Arts of the Red Harvest: Nightbringer

Nightbringer is my C'Tan of choice in 5th Ed. With the powers of the Deceiver getting weaker thanks to the FAQ rulings and and the general trend towards Fearlessness that has occurred since 3rd, the NB has simply become more powerful. This is especially true now that he can run and because of the way combat resolution is caluclated in this edition.

With regard his abilities:

I don't know why, but it's been my experience that his half-range LasCannon never hits, despite his BS. Personally, I think it's one of those karmic rolls that simply doesn't want to work for me, ever. (I have the same issue in my Daemon army with Horrors and Bolt of Tzeentch.) There's really not much more to be said, save for the fact that he's got a comparatively high vantage point, so cover saves are difficult to get from this shot.

Etheric Tempest: Love this when I can use it. It gets the random worthless crap out of the way (such as Gaunts. And Orks. ) For awhile, I had mistakenly come up with a strategy of fielding 9 TS's and the Nightbringer, and then having them each make a Scarab base, then using him to drop kick them forward.

Then I reread the codex and found out that was illegal. Oh well.

The blast template: Not quite as powerful as one might think. Good against big swarms of random junk (like 20 marines - no, I don't know how you managed to get 3/4ths of their army on him at the same time) or anything T3. The lack of armor saves from it is nice, but the strength is kinda lackluster. Against T4 models, you literally have to get 8-10 under it before it becomes an even bet with standard attacks. Generally, I don't use this unless it's clearing garbage away from him. (Such as Gaunts with a S upgrade.)

As with both C'tan, he's invulnerable to standard infantry. Most guns in this game cannot hurt him, and most of the other ones have a poor chance of doing so. Things like Hellfire rounds are an extreme annoyance.

That said, with one exception, he can defeat any single model in close combat. Bloodthirster? Technically better at melee, but NB gets Saves and BT does not. SmurfCharacter01? ...that's kind of amusing, would you please clean that cloud of red vapor off the battlefield? Two melee 'fexes at once? (Ok, you're pushing it here, that's a buttload of high strength attacks...still though. ) The one exception? Skulltaker. Instant Death Rending on a 4+, with the number of attacks and initiative to back it up. You still get the invuln save against those, but if you fail even one... (That said, if the NB lives through that, he WILL turn Skulltaker into a pile of goo in a single combat round.)

There's also the fear factor. Much in the same way as the Monolith, the C'tan strike most opponents as an "Oh, crap." model, and will react to his presence on the board. (Generally, the reaction is "I don't want that thing anywhere near me.") This means you can herd them, make them react to you, or at the least, devote firepower to something they should really be ignoring.



My NB shows up most often in my Wraithwing list. (It's a list meant for fun only, it lacks the mobility of firepower to actually be competitive in 5th.)

1 Necron Lord, DBody, Warscythe, Phase Shifter, Res Orb
3x Wraith
3x Wraith
3x Wraith

7x Immortals
10x Warriors
10x Warriors

1x Nightbringer

Done.

Generally speaking, this army works as a pincer attack. The Lord and his Wraiths take one flank of the board, and the Nightbringer takes the other, and both move forward and force the enemy to the center line, where the guns of the immortals and warriors are waiting. If they don't move? They get smashed on either side by two very serious CC units.


It is unfortunate the general 4th Ed strategy for using Nightbrigner no longer works. Previously, NB's best counterpart unit was Scarab Swarms. They were lightning fast and a decent sized unit of swarms could tarpit another unit for the whole game. They'd hold down a unit until the Nightbringer showed up to obliterate the target. (Even given the Scarab swarms' weaknesses and the resulting CC resolution mods, the Nightbringer (with his MC mod) + Swarms simply outnumbered the opposing unit so heavily that it just didn't matter how much they really lost by, "losing" combat did nothing to them.) However, given the Scarab's penchant towards exploding in 5th, and the combat resolution rules, this doesn't work quite as well as it used to.

I don't actualy use him any more. He was one of the first HQ's I bought, but he didn't work out realy well. The main armies I played against during that time where the eldar and tyranids. The nidz didn't bother him, because one unit of genestealers and "poof" the god is gone again, with the rest of your army into the bargain. The eldar didn't bother attacking him and always ran away from him, ending up by only killig a few with it's lightning arc. A few weeks ago I encountered another Necron player who used him, but he also failed horribly. Most players know what the Nightbringer can do and ignore him every time and just let you phase out. I never bother using him anymore, also because for a God, he quite a weakling. He isn't the al powerfull God that he suposed to be. I hope that GW in the future will release a apocalyptic version of him (along with the other C'tan), so they will the Gods they truly are.

The only useful time I had with him, was when I played against a Grey knight player. He underestimated the Nightbringer and he tried to kill it with his grandmaster and ritinue. He thought he could kill him easily with the force weapon, not a realy bad idea, but forget one point: he needed a 6 to wound. The Nightbringer then punished him for defying him, resulting in the messy death of his retinue and master. After that he gave up and played a rematch. He then just ignored the Nightbringer again and won again. I also fielded him in 5th edition against chaos marines, but he got beaten in cc against Abbadon >_>;

I don't really care about what he does on the battlefield. Im happy with being able to have a model of a living god on the battlefield. And none of those humbug warp dämons, but a real god that can rule this universe. who does whatever they want. And who is mightier than all empereors together. In this world. The true masters of the world where the fights are fought.

After going trough the fluff, the models are just amazing. The nightbringer has been converted for godlike stuff by players, but they cannot compare to a good painted nightbringer. It's a great model. I was lucky to buy a nightbringer with a box signed by the original sculptor. At a discount. I would have had paid full price for it anyway, but i saved some money for more warhammer.

Rule-wise. OK, not a real living god, but something that could just drain an entire planet from air, make a vulcano pop up everywhere and call in a tsunami, while teleporting around everywhere. Being in 20 close combats at the same time. And having a toughness and strenght over 10 and 2 inv saves of 2+, a hundred attacks and so on. Such a model might cost a billion points. But it would still be a cool battle.

I rarely use the Nightbringer, although I do really, really enjoy him against Orks and DE. He's such an awesome anti-assault unit cause of Etheric Tempest against those armies and it makes me laugh when they try to assault and can't.

The only flaw I find in him and the Deceiver is that I can never do terribly well against SM and Tau because of the volume of high strength firepower they can throw at him. He doesn't seem very godlike when a sniper team can take down 3-4 wounds on him in a turn :0. You would think a god that can walk through walls and show off wouldn't be so susceptible to guys shooting metal bullets at him. Wraiths have a better invulnerable save than him... and they can phase shift and walk through walls too... there is no logic!!

He is the slowest of slow and his lightning arc tends to rarely do anything for me in the shooting phase. That in itself I don't understand... shouldn't it be more on the lines of a rail gun? or maybe even a 8/2 assault 4 chain lightning or something? It's never sat well with me that a little Ork Wierdboy could throw out a more powerful zap bolt using adrenaline than a god that can destroy planets, stars, and eat cities for lunch :bulgy-eyes:.

His Gaze of Death ability is pretty worthless because you would need around 8 SM's surrounding him to make it worth while. His normal CC attacks are just so much better and more reliable.

Basically what I'm saying is... for being a god, he's not really that godlike other in CC, which most of the time I'm not able to cause my opponent just ignores him. He's more of a point sink than anything to me .

Oh yeah... and Skulltaker can eat his lunch in CC... it's pretty lame. God-like ftw!

Well back onto how he handles, Ill be honest I cant think of a situation when I would chose the nightbringer over the deciever. Many people swear by him, and IMO he looks cooler, but the tempest (which is only useful against particular armies) Does not bring the "bang for the buck" that the deceivers "retreat from combat" does.

Deceiver can run, AND psychic attack. Be used as your "counter termie" unit and is just as effective as the NB at doing that. He can use his "flee from battle" skill to slingshot him where he needs to be, providing even MORE movement. All for cheaper.

The big NB is cool, and im sure someone has had a couple good games with him, but when it comes down to a xxx point point model, that WILL get bogged down by a group. Id rather have my "goalie" where I need him.

PS: Now that I notice there are other "Arts of the Red Harvest" threads about diffrent things, I notice you may have wanted more about USING the NB, rather than reasons not to. If thats the case please disregard all my hoiey

A few days ago I used him against an ork player and he just was great. The ork player was trying to overrun me with something like 180 slugga boyz and ghazgkhull as their leader. First I thought I was doomed, but then etheric tempest comes in my mind and then I smiled again. When he charged with his whole army, I pushed him back again with etheric tempest. The only unit that didn't get pushed back where the Mega armoured nobz and Ghazgkhull, though they wrecked havoc at the necron warrior squad they rest was unharmed and ready to unleash hell upon the greenskins. Though if he had some kind of ordnance weapon, I would have a great problem, because I had all my necron warriors and immortals stand base to base contact around the Nightbringer, so that the tempest would hit every unit he trew at me (except for the nobz). But in this battle, the plan worked perfectly, because his nobz where dead after the charge (Lightning arc has it's purpose after all ^^ ). Only Ghazghull remained alive with 3 wounds left and he died when I charged with the Nightbringer.

ahhh...the wonderful times of the nightbringer. he is very amazing, i have to admit...but i hate him.i have run him in almost all of my necron "friendly" games.

everytime i run him, he becomes someone's main target. by that i mean...EVERY lascannon and plasma shot, it all goes at the NB. Sure a 4+ invul is alright. 50% chance to pass that lascannon shot! but no. i think my dice are rigged.

The only time he has actually done something is when he shot his lightning arc at a lemun russ...i actually SHOT!....PENNED!.....................EXPLODE!...my mouth dropped. When does that ever happen?

after that, i got shot up by 3 different squads of IG with lascannons and grenades, whatever the hell they had.

i have never actually gotten the NB into a useful close combat. my friend playes space marines, and uses a full drodp pod and deep strike army. so i get to use the NB there, but taht is about it. he is really not that special. i wish there was some way to....ya know.. use him.

ALTHOUGH i do have to say, appocolypse is pretty cool with the NB/Deciveer. Walk him out from your opponet's edge and you can reak havoc on ANYTHING in it's way.

i ran a deciver in an apocolypyse game, and i got inside his army, LITERALLY. he ran a shadow sword, 9 lemun russ cmd squad, termies, more lemun russ demolishers, land raiders, and the lemun russ with battle cannons.

i got in there, and got myself into EVERY close combat i could. i engaged a couple tech marines to keep his shadow sword from insta gibbing me. and on his turn, i would move out a few extra inches and get as close to every one of his units whenever it was his turn, he could not fire on me without getting his own people in there. and when he did shoot, i had a 4+ save.

I won that apocolypse game. it was pretty frickin awesome.