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I played with my new Dark Angels for the first time today against a guy and his Necrons. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I held my own until the very end. Nevertheless, I found this guys C'tan impossible to kill. He locked my Belial (connected to a squad of Death Knights) in combat. This locked the Death Knights out of combat and they could do nothing until the challenge was resolved. However, the guy charge his lych guard in and assaulted the knights. I have the following questions:

Is the situation I described above legal? It was just a friendly game but the situation was very frustrating.

What is the best tactic to dispatch a Necron C'Tan with Dark Angels?

Cheers

Regardless of the frustrating situation, I sure did have a blast.

 Icarusthepilot wrote:
I played with my new Dark Angels for the first time today against a guy and his Necrons. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I held my own until the very end. Nevertheless, I found this guys C'tan impossible to kill. He locked my Belial (connected to a squad of Death Knights) in combat. This locked the Death Knights out of combat and they could do nothing until the challenge was resolved. However, the guy charge his lych guard in and assaulted the knights. I have the following questions:

Is the situation I described above legal? It was just a friendly game but the situation was very frustrating.

What is the best tactic to dispatch a Necron C'Tan with Dark Angels?

Cheers

Regardless of the frustrating situation, I sure did have a blast.

It's legal.

C'tan really should not pose a problem. It only has a 4+/4++ save. You only need to cause 8 wounds to it, to kill it.

I'm sorry, I'm still working on the rules. What does a 4+/4++ save mean?

4+ armor save and 4+ invul

Wouldn't TH/SS belial mulch it in about 4 combat resolutions anyway?

I mean, not ideal to have the knights locked down for two turns, but the guy charged lychguard into them too, so...

I swear I think he might have been doing the wrong invul save because I was having amazing dice rolls the entire game. We are still both learning so I think maybe he just misread the rules. I must have been locked in combat with that C'tan for three terms.

Snipers. Sternguard with hellfire rounds. Massed fire.

*Bob Vila voice* The structural weak point of the C'Tan is his 4+ save. This means he only manages to negate about half the wounds inflicted on him. With an independent character attached to them, preferably a librarian or a chapter master with hellfire rounds and an auxiliary grenade launcher, a squad of Sternguard with hellfire rounds can drop pod in and annihilate a C'Tan in a single round of shooting.

In a squad of Terminators armed with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields, avoid challenges if you can. You might lose out on your IC's combat attacks, and you may even lose a few of your men to the C'Tan's attacks, but the Thunder Hammers will turn the tide of combat faster than the IC alone can finish the Star God in a challenge.

For those without access to snipers or hellfire rounds, consider auto-damaging alternatives, or high-strength, high output weapons, such as a Leman Russ Punisher or a Heavy Burst Cannon.

Wow, thanks Bob Vila! Who knew he was so knowledgeable about 40k?

In your specific situation I would have opted out of the challenge and let the Knights bitch-slap the C'tan... I may not even have turned "beast mode" on since the save is the same anyway.

Also, remember that you can use any Characters to "jump in" and replace another character stuck in a challenge. I forget the exact rules, I know it involves passing an initiative test (check the IC and challenge section of the BRB). This would have allowed you to sacrifice the Knight sergeant and allow Belial to help fight the other Crons in that assault, then gang up on the C'tan in the next phase.

As stated above the Deathwing Knights should have destroyed the C'tan, even without activating smite mode. Another good option would be Black knights, since they can drop the C'tan down in toughness with a rad grenade, TL plasma rapid fire then charge with their S5 hits +hammer of wrath.

Regular terminators also would have cleaned up.

As far as CC goes those three units are about the extent of the Dark Angels' really badass close combat units. Regardless, though, with a 4+/4++ enough bolter shots, lascannons, autocanons or paper clips shot at him will make him fail enough saves to go down. The trick with the necrons is to continually focus fire on your opponent's army unit by unit, even if it may be overkill. While the C'Tan can't make the resurrection protocol saves, it still needs to be dealt with, preferably at range, but using one of the three units I mentioned above will work fine too.

Don't Ctans explode once they die?

anyway indeed mass amounts of shots/ap 4 or less/ high straight/poison or any combination of that for shooting, or a bunch a nators against it should work.

Is a Ctan allowed to challenge? i honestly cant remember

 Desubot wrote:
Don't Ctans explode once they die?

anyway indeed mass amounts of shots/ap 4 or less/ high straight/poison or any combination of that for shooting, or a bunch a nators against it should work.

Is a Ctan allowed to challenge? i honestly cant remember

C'Tans are listed as Characters so yes they can challenge.