers that keep long-ranged firepower tied up
Short-range interceptors that keep threats from getting too close

The key here is to keep the enemy always at a 18"-24" range. Here, he can't assault and he can't use the full effect of melta weapons.

A lot of the more overlooked units and the C'tan abilities make sense here:
Flayed Ones are there to be ranged-fire delayers. They're not supposed to kill anyone. They're supposed to keep Devastators and so forth occupied while the main army moves to 24".
Triarch Praetorians are short-range interceptors, there to tie up assault infantry. That's why they have Fearless. They're Jump infantry so they can keep up with Assault Marines and suchlike.
Lychguard are also SRIs. They're supposed to march in front of the army and tie up assault units.
C'tan Shards are, again, SRIs, but specifically against enemy assault-oriented Monstrous Critters or walkers. The C'tan Shard is not there to serve an offensive role; he is there to stand near your troops and Monoliths and attack anything that threatens them in close combat -- and he is capable of beating just about any such units*. (Lord of Flame BTW is not there to protect the shard, it is there to protects the Monoliths that he is standing next to).

HOWEVER, due to an internal disbaance in the codex (namely, underpriced Wraiths and Night Scythes, maybe overpriced Warriors), people don't play it like this. So these units seem baffling.



* See? An unupgraded Dhard will beat the stuffing out of an unupgraded Hive Tyrant, all things being equal.

Shard vs. Carnifex

2/3 x 2/3 = 4/9 x 4 = 1 7/9

Carnifex vs. Shard

½ x 5/6 x ½ = 5/24 x 3 = 5/8

Shard vs. Bloodthirster

½ x 2/3 x 2/3 = 2/9 x 4 = 8/9

Bloodthirster vs. Shard

2/3 x 1/3 x ½ = 1/9 x 6 = 2/3

Shard vs. Hive Tyrant

½ x 2/3 = 1/3 x 4 = 1 1/3

Hive Tyrant vs. Shard

2/3 x 1/3 x ½ = 1/9 x 5 = 5/9

Shard vs. Wraithknight

2/3 x 1/3 = 1/3 x 4 = 1 1/3

Wraithknight vs. Shard

½ x 2/3 x ½ = 1/6 x 4 = 2/3

 Sigvatr wrote:
I'd trade a Shard for a Flyrant any day.

Okay, you can trade it for a 2x Scything Flyrant. Or do you mean you want to switch the C'tan Shard out for 2x Brainleech Devourers? Don't confuse a great option tied to a unit as the unit being great.

I haven't seen the C'tan on the table yet, I am still assembling and painting my Necron army before I even get that chance but on paper he looks pretty close the the TMC's and to me that means he will be underpowered for his points and general be underwhelming. There is no way to fix him as a unit unless he gets a complete overhaul in the next edition which would be really nice to see.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
I'd trade a Shard for a Flyrant any day.

Okay, you can trade it for a 2x Scything Flyrant. Or do you mean you want to switch the C'tan Shard out for 2x Brainleech Devourers? Don't confuse a great option tied to a unit as the unit being great.

I haven't seen the C'tan on the table yet, I am still assembling and painting my Necron army before I even get that chance but on paper he looks pretty close the the TMC's and to me that means he will be underpowered for his points and general be underwhelming. There is no way to fix him as a unit unless he gets a complete overhaul in the next edition which would be really nice to see.

The Shard will I think statistically beat any Tyranid Monstrous Creature in the codex in close combat, except maybe the Swarmlord.

Then again, he is more expensive than they are.

Honestly, I think if you gave him another wound or 2 he would be fine. Either that or immunity to Poison, which is his real weakness.

I say remove the shard from the codex.
And re-make it as a small-scale LOW. something akin to the Tctan, but smaller scale. with the nightbringer being a CC type, and the deciver being a "support" type

Bring back the old C'tan. There.

Remove the need to must take two powers, slightly drop it in price 15-20 points and allow it to do the slide move from the escalation book but not as powerful.

Running a stock standard 150 odd point MC in the Elite slot that you don't need to upgrade and can move 18" a turn would be a decent option.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Bring back the old C'tan. There.

All of the yes. I would gladly pay 300 points for the old Nightbringer.

A winged option. More useful powers in general closer to the transcendant but obviously not to close.