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Hey all. I am playing an old friend this week for the first time in a while. The only problem is that he can be a WAAC player. I like the guy, but I can't stand his list. I've asked for him to run something else, but he just brushes it off and says that running necrons any other way is pointless.

He runs this (forgive me for not knowing the specifics, I don't play necrons):
Transcendent C'Ttan with the movement ability that gives S D hits, the hellstorm template, and the 6D6 (i think) shooting attack
4 squads of 5 warriors in the doom croissants
Some HQ

How the do I beat this list with my nids? The C'tan is tough enough to ignore S4 and lower fire, I can't tarpit it because it can move so far and the hellstorm wrecks everything. I can't put enough damage on it, and I can't ignore it to play objectives. What 1850 list could I make to have a chance?
This is everything I have:
3 tyrants
3 tyrant guard
2 tervigons/ tyrannofexes
Prime
6 zoanthropes
4 venoms
100 terms
90 horms
18 warriors/ shrikes
7 ripper swarms
40 gargoyles
2 harpies/hive crones
3 trygons/mawlocks
6 carnifexes

Any and all advice would be welcome. I just want to have a fun time and a decent chance of winning. Playing against this list is just miserable for me.

Flying MCs seem like the best way to go. Aslong as they are in the air the c'tan cant do much and they will rip his flyers out of the air.

Crones flamer will do wonders against the warriors aswell.

Spam FMC is a start and ensure you have cover saves across the board.

A Skytyrant swarm would actually be pretty useful against a Tran-Ctan!

2+ Jink saves and the blind the Ctan with 6+ poison.

stick boneswords on the Flyrant for Instant D - I think that does d3 wounds on a GMC?

I agree with what's been said here. Better yet, refuse to play this guy until they change their list.

Necrons have a variety of ways to play, your opponent seems to be quite naive in thinking this is not the case.

What kind of C'Tan is he running? Usually the thing can get to almost 1000 points by itself alone, so knowing this and the rest of the list overall would be helpful.

Trust me when I say all armies have a tough time when the C'Tan is used. It kills armies on its own that could be double the value. Even I feel bad using it.

Overall I can say that it NEEDS to be shot to death though. Tarpitting sounds nice in theory with your Fearless gaunts and junk, but it has 8 attacks, so it'll actually get through in a somewhat timely manner.

 Frozocrone wrote:
Better yet, refuse to play this guy until they change their list.

Necrons have a variety of ways to play, your opponent seems to be quite naive in thinking this is not the case.

I'm quite sure he knows that there are plenty of viable lists for necrons. He just only uses this one because its the easiest to win with. He ran the flying croissant list all the time before the C'tan came out. If he wasn't a good guy off of the gaming table, I would have just refused the game.

FMCs has been the route I have taken before. It has done better, but it's never been close. The problem is that the C'tan can target multiple units a turn being a GMC. Use the movement ability to hit a unit or two and position, then hellstorm to wipe out anything non-MC, then shoot the 6D6 S6 shots at a flier. So each turn that's at least 2 or 3 units dead. If I could get the gargoyles into combat, then I would have a decent chance to cripple it for a turn or two, allowing my FMCs to deal with his troops. But the ability to outpace them and wipe anything within 18 inches prevents that except in very lucky situations.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
What kind of C'Tan is he running? Usually the thing can get to almost 1000 points by itself alone, so knowing this and the rest of the list overall would be helpful.

Trust me when I say all armies have a tough time when the C'Tan is used. It kills armies on its own that could be double the value. Even I feel bad using it.

Overall I can say that it NEEDS to be shot to death though. Tarpitting sounds nice in theory with your Fearless gaunts and junk, but it has 8 attacks, so it'll actually get through in a somewhat timely manner.

I gave his list in the first post. Here it is again:

Transcendent C'Ttan with the movement ability that gives S D hits, the hellstorm template, and the 6D6 (i think) shooting attack
4 squads of 5 warriors in the doom croissants
Some HQ

He will have the C'tan on the board to start, wiping off a lot of my army in 2 turns, then his fliers will come in and clean up while dropping the troops off on objectives.

I have tried shooting it to death. The problem with nids is what do I shoot it with? None of the basic guns can even hurt him thanks to T9. The best option would be TL-Dev w/ BL. But even then those are wounding on 6s. A tyrant shooting at it with 2 TL-Dev w/ BL will cause about 2 wounds a turn, which have to get through a 3+ save and 5+ FNP. Three tyrants all firing together would on average cause 1 unsaved wound a turn. Not enough before they get shot to pieces in return.

Yeah I would ask him to make a list that doesn't have transcendent C'tan in it...

Ask him to not do dull flyer spam whilst you're at it. 40k is a two player game, and just because you don't happen to care about playing an actual army instead of repeating something the web told you was the best unit over and over doesn't mean your opponent wants to play that sorta thing.