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There is a gentleman who routinely will run 3-4 tervigons in a list, along with deep striking Mawlocks x2 flyrants, and the doom.

I can never figure out a way to counter this as Necrons.
Tried Wraiths, got bogged down in gaunts, and whittled down.
Tried barges, but deep striking Mawlocks and flyrants messed them up.
Tried More troops for weight of fire, but The doom just eats them all since Necrons have a distinct lack of str 8-10 weapons.

Anyone find a good tactic that works?

Maybe you can try deathmarks. After looking a the rules you get a 2+ wound marker light counter as soon as they deploy, which against high T monstrous creatures sounds pretty good. People adivse using sternguard hellfire rounds against MC becuase they wound on 2+ regardless, ignoring the T7-9 (depending on Iron arm or not), and i believe that deathmarks would work here.

Having watched and talked to the top couple of Wraithwing players against Nids, the key for them has been avoiding committing the Wraiths early. First off though something isn't quite right if you are facing 4 Tervigons + 2 Flyrants (too many slots).

Nids really have no way to deal with Barges, or indeed do much damage at all to Wraiths until they hit combat. Don't push forward early and let the Barges chip away at things so your Wraiths can finish them off. If you have first turn get range to a Tervigon and fire everything at it until it dies. If you have second turn you either drop the Flyrants if he moves into range (you can easily shoot them to death with Barges, or just ground them and eat them with Wraiths if they get out of position) or kill a Tervigon. As long as you aren't overly aggressive you should easily have time to deal with Mawlocs and the Doom, the same way as Flyrants - chip away with the Barges and then just finish them off with Wraiths/D Lord (then consolidate away). As usual though your wins will actually come from Night Scythes dropping scoring units on objectives turn 5+, so your priorities should be dropping the Flyrants (who presumably have 12 S6 shots which will drop your Scythes) and the Tervigons before they spawn so many Gaunts that you can't even get to the objectives.

A couple of Doomscythes would probably help, as would the above suggested D&D squad.

Nah that list is fine at 2000 with the double force chart I assume that the list is exactly as follows
2 - Flyrants with twin linked devours
4 - Tervigons as troops with powers
4 - Termigaunts
2 - Mawlocs
1 - Doom in spore

comes out to exactly at 1950 points with some change for random upgrades on the MCs. With 6th edition Nids are probably one of the best codex's out there especially when people choose to abuse the vastly under-priced(Seriously tyranids got boned on many of there units but with the change in fearless these things are necron flyer level broken. With average spawns of 21 per game these guys are basically 85 point 6 wound monstrous creatures with 2 biomancy chart rolls) Tervigons with the double force chart things can get pretty bad. For advice I would recommended against the wraith advice above. With Tervigons you have to strike hard and fast or your never going to get into melee with them as the termigaunt bubble just expands. If I have any advice for you I would toss a destroyer lord in with MSS and try and get into melee with the Tervigon as soon as possible. T6 your not going to get smashed and your strength 7 weapon can do some good damage, If the Tervigon fails MSS you can get around Iron arms toughness by forcing the Tervigon to use smash on itself (They cannot-not accept a challenge due to solo character so you can actually break off the lord and go one on one with the tervigon while your wraiths go after something else).

Another decent thing to take if your willing is Imohtek. Those high random lightning blasts can hurt quite a bit when you have that many individual msu and MC units on the board at once (MC main defense is high T and strength 8 is pretty nice you might even bag a doom every blue moon).

All the advice I can give you is when fighting Tervigons you pretty much have to go all in on killing them because if you don't down them in one go when they have termigaunts around them the nid player will simply move another one in to cover his termigaunts in synapse and move the heavily wounded one away from the other gaunts to lessen the damage impact. If you can pick off an one of the Tervigons on the edge of his "line" the resulting explosion normally will cause moral tests and if you picked it off correctly you might get a group or two to go hug some terrain.

You will never be able to stop the swarm.

Yeah he's got it. with that list essentially. To scale it down, he takes off a tervigon and then a flyrant.
Just seems that I can never muster enough fire turn 1 to kill a tervigon before it can spawn.
Maybe I am just unlucky, last game, his tervigons never crapped out, and he tends to make an ungodly number of saves.

As a Nid player I really don't fear anything Necrons can bring. Destructors do little damage to psychic Nids. Deathmarks could be good but they will die quickly once dropped. MSS is nice to have as well. Be very weary of enfeeble on wraiths.

How many wraiths did you send against it?

12 Wraiths, they never got there, just kept getting drowned in fearless gaunts for the rest of the day

As the OP didn't say otherwise I would assume that its a single FOC. I have yet to come across anyone actually making use of the rule and only a handful of people that don't think it will lead to wildly unbalanced armies.

Immhotek is pretty weak against MCs because unlike vehicles you still get saves (and with Iron Arm up they are much harder to damage in the first place), you hit maybe 1-2 per turn and maybe chip a wound off 1. Gaunts just laugh at lightning as it doesn't have the volume of fire to threaten them.

The Tervigons themselves aren't really the issue so much as their ability to spawn Gaunts. Gaunts can tarpit Wraith units very nicely and actually do reasonable damage to them just with volume of attacks/shooting. If you can get two Nid MCs with Enfeeble then you can cast it twice, drop the Wraiths to T2 and then ID them with S4, which absolutely ruins them. If you actually get into combat with them then Tervigons can't deal with Wraiths let alone a MSS D Lord, every 6 to wound goes straight through, and the Tervigon doesn't have the volume of attacks to damage the Wraiths that badly through their 3++. The issue is a good Nid player is never ever going to give you that charge, there will be plenty of Gaunts in the way.

@skoffs. Doomscythes are without doubt one of the worst possible tools for dealing with multi wound MCs that Necrons have. It doesn't turn up until at least turn 2, fires once doing 1-2 wounds to 1 Tervigon (say 1 from the Death Ray, 1 from the Tesla), probably a wound to another Tervigon (you aren't going to get more than 2 MCs with the Death Ray against a half decent player) and maybe fry a few Gaunts (which no one cares about). The following turn the Nid player can just walk forward slightly and spread Gaunts all over the place and the Doomscythe won't be able to land anywhere useful, so you are then forced to fly it off the board. By the time it shows up again its turn 4 and the Nids will be well and truly stuck in to your army, again you do a couple of wounds and then its turn 5 already and you end up overshooting or being forced into shooting something the Nid player doesn't care about. Nids are one of the best armies in the game at exploiting the limited maneuverability of fliers and they really don't fear fliers that much. This ignores the fact that if the Nid player is worried about the fliers he can just send his Flyrants after them to blast them out of the sky.

hmm, point taken.
So what WOULD be effective?
Just spamming D&D squads?
Maybe a full 5-7 Lord RCDI with Warscythes and MSS in a pimp-mobile Ghost Ark?
Perhaps it may even be time to dust off the 'ole Command Barge again...

I assume Doomsday Arks would have the same issues as the Doomscythe, and wouldn't be able to do much, apart from clear little patches in the gaunt swarms (which would only get filled again next turn...)
Massed Tesla would have the same issues.

I've only played against 'Nids once, but I don't remember them being THIS hard to counter.

This list of Nids is one of the (very) few lists where my suggestion is actually to NOT bring Wraiths. You're either tarpitted by some random Gants or you don't have the what it takes to reliably kill their MCs (Hitting on 3's/4's, Wounding on 4's at best - assuming no Iron Arm, which is a bad assumption, and he still gets to save against any non-Rending...makes it hard to chew through 6 Wounds in fewer than two or three rounds).

If you're okay with tailoring (a lot), then here is what I would suggest bringing -

HQ:
2 x Bargelord w/ Warscythe, MSS, Shifter (480) - these guys hunt Tervigons. You need the Shifter to be able to save against their attacks if MSS doesn't go off.

Court 1:
2 x Harbinger of Despair (60)

Court 2:
2 x Harbinger of Despair (60)

Elite:
2 x Deathmarks (groups of 5) w/ Night Scythe dedicated (390) - attach your despair-teks for AP 1 Wounding on 2's Template o' Doom. The Night Scythe Tesla Destructors are super-sexy too.

Troop:
2 x Immortals (groups of 10) w/ Tesla Carbines and Night Scythe dedicated (540) - more Tesla goodness for forcing wounds. Tesla Carbines on the Immortals will wreck Gants.

2 x Immortals (groups of 5) w/ Tesla Carbines (170) - you're a bit weak on troops, so keep these guys in your backfield in cover and pick off Gants. Ideally your opponent is so busy dealing with your Bargelords and other Tesla he never has the opportunity to focus on these guys.

Heavy Support:
3 x Annihilation Barge (270) - more Tesla will really help to put out Wounds, particularly on those Flyrants

This is right about 1970 points and leaves you a few to maybe bump up an Immortal squad or buy an upgrade for a Bargelord (possibly a Tachyon Arrow?) All the Tesla will put a hurting on Nids, and you should be grounding his Flyrants every turn with Tesla Destructors. Your Bargelords can skip right over the Gant bubblewrap to charge the Tervigons directly, too.

Keep in mind though, that this list is tailoring rather heavily towards Nids. It is by no means a TAC list.

EDIT: Come to think, the Death and Despair combo squads are rather expensive for what they're doing - the massed Tesla probably does a better job at the same task (assuming nothing is T9). You might consider dropping the Deathmarks/Crypteks for the sake of more troops.

EDIT2: Also, with this many fliers it may also be wise to invest in a cheap comms relay for reserve re-rolls. Particularly if the Tyranid player can screw with reserves at all.

Why not take as many Ghost arcs as you can fit, attaching mss&scythe/gauntlet lords to them, probably overlords as well, loading them with troops and sailing to adventure?
Probably with 20 warriors blob with some crypteks riding in their ark.

Arcs are reasonably safe from gaunts, they would have enough combined firepower to blast through the sea of gaunts. Then lords of the court will kill tervigons in close combat with liberal use of mss.

And it should be noted, then argument can be made for ghost arcs restoring attached court members, which allows them to bring their points back and more.

Wait....Ghost arcs can't restore non-warriors can they? I dont think that works that way.
I was also debating teleporting lychguard, but then again they don't get to assault the same turn

Ghost arcs can't restore non-warriors can they?

Why not?
They restore "models in the unit", if I recall correctly. Royal court members are members of the unit as well.

I was also debating teleporting lychguard, but then again they don't get to assault the same turn

They will be buried in gaunts, most likely. But - if deepstriking mawlocks give you grief, lychguards can take clean-up duty after burrowers come up.

Trazyn on the barge could help as well. Since he can charge with his barge, empathic obliterator will make gaunt numbers somewhat manageable. For example, take unit down to number that cannot pin your assault unit (like wraiths or lychuard) in place.

Monoliths can also be used here. They can go through gaunts with impunity and deliver units that can deal with tervigons through the portal when in distance.
Triarch stalkers with blast weapons (or even standard ones) work well. They evaporate gaunts and cannot be killed by them, while allowing to truly concentrate fire on big bugs when in distance.

Well, I'd consider two Courts with 4 or 5 Crypteks w/ S8 AS2 mounted in Ghost Arks. Their shooting alone may down one MC per turn.

It doesnt restore models, it adds them.
By that logic I could even add any IC even when I wasn't playing them

so it should be quite clear that you only add warriors!

Reductio ad absurdum doesn't quite work in rules discussion, IMO.
Weren't there a restriction on models added? Up to the starting size or something?
that would be the basis for the claim of adding court models back.

May I suggest that as a possibility using a monolith, doomsday ark, triarch stalker and nemesor zhandrekh in a CCB with Vargard Obyron?

This is anti - Tyranid:

Movement and Deployment: Still good if you go second as it will allow your enemy's Tervigon to maybe get sick after pooping too many termagaunts allowing you to have target priority....Deploy above dudes in first turn... give Triarch stalker or Doomsday Ark night vision (if Night Fight) with Nemesor's Adaptive tactics (you could also take furious charge (or other rules) off an enemy unit). Movement Phase; flat out Nemesor on his CCB (CCB can also use it's sweep attack to maybe chop off a few heads), teleport Vargard and a 20 man warrior squad within 6" of Nemesor in front of a Termagaunt squad. Spread Monolith, Doomsday Ark, TS and HQ's out a bit to scare off the deep striking Mawlocks.

Shooting: Fire twin linked Gauss Cannon from TS at a Tervigon that can still spawn. If hits, concentrate fire on it as the TS has given any hits against that Tervigon twin linked. Use Doomsday Ark to annihilate either Tervigon or Termagaunt tide, and use Vargard Obyron's deathball to either annihilate termagant squad or spam the Tervigon with concentrated fire. If the deathball gets charged, it shouldn't be too dangerous (a 20 man deathball with Vargard against Termagaunts shouldn't be too hard). All the while the monolith is r*ping the Tyranids with Gauss Flux and Particle Whip (Monolith can shoot all weapons at different targets) or it is waiting in reinforcements for deep strike, as Nemesor lets anything with DS to deploy immeadiatley after an enemy unit Deep strikes. Have a few squads of Deathmarks also waiting in DS to target Mawlocks....

All that is left is the MWA HA HA! IMO

Survivor19 wrote:
Reductio ad absurdum doesn't quite work in rules discussion, IMO.

It sure does.

Weren't there a restriction on models added? Up to the starting size or something?
that would be the basis for the claim of adding court models back.

The only argument that allows you to add Crypteks is if you claim that the RAW is: "Add D3 models.." and that it does not specify what model.
That same argument works for stuff like Imothek, even if you didn't even include him in your starting-list.
Hell, since it does not specify a model I could even add any IC from any army!

So it should be clear that RAI is that you add Necron Warriors.

Well, I will bite the bait.

since it does not specify a model I could even add any IC from any army!

Let's say we play and I do exactly that. I do not recognize your claims of intent. I also fully intend to bring the necron warrior squad over its starting size.
What RAW arguments do you bring to stop me?

In a tournament I would let the TO ban it.
And the rule itself says it can't contain more units than the starting number.

Three things work great for me:

1) Tesla destrudctors. Whether on barges or flyers these things kick ass at forcing enemy MCs to roll saves.

2) Deathmarks. We all know sniper weapons work great against MCs so make sure to abuse them to the max. Even two units of 5 is super cheap and a great hard counter.

3) Destruction Crypteks. Take a court or 2 of 5 each and you blast a MC a turn.

Nids are the solution to necrons. That was pretty obvious whenever crons came out. Nids are the only one who really dont care about S7 AP4 and thats what crons bring as heavy firepower.

However, if you need a list to beat nids, beat him at his own game.Bring spiders all over the place with Scarabs to demolish his hordes. BLD on the Tyrants will hurt, but the value of what he is killing is going to be very low Starting with 6 units of 3 scarab bases and building them up with 6+ spiders will help a lot keeping the damage to a minimum and only hurt you in KP missions, where nids lose very easily. Only other thing that is S6 in that list is Tervigons (who has 3 base attacks at WS3 and will get munched by Entropic). Spiders are 3W T6 at 50 points that can go to S10 2A when you need to off the tervigon. Also can stop psychic powers cast at you. And you get units of them, not just 1. You can simply out-damage tervigons in melee with the spiders and out-damage the gaunts with your endlessly spawning scarab bases.

Include Overlords with MSS in your Spider units. They will also wreck Tervigons if they get into combat. Also deals with Tyrants easily enough

For the Doom: You are entirely LD10. The doom requires lots of units in a small area to get good effect If you can limit him to 2-3 units, the doom isnt going to be gaining a lot of wounds. Also, scarabs have wounds to spare. Then, leave only the Spiders at 7" from him and charge the doom with a unit. MSS can ID him (if hes S8+) and the Spiders go to S10 and pop him.

Bring 1-2 barges to throw some attacks at FMCs. If you can ground a tyrant you can munch them very quickly. Some warriors as a backfield objective holder and some immortals in a frisbee or two should do the trick.


Overlord MSS Gauntlet 110
Overlord MSS Gauntlet 110

5 warriors 65 (reserve these)
5 warriors 65 (reserve these)
5 warriors 65 (reserve these)
5 Immortals 85 Night Scythe 185
5 Immortals 85 Night Scythe 185

3 Scarabs 45
3 Scarabs 45
3 Scarabs 45
3 Scarabs 45
3 Scarabs 45
3 Scarabs 45

3 Spyders Prism 165
2 Spyders 100
3 Spyders Prism 165
2 Spyders 100
A barge 90
A barge 90

1765. Gives you some points to play around with. Will probably be hard to get all the models, but the idea is there if you want to try. Some wraiths might be useful for Whip Coils if you want to drop a scarab unit. Some more shooting to take down the Tyrant maybe? A Royal Court with crypteks for the warrior units? There are options here.

Nids are all about taking down things in order. Kill the tyrants first, or kill ONE tervigon first. Dont spread out and try to kill his whole army in one go. Kill ONE tervigon at a time. Start with the ones that did not get Iron Arm. Therefore your Scarabs can strip its save on a failed wound or your spyders can deal with it easier.

Nids are a very predictable army and DEFIANTLY nowhere near the top of the power charts. Nids are simply a wrench that gets thrown into some of the top armies lists. However, some of the more diverse lists have little trouble with them. My eldar shut down nids hard and my DKOK have been punching Trygons to death with nades and power fists for a while now. My corsairs just laugh at nid's predictable nature and zip around them.

Survivor19 wrote:
Well, I will bite the bait.

since it does not specify a model I could even add any IC from any army!

Let's say we play and I do exactly that. I do not recognize your claims of intent.

Answer is simply that be context, the word "model" in the 3rd sentence must refer to a "Necron Warrior Model". Any other interpretation leads to absurdity, as was shown earlier.
And yes, Reductio ad absurdum is actually perfect argument for rules discussion. If there are two possible ways to interpret a rule, choose one that makes sense, not the one that makes no sense whatsover.

I agree that 'strict RAW', Repair Barge allows you to add D3 Crypteks/Necron Overlords/Special Characters to the Warrior Squad. This, like many other uses of 'strict RAW' break the game. Note that RAW and 'strict RAW' are two completely different things. For example, 'strict RAW' also states that model must have eyes to draw LOS.

Survivor19 wrote:
I also fully intend to bring the necron warrior squad over its starting size.
What RAW arguments do you bring to stop me?

Second one is easy, just shows you haven't actually read your codex properly.
Page 53, "Repair Barge", 4th sentence: This cannot take the unit beyond its starting size.

Redacted

My buddy plays Nidzilla and is planning on making this list. As of now he runs 3 trygons, 2 flyrants, 1 terv, 6 raveners, a squad of ymgarl and the requisite units of devilgaunts.
MC's truly are a pain for Necrons. Warrior gauss is basically useless. Tesla carbines are better, but it takes several units shooting to take down a Trygon, more for a flyrant. Anni Barges are good, unless you roll crappy (but what isn't).
I am going to try Deathmarks and Destructeks in Arks. Do you guys think 5 marks are enough or do you need 2 x 10 to assure deadness.
I think no wraiths may actually be key, as they tend to get swamped up.
What about Destroyers? Str 5 sure, but they are ap 3 and have enough speed and firepower to take MC's and deal with Gaunts. At 200 pts for 5 its not too bad and the have PE:everything.
Also, what about small squads of warriors with Lords with mss, scythes, 2+, 4++? Basically 1v1 units.


Finally, arks only make warriors, and you can't go above the original unit number of warriors. Stop wasting space in a good thread with dumb arguments

BlackMath wrote:
I am going to try Deathmarks and Destructeks in Arks. Do you guys think 5 marks are enough or do you need 2 x 10 to assure deadness.

Well...with average rolling a 5 man Deathmark squad with an attached Cryptek will put about 3 wounds on a Tyranid MC with 3+ save, and that's assuming no invulns or FNP saves. A 10 man with dual-teks should just about guarantee killing one (marked) MC (again, assuming no FNP or invulns), but then you are talking ~400 pts for that unit with the transport, to kill a Tervigon worth less than 200 pts.

BlackMath wrote:
I am going to try Deathmarks and Destructeks in Arks. Do you guys think 5 marks are enough or do you need 2 x 10 to assure deadness.

Destroyers are really no good here. They don't have the volume of fire to mop up Gants, and they're only wounding on 5's vs a bog-standard (no Iron Arm/Endurance) TMC. Factor in cover and they're not worth it. If you really want S5 AP3, a Barge comes with an underslung cannon that can be switched to Gauss and is generally a more versatile investment.

BlackMath wrote:
Also, what about small squads of warriors with Lords with mss, scythes, 2+, 4++? Basically 1v1 units.

The trick is going to be getting them to the Tervigons. A halfway intelligent Nid player will bubble-wrap them with a unit of Gants.

I think your best bets for taking out those TMCs are Bargelords (can hop over bubblewrap Gants), Tesla Destructors (for massed S7), and Lance Courts (for S8 AP2 goodness).

Oh, he bubble wraps them. He also hides the Tervs in ruins and what not, so you can't just fly up to them.
What about fielding he Deathmarks and then veiling them into place firs turn.
Also, he deep strikes the trygons (on a 2+), ravs, flys the rants up and infiltrates the stealers. Basically my deployment zone has 5 MC's in my face (or on my flank) on turn 2. Even if I take 2 out I am going to probably lose 3 vehicles turn 3.
What about makeing a force designed to run away? Just keep everything in the back and after the DS run it to the other side of the board?
Scythes are neat, but the take too damn long. I need 2 MC's dropping a turn.