Today we’re going to be taking a look at the win at all costs (WAAC) Necron combo to beat. But consider yourself warned, if you play this, it may not make you a lot of friends.
Some of the top tournament players out there have noticed that the Necrons have one hell of a combo on their hands in their new book.
It’s based around a C’tan Shard of the Deceiver, 3 Tesseract Vaults, and a whole lot of Powers of the C’tan. First and foremost, let’s look at the Powers of the C’tan.
All solid powers and only one specifically has a restriction on targeting characters. At first, that seems like a no-brainer but RAW the only time rules come into play for targeting characters is during the shooting phase. These power conveniently happen at the end of the movement phase for both the units that make up this combo.
The Tesseract Vault is going to cost you 496 points each. That may seem like a lot, but it has 28 Wounds, a 24″ attack that’s firing off 20 shots causing 3 hits instead of 1 on each hit roll of a 6+, come with 4 Powers of the C’tan (and can use three each turn), and for this reason, the combo requires three of them.
There are only 6 Powers of the C’tan, but the way they work is once you take all 6 you can then take them again (unless you roll for them which could be a whole different strategy altogether). Between the three Tesseract Vaults, that’s going to be a total of 12 powers, letting you take all of the C’tan Powers twice. Not that 12 isn’t enough, but who wouldn’t want an extra two? That’s where the Shard of the Deceiver comes in.
The C’tan Shard of the Deceiver knows two powers bringing your total up to 14. That’s going to be four different powers that you can take twice, with two that you’ll be able to take three times (and one a fourth if you play a stratagem).
As if that’s not enough this is where it gets a little more unfriendly… Grand Illusion is going to let you remove the C’tan Shard of the Deceiver and/or up to D3 other friendly Necrons units from the battlefield at the beginning of the first battle round, but before the first turn begins. You’ll then be able to set them up more than 12″ from any enemy models. If you happen to get a bad roll you can still use a Command Point re-roll to try to maximize how many units you can move as well.
See where this is going…
So the trick here is going to be setting up the Shard of the Deceiver and two (possibly three if you got a good roll) Tesseract Vaults 12″ away from your opponent with the Shard of the Deceiver in the middle of two of the Vaults so it can’t be targeted in the shooting phase. Set up in a way that allows you to make your first move and box your opponent in. Then the “fun” begins.
The C’tan Powers all go off at the end of your Movement phase, some allowing you to target Character models, so make sure you read each power carefully. If you were able to move all three Vaults up that’s going to be 11 Powers, but if you were only able to move two you still have 8 powers going off. Once you’re done unleashing everything in your C’tan Power arsenal you still have the shots left with the Tesseract Vaults as well. The crazy part is, that this strategy may only barely be able to keep up with some of the armies out there that have been winning events like LVO and Adepticon.
Is this list something you would want to take to a game at your FLGS? Most likely not… But ar the national tournament level, anything seems to go these days so be aware this combo exists (at least for now) and keep your eyes peeled for it.
What are your thoughts on this combo? Whats the worst WAAC combo you’ve noticed that’s still “legal” in 8th Edition?
