skoffs wrote:

Doctoralex wrote:
Heey folks,

I've been a busy writing something up. It's a guide on the Power of the C'tan.

Let me know what you think:

Guide to C'tan Powers

Spoiler:

Guide to C'tan Powers; Wrath of the Star Gods

Since the release of the Necron codex, the C'tan Shards have been given new reality-warping powers at their disposal.
This guide will help you select the best powers for each opponent, as well as information on how to best use the selected powers.

First, let's re-cap what each power exactly does and rank them in order of usefulness and power. The powers will be ranked for both regular C'tan Shards and the Tesseract Vault. Feel free to disagree and let me know why!

Anti-Matter Meteor

Pick the closest visible enemy unit. 24". Roll a single D6, on a 2+ that target suffers D3 mortal wounds. On a roll of a 6+, the target suffers D6 mortal wounds.
The Vault does D6 mortal wounds on a roll of a 5+.

Regular: A
Vault: B

The bread&butter of the C'tan powers, this power is ranked A because of its reliability. Other powers require the enemy to be at a specific range or have a specific amount of models/wounds to be effective. Meteor will always do it's job no matter what enemy.
There is one catch though; the fact that it always hits the closest enemy model. This means it could be wasted on enemy chaff units. Be sure to position your C'tan properly so the Meteor hits something worthwhile!
As for Meteor on the Vault, it maintains pretty much the same function, with a somewhat higher chance of getting D6 mortal wounds. But you pick Meteor for its reliability, not because you are feeling lucky for a 5+ roll. (unless you ARE feelin' lucky....)

Time's Arrow
Pick an enemy unit within 18" and visible to the C'tan. If you roll higher than the maximum wound characteristic of the UNIT, a single model is slain. The Vault requires you to roll equal instead of higher to the amount of maximum wounds the unit has. A roll of a 1 always fails.

Regular: B
Vault: A

The C'tans sniping ability. While it's range is on the short-side, it can be extremely useful to pick off low-wound characters to disrupt your opponent strategy. However, the fact that you need to roll HIGHER than the maximum wounds of the unit makes it quite unreliable on anything with more than three wounds.
Also note that it's the highest maximum wound characteristic of the UNIT. That there darn Dark Reaper squad with a 2 wound Exarch? It will require a 3+ for Time's Arrow to work.
The Vault significantly increases the chance of the Arrow to succeed, making it an excellent power for them.
It is also a great power to pick up against powerful multi-wound units, like Custodes, Wraithguard etc.
Also note; a model is SLAIN by Time's Arrow. Not even FNP saves can be taken against this.

Sky of the Falling Stars (sky)

Select three enemy units within 18" of the C'tan. Roll a D6 for each unit. The Vault subtracts one from this roll. If you roll lower than the amount of models in the unit, it takes D3 mortal wounds.
A roll of a 6 always fails.

Regular: A
Vault: C

An excellent ability that let's you deal out multiple mortal wounds to multiple targets! What's not to love? As long as the unit has 6 or more models, it has 5/6th chance to do it's job. This is why I ranked it quite low on the Vault; the Vault doesn't improve the ability by that much.
There is one big catch; as the game goes on and enemy units are down to a few models per unit, this power will start to lose it's effect. The Vault will be able to dish out wounds with it for a bit longer, but it's main power is the first few turns against medium to large enemy units.

Cosmic Fire

Roll a D6 for each enemy unit that is within 9" of the C'tan. On a 4+, that unit suffer D3 mortal wounds. The Vault wounds units on a 3+.

Regular: B
Vault: A

This ability has the potential to deal the most mortal wounds out of all the powers, if you can get the C'tan close enough. This can make it somewhat situational: In my opinion, you shouldn't suicide your C'tan Shard in unless there is another dangerous unit that your opponents needs to focus, or the C'tan itself is the distraction for your other powerful units. But, keep in mind; a C'tan pretty much always wants to get close. All but the Vault are amazing in melee and, they explode on a 4+.
This ability is ranked A on the Vault not only because it greatly increases the reliability of the power, but also due to its enormous size which will let you hit a lot more enemy units with Cosmic Fire.

Seismic Assault
Select a visible enemy unit within 24" of the C'tan. Roll a D6 for each model in that unit; on a 6+ that unit suffers a mortal wound. The Vault deals mortal wounds on a 5+ per model instead.

Regular:C
Vault: B

The ability speaks for itself; its anti-horde. As soon as a mob of Ork boyz or Genestealers appear on the table, this ability will go up to rank A. I remember somewhere in a Necron guide that Seismic Assault will do more mortal wounds on average than Meteor if the enemy unit has 11 or more models in it. But this was before the Meteor did D6 wounds on a 6+.

Trans dimensional Thunderbolt

Pick a visible enemy unit within 24" of the C'tan, other than a <10 wound character. Roll a D6; a on 4+ (3+ for Vault) that unit suffers D3 mortal wounds. Then, roll a D6 for each other enemy unit within 3" of the previously struck unit. On a 4+ that unit suffer one mortal wound.

Regular: B
Vault: C

I'm not to sure on this one. On one hand it seems like an inferior version of Meteor, but on the other hand you can freely pick your target without caring about their model size or wounds. The 'AoE' effect of it depends on how tightly packed your enemy units are and how big the unit is you are targeting. A big blob of small units or a large monster will cover a large area, thus resulting in a more targets getting hit by the AoE effect.

........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................


Alrighty, that's the basics covered. Now let's go over on when to pick each power depending on the situation.

keep in mind You pick your C'tan powers right before the first unit is deployed. That means that stuff like enemy army roster, terrain, deployment zone/type etc. can all be taken into consideration when picking the powers for your C'tan.

So, let's go over a couple of scenarios?

Can your C'tan close the distance quickly either via Deceiver's Grand Illusion, T. C'tan 12" advance or some other way?

Regular: Cosmic Fire, Sky of the Falling Stars/Meteor
Vault: Cosmic Fire, Meteor, Time's Arrow, Thunderbolt

Does your opponents army have 2-3 wound models or important 3-4 wound characters?

Regular: Arrow, Meteor
Vault: Arrow, Meteor, Sky, Thunderbolt

Does your opponent have a large blob(s) of infantry?

Regular: Seismic Assault, Meteor
Vault: Seismic Assault, Thunderbolt, Sky, Time's Arrow

Does your opponent have MSU or simply a large amount of infantry units?

Regular: Sky, Meteor
Vault: Sky, Meteor, Thunderbolt, Cosmic Fire

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................


Next up, I wanted to talk about the order in which the Vault can best use his powers, depending on the targets he is facing.

Horde, buffed by a FNP character

Arrow -> Seismic Assault -> Thunderbolt

Time's arrow on whatever is giving the horde FNP (Ork painboy, Deathguard plague surgeon) to make sure your mortal wounds won't get saved. Then, follow up by Seismic assault and lastly Thunderbolt. You want as many models in the horde as possible for Seismic Assault, hence why you do that before Thunderbolt. And lastly, the horde probably covers quite a lot of ground (maybe it's konga-lined to protect charges) this will let Thunderbolt's AoE effect hit a lot of targets.

Primaris marine squads, Custodes etc

Sky -> Arrow -> Meteor

This is a tough one; one the one hand you want to start with Sky, since the squads still have all the models thus making it most likely to go off. However, if you only wound a model with Sky, the 'slain' effect from Arrow is wasted on a wounded model.

.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Lastly, let's go over the two stratagems the C'tan Shards can use.

Wrath of the C'tan, 2 CP

Use this power after a C'tan Shard has used a power. Roll a D6; the C'tan Shard immediately uses the rolled uses that power, even if he has used it before.

Oef, this is a tough one. A random power for two whole CP? I'd definitely only use this if you have a Vault. And even then, you have to make sure as many of the 'optimal' conditions for each power are available. So;
-Is the Vault 9" close to several enemy units?
-are there 3 enemy units with 5 or more models in there?
-Is there a unit with 11 or more models in it nearby?
-Is there a 2-4 wound model that is worthwhile nearby?

Have by some miracle all these conditions been met? Sure, go ahead and use this stratagem.....

Cosmic Powers

Use this stratagem at the start of your turn. Select a C'tan Shard; replace one of his powers with a new C'tan power for the rest of the game.

Interesting. This gives us a way to be flexible with the situational powers. For instance, if there are no more enemy 5-6 model infantry units left, you might want to replace Sky. Or have the enemy hordes been dealt with? Perhaps you can replace Seismic Assault. I would however only recommend this on Vaults or T. C'tan with 2 powers. Regular C'tan usually have either Meteor or Thunderbolt and can only cast one power anyway.
There is also another use. Say you didn't pick Cosmic Fire, but for some reason your C'tan got close enough to your opponents army and it would have been perfect if you gave him Cosmic Fire at the start! Well now you can give that to him. Just keep in mind that it's at the START of your turn. If you have to rely on a high advance roll in order to get into a nice position for Cosmic Fire, it might not work out as you have hoped!

Rewriting the top post. Going to add this to it, if you don't mind.

For the unit grading, there were a couple of posters who gave reasoning write ups for the grade each unit was given.
Anyone able to find those posts?

Odrankt wrote:

Now to talk tactics. Anyone here try the D.lord yet? I over looked him at 1st but had a little read in the codex and actually realised he is quite the beat stick.

If it is your Warlord and in a Novokh detachment with the Novokh Warlord trait and Nanoscarabs Relic it becomes a machine of Death and Resistance.

With a load out of; Phylactery (Nanoscarabs Relic), Warscythe, Novokh W.trait it can produce 4-7 S7 -4 D2 attacks. Or, it can actually double those attacks if you use the Novokh Stratagem, it has 2 ways of coming back to life (Nanoscarabs and staragem) meaning it is a great HQ for CC and for being your Warlord as you have 2 chances of denying "slay the Warlord" and if you draw the objective card that let's you gain 1 VP if your selected HQ is still alive at the end of the game.

Now, because Novokh is situational, i wont be including it in my following statement. Tactics are in a spoiler because I wrote more than expected.

Spoiler:

I think a <Dynasty> D.Lord w/ 6 Nihilakh Wraiths and/or Cloaktek will be s pretty good CC force. 1st you get 4 S7 -4 D2 attacks, you get 18 S6 -2 D2 attacks, you get speed and good saves (3+ invul and 4+ invul). Also, the reason i say Nihilakh Wraiths is because if you move this CC force onto an objective and keep moving objective to objective before you start your attack you get the chance to make the Wraiths 2++ invul and have 24 attacks instead of 18. This also helps the D.Lord out as your opponent has to deal with the Wraiths before the D.lord can be selected in the shooting phase.

Plus, if your bring a Cloaktek make sure it had the VoD and is the same dynasty as your D.lord. when your wraiths go down to 1-3 models use the cloaktek to RP the Wraiths to try and get as much CC as possible before the unit is completely wiped. Also, don't pop the VoD until your D Lord has died at least once and/or your opponent has a way of killing the D.lord. with this tactic. You can carelessly put your D.lord and Wraiths into CC action. Have them take and do damage and when your D.lord is about to die or in a bad situation just VoD it back to your side on the table and piss off your opponent for making them focus down on your D.lord even though they get nothing out of it.

With a CC combo of D.Lord + Wraiths I think it should also be a good bullet sponge meaning your other units will be safe like your DDAs, Immortals, Scarabs etc. Your opponent either focuses on your main army leaving your CC unit at full strength under estimating their power or they fully focus on the CC units because they know of the threat and leaves your other models free to do as you wish.

 Aza'Gorod wrote:

 skoffs wrote:

Doctoralex wrote:
Heey folks,

I've been a busy writing something up. It's a guide on the Power of the C'tan.

Let me know what you think:

Guide to C'tan Powers

Spoiler:

Guide to C'tan Powers; Wrath of the Star Gods

Since the release of the Necron codex, the C'tan Shards have been given new reality-warping powers at their disposal.
This guide will help you select the best powers for each opponent, as well as information on how to best use the selected powers.

First, let's re-cap what each power exactly does and rank them in order of usefulness and power. The powers will be ranked for both regular C'tan Shards and the Tesseract Vault. Feel free to disagree and let me know why!

Anti-Matter Meteor

Pick the closest visible enemy unit. 24". Roll a single D6, on a 2+ that target suffers D3 mortal wounds. On a roll of a 6+, the target suffers D6 mortal wounds.
The Vault does D6 mortal wounds on a roll of a 5+.

Regular: A
Vault: B

The bread&butter of the C'tan powers, this power is ranked A because of its reliability. Other powers require the enemy to be at a specific range or have a specific amount of models/wounds to be effective. Meteor will always do it's job no matter what enemy.
There is one catch though; the fact that it always hits the closest enemy model. This means it could be wasted on enemy chaff units. Be sure to position your C'tan properly so the Meteor hits something worthwhile!
As for Meteor on the Vault, it maintains pretty much the same function, with a somewhat higher chance of getting D6 mortal wounds. But you pick Meteor for its reliability, not because you are feeling lucky for a 5+ roll. (unless you ARE feelin' lucky....)

Time's Arrow
Pick an enemy unit within 18" and visible to the C'tan. If you roll higher than the maximum wound characteristic of the UNIT, a single model is slain. The Vault requires you to roll equal instead of higher to the amount of maximum wounds the unit has. A roll of a 1 always fails.

Regular: B
Vault: A

The C'tans sniping ability. While it's range is on the short-side, it can be extremely useful to pick off low-wound characters to disrupt your opponent strategy. However, the fact that you need to roll HIGHER than the maximum wounds of the unit makes it quite unreliable on anything with more than three wounds.
Also note that it's the highest maximum wound characteristic of the UNIT. That there darn Dark Reaper squad with a 2 wound Exarch? It will require a 3+ for Time's Arrow to work.
The Vault significantly increases the chance of the Arrow to succeed, making it an excellent power for them.
It is also a great power to pick up against powerful multi-wound units, like Custodes, Wraithguard etc.
Also note; a model is SLAIN by Time's Arrow. Not even FNP saves can be taken against this.

Sky of the Falling Stars (sky)

Select three enemy units within 18" of the C'tan. Roll a D6 for each unit. The Vault subtracts one from this roll. If you roll lower than the amount of models in the unit, it takes D3 mortal wounds.
A roll of a 6 always fails.

Regular: A
Vault: C

An excellent ability that let's you deal out multiple mortal wounds to multiple targets! What's not to love? As long as the unit has 6 or more models, it has 5/6th chance to do it's job. This is why I ranked it quite low on the Vault; the Vault doesn't improve the ability by that much.
There is one big catch; as the game goes on and enemy units are down to a few models per unit, this power will start to lose it's effect. The Vault will be able to dish out wounds with it for a bit longer, but it's main power is the first few turns against medium to large enemy units.

Cosmic Fire

Roll a D6 for each enemy unit that is within 9" of the C'tan. On a 4+, that unit suffer D3 mortal wounds. The Vault wounds units on a 3+.

Regular: B
Vault: A

This ability has the potential to deal the most mortal wounds out of all the powers, if you can get the C'tan close enough. This can make it somewhat situational: In my opinion, you shouldn't suicide your C'tan Shard in unless there is another dangerous unit that your opponents needs to focus, or the C'tan itself is the distraction for your other powerful units. But, keep in mind; a C'tan pretty much always wants to get close. All but the Vault are amazing in melee and, they explode on a 4+.
This ability is ranked A on the Vault not only because it greatly increases the reliability of the power, but also due to its enormous size which will let you hit a lot more enemy units with Cosmic Fire.

Seismic Assault
Select a visible enemy unit within 24" of the C'tan. Roll a D6 for each model in that unit; on a 6+ that unit suffers a mortal wound. The Vault deals mortal wounds on a 5+ per model instead.

Regular:C
Vault: B

The ability speaks for itself; its anti-horde. As soon as a mob of Ork boyz or Genestealers appear on the table, this ability will go up to rank A. I remember somewhere in a Necron guide that Seismic Assault will do more mortal wounds on average than Meteor if the enemy unit has 11 or more models in it. But this was before the Meteor did D6 wounds on a 6+.

Trans dimensional Thunderbolt

Pick a visible enemy unit within 24" of the C'tan, other than a <10 wound character. Roll a D6; a on 4+ (3+ for Vault) that unit suffers D3 mortal wounds. Then, roll a D6 for each other enemy unit within 3" of the previously struck unit. On a 4+ that unit suffer one mortal wound.

Regular: B
Vault: C

I'm not to sure on this one. On one hand it seems like an inferior version of Meteor, but on the other hand you can freely pick your target without caring about their model size or wounds. The 'AoE' effect of it depends on how tightly packed your enemy units are and how big the unit is you are targeting. A big blob of small units or a large monster will cover a large area, thus resulting in a more targets getting hit by the AoE effect.

........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................


Alrighty, that's the basics covered. Now let's go over on when to pick each power depending on the situation.

keep in mind You pick your C'tan powers right before the first unit is deployed. That means that stuff like enemy army roster, terrain, deployment zone/type etc. can all be taken into consideration when picking the powers for your C'tan.

So, let's go over a couple of scenarios?

Can your C'tan close the distance quickly either via Deceiver's Grand Illusion, T. C'tan 12" advance or some other way?

Regular: Cosmic Fire, Sky of the Falling Stars/Meteor
Vault: Cosmic Fire, Meteor, Time's Arrow, Thunderbolt

Does your opponents army have 2-3 wound models or important 3-4 wound characters?

Regular: Arrow, Meteor
Vault: Arrow, Meteor, Sky, Thunderbolt

Does your opponent have a large blob(s) of infantry?

Regular: Seismic Assault, Meteor
Vault: Seismic Assault, Thunderbolt, Sky, Time's Arrow

Does your opponent have MSU or simply a large amount of infantry units?

Regular: Sky, Meteor
Vault: Sky, Meteor, Thunderbolt, Cosmic Fire

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................


Next up, I wanted to talk about the order in which the Vault can best use his powers, depending on the targets he is facing.

Horde, buffed by a FNP character

Arrow -> Seismic Assault -> Thunderbolt

Time's arrow on whatever is giving the horde FNP (Ork painboy, Deathguard plague surgeon) to make sure your mortal wounds won't get saved. Then, follow up by Seismic assault and lastly Thunderbolt. You want as many models in the horde as possible for Seismic Assault, hence why you do that before Thunderbolt. And lastly, the horde probably covers quite a lot of ground (maybe it's konga-lined to protect charges) this will let Thunderbolt's AoE effect hit a lot of targets.

Primaris marine squads, Custodes etc

Sky -> Arrow -> Meteor

This is a tough one; one the one hand you want to start with Sky, since the squads still have all the models thus making it most likely to go off. However, if you only wound a model with Sky, the 'slain' effect from Arrow is wasted on a wounded model.

.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Lastly, let's go over the two stratagems the C'tan Shards can use.

Wrath of the C'tan, 2 CP

Use this power after a C'tan Shard has used a power. Roll a D6; the C'tan Shard immediately uses the rolled uses that power, even if he has used it before.

Oef, this is a tough one. A random power for two whole CP? I'd definitely only use this if you have a Vault. And even then, you have to make sure as many of the 'optimal' conditions for each power are available. So;
-Is the Vault 9" close to several enemy units?
-are there 3 enemy units with 5 or more models in there?
-Is there a unit with 11 or more models in it nearby?
-Is there a 2-4 wound model that is worthwhile nearby?

Have by some miracle all these conditions been met? Sure, go ahead and use this stratagem.....

Cosmic Powers

Use this stratagem at the start of your turn. Select a C'tan Shard; replace one of his powers with a new C'tan power for the rest of the game.

Interesting. This gives us a way to be flexible with the situational powers. For instance, if there are no more enemy 5-6 model infantry units left, you might want to replace Sky. Or have the enemy hordes been dealt with? Perhaps you can replace Seismic Assault. I would however only recommend this on Vaults or T. C'tan with 2 powers. Regular C'tan usually have either Meteor or Thunderbolt and can only cast one power anyway.
There is also another use. Say you didn't pick Cosmic Fire, but for some reason your C'tan got close enough to your opponents army and it would have been perfect if you gave him Cosmic Fire at the start! Well now you can give that to him. Just keep in mind that it's at the START of your turn. If you have to rely on a high advance roll in order to get into a nice position for Cosmic Fire, it might not work out as you have hoped!

Rewriting the top post. Going to add this to it, if you don't mind.

For the unit grading, there were a couple of posters who gave reasoning write ups for the grade each unit was given.
Anyone able to find those posts?

I don't understand the grading, how are any of the powers worse for a vault to use. It has a bigger model size and gets a bonus to every power so surely they are all better on the vault

 Aza'Gorod wrote:

 skoffs wrote:

Doctoralex wrote:
Heey folks,

I've been a busy writing something up. It's a guide on the Power of the C'tan.

Let me know what you think:

Guide to C'tan Powers

Spoiler:

Guide to C'tan Powers; Wrath of the Star Gods

Since the release of the Necron codex, the C'tan Shards have been given new reality-warping powers at their disposal.
This guide will help you select the best powers for each opponent, as well as information on how to best use the selected powers.

First, let's re-cap what each power exactly does and rank them in order of usefulness and power. The powers will be ranked for both regular C'tan Shards and the Tesseract Vault. Feel free to disagree and let me know why!

Anti-Matter Meteor

Pick the closest visible enemy unit. 24". Roll a single D6, on a 2+ that target suffers D3 mortal wounds. On a roll of a 6+, the target suffers D6 mortal wounds.
The Vault does D6 mortal wounds on a roll of a 5+.

Regular: A
Vault: B

The bread&butter of the C'tan powers, this power is ranked A because of its reliability. Other powers require the enemy to be at a specific range or have a specific amount of models/wounds to be effective. Meteor will always do it's job no matter what enemy.
There is one catch though; the fact that it always hits the closest enemy model. This means it could be wasted on enemy chaff units. Be sure to position your C'tan properly so the Meteor hits something worthwhile!
As for Meteor on the Vault, it maintains pretty much the same function, with a somewhat higher chance of getting D6 mortal wounds. But you pick Meteor for its reliability, not because you are feeling lucky for a 5+ roll. (unless you ARE feelin' lucky....)

Time's Arrow
Pick an enemy unit within 18" and visible to the C'tan. If you roll higher than the maximum wound characteristic of the UNIT, a single model is slain. The Vault requires you to roll equal instead of higher to the amount of maximum wounds the unit has. A roll of a 1 always fails.

Regular: B
Vault: A

The C'tans sniping ability. While it's range is on the short-side, it can be extremely useful to pick off low-wound characters to disrupt your opponent strategy. However, the fact that you need to roll HIGHER than the maximum wounds of the unit makes it quite unreliable on anything with more than three wounds.
Also note that it's the highest maximum wound characteristic of the UNIT. That there darn Dark Reaper squad with a 2 wound Exarch? It will require a 3+ for Time's Arrow to work.
The Vault significantly increases the chance of the Arrow to succeed, making it an excellent power for them.
It is also a great power to pick up against powerful multi-wound units, like Custodes, Wraithguard etc.
Also note; a model is SLAIN by Time's Arrow. Not even FNP saves can be taken against this.

Sky of the Falling Stars (sky)

Select three enemy units within 18" of the C'tan. Roll a D6 for each unit. The Vault subtracts one from this roll. If you roll lower than the amount of models in the unit, it takes D3 mortal wounds.
A roll of a 6 always fails.

Regular: A
Vault: C

An excellent ability that let's you deal out multiple mortal wounds to multiple targets! What's not to love? As long as the unit has 6 or more models, it has 5/6th chance to do it's job. This is why I ranked it quite low on the Vault; the Vault doesn't improve the ability by that much.
There is one big catch; as the game goes on and enemy units are down to a few models per unit, this power will start to lose it's effect. The Vault will be able to dish out wounds with it for a bit longer, but it's main power is the first few turns against medium to large enemy units.

Cosmic Fire

Roll a D6 for each enemy unit that is within 9" of the C'tan. On a 4+, that unit suffer D3 mortal wounds. The Vault wounds units on a 3+.

Regular: B
Vault: A

This ability has the potential to deal the most mortal wounds out of all the powers, if you can get the C'tan close enough. This can make it somewhat situational: In my opinion, you shouldn't suicide your C'tan Shard in unless there is another dangerous unit that your opponents needs to focus, or the C'tan itself is the distraction for your other powerful units. But, keep in mind; a C'tan pretty much always wants to get close. All but the Vault are amazing in melee and, they explode on a 4+.
This ability is ranked A on the Vault not only because it greatly increases the reliability of the power, but also due to its enormous size which will let you hit a lot more enemy units with Cosmic Fire.

Seismic Assault
Select a visible enemy unit within 24" of the C'tan. Roll a D6 for each model in that unit; on a 6+ that unit suffers a mortal wound. The Vault deals mortal wounds on a 5+ per model instead.

Regular:C
Vault: B

The ability speaks for itself; its anti-horde. As soon as a mob of Ork boyz or Genestealers appear on the table, this ability will go up to rank A. I remember somewhere in a Necron guide that Seismic Assault will do more mortal wounds on average than Meteor if the enemy unit has 11 or more models in it. But this was before the Meteor did D6 wounds on a 6+.

Trans dimensional Thunderbolt

Pick a visible enemy unit within 24" of the C'tan, other than a <10 wound character. Roll a D6; a on 4+ (3+ for Vault) that unit suffers D3 mortal wounds. Then, roll a D6 for each other enemy unit within 3" of the previously struck unit. On a 4+ that unit suffer one mortal wound.

Regular: B
Vault: C

I'm not to sure on this one. On one hand it seems like an inferior version of Meteor, but on the other hand you can freely pick your target without caring about their model size or wounds. The 'AoE' effect of it depends on how tightly packed your enemy units are and how big the unit is you are targeting. A big blob of small units or a large monster will cover a large area, thus resulting in a more targets getting hit by the AoE effect.

........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................


Alrighty, that's the basics covered. Now let's go over on when to pick each power depending on the situation.

keep in mind You pick your C'tan powers right before the first unit is deployed. That means that stuff like enemy army roster, terrain, deployment zone/type etc. can all be taken into consideration when picking the powers for your C'tan.

So, let's go over a couple of scenarios?

Can your C'tan close the distance quickly either via Deceiver's Grand Illusion, T. C'tan 12" advance or some other way?

Regular: Cosmic Fire, Sky of the Falling Stars/Meteor
Vault: Cosmic Fire, Meteor, Time's Arrow, Thunderbolt

Does your opponents army have 2-3 wound models or important 3-4 wound characters?

Regular: Arrow, Meteor
Vault: Arrow, Meteor, Sky, Thunderbolt

Does your opponent have a large blob(s) of infantry?

Regular: Seismic Assault, Meteor
Vault: Seismic Assault, Thunderbolt, Sky, Time's Arrow

Does your opponent have MSU or simply a large amount of infantry units?

Regular: Sky, Meteor
Vault: Sky, Meteor, Thunderbolt, Cosmic Fire

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................


Next up, I wanted to talk about the order in which the Vault can best use his powers, depending on the targets he is facing.

Horde, buffed by a FNP character

Arrow -> Seismic Assault -> Thunderbolt

Time's arrow on whatever is giving the horde FNP (Ork painboy, Deathguard plague surgeon) to make sure your mortal wounds won't get saved. Then, follow up by Seismic assault and lastly Thunderbolt. You want as many models in the horde as possible for Seismic Assault, hence why you do that before Thunderbolt. And lastly, the horde probably covers quite a lot of ground (maybe it's konga-lined to protect charges) this will let Thunderbolt's AoE effect hit a lot of targets.

Primaris marine squads, Custodes etc

Sky -> Arrow -> Meteor

This is a tough one; one the one hand you want to start with Sky, since the squads still have all the models thus making it most likely to go off. However, if you only wound a model with Sky, the 'slain' effect from Arrow is wasted on a wounded model.

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Lastly, let's go over the two stratagems the C'tan Shards can use.

Wrath of the C'tan, 2 CP

Use this power after a C'tan Shard has used a power. Roll a D6; the C'tan Shard immediately uses the rolled uses that power, even if he has used it before.

Oef, this is a tough one. A random power for two whole CP? I'd definitely only use this if you have a Vault. And even then, you have to make sure as many of the 'optimal' conditions for each power are available. So;
-Is the Vault 9" close to several enemy units?
-are there 3 enemy units with 5 or more models in there?
-Is there a unit with 11 or more models in it nearby?
-Is there a 2-4 wound model that is worthwhile nearby?

Have by some miracle all these conditions been met? Sure, go ahead and use this stratagem.....

Cosmic Powers

Use this stratagem at the start of your turn. Select a C'tan Shard; replace one of his powers with a new C'tan power for the rest of the game.

Interesting. This gives us a way to be flexible with the situational powers. For instance, if there are no more enemy 5-6 model infantry units left, you might want to replace Sky. Or have the enemy hordes been dealt with? Perhaps you can replace Seismic Assault. I would however only recommend this on Vaults or T. C'tan with 2 powers. Regular C'tan usually have either Meteor or Thunderbolt and can only cast one power anyway.
There is also another use. Say you didn't pick Cosmic Fire, but for some reason your C'tan got close enough to your opponents army and it would have been perfect if you gave him Cosmic Fire at the start! Well now you can give that to him. Just keep in mind that it's at the START of your turn. If you have to rely on a high advance roll in order to get into a nice position for Cosmic Fire, it might not work out as you have hoped!

Rewriting the top post. Going to add this to it, if you don't mind.

For the unit grading, there were a couple of posters who gave reasoning write ups for the grade each unit was given.
Anyone able to find those posts?

I don't understand the grading, how are any of the powers worse for a vault to use. It has a bigger model size and gets a bonus to every power so surely they are all better on the vault

 Aza'Gorod wrote:

I don't understand the grading, how are any of the powers worse for a vault to use. It has a bigger model size and gets a bonus to every power so surely they are all better on the vault

Doctoralex wrote:

 Aza'Gorod wrote:

I don't understand the grading, how are any of the powers worse for a vault to use. It has a bigger model size and gets a bonus to every power so surely they are all better on the vault

The idea behind the grading was that certain powers are kind of 'wasted' on the Vault, since they practically serve the same purpose on a regula C'tan. But, if a power is ranked high on a regular, you can assume it will perform just as well on a Vault

And as for measuring from the Vault's base....if you folks really do it that way, sooooo many enemy units cannot get into melee with the Vault, since they can't get within 1" with the base.

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:
I've finally sold my wife on the idea of starting a new army, and she loves the look of the "Egyptian Death Robots", so I get a slightly higher starting budget. If I pick up a start collecting, and the Cron half of Forgebane, is there anything else I should grab to have a decent 1k list? I have a narrative event mid-May, so I wanted to try them out on the table if possible.

 buddha wrote:
Any thoughts on using a monolith to reserve and then deploy a unit if destroyers? They have the infantry keyword and popping a monolith and destroyer unit right where they are needed seems pretty awesome.

moonsmite wrote:
Or better yet, put the destroyers in nephrekh and you can just spend 1CP to deep strike them where needed
and save the monolith cost for 2 x DDA

Requizen wrote:
Played against a mixed Imperium player last night. I rolled terribly and am out of practice (been playing almost entirely Sigmar and Shadespire recently), but it just was not close at all. Failing like 8/10 Wraith saves doesn't help, of course, but when he rolled his Aggressors (something like 40+ shots with rerolls and doubling when not moving?) and charged in with all 6 beatstick Characters, it just didn't feel good at all.

Don't give into the hype, DLords are not the same as Imperium characters. 4 Warscythe attacks with Novokh rerolls felt good, until the Custodes Bike Captain charged in with 2+/3++/7W 5A hitting on 2+ rerolls and rerolling wounds. And also has a bucket of dice in shooting. It's just... not close. The game favors numbers over quality, and Imperium Characters just have both. DLords are not quite there.

 krodarklorr wrote:

Requizen wrote:
Played against a mixed Imperium player last night. I rolled terribly and am out of practice (been playing almost entirely Sigmar and Shadespire recently), but it just was not close at all. Failing like 8/10 Wraith saves doesn't help, of course, but when he rolled his Aggressors (something like 40+ shots with rerolls and doubling when not moving?) and charged in with all 6 beatstick Characters, it just didn't feel good at all.

Don't give into the hype, DLords are not the same as Imperium characters. 4 Warscythe attacks with Novokh rerolls felt good, until the Custodes Bike Captain charged in with 2+/3++/7W 5A hitting on 2+ rerolls and rerolling wounds. And also has a bucket of dice in shooting. It's just... not close. The game favors numbers over quality, and Imperium Characters just have both. DLords are not quite there.

Well, I've been out of the game for a few months and was wondering how Necrons were gonna favor up, since I know nothing about the imperial armies as of now. This sums it up well.

I suppose I will never play anyone outside of my close group of friends anymore. Oh well.

Requizen wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

Requizen wrote:
Played against a mixed Imperium player last night. I rolled terribly and am out of practice (been playing almost entirely Sigmar and Shadespire recently), but it just was not close at all. Failing like 8/10 Wraith saves doesn't help, of course, but when he rolled his Aggressors (something like 40+ shots with rerolls and doubling when not moving?) and charged in with all 6 beatstick Characters, it just didn't feel good at all.

Don't give into the hype, DLords are not the same as Imperium characters. 4 Warscythe attacks with Novokh rerolls felt good, until the Custodes Bike Captain charged in with 2+/3++/7W 5A hitting on 2+ rerolls and rerolling wounds. And also has a bucket of dice in shooting. It's just... not close. The game favors numbers over quality, and Imperium Characters just have both. DLords are not quite there.

Well, I've been out of the game for a few months and was wondering how Necrons were gonna favor up, since I know nothing about the imperial armies as of now. This sums it up well.

I suppose I will never play anyone outside of my close group of friends anymore. Oh well.

Hoping the FAQ kills some of the spam, and I'm not quitting since I think there's a good Necron list out there somewhere. But it seriously just feels like two differently balanced games.

 Lothmar wrote:
Do quantum shieldings apply against mortal wounds?

ex: If an attack does 7+ mortal wounds do I just say 'nah' ?

Requizen wrote:
...

Don't give into the hype, DLords are not the same as Imperium characters. 4 Warscythe attacks with Novokh rerolls felt good, until the Custodes Bike Captain charged in with 2+/3++/7W 5A hitting on 2+ rerolls and rerolling wounds. And also has a bucket of dice in shooting. It's just... not close. The game favors numbers over quality, and Imperium Characters just have both. DLords are not quite there.

Laserburn wrote:

Requizen wrote:
...

Don't give into the hype, DLords are not the same as Imperium characters. 4 Warscythe attacks with Novokh rerolls felt good, until the Custodes Bike Captain charged in with 2+/3++/7W 5A hitting on 2+ rerolls and rerolling wounds. And also has a bucket of dice in shooting. It's just... not close. The game favors numbers over quality, and Imperium Characters just have both. DLords are not quite there.

IIRC the Shield Captain on bike rerolls hits, his lance rerolls wounds only on the charge and the lance doesn't shoot - but good luck surviving that charge. If he's the warlord he can get the 5+ FNP. He's one of the best value melee units IMO but he's also 30+ points more expensive than a DLord.

Laserburn wrote:

Requizen wrote:
...

Don't give into the hype, DLords are not the same as Imperium characters. 4 Warscythe attacks with Novokh rerolls felt good, until the Custodes Bike Captain charged in with 2+/3++/7W 5A hitting on 2+ rerolls and rerolling wounds. And also has a bucket of dice in shooting. It's just... not close. The game favors numbers over quality, and Imperium Characters just have both. DLords are not quite there.

IIRC the Shield Captain on bike rerolls hits, his lance rerolls wounds only on the charge and the lance doesn't shoot - but good luck surviving that charge. If he's the warlord he can get the 5+ FNP. He's one of the best value melee units IMO but he's also 30+ points more expensive than a DLord.

Doctoralex wrote:
Yea, the Shield Captain on bike really is something else compared to a Destroyer Lord.

I’d like to see the Nightbringer have a go against him through..... especially with Entropic Strike!

 krodarklorr wrote:

Doctoralex wrote:
Yea, the Shield Captain on bike really is something else compared to a Destroyer Lord.

I’d like to see the Nightbringer have a go against him through..... especially with Entropic Strike!

Hmm, I like how you think. Sadly the Nightbringer moves, what, 8" a turn? From the sound of it, the biker Captain would just avoid him, and easily.