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Bad form on my part to ask about tactics against a Necron unit when I don't even own the Necron Codex. From the recent Adepticon tournament reports, the Nightbringer looks more than powerful. In one game it kills three carnifaxes and a hive tyrant? In another it takes out 3 or 4 squads of Space Wolves with 3 Power Fists each and a Terminator squad with 2 autocannons....

Is there any way to kill the Nightbringer with things one might find in an ordinary army- ex. librarians and Chaplins in a Space Marine army, anything in a Tyranid army, Daemon Princes or Abbadon in a Chaos army, Fire Prisms in an Eldar army-or is the Nightbringer just completely immortal (yes, I've read the Ultramarines Compendium....).

Is running away from the Nightbringer the only mathematically viable option short of squashing it under a Damocles Rhino or bringing 'Enslavers'-remind me not to ever go to Adepticon, I'm not that Adept.....

Mike Guth

What army do you play?

I know this might sound stupid, but I would just shoot it with anti-tank weapons. Assuming it doesn't just hide behind cover.

I would NOT however use:
ANY S6, other than maybe TL Devourers. This includes Assault cannons.
ANY S5. If I was Tau I would shoot it with my MP squads. If I had a Hammerhead with S5 I would want to use that on basic 'Crons.

The 4++ makes it too resilient to anything that is not high strength shooting. It's not worth it if you are counting on "rolling lots of sixes".

Once I had it down to two wounds I would consider Implant attack, assuming it actually works.

Anything else I would never want to be in close combat unless it only had one wound. The chances of doing two wounds is just too slim. 8 Power fist attacks only give you 1 wound on average. And they might not even do that.

You are never going to get two wounds reliably, and its counter attack will wipe you out.

I'd say that dealing with that stupid thing is a good sign you are bringing enough shooting to the table.

Running from the night bringer is the best option, but that's mostly because he's slow. At 6" a turn, he falls into the "I can just walk away from him" catagory. If you want to put in the effort to kill him, you need to get around a high toughness, 4++ save, and several wounds. Snipers do this fairly well as do things like sniper fexes, assault cannons, fire dragons, and massed las cannon or missile launcher fire. I don't know off hand how he works in hand to hand but gene stealers and/or harlequins might also do it.

also, since nightbringer is really expensive points-wise, there are going to be fewer necrons on the table. any type of rending will do wonders against him. but i would suggest(like other posters have suggested) is just to avoid him, and try to phase out the rest of the army. i'm not sure how he was able to kill 3 carnies and a hive tyrant, unless all of them were kitted out for shooting. why were the necron player's oppenents throwing units into him anyway?

Your opponent bringing a nightbringer means he is bringing at least 1 less squad of necron warriors which lowers his phase-out number. Hose down the warriors/immortals and the nightbringer will cease to be a problem. If you must and I mean must fight it dedicate plenty of AT fire for at least 2 rounds. CC should be a last resort and should only be done with characters.

Abbadon eats c'tan for lunch. I've seen the Deceiver jump out of combat and run away from Abby. Typhus can also wound him on a 4+ and then force weapon him (if you agree that Typhus wounds on a 4+ that is).

The Nightbringer can be a pain to kill, I should know I've got one. One tip I can give to Imperial guard players is use a unit of Conscripts to hold it in combat for ages, a full 50 man squad can hold it all game, as long as they don't run away.

Also dont think 'I must kill it' it is quite an over rated model, I take it to see how much fire power I can divert from the rest of my army. In one Apocalypse game it managed to survive 10 lascannons, every weapon the baneblade had, 3 multimeltas and numerous plasma weapons without dying, ranted it had only one wound left by the end of the turn, but it is annoying to kill.

Failing all of that, ignore it completely, pretend its not there, unless it can charge you, then run like hell.

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned. It's an IC, so do one wound garners half it's vps. After doing that wound, just avoid it, but to totally avoid it would be a huge mistake.

Granted, why this discussion isn't on the deceiver is beyond, me, but the above still holds true for him(it?) too.

-Leo037

the one time i played a necron army that used the nightbringer i took it down with farsight leading a squad of 5 battlesuits all with missile pods and plasma rifles i had ignored it for most of of the game but then i realised it was in cover right next to my squad (i wasnt realy paying attention to it i wanted to charge the guys lord with resurection orb) but then i noticed it and didnt fancy being charged by it so my farsight squad shot it and it took 7 wounds (with just the plasma)

so that seems to work but i think that was pure luck more than anything else

You get more luck than should be possible dmkjesus, it'll run out one day, I hope.

Within the spirit of the game it doesn't feel right to just take one wound off the nightbringer and leave it at that. If your going to do something, take it the whole way or don't bother (of course power gamers and those who like to win wont go for this approach)

Like the other posts have said, the key is avoiding him in hand to hand. I've only faced him twice, and both times I wound up stuck in combat with him- once because I didn't see the model behind a piece of terrain, the other time because I was tied down by scarab swarms. The T7 is what makes him really nasty, and the template attack while in combat is brutal. In the first game (Apocalypse) he mulched his way through four big crusader squads and 3 HQs, who managed to bring him down to 1 wound by the end of the fight. In the second, an 1850 game, two big crusader squads (each with an HQ) were able bring him down with about 50% casualties, plus he took out a terminator assault squad as it charged in. He's one tough hombre, especially against the types of units that normally do well against necrons.

erm, he's toughness 8 actually

I have used the Nightbringer several times against a friend of mine and he has always managed to slaughter it. Why you ask? Because he charges it with 10 terminators. Bye Bye C'tan. Terminators are the anti C'tan.

Just because the story needs to be told. Back before the new edition of the chaos codex, I was playing my LATD against a necron army with the nightbringer. Knowing that the nightbringer was tough, but not exactly how tough he was, I charged in my daemon prince into combat with him, thinking I'd go ahead and elminate him before he got to the rest of my army...... looking back, this was a dumb decision, and it was reflected in the smirk that my opponent was giving me. So I charge in with 7 attacks on the charge(3+ MOK+2 CCW's + Mutation + Charging) and hit 7 times. I then proceed to wound 5 times. He then proceeds to fail every single one of his armor saves, and then starts to complain that I was a dirty cheater.... because somehow... in his mind... I had made him fail all of his armor saves. Without the nightbringer it was a short game, and a overwhelming massacre.

Is this a reliable way to kill the nightbringer? No.

Does it happen? Yes.

Just goes to show you it's better to be lucky than skilled.

When you face the Nightbringer, just be glad he isn't the Deceiver. Misdirect is what makes a C'tan worth the 300 + points. Without it NB is barely manageable.

You can reliably kill it by just dakka-ing it with whatever you kill tanks with, but you should only do so if your goal is to melee the Necron army. A properly fielded C'tan is a goalie/turn 4 threat. If you just want to have a shooting war with the Necrons you can basically ignore the big guy.

40kenthusiast wrote:When you face the Nightbringer, just be glad he isn't the Deceiver. Misdirect is what makes a C'tan worth the 300 + points. Without it NB is barely manageable.

You can reliably kill it by just dakka-ing it with whatever you kill tanks with, but you should only do so if your goal is to melee the Necron army. A properly fielded C'tan is a goalie/turn 4 threat. If you just want to have a shooting war with the Necrons you can basically ignore the big guy.

this.

for 60 points cheaper the deceiver trades a bit of fighting ability for the tools to actually use him on your own terms: misdirect and grand illusion. nightbringer is just really expensive area denial.

Nightbringer's probably going to be significantly more useful (usable) with the Run rules.

lets hope he is more usefull, he does seem a waste of points at the moment, well except in apocalypse

I played against Necrons last week and he fielding Nightbringer versus my Black Legion, lets just say it was a slaughter house with 30+ crons and a Nightbringer in a Melee mob versus my beserkers/legionaires led into the fray by Abbadon and his terminator retinue, as you cabn imagine it was a blood bath with Abaddon swapping blows the the nightbringer in the center of it, but Abaddon downed him easily enough. But nightbringer can be a beast....sometimes.

sometimes? Get him intoa fight against anything strength 4 or less and they can't hurt him...you cant loose!

thats the imperial guard screwed do they even have any thing strength 5?

power fists, thats about it really...but they can take alot of high strength weapons though which can cause it a headache

Storm Lord, actually managing to get a 6"-a-turn unit into combat sure sounds like "sometimes" to me. Plus, any AV11+ walker also has this supposedly uber advantage.

dmkjesus, are you kidding me? IG are screwed because they can't take the Nightbringer in CC?

IG?

CC?

NIGHTBRINGER?

They're guard FFS. The Emperor invented lascannons for a reason.

Snipers are my preferred way to take out a C'tan.

As many have said, it's usually easier to ignore the C'tan than it is to kill it.

There are two exceptions to this, if you have the firepower available to bring to bear. People have already talked about the first, which is when you don't have a choice.

The second is what most people forget, and that is when the C'tan is surrounded by necron models. Most people forget that when a C'tan dies, all models within a 6" radius take a S6 with ho saves possible. Normally, you'll have your best opportunity to take out a lot of necrons by killing the C'tan on the first turn.

It's d6 inches, actually, and if you are doing enough high strength shooting to kill a C'tan (average what, 30 guard lascannon shots?), you probably ought to use those to kill the Cron units you are vexed by, rather than relying on the Boom.

Don't get me wrong, blowing up the big guy is candy, but it shouldn't be the plan.