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My local gaming group and i got into a discussion about the viabiliity of a Necron army beating Nidzillas.

We had some back and forth and some good points were brought up but no one had actually played in or seen a real confrontaiton between two good generals with optimized Cron and ZIlla lists.

Has anyone here seen such a showdown? How did it go? Did the crons hang in there, was either side clearly superior?

Any input would really be appreciated, thanks.

This is a good question. Seeing Necrons have a distinct lack of low AP weapons I think they would be in a lot of trouble. I have heard that Tau also struggle against zilla Nids.

- Greenie

My Nids have done quite well against Necrons, but I don't usually go full Zilla; I like to bring gaunts and zoanthropes, while skimping on the elite fexes. WBB on top of a 3+ save makes dakkafexes half as effective as normal - it's much better to nail Crons in HTH and force morale checks.

3 Warp-blasting Zoeys almost always take down the Monolith, and their AP3 template can put the hurt on bunched up Cron Warriors. Combined Hormagaunt+Ravener charges (19-24" threat range) can reach far and devastate Cron Warrior squads. My Fexes usually concentrate on Destroyers first, unless I've lost too many Zoeys and need to paste the Monolith with enough S10 shots to get a glancing 6.

I haven't tried a Psychic Choir against Necrons yet, but it's tempting given that Warriors tend to come in 2 large squads - if one runs off the table (perhaps along with its attached Lord?) that's a LOT of VPs and considerable help towards phase-out.

So in short, no - I don't think that Necrons would do well against Nidzilla, unless the Nid player makes big mistakes or forgets to bring HTH troops.

If you're playing against tyranids with Necrons in a one-off game and know that you'll be facing them, there are some horribly, horribly sub-optimal things you can do to improve your chances.

First off, bring the Deceiver. Yes, this is normally terrible advice. However, the Tyranid player is not likely to have the volume of fire necessary to take him down in the shooting phase and by himself he's nastier than any one tyranid unit. Furthermore, if he's in a fight you don't trust his chances in, he can just leave combat. Finally, he has one ability that I strongly urge you take advantage of: Deceive. Additionally, bear in mind that no tyranid unit is immune from taking a leadership test in order to determine whether or not they can charge him

Take a unit of pariahs. Yeah, they suck but they're probably not gonna get shot to pieces, and making his monstrous creatures and Hive Mind units ld 7 will further augment the Deceiver's ability to stay alive (by not being charged) and nullify nid units (by either pinning or breaking them). In a pinch they can be used to beat on a 2+ save monstrosity in close combat, but if you have the choice, the only thing I'd recommend letting them get in on are zooanthropes and gaunts.

Take 2 monoliths. 1 is nice, 2 more than 2 times as good. The only reliable thing the nid player has to stop those is BS 3 warp blast, and if you can put those units down quickly, your Monoliths will have a large comfort zone. Also, the flux arc is not to be overlooked for dishing out pain to large numbers of closely packed units when/if you deepstrike your monolith(s) into enemy lines.

Take a unit of 3 heavy destroyers. You don't need to spread your shots out, you just need to put wounds on those tough, well armored MCs/Zooanthropes.

Take a lord with a veil and an orb, and don't bother with the warscythe upgrade. Run away. Keep running. Don't stop running. With this setup, phase-out is not your friend. On the other hand, in a more mainstream necron force, if the tyranid player can lock down most of your units in hand to hand, you're gonna phase out anyhow. The job of your monoliths and Lord is to keep as much of your Necron units as safe from harm as is physically possible.

Additionally, your regular shooty stuff (along with pariahs) has 1 paramount task: Destroy anything with rending claws. It needs to die, and die fast. Genestealers and raveners are red hot death to C'tan, and you need to keep the Deceiver's butt safe from that. ESPECIALLY if you see something with Implant Attack on the board.

thanks for the input guys.

@Stranglelooper

You make a good point about the HtH. However, in our debate we assumed a few things (and i should have put this in my first post)

1.) a typical tourny Zilla list, ie. maxed TMC's, Shooty Tyrants, Zoeys and either gaunts or stealers for troops with ravenors for elites.

2.) an all infantry Cron list, with either maxed destroyers or Immortals.

In this confrontation, i felt that the crons had a resaonable chance of victory. If they focused on wiping out the smaller, faster bugs first, they could then hit the big bugs with sheer volume of firepower.

Like you said Dakka fexes wouldnt be very useful and in fact would be pretty easy for the Crons to kill. Flyrants would also die fairly easily to massed firepower if they are present and they would obviously be a top priority.;
Stealers would be easy targets, espcially 4+ stealers as they would just give up even more points to Cron fire power.
The gaunts would be worse, as they are more numerous, although an all infantry Cron army should be able to put out a tremendous amount of firepower every turn. First turn would be pretty important.

All the Crons would really need to do would be to survivie a few turns of Big Bug shooting, and since they have nothing that can reliably take out 3+ save troops combined with WBB, the Crons have a good chance of doing so. Combine this with a sacrifical unit of scarabs to tie up a TMC or Zoeys for a few turns and i think they should be able to do reasonably well.

The Venom cannons and stranglers of the big bugs will only be half as effective against crons and with proper spacing they should be able to avoid too many casualties.

However this is all theroyhammer which does not always hold true on the table top.

Do you guys see any holes in this logic?

@aod
You make a good point and i have thought about that as well, using the pariahs with the deciever to make units run. the only problem with that is if you have 2 monoliths, the deciever and pariahs, your phase out will be pretty low.

We were shooting for more a tournament confrontation scenario as oppossed to a friendly game where both players knew who they were facing.

If the zilla list goes for all 2+ saves, it is really tough for a Necron army to win. You do have the massed firepower to take out most of the little stuff, but with a lucky fleet or consolidate roll they can get into a group of destroyers on your flank and just start eating your gunline. Also, with the whole nid army having move through cover, all those little guys will probably be moving through heavy cover, forcing you to devote more firepower than would normally be needed. My Necrons have had more trouble with them than any other I can think of.

Yeah, i was thinking the same thing. Necrons are appealing becasue they are dead easy to paint, cheap to acquire and good against mechanized armies and marines, which means they should be able to stand on their own in a tourny setting, plus you dont see them nearly as often as the other armies. However, Nidzillas was the one army i could picture them having the most trouble with.

I dont see an easy answer to that question, but honesly, Nidzillas is one of the best armies i can think of and they give everyone problems.

You can somewhat mitigate the HtH problem with a Lith or Veil, but it wouldnt be easy to do. The big bugs really would be a pain to kill, especially if they are toughness 7 carnies with a 2+ save.

i could see Scarabs being really important in that match up.

When you play Nidzillas, what do you find works best?

AoD:

I can't agree with taking multiple Monoliths against godzilla nids. Even though the Venom Cannon can't penetrate the Monolith, Gunfexes have a pretty easy time getting glancing hits each turn (since they're firing multiple S10 shots). Each glancing hit is a one in six shot to destroy a Monolith, and even an immobilized result will allow the Monolith to generally be ignored until the Tyranid player needs to finish it off.

Worse, Zoanthropes are *not* at all easy for Necrons to destroy unless you're going against the grain and taking Heavy Destroyers or you want to waste multiple particle whips on trying to take one Zoey out. Generally, the Necron player has to spend several units shooting trying to get a single Zoey to fail it's 2+ save twice. And if you're firing at the Zoeys that means your units are probably getting nuked by the Dakkafexes and running off the board due to the choir effect.


I would imagine that the best bet a Necron player had would be to max out on Destroyers and a veiled Immortal squad, use the army's superior range and movement to stay out of range of the Dakkafexes as long as possible while focusing all the Destroyers' fire on a single Carnifex at a time. The hope would be to eliminate enough of the firepower before they close to within firing range.


The Deciever does sound interesting, as well though. Although any unit he makes fall back with the Decieve ability is going to auto-regroup at the start of it's turn if its within Synapse range.

Using the Deceiver sounds interesting, although you'll want to focus on killing the synapse creatures to take the most advantage of his ability.

Pariahs in conjunction with his abilities sound nice in theory, but I can't see the Pariahs being worth their point cost at all throughout the course of the game; they get into combat with one tyranid unit and they're likely dead.  Worse, they have a really tough time even wounding a Carnifex.

Dont forget that carnies with bio-plasma take out monoliths and skimmers in general pretty good....always hits on a 4+ and str 10....

I think Godzilla is one of the few armies that Necrons can't handle that well, which kind of acts as a balance for them - especially in tournaments that use the new scoring system that they have in the UK that reward number of wins more than they do massive VP differentials.

I did face the Deceiver once, and that was a loss for me. Mostly due to the redeployment before 1st turn, which moved a juicy Warrior unit over to the other flank and left my Broodlord and walking Tyrant stranded on an empty flank. I even lost a dedicated Heavy CCfex to the C'tan.

Needless to say, this was not an optimized Zilla list...

I got a laugh out of the C'tan losing its last wound to a Zoanthrope in close combat (the C'tan charged it in cover so it got first go and got lucky), but the Monolith flux arc had fried most of my little stuff (hormagaunts and a ravener) before it went down to the Zoeys. And the WHip had wiped out my Broodlord+stealer unit.

Lord with Veil and the Deceiver is definitely useful against Nids, for the ability to redeploy before and during the battle. I've never found heavy destroyers to be that scary though - not enough shots to worry about, and easy to knock them all down so they can't get up. Normal Destroyers in numbers are much scarier. But I never take 2+ saves on my MCs; the heavies might be worth it if you face that.

Wouldnt a few tomb spyders be good too with particle projectors(ap3) working along with the monolith too take out MC???

Agree with Yak, your only ally will be range. Once you lose it, you are just gone. The choir -4 to -5 Ld, and huge CC / shooting ability of a typical Zilla list will roll you over in closerange.

Destroyers, with resorb backup to avoid instantdeath to all the 36" S10 shots. And just try to whittle as much down before he backs you into a corner, then turboboost to avoid a slaughter in melee and keep trying to maintain that range. The rest of your army will be caught and run down, but you might have a chance with the Veil team and Destroyers to avoid the 18" bubble of Dakkafex, Choir, and rending assault doom.

Regular destroyers are absolute murder on dakkafexes. They have the strength and the rate of fire to force lots of saves. I fought a destroyer (And heavy destroyer) heavy necron force with my zilla choir list and he's come the closest of anyone to beating me in battle. He made a couple mistakes (Which I told him about after the game) which probably swung the game my way.

Thanks for the input Fellas.

I was actually thinking about a list lke this:

Lord, veil, orb

2 x 16 warriors

3 x 10 immortals

2 x 3 destroyers

1 x 7 scarabs.

72 model count army that will not phase out very quickly.

I agree, the dakafexes will not be hard to destroy. the immortals and destroyers are great units for the points (as everyone knows), and have an effective range of 30"+, easily enough to stay away from Zoeys and Dakkafexes. The gunfexes and fast little bugs were the bigger worry.

so long as you stayed at max range, used the scarabs to tie up zoeys/gunfexes/shooty tyrants for a few turns, i think you could focus your superior firepower on the littlbugs and dakkafexes and wipe them out in a relatively short amount of turns.

I agree though that a lith would be easy for a gunfex to down. I have seen them drop land raiders too many times not too.

It sounds like Crons could at least hang with Nidzillas and with a little luck take the win.

Against the other popular tourny armies out there right now, crons would do well. any mechanized list is in big trouble, and gunline shooty lists will have a tough time.

the only other army that would be difficult to beat would be terminator heavy lists, but even then sheer flak would take a heavy toll on the terminators.

That's a lot of warriors and immortals...that should do it.

Scarabs to tie up shooty fexes are a great idea. Just watch out that they don't allow enemy CC troops (Raveners, Stealers, Hormagaunts) to leapfrog into your Warriors and/or Immortals.

If you could split the scarabs into 2 smaller units, then they'd be more versatile and die quickly enough that you'd get to shoot their targets on your own next turn. Too much of a tarpit isn't necessarily good...

Posted By Strangelooper on 02/20/2007 7:01 AM
I got a laugh out of the C'tan losing its last wound to a Zoanthrope in close combat (the C'tan charged it in cover so it got first go and got lucky), but the Monolith flux arc had fried most of my little stuff (hormagaunts and a ravener) before it went down to the Zoeys. And the WHip had wiped out my Broodlord+stealer unit.

How did this happen?  Zoanthropes don't have rending, and are only strength 4.  C'tan are toughness 8.  It should be impossible for a zoanthrope to even touch the Deceiver.

Posted By AoD on 02/21/2007 8:24 AM

Posted By Strangelooper on 02/20/2007 7:01 AM
I got a laugh out of the C'tan losing its last wound to a Zoanthrope in close combat (the C'tan charged it in cover so it got first go and got lucky), but the Monolith flux arc had fried most of my little stuff (hormagaunts and a ravener) before it went down to the Zoeys. And the WHip had wiped out my Broodlord+stealer unit.

How did this happen?  Zoanthropes don't have rending, and are only strength 4.  C'tan are toughness 8.  It should be impossible for a zoanthrope to even touch the Deceiver.

The C'Tan have Frag Grenades. And Deceivers ability only works in opponents combat phase IIRC.

"How did this happen? Zoanthropes don't have rending, and are only strength 4. C'tan are toughness 8. It should be impossible for a zoanthrope to even touch the Deceiver."

You need 2xS+1 to be immune, T7 makes a model immune to lasguns, etc.

Posted By Reecius on 02/20/2007 10:14 AM
Thanks for the input Fellas.

I was actually thinking about a list lke this:

Lord, veil, orb

2 x 16 warriors

3 x 10 immortals

2 x 3 destroyers

1 x 7 scarabs.

72 model count army that will not phase out very quickly.

I think you have too many Immortals and not enough Destroyers. The 24" range on the Immortal units means that they'll only get a single round of firing off before the Dakkafexes are in range and that's simply not good enough.

Plus, Immortals don't have the speed to get out of the corner like Destroyers do once the Dakkafexes are in range. Obviously veil can be used with Immortals, but with only one Lord with a Veil in the army, the other two units are going to be trapped and driven off the board by the choir.

Also, the S5 nature of the Immortals gun means it will take (on average) 54 shots to cause 4 wounds against a Dakkafex. That's effectively all 3 Immortal units firing all of their weapons at the same Carnifex during the same round. Personally, I just don't think that will cut it.

Now, with Destroyers that average drops to 36 shots, and while you'll have less Destroyers than you would Immortals, those Destroyers can start firing from turn one and they can maintain their distance out of range of the Dakkafexes while doing so.

So IMO, you should dump two units of Immortals and the Scarab swarm and stick with 3 maxed out Destroyer units (5 models a piece).

Posted By ForceVoid on 02/21/2007 9:20 AM
"How did this happen? Zoanthropes don't have rending, and are only strength 4. C'tan are toughness 8. It should be impossible for a zoanthrope to even touch the Deceiver."

You need 2xS+1 to be immune, T7 makes a model immune to lasguns, etc.

This isn't true, Str4 cannot hurt T8, unless my copy of the rulebook is wrong in 2 spots (fyi, the Fantasy rulebook is the same).  I believed as you did until I was recently corrected by my friend.

Posted By yakface on 02/21/2007 3:35 PM


I think you have too many Immortals and not enough Destroyers. The 24" range on the Immortal units means that they'll only get a single round of firing off before the Dakkafexes are in range and that's simply not good enough.

I doubt the dakka fexs are the issue, thats 1 dead fex before they get to shoot, the other 2 will only nail 2 or 3 immortals (after WBB) before dieing as well.

Plus, Immortals don't have the speed to get out of the corner like Destroyers do once the Dakkafexes are in range. Obviously veil can be used with Immortals, but with only one Lord with a Veil in the army, the other two units are going to be trapped and driven off the board by the choir.

The immortals can move and shoot beyond choir range, so its going to take some doing to get decent choir in range, and enough firepower in range to actually make use of it until you've got him backed up in corner.  That should give 30 immortals enough time to either defeat the choir or blast the stuff that can cause the ld checks

Also, the S5 nature of the Immortals gun means it will take (on average) 54 shots to cause 4 wounds against a Dakkafex. That's effectively all 3 Immortal units firing all of their weapons at the same Carnifex during the same round. Personally, I just don't think that will cut it.

So he can kill all 3 dakkafexs in 3 turns. How doesnt that cut it? in that time those dakkafexs will only get 2/3 immortals down permenantly. Again there has to be something else other than the dakka fexs that are the cause for concern. I imagine the barbedstranglers being a bigger problem, they way outrange him and are especially nasty to a jumping unit. On the other hand the usual nid list only has 2. Between saves and res orb the 2 VCs aren't to much to worry about for the first few turns killing the closer stuff.  Choir is only useful if you can force Ld checks, so that only really comes into play after a couple of turns. If you are relying on dakka fexs to cause casulaties that cause choir affected tests then you need something that keeps him from killin the dakkafexs. Sounds like the troops choices may be the game winner.

Now, with Destroyers that average drops to 36 shots, and while you'll have less Destroyers than you would Immortals, those Destroyers can start firing from turn one and they can maintain their distance out of range of the Dakkafexes while doing so.

So IMO, you should dump two units of Immortals and the Scarab swarm and stick with 3 maxed out Destroyer units (5 models a piece).

I like mobility, so I tend to agree.  On the other hand escalation hurts godzilla nids - and the immortal list really hammers that home compared to the destroyer list.

30 Immortals can kill a Dakka Fex a turn. Problem is that you're throwing 840 Points vs. 114, after three turns netting you 342 VP's after 3 turns. That's not an even exchange and it ignores the fact that you really need to concentrate fire on things like Flying Tyrants with 2+ Saves, because as nasty as the Nidzilla is at shooting, I think against Necrons you're doing pretty well in CC with them since they really can only hurt you in shooting.

And without a Lith and only one Veil you're going to have a hard time getting out of CC once they get there.

Necrons die in close combat to nids but they also get outshot by them, mostly because crons are not fearless and they will be rolling panic tests with ld5 each turn.

Posted By Therion- on 02/22/2007 4:53 AM
Necrons die in close combat to nids but they also get outshot by them, mostly because crons are not fearless and they will be rolling panic tests with ld5 each turn.

They own't be rolling on ld 5 until half way through the game or later.  Those immortals can move and shoot beyond choir range, bringing all thropes and 2 tyrants plus all the guns into range is not going to happen until the immortals are cornered, which is going to be at least trun3. I can see some -1 or even -2 before then, but even then maybe not the firepower to make use of it.

I realise the CC is where necrons hurt v nids.  Which is why I said the tropps may be the real winners - troops in many zilla lists being stealers.

I also realise the huge point difference between 3 dakka fexs and the immortals.  But the post I replied to indicated the dakka fexs were the problem.  I doubt they are - 3 of them are going to die fast unless something else prevents it, that could be a flyrant or the troops. To outshot the crons (and this was a discussion about shooty nids) the nids are facing 2 or 3 tough turns before they can really drive home the choir/dakka effect, time enough to lose one element of that combo.

The core of a zilla choir army is something like:

3 zoeys: choir will be tough to bring to bear against mobile immortals till later in the game. 

2 gunfexs: the Stanglers are nice, especially to deter the jumping immortals, but the VCs aren't of obvious great value against this (no lith) cron force and poor BS limits the 2 stranglers.  So nuisance value mainly

3 dakkafexs: Core firepower, but outranged and dieing at an average of 1 a turn to the immortals if the cron player goes for it. If these die then the shooty part of the force just got badly gutted which probably hinders your ability to force ld5 checks later on.

2 tyrants, the flying one in particular is where you may be able to defeat the crons, used aggresively early on he can buy the rest of the army time to move up and corner the immortals. the walkie one is only slightly better than the dakka fexs.

Stealers: these are your other units that can allow the fexs to get up unhindered, fast and and a cron nightmare

Yaks post came over as an issue with the immortals kiling dakkafexs - but really there is no such issue, not surprisingly given the huge difference in points, they can wipe the fexs with little return casualties. The issue seems to be more about the nid player stoppping the immortals doing what they can do until they are cornered, given that a lot of the nid force is not that threatening directly in the first half of the game.

Do I think the crons are going to win - no idea, I don't think the nids are in for an easy ride though against 30 immortals.  I think it sounds like a very good game, on paper at an rate. And although I like the mass destroyers I think the 2/3rd chance of escalation (pending on how you do scenario rules) would make the immortals preferable over the long run.

When you take 60+ fleeting and expendable gaunts instead of 15 stealers you can really put the pressure on the enemy firebase. After all, all you have to do is get all slow critters within 18".

Hey this guy is impersonating the real Therion.

Posted By Green Bloater on 02/22/2007 10:58 AM
Hey this guy is impersonating the real Therion.

?