Second Game With The Necrons

Hello and welcome back. Last time I talked about my first game with the new Necron codex and how it went quite well. After mulling over the book in an obsessive fashion after that game it became apparent to me that I cheated in a few ways and thought I'd researched enough through the book for it to never happen again. Well, it did, but more on that later. For now I'll explain the picture above; the list I was trying to build for a tiny game this week was an AV13 wall at 1000pts. With high point costs on pretty much every vehicle I thought this was impossible, but ended up working out pretty well. More after the break.

The list I built is as follows:

HQ

100 - Overlord w/ Warscythe

80 - Catacomb Command Barge

Troop

65 - Warrior x5

115 - Ghost Ark

65 - Warrior x5

115 - Ghost Ark

65 - Warrior x5

115 - Ghost Ark

Heavy

90 - Annihilation Barge

90 - Annihilation Barge

90 - Annihilation Barge

Now, you may be thinking all I have to hurt AV 13/14 armour is the Overlord with Sweep Attack and Gauss on 6's, and you're right. That is the risk I'm taking, but at 1000pts, it's a risk that won't occur that often barring a single Land Raider or some Leman Russ'. The comfort I took in this decision is that not many things can reliably kill seven AV13 vehicles in a small game of 1000pts. If there are vehicles; there typically won't be that many. If there are hordes, I have a lot of shots being pumped out. The whole idea I wanted to commit to was a spam of high AV vehicles that armies at 1000pts couldn't keep up with.

My first trial with this list was against my worst fear unfortunately:

Vulkan

TH/SS Termies x5

Land Raider

Tac Squad x10 w/ Multi-melta, Flamer

Tac Squad x10 w/ Multi-melta, Flamer

The Tac Squads I knew I could handle with my Arks given enough time and staying out of melta-range, the tank-killing Termies inside a vehicle only my Lord could handle reliably is another story.

The Game: Capture and Control

The Deployment: Dawn of War

First Turn

This is the game this list was meant for. First turn protection via Night Fighting to get close and two points to capture with my three Troops. I got initiative right off the bat and decided to go second giving me that last-turn advantage to swoop in and contest a point if need-be. My opponent covered the board; a Tac to the left on his point and a Tac to the right. I deployed a Troop on my point in the corner of the board protected by the night and by AV13. I attempted to shoot the only Tac in range, but failed my Night Fighting roll.

Second Turn

The Land Raider made its way up the middle of the board lying in wait for some TH action. The Tac squad on the right shot the Twin-Linked Multi-melta and had some horrible rolls of a 1 and a 2. Next, I brought on the rest of my army, and sped along. I needed my Overlord close to the Land Raider, but I didn't want him assaulted, so I pushed a couple of barges out further in front as bait/protection. My third barge and one of my Troops went for my opponent's point while the last of my barges hung around my point to help the first Troop. If I recall all of my shooting failed at this point for my units that hadn't moved flat out.

Third Turn

My opponent shot meltas again, and while the Tac on the left was in melta-range of my Troop going for his point and made his hit this time, he rolled a 1 and a 2 (seeing a pattern of bad luck, here?) for penetration which didn't do anything to my AV13. The Multi-melta on the right took a shot at my Troop on the point and while they hit as well, I was outside of melta-range and he rolled a 4. I have to say it's really nice not being terribly afraid of S8 on my vehicles. I've never played IG before, so I didn't know what this felt like.

Enter Assault Phase. My opponent's options were assault my barges or risk assaulting nothing at all, so he went for it. My barge moved 18", so he needed a 6 to hit and manged 3 total. Unfortunately for him these hits resulted in shakened and stunned results out the wazoo and I saved them all via Living Metal.

On my turn I had to make a choice, move 12" and get 3+'s to hit on Sweep Attack on Vulkan's squad, but be in view of melta or move 18" and get 4+'s to hit, but be out-of-view of melta. I chose the latter. My sweep attack, while making all of its hits, only managed to kill one Termie. My vehicles began rallying around the Termies and shooting away at what was in range taking out some Tac Marines as well, but no Ld checks were failed. As a major note; At this point I began shooting my Tesla weapons and instead of checking the rulebook when asked, "Are you sure that's how that works?" I was sure I had done my homework on this codex and continued to give myself additional chances to hit when rolling 6's to hit. At one point I managed 8 shots on one Twin-Linked Tesla Destructor...

Hello, my name is Lantz. And I'm a dirty cheater... /shamefaced

Fourth Turn and Beyond

Shooting from the Space Marines once again failed to do any damage thanks to the dice gods hating Senior Darrel. Assault on my Lord managed to blow his transport up and Vulkan ended up killing him in later turns without an invuln. The Land Raider on its way to my point was Immobilized on some area terrain and the Tac Squads were getting shot up while my vehicles remained untouched. Senior Darrel ended up conceding when he had a Tac Squad and a busted Land Raider left while I was holding both points.

Conclusion

While my unintentional cheating with Tesla caused a lot of wounds that shouldn't have happened, I don't feel the game would have changed too drastically with his dice hating him and my dice liking me. We both had a solid strategy, it would have come down to dice in my opinion. Had the game ended on Turn 5 without him losing Vulkan and a Termie or 2 to Tesla/Gauss fire I could see us both contesting each others points. The longer the game went on, however, I believe the better it would have gotten for me. Seven AV13 vehicles is a lot to deal with at such a low point cost. And with an AV13 wall, I don't have to put out a lot of firepower, I just have to outlast the opponent's. I'll try this list again at some point and see how it goes for a second round.

As for the cheating, I believe I got the idea from strategies online, so I'd like to point out some things that people seem to be confused on from my readings (as I was myself):

Wraiths, Scarabs and Spyders do not get Reanimation Protocols. Tesla gives 2 auto-hits on 6's, not 2 additional chances to hit. And finally, the Death Ray's hits are equal to the number of models under its line in the unit, not the number of models in the unit. That last one has already been errata-ed (unfortunately only for GW-Spain so far) so the paragraph makes more sense; a lot of people seemed to be confused on this one.

In any case, I'll continue to give wrap-ups of my Necron games, so stay tuned.

For the Phaeron!