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So, I've heard a lot of people say that the Transcendant Ctan is pretty bad now in the new Necron codex. I'm looking to find out why. Now, this takes out comparing him to it's old incarnation, which was stupid broken, but instead compares it, as overall a new model in the codex, to the other units. I've tried looking over it a few times, and honestly, I would like to try him out sometime soon.

The Nightbringer we all know is pretty good now. Gaze of Death keeps him alive and does a good bit of damage, and he's decent in CC.

The Deceiver is less useful in my opinion. Not saying that he's bad. He just requires more tact to use effectively. Slightly better at shooting, and has a nasty 12" debuff on LD.

The T Ctan is only 10 points more, but has +1 S and +1 W. That's already not bad. We finally have a 5 would MC. His Writhing Worldscape is pretty hilarious in my opinion. Walk up next to tanks and lawlz. Also, you always have to charge him through terrain, so -2" and strike at I1, unless you have grenades. And then, the biggest thing of all, is necrons now have mobility (Praetorians, Destroyers, Tomb Blades, Still have Night Scythes, Monoliths are pretty decent IMO with the right list, ext). This guy fixes a big issue the other Ctans have. Mobility. This guy can Deep Strike. There are a lot of uses I can see for that.

So, tell me people, what do you think of him now (Again, don't compare him to his previous self), and if you don't like him, why not? (And please don't say it's because he takes points away from Wraiths) And if you do, why? And how do you plan on using him?

He is precieved as bad because he is not a requirement for the decurion detatchment, the only thing necron players use anymore. He is seen as being too expensive for what he does, because everything else is so very good. When you have a garage full of gold cars, that silver one seems like a waste.

He is also compared to other units in different codex. I am guilty of that too, and I get mad when someone complains about their knight titan when I would rather run 2 of those any day of the week rather than my stompa for the same points cost.

 Orock wrote:
He is precieved as bad because he is not a requirement for the decurion detatchment, the only thing necron players use anymore. He is seen as being too expensive for what he does, because everything else is so very good. When you have a garage full of gold cars, that silver one seems like a waste.

He is also compared to other units in different codex. I am guilty of that too, and I get mad when someone complains about their knight titan when I would rather run 2 of those any day of the week rather than my stompa for the same points cost.

Well, yeah, Knights are undercosted in my opinion. But even so, you DS this guy with most of your army, he's either going to soak a lot of fire and die, so he was useful, or he'll be ignored to shoot at more dangerous threats, in which case he'll have a field day.

The problem with him is the same as the other C'tan.
He is a T7 MC with a 4+ save.
It doesn't take much fire to bring him down, the turn you deepstrike you are vulnerable to a lot of firepower.

This wouldn't be too bad if you had reliable shooting, but the fact that when you drop in you can't reliably clear someting is an issue.

need that tank gone? 1 S7 large blast ... Need to clear out some markerlights? Tesla lascannon.

So tactically he isnt as viable, because you cant guarantee he'll do what you need done outside of CC, and getting to CC is still a problem even with deepstrike.

5 wounds do mitigate it, but i'd rather have 19 flayed one deepstrike in than him, they'd do more damage, and i know upfront what they are going to do.

Tomb blades, 10 maxed out ones will be more points efficient, hell 19 warriors would be more usefull than him.

He's just too pricy for what he does, I can see him having a use, but right now Gaze/Dread are more usefull than one dude deeptriking and losing 3/5 wounds on that turn.

harkequin wrote:
The problem with him is the same as the other C'tan.
He is a T7 MC with a 4+ save.
It doesn't take much fire to bring him down, the turn you deepstrike you are vulnerable to a lot of firepower.

This wouldn't be too bad if you had reliable shooting, but the fact that when you drop in you can't reliably clear someting is an issue.

need that tank gone? 1 S7 large blast ... Need to clear out some markerlights? Tesla lascannon.

So tactically he isnt as viable, because you cant guarantee he'll do what you need done outside of CC, and getting to CC is still a problem even with deepstrike.

5 wounds do mitigate it, but i'd rather have 19 flayed one deepstrike in than him, they'd do more damage, and i know upfront what they are going to do.

Tomb blades, 10 maxed out ones will be more points efficient, hell 19 warriors would be more usefull than him.

He's just too pricy for what he does, I can see him having a use, but right now Gaze/Dread are more usefull than one dude deeptriking and losing 3/5 wounds on that turn.

Well, again, you deep strike other things with him. Deep Strike Flayed ones with him. That's two scary units. Which would your opponent choose? Then add in some destroyers, ext. I feel like he could work well as a scare tactic.

If i use him, he'll be in a Beta strike list for a friendly game, unkillable 5 models on the table for turn 1, then drop in 3 tran c'tans, and a ton of flayed ones/ deathmarks. Just for the sheer hilarity of seeing your opponent realise we can do STEEL REHN too.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Scare tactic is okay, but 250 points for a distraction is a lot, if i was dead set, the monolith does the same, but is immune to small arms fire.

500 points of deepstrike is handicapping you turn 1, then you're trying to fit in a lot of models and scatter will be a pain.

If i was doing it i'd still rather another 250 pts of flayed ones deepstriking in with my flayed ones

Tran is also easy to tarpit, 4 Attacks/round, 50 points of gaunts will remove him for the game. He just doesn't do what he should, well enough for me not to take better units.

harkequin wrote:
If i use him, he'll be in a Beta strike list for a friendly game, unkillable 5 models on the table for turn 1, then drop in 3 tran c'tans, and a ton of flayed ones/ deathmarks. Just for the sheer hilarity of seeing your opponent realise we can do STEEL REHN too.

Sounds like a plan to me. And for the note, I've only used the Nightbringer so far, and in only 2 games. But about half the time he actually gets a useful ability which has been rather devastating for the opponent. Immobilized a Deff Dread turn 1 with Time's Arrow, blew up 10 Bloodletters that were hiding in a ruin with Cosmic Fire, ext. I know it's random, but it has a lot of potential.

Don't get me wrong, i love the nightbringer.
Powers are always strong, just not reliably suitable. the nightbringer will always have a bubble of death within 18" of him (6" move 12"Gaze) which i can rely on, he excells at removing termies/Mcs his powers are just icing on top.
The fact that the Tran doesn't have the safety net of murder that is the Gaze means if you draw a bad card, ~50/50 Worthless/Devastating. you lose his entire turn, Nightbringer will still wreck house.

with 6" move on the nightbringer, as long as you have tomb blades for maelstrom, Nightbringer just sits in the middle of the board daring someone to get into assault range ..... Till he gets wrecked by bolters, plasma/melta? no bother. bolters his kryptonite.

The only time I've seen C'tan work is when used in the Conclave of the Burning One formation.

The extra abilities and wargear the crypteks bring fix most of the issues mentioned here. The Nightbringer seems to be the go-to choice for this formation.

 krodarklorr wrote:
Well, again, you deep strike other things with him. Deep Strike Flayed ones with him. That's two scary units. Which would your opponent choose? Then add in some destroyers, ext. I feel like he could work well as a scare tactic.

I agree with you that deep striking the Trans is the best idea, however the only times it has worked for me is if he comes in turn 3/4 when there isn't so much concentrated fire power. When I have all ready killed a % of the enemy and they have moved around the board away from the original deployment.

If you run him up the board he dies.
If he comes in too early he dies.

Well, what does he have that distinguishes him from other C'tan and other units in general? Time to think like a game designer!

He can Deep Strike. That means he bypasses the other C'tans' speed issues.

He has a Strength of 8. I'm pretty sure that's higher than any other MC in the game other than a Wraithknight, Carnifex, and Wraithlord. Due to the combination of this, his high number of attacks, and his Invulnerable save. I'm pretty sure he will beat the crap out of any ither MC in the game. (Now, the Nightbringer can probably do this with Fleshbane as well. On the other hand, the S8 makes the T-C'tan superior against walkers, which would give the Nightbringer trouble.)

He has the Writhing Worldscape effect, which will slow down the enemy around him -- such as the ones trying to get away.

So, what the designers were probably envisioning was that he be used as a Deep Striking melee unit, preferably but not necessarily against Monstrous Creatures.

I disagree that he is particularly vulnerable. As mentioned above, once he is in melee combat with another MC, he will almost certainly beat it; thus he is not vulnerable against his prefered target,

bodazoka wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
Well, again, you deep strike other things with him. Deep Strike Flayed ones with him. That's two scary units. Which would your opponent choose? Then add in some destroyers, ext. I feel like he could work well as a scare tactic.

I agree with you that deep striking the Trans is the best idea, however the only times it has worked for me is if he comes in turn 3/4 when there isn't so much concentrated fire power. When I have all ready killed a % of the enemy and they have moved around the board away from the original deployment.

If you run him up the board he dies.
If he comes in too early he dies.

Well, Necrons can, in fact, alter reserve rolls now. So there is that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alcibiades wrote:
Well, what does he have that distinguishes him from other C'tan and other units in general? Time to think like a game designer!

He can Deep Strike. That means he bypasses the other C'tans' speed issues.

He has a Strength of 8. I'm pretty sure that's higher than any other MC in the game other than a Wraithknight, Carnifex, and Wraithlord. Due to the combination of this, his high number of attacks, and his Invulnerable save. I'm pretty sure he will beat the crap out of any ither MC in the game. (Now, the Nightbringer can probably do this with Fleshbane as well. On the other hand, the S8 makes the T-C'tan superior against walkers, which would give the Nightbringer trouble.)

He has the Writhing Worldscape effect, which will slow down the enemy around him -- such as the ones trying to get away.

So, what the designers were probably envisioning was that he be used as a Deep Striking melee unit, preferably but not necessarily against Monstrous Creatures.

I disagree that he is particularly vulnerable. As mentioned above, once he is in melee combat with another MC, he will almost certainly beat it; thus he is not vulnerable against his prefered target,

I agree. On paper, this guy seems pretty good. However, he usually can't catch up with all the other MCs in the game, as they only move 6" a turn. So, Deep Striking and slowing down infantry and beating up non-mcs is probably what he'll end up doing.

 Orock wrote:
He is precieved as bad because he is not a requirement for the decurion detatchment, the only thing necron players use anymore. He is seen as being too expensive for what he does, because everything else is so very good. When you have a garage full of gold cars, that silver one seems like a waste.

This is a fair assessment. It also doesn't help that it was "zomgawesomeamazingballs" in the Escalation book and no longer can simply delete half your opponent's army by himself. The T-C'tan isn't a terrible unit, he's just not a stellar one.

The T-C'tan remains quite usable, it's just not an AAA-list unit anymore.

 krodarklorr wrote:


Well, yeah, Knights are undercosted in my opinion.

I think it's more that they can be taken in *relatively* large numbers. 1 in a 1500pt army isn't really unreasonable and is probably something have a method of dealing with, dealing with 4 in 1500pts is an issue however.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:


Well, yeah, Knights are undercosted in my opinion.

I think it's more that they can be taken in *relatively* large numbers. 1 in a 1500pt army isn't really unreasonable and is probably something have a method of dealing with, dealing with 4 in 1500pts is an issue however.

I guess thats a fair way to put it, though I still think they are a bit much, but thats coming from someone who doesn't have a super awesome LOW with D weapons in CC. However, if Knights were LOW slots, I'd be a little bit more okay with it.

Yeah, I think that's where they really belong, just make them a universal Imperial LoW instead of an army (and especially get rid of the Adamantine Lance )

The problem with him is the fact that the conclave of the burning one exists as an option.

What the t-ctan does well is completely covered by the conclave, so he's just left without anything good to make him unique.

The conclave can give both deepstrike as well as +1Str/T, so now the other 2 ctans can instant death T4 characters and str9 is just not that big an upgrade. The t-ctan's deepstrike is completely negated by a veiltek, leaving it with only the writhing worldscape as his unique benefit. Compared to the awesomeness of the Gaze of death or the situationally good ability to re-deploy. So he's left without a place the nightbringer is a better deathstar unit and the deciever is a better support unit leaving the t-ctan with no place.

Well, the Conclave does require two Crypteks, + the God Shackle and Veil, that's pretty expensive

Why nobody give a look to Tesseract Vault? Yes it is damn expensive points wise, but it in fact doubled the killing power of a C'tan with the enhanced C'tan power. Yes that may be tooooo random, but you at least have 4 Tesla sphere to shoot at most 4 different target that may still slaughter many enemy infantry and light vehicles.

I don't have the model yet. But I plan if have it in game I would drive this 550pts bastard towards that 900 points Eldar Titan standing on the Skyshield Landing Pad asap while shooting like no tomorrow with it, if it can make it there I dare my opponent to destroy it before that Titan jump off the pad. Maybe not competitive and still lose that game against an OP combo like that. But worth a laugh at least.

Punisher wrote:
The problem with him is the fact that the conclave of the burning one exists as an option.

What the t-ctan does well is completely covered by the conclave, so he's just left without anything good to make him unique.

The conclave can give both deepstrike as well as +1Str/T, so now the other 2 ctans can instant death T4 characters and str9 is just not that big an upgrade. The t-ctan's deepstrike is completely negated by a veiltek, leaving it with only the writhing worldscape as his unique benefit. Compared to the awesomeness of the Gaze of death or the situationally good ability to re-deploy. So he's left without a place the nightbringer is a better deathstar unit and the deciever is a better support unit leaving the t-ctan with no place.

Pretty much this.

Although, bringing an NB Conclave AND a Trany Ctany could be fun.

If the Powers could be rolled before you target an enemy unit, we'd see more c'tans. But rolling AFTER?

 Vector Strike wrote:
If the Powers could be rolled before you target an enemy unit, we'd see more c'tans. But rolling AFTER?

I will admit it sucks. I would have preferred generating two powers at the start of the game, like psychic powers, and you may choose on to shoot in each shooting phase. That would be cool.

 Vector Strike wrote:
If the Powers could be rolled before you target an enemy unit, we'd see more c'tans. But rolling AFTER?

Indeed, rolling after announcing the target is pretty lame.

I had a Necron on Necron fight recently. My opponent brought some really nifty combos and, sadly for him, two shards. On turn two, I dropped in some Deathmarks and killed them both without a problem. They managed to kill one tomb blade and force a couple jinks.
There must be some army that will have trouble killing one, but I can't think of too many.

 Fafnir13 wrote:
I had a Necron on Necron fight recently. My opponent brought some really nifty combos and, sadly for him, two shards. On turn two, I dropped in some Deathmarks and killed them both without a problem. They managed to kill one tomb blade and force a couple jinks.
There must be some army that will have trouble killing one, but I can't think of too many.

Well, admittedly, Deathmarks will kill most MCs in the game, even Wraithknights. So yeah, the Ctan won't put up much of a fight against them.

Transcendant c'tans would also lose to dreadknights, I imagine. Force sword beats T7. Without factoring who charged, both have four attacks (the dreadknight has two weapons, which gives him the fourth). Both hit on fours, but the dreadknight has a reroll, so the c'tan has two hits to the dreads 2.5.

C'tan has 82% chance to wound, followed by the 66% chance to get through the invulnerable save. About 1.08 unsaved wounds.

2.5 hits from the dreadknight, 82% chance to wound, and 50% chance to get through the invuln. 1.025 wounds. Enough, with force up, which is simple enough to cast, to one round the 25pts more expensive c'tan. (That's with the dreadknight having the shooting bells and whistles and teleporter.)

Probably one of the most common other mcs or big things you'll face. Not many people I know take walkers anymore, so...

 Crazyterran wrote:
Transcendant c'tans would also lose to dreadknights, I imagine. Force sword beats T7. Without factoring who charged, both have four attacks (the dreadknight has two weapons, which gives him the fourth). Both hit on fours, but the dreadknight has a reroll, so the c'tan has two hits to the dreads 2.5.

C'tan has 82% chance to wound, followed by the 66% chance to get through the invulnerable save. About 1.08 unsaved wounds.

2.5 hits from the dreadknight, 82% chance to wound, and 50% chance to get through the invuln. 1.025 wounds. Enough, with force up, which is simple enough to cast, to one round the 25pts more expensive c'tan. (That's with the dreadknight having the shooting bells and whistles and teleporter.)

Probably one of the most common other mcs or big things you'll face. Not many people I know take walkers anymore, so...

Except the c'tan has Eternal Warrior. Those two fighting would be pretty even IMO

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.

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.

How does the c'tan die to regular troops too easily? It takes 60 bolter hits to kill it.

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).