Warhammer 40K Hot Mess – Necron C’Tan
Let’s take a deep dive into a hot mess of a 40K unit and some thoughts in how we can fix them up. Man how disappointing is the Necron C’Tan?
Do you remember the old days of a tiny based C’Tan floating behind a Monolith throwing out damage? Do you tremble from those old days when these star gods were amazing? Is the new Void Dragon model so cool but the rules are just… meh? Well then today is the day to talk about trying to find ways to make them better.
I always loved the idea of this chained Star God – enslaved by the race they helped create. It conveys this weird sci fi ideal that 40k loves to mess with. Plus it has a lot of space for model interpretation which is always a neat thing for a painter/builder. Every story has these beings destroying the viewers mind and just breaking reality with its shattering presence. So why do the models just don’t work that well in 40k?
So let’s fix them by making them more interesting and better.
Necron C’Tan Basics
Enslaved Space God who can warp reality. So basically like a weird metallic Q being who likes to break reality. Ok so how do we get the rules to do this? I got a few ideas but we’ll start with the easiest one – just make them tougher. I think the take only 3 wounds per phase is a good thing for them but let’s give them more wounds. Right now an army that works in 3 phases (shooting, assaulting, psychic) can take one out in one turn so why not give them 12 wounds to give a bit of protection against that. It should be simple enough and since they can’t be hidden by anything it will let them get a chance survive a bit longer.
We’ve Made Them Tougher – How About Weirder?
These beings are supposed to warp reality so why not add something to allow them to be well – weird. I have a thought that there should be a system of 3 different grouping of rules. You have the Assault Section, the Defensive Section, and finally “weird stuff” section. When building your Space God you get to pick 2 for the lesser C’Tan and 3 for a greater shard. Let them pick 3 total from all 3 groups so you could make a really weird reality one or a gun boat option. This way you can start to truly customize your Space God into something weird and unique.
Assault Options
This would range from special weapon like attacks like assault Lascannon options, beams of death, or just some kind of crazy assault rules. Something like it comes in and ignores all saves as it removes the models from reality. Or just a ton of tiny green lasers of death that burn thru a unit when they get into range. These things are supposed to be crazy deadly so why not try to add something that makes them super killy.
Defensive Options
Here we start to figure out ways to keep them alive longer. This could be where you throw in some kind of Feel No Pain option where you shoot them and they pull another aspect from a different reality to take the damage for them. It could just be a simple as they take less damage from attacks or bounce damage back to opponents. There are a lot of existing rules they could pull off of and create “Necron space god” versions with some kind of weird name or ability. Just give the Necron C’tan ways to survive a bit longer.
Weird Reality-busting Options
Here is where you can go nutty like Auras or removing objective secured, causing units to not work as well, or other just odd things. They might be things like amp up Necron shooting or cause units to get hit harder from the dead robots laser beams. How about something like an Aura that makes the enemy get exploding hits done to them or just decreasing AP/Armor due to the rending nature of their Space God Nonsense. Heck you can throw in things like cool teleport powers too within this section as the idea is to make the unique and interesting.
Just Make These Guys Actually Scary!
Every bit of fluff has reality breaking if you stare at them. Heck the Silent King has one chained up to power his floating high chair. This is supposed to be scary and crazy so Necron C’tan need to reflect that. I love the idea of using Star Gods to power things and just having them be better would make this idea pretty friggin neat. Heck you could make the Silent king be able to take some of these abilities and power himself up too. Make the Star Gods truly frightening.
Let us know how you would fix the unit, down in the comments!
