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So is it a Deathstar unit to avoid at all cost
or
try to kill it with time and manpower?
What's the dakka's opinion on this?

Yes...

Depends on your army, their army, the mission, the board... the question is to open ended.

Yup, depends. On one hand, it's a huge point sink that means the opponent's phase out limit is lower. On the other, it's susceptible to lots of mid-strength shooting. Just try to avoid getting into CC with it.

Its slow and not worth its points. Just like most of the necron book. Unlike the rest of the necron book, it is actually scary in combat, should it actually reach it.

My advice, avoid it. If you can't, shoot it.

Codex creep really hurt the C'tan in general. At 360 points and no 2+ or 3+ armor save any army with ranged poisen (prime examples Dark Eldar and Marine SternGuard) could mean a turn 1 or 2 death for a very expensive anti-cc unit before it does anything of value. Despite a LOT of other reasons of why people think the C'Tan are overpriced in 5th edition they just are not the near impossible to kill doomsday units that their price makes them out to be.

Against certain armies and lesser experianced players of course you can most certainly face roll with a C'Tan but any player that knows their vast weaknesses will just see them as a joke on the table.

Honestly, if your looking for ways to keep your Necrons out of CC the better choice by far is using both the Necron Lord and Monoliths (both of which cost less than a C'tan) to teleport your units around the table. Also having emergancy scarabs to tar pit a cc unit as they are cheap and fearless can really help.

Necron Lord w/ Res Orb and Veil - 200pts
Monolith - 235pts
10x Scarabs - 120pts

For 555 points, although 195 more than Nightbringer you have 3 options for staying out of CC rather than just one.

Edit: Math Failure

I use one in every game over 1850.

Check out the Battlereport and tactica in my sig to see how I go about it. I'll just say that the Nightbringer is a pretty big-time assault deterrent (who wants to assault a squad of warriors when they're going to get counter charged by that?) and the Deciever is great because the Grand Illlusion lets you redeploy and set up perfect first turn fire lanes for your destroyers, and he isn't exactly a slouch in CC either.

So pretty much depending on different combat style, there could be very different preferences on whether to field the Nightbringer or not, but way to deal with it is pretty simple: Avoid CC with it.

Okay then, thanks guys!

Avoid! 30 ork mob with pc cant kill him, terminators cant kill him, nobody can kill him... in close combat.

A 30 ork mob can't even assault him, thanks to Etheric Tempest.

I shot one down with snipers. Beware of poisoned attacks! Also beware of rending. If going up against poisoned termagants/hormagants/gargoyles, daemonettes and harlequines, blow them out of the way with Tempest. Avoid genestealers in masses, hide behind your mono against snipers and if you see sternguards, run!

Jone96 wrote:Avoid! 30 ork mob with pc cant kill him, terminators cant kill him, nobody can kill him... in close combat.

Beg to differ - DE - if they don't kill it in the shooting phase can still own it in the CC phase - bloodbrides packing impaler shardanets reduce your attacks and then 2+ poisoned blades on a squad leader or leader and succubus or archon with poisoned blade. Sure there is nothing that can dominate you but for about 200 + points I can make you question why you spent @ 400 pts on uber C'tan.

Orc variant - gretchin + slavers. Let you kill one 3 pt gretchin per turn. Tough to pull off but funny when the 120 pt hoard of junk can pull down or make ineffectual a 400 pt super model.

Eldar variant - council wounds on a 2+ with A2 per warlock and gets a 4+ rerollable save. Cost wise it becomes about the same.

Marines - termies w TH & SS. Sounds like a good time. Vulkan MC, psycher reroll your successfull invulnerables. All good possibilities.

The secret is not to try taking it on with your own IC as it will ruin the IC's day.

What's the strength on a bloodbride?

Thats just more to whats already been said though. Being an old Codex a 4+ Invul with T8 used to be enough to keep the C'tan alive to make up their points and help keep Necrons out of CC. But with the plethora of Poisen out there they really need a heavy armour save to protect them from just general firepower now.

Edit: And I find it silly and un-fluffy to have to constantly hide the C'tan (A God) behind a giant brick to keep him alive for more than 2 turns. aka needs rules update badly....

DAaddict wrote:Orc variant - gretchin + slavers. Let you kill one 3 pt gretchin per turn. Tough to pull off but funny when the 120 pt hoard of junk can pull down or make ineffectual a 400 pt super model.

Take a look at the gaze of death and rethink that idea.

DAaddict wrote:Eldar variant - council wounds on a 2+ with A2 per warlock and gets a 4+ rerollable save. Cost wise it becomes about the same.

Strength 3, so no dice. Etheric Tempest. Also, the C'Tan ignore invulnerable saves. See below.

DAaddict wrote:Marines - termies w TH & SS. Sounds like a good time. Vulkan MC, psycher reroll your successfull invulnerables. All good possibilities.

Except that he'll kill 2-3 of them before they get to swing, give or take a couple depending on the dice.

Monster Rain wrote:

DAaddict wrote:Orc variant - gretchin + slavers. Let you kill one 3 pt gretchin per turn. Tough to pull off but funny when the 120 pt hoard of junk can pull down or make ineffectual a 400 pt super model.

Take a look at the gaze of death and rethink that idea.

DAaddict wrote:Eldar variant - council wounds on a 2+ with A2 per warlock and gets a 4+ rerollable save. Cost wise it becomes about the same.

Strength 3, so no dice. Etheric Tempest. Also, the C'Tan ignore invulnerable saves. See below.

DAaddict wrote:Marines - termies w TH & SS. Sounds like a good time. Vulkan MC, psycher reroll your successfull invulnerables. All good possibilities.

Except that he'll kill 2-3 of them before they get to swing, give or take a couple depending on the dice.

I have to agree here as I have used Nightbringer plenty myself. You want to shoot or avoid at all cost minus charging Nightbringer with a unit of S4 minimum with lots of attacks and poisen and the ability to go first in combat. The Deciever can't even be charged so thats just a moot point. Shoot it or avoid it is the 98% best option

So does that mean a whole squad of Wolf Guard Termis with Logan would do the job? TH+SS AC+CF 2*WCs FB loadout?

Don't bother trying to HtH him. He'll kill pretty much anything in HtH. Shoot with poison or avoid.

Mannahnin wrote:Don't bother trying to HtH him. He'll kill pretty much anything in HtH. Shoot with poison or avoid.

Agreed, with the possible exception of Librarians with I10, Mephiston or Lashtyrants with bone swords.

If you're going to field a C'tan at all you would use the deceiver to mitigate the awful speed of the Nightbringer.

If you're asking how to deal with one as the opponent? Be happy the necron player wasted his points on one, and murder him for it.

Monster Rain wrote:What's the strength on a bloodbride?

S3, so yes, tempest would push them. Unless FC somehow changes that (and assuming the brides have 2 pain tokens).

As for what in a DE list could possibly (though unlikely) kill nightbringer in CC: grotesques. They are S5 base, so can wound on 6s, you can take an aberration, and give it scissor hands, poison blade, or god forbid a flesh gauntlet which can in theory instant death. C'tan don't have eternal warrior do they? Talos S7, T7. only 3 wounds so unlikley to live, and only d6 attacks, so unlikely to kill by itself, but it could put the last wound or so on.

That being said, their isn't much point in CC is, since DE are the king of poison shooting. He could probably be the easiest model in a necron army to kill for a DE player. All the DE weapons wound on 4+ (lances and poison shooting)

notabot187 wrote:C'tan don't have eternal warrior do they?

IIRC they are immune to Force Weapons and the ID part on a Wraithcannon, but not to anything else. Flesh Gauntlets, bone swords, Str D weapons, etc. will most likely give the C'tan more than just a bad hair day...

notabot187 wrote:
He could probably be the easiest model in a necron army to kill for a DE player. All the DE weapons wound on 4+ (lances and poison shooting)

Not only for DE but even Marine armies with Sternguard. Its just soo easy of a model to kill now they are just rarley worth taking. Without updates to their special rules and an armor save to protect them against poisen they will just never be worth their points. I wish this wasn't the case but sadly the codex is just too outdated for the game.

Edited for spelling

So, ultimately... Poison and ranged weapon.

You got it! Close combat is the Nightbringer's home: Keep him out of it. Do that, and you are literally just fine.

EDIT: And don't forget that his phase-out limit is going to be MUCH easier to achieve. This makes it even more important that you sink your delicious close combat teeth into his warriors. Don't know what army you play, but if you can get your hardest-hitting power weapons into close combat with his warrior squads, you'll be doing just fine. The trick is jinking around his monoliths and C'tan. Obviously this is easiest to do with Dark Eldar; they're basically the best anti-Necron out there right now. (Except for the difficulty they have with doing anything to Monoliths, but that's beside the point - why bother destroy it when you can go right around it?)

Even if it had a 3+ save poison would still own it and a 2+ would be ridiciulous so really the only feasible option would be to lower the point cost so at least your not paying as much for that one model to get pimped by splinter rifles/cannons

Nightbringer...he's a God, the C'Tan with a deadly touch...
a Tomb Spyder's touch...

He's slow, avoid him and go for the phase out. Job done!

bagtagger wrote:Even if it had a 3+ save poison would still own it and a 2+ would be ridiciulous so really the only feasible option would be to lower the point cost so at least your not paying as much for that one model to get pimped by splinter rifles/cannons

Hardly, even with a 2+ save he would be far from invincible and I would certainly feel better about a 360pt model earning his cost. Sure with a 2+ he would be near invincible against poisen weapons and medium strength weapons however all close combat death stars use weapons to deal with 2+ armor saves, also, anti-tank weapons like melta and lascannons would still have the exact same chances to wound him as they do now. Even sniper rifle squads will still have a chance to rend his armor and put a wound on him.

The only option I can see is to either make the C'tan much harder to kill with poisen or take them out completely. Lowering their cost and abilities doesn't make any sense as it would put them at the level of a Necron Lord.

Edit: And with a 2+ save a squad with Splinter Rifles could still easily put a wound on him a turn. Please don't exaggerate the 2+ save, the way codexes are now, that seemingly great save just isn't going to make a C'Tan invincible. Although, I know am probably a lot less afraid of the 2+ C'Tan idea because I have plenty of experiance with them. Reminds me of players that use or play against Mephiston know that a 250pt character can be a point loss against experianced players.

Shelegelah wrote:EDIT: And don't forget that his phase-out limit is going to be MUCH easier to achieve. This makes it even more important that you sink your delicious close combat teeth into his warriors. Don't know what army you play, but if you can get your hardest-hitting power weapons into close combat with his warrior squads, you'll be doing just fine. The trick is jinking around his monoliths and C'tan.

That's actually harder to do than you think if the Necron player knows what they are doing. The Monoliths and C'Tan will be between your CC units and the Warriors at all times.

That's very true. I play Dark Eldar as my second army, so usually don't have many problems dashing around the opponents roadblocks, and I sometimes forget that other armies lack the mobility we enjoy. I have yet to face the monolith wall with my primary army (Chaos Mehreens), but I suppose I'll have to learn to deal with it somehow. I was thinking deepstriking terminators with enough combi-weapons to really put a hurt into his warriors. That's about as mobile as Chaos gets.