Necron Unit of the Week Series: C'Tan Shard of the Deceiver

[NTaW]

NECRON UNIT OF THE WEEK SERIES

Welcome to the Necron Unit of the Week series for 10th edition! Each week will see a different unit from the Codex, Imperial Armour, and Legends datasheets featured for discussion. The goal here is to discover and chronicle tactics for the featured unit so that new players and veterans alike can use this database to inform their strategies with the wider knowledge of the forum. The game of Warhammer 40,000 is ever changing though, and as the rules evolve throughout the edition everyone should feel free to return to older threads with the release of new FAQs/errata, changes in points values, information gathered from games played, and of course the Codex being released. These threads are also great places for newcomers to the Necrons to post their questions about tactics related to the featured units.

Please note that the purpose of this series is not to lament what the current meta deems “ineffective”, or that another unit “does it better”. Those units will get their own threads.

 

This week’s unit is:

C'tan Shard of the Deceiver

 

What units are you attacking, has Cosmic Insanity helped with characters leading units?

What units have you been redeploying with Grand Illusion?

Do you send it off alone or have units accompany it?

How many units have you punched with golden fists while stating "I love gooold"?

 

 

Series Index

[N1SB]

I'm running a triple C'tan list, and I think the one the Deceiver deceived most is...me, for tricking me into including him.

 

Good questions, as the Deceiver kinda metatheatrically he delivers less in practice than what he seemed to offer, just like in the lore.

 

Cosmic Insanity - nice little Precision weapon, 4+ Anti-Character so its low Strength doesn't matter...but it just doesn't deal enough Wounds.  If you want to kill a leader figure, you want it to happen right away or it doesn't really matter for a C'tan, because you'll beat up his squad to get to him anyway.

 

Grand Illusion - before the Codex, makes good sense.  Redeploy a slow army, make good use of cover.  Then the Hypercrypt Detachment kinda made this ability obsolete.  Might be useful for large games if you have a lot of big Anti-Vehicle units, to let you find better Lines of Sight, so there is SOME use.

 

Golden Fists - if anything, the Deceiver's melee is pretty good, and it's the least tricky thing about him.  That 3 Damage makes him the guy to charge at Terminators and Aggressors, slightly better at those targets than the Transcendant C'tan.  But those are less common than 2-Wounded Marines, so he's more situational.

 

The Deceiver is NOT Fool's Gold, but what he brings is just less than his promise, it seems.  Consider every C'tan before him, imho.

 

Update April 25, 2024 - new Munitorum Field Manual points costs out, all other C'tan went up in points EXCEPT the Deceivers.  However, the difference between them is only 20 to 30 points.  Even with that in mind, I'd still consider the other C'tan before settling on the Deceiver.

Edited April 25 by N1SB