Third Game With The Necrons

Hello readers! This week I managed to get in two games with the Necrons and for this game I attended KHops' abode. KHops is somewhat new to the 40k scene (clarification as he was not happy with this statement; KHops is not a noob,) and so his basement hasn't been overtaken by ridiculous amounts of plastic like Eric's has. What does this mean? It means no proxying for me. It means that the following list should not be scrutinized for its poor make-up as I'm just working with what I've got, here...okay, feel free to scrutinize anyway... Having around 1850pts in Necrons before the new dex, I found myself scrambling to get to 1500pts with the lowered points cost of, well...everything. A full breakdown after the jump.

For this game I had:

HQ

150 - Overlord w/ tachyon arrow, rez orb, warscythe

175 - Destroyer Lord w/ tachyon arrow, mindshackle scarabs

Royal Court

55 - Cryptek w/ eldritch staff, solar pulse

55 - Cryptek w/ eldritch staff, solar pulse

30 - Cryptek w/ abyssal staff

65 - Cryptek w/ tremorstave, harp of dissonance, seismic crucible

65 - Cryptek w/ tremorstave, harp of dissonance, seismic crucible

Troop

208 - Warriors x16

208 - Warriors x16

Elite

65 - Flayed Ones x5

Fast

75 - Scarabs x5

105 - Wraith x3 w/ 1x whip coil, 1x particle caster, 1x whip coil & particle caster (for wound allocation shenaniganz)

Heavy

200 - Monolith

My opponent had (if I recall correctly):

Shrike

Assault Squad x10

Tac Squad x2

Rhinos x2

Las/Bolt Pred x1

LC Termies x3, TH/SS Termies x3

Land Raider x1

Ideally the Wraiths with the Dest Lord were my main melee defense to take on the big and scary (Shrike and his Assault Marines) while the Flayed Ones would take on lesser threats or join into fights for support. Scarabs would make their way to the LR while the Warriors with their Tremorstave Crypteks would fire away at either vehicles with the harp or infantry with the staff all the while holding off assaults for as long as possible with Seismic Crucible. The Overlord would run around with the 3 remaining Crypteks firing away at vehicles with the Eldritch Staves and pump out Solar Pulses when I need them. The Monolith would keep close to the Warriors in case the Seismic Crucible worked to suck people into the portal-o-doom all the while firing at what it could with Gauss and Crystal.

Game Type: Annihilation

Deployment: Dawn of War

KHops got initiative which wasn't what I wanted to see on this game type. Having a melee army to fight against, I wanted to move forward a bit and let him come to me. Not have him come to me with the table edge to my back; this was going to be a problem...

KHops deployed a Tac in a Rhino half-way up the table. I chose to deploy nothing as I knew Shrike would infiltrate with the Assault Marines (which reading over the rulebook now, I realize isn't legal, but I told him it was. Oops!) So Shrike and the mob-squad are hanging out in cover ready to pounce. I failed to steal initiative.

First Turn

Out comes the rest of his army. A LR to the mid-right full of Assault Termies and a Pred and Rhino full of a Tac Squad marching up on the left. With nothing to shoot at, it's my turn.

I brought it all; no reserves. Knowing where the LR was I set up my Scarabs who were ready to munch away at armour. The Monolith was hoping for a Portal of Doooooom strike on Shrike assuming they went for one of my Troops and Wraiths bunched up to the left of the Monolith ready to jump out. I honestly didn't have any clue what I was doing with the Flayed Ones, so they hung out on the flank. I probably should have DS or reserved them... live and learn. For shooting I managed to blow up the front Rhino and a single Space Marine...ugh and also managed to reduce the LR down to 13AV via a harp.

Second Turn

After using one of my Solar Pulses, Shrike's squad moved forward ready to jump my troops losing a single Assault Marine to jumping out of area-terrain. After shooting bolt pistols failed to harm anything, the Tac Squad shot away at my Lord and his 3 Crypteks managing to kill 2 of them (the Solar Pulse I already used, though he got back up from RP and the Abyssal Staff I wanted to try out...poo.) For the Assault Phase Shrike launched his assault a perfect 5 1/2 inches from my Troop, but Seismic Crucible reduced his assault range by 1"... Dear god I love that ability so damn much when it works.

So Shrike's standing out in the open, a few inches from my Monolith, aye?

"Hi."

For movement I clearly got my Monolith into place while the Wraiths moved up ready for cleanup, Troops scuffled into place ready to rapid fire. Scarabs huffed their way towards their target hoping to tempt some Termies into melee next turn while the Flayed Ones moved closer to the remaining Rhino hoping it would be popped open for them to get into the fleshy goodness inside. Shooting went...well. After 32 Warriors Rapid Fired, 4 Crypteks pew-pewed, a Monolith hit dead-on with the Particle Whip and got 5" on the Portal and 2 Wraiths fired Particle Casters...well. Let me just show you:

Before

After

Basically after shooting was done there was a lone Tac Marine with a Missile Launcher left which was quickly assaulted and killed by the Wraiths and Destroyer Lord. The Scarabs managed to get the LR down to AV12 after it had moved 12" in the previous turn; not bad. It was a good turn for me.

Third Turn

What goes up, must come down. The game is now in my favor; a few vehicles, two infantry units and I still have everything but a Cryptek and a Warrior? Oh, I've got this. Or so I thought. There are 4 things that happened in this game that prevented me from probably tabling my opponent. The first and second was the Tac Squad from hell shooting up my Wraiths. Having popped out of their Rhino they fired their pistols and melta-gun into my Wraith/Lord squad and managed 8 wounds on 4 guys with 2-3 wounds each. No problem, right? 3++ save on the Wraiths and all. First Wraith: 1 and a 2. Second Wraith: 1 and a 2. Lord: 1 and a 4. And the third Wraith with no wargear was fine. Next, the Ld check. Ld 10; I'm thinking I'm fine: rolled an 11... Fell back almost to the board edge...phew. The next Fall Back Ld check I rolled another 11 and they were gone... But that's not all! The third hiccup was Termies assaulted my Troop, caused a bunch of wounds and I failed Ld; typical for Necrons. Initiative roll-off and the Termies rolled a 1! I now have a 50/50 chance of staying in combat! I matched their Initiative and was swepped...

Blarg...

My turn to bring the hurt. I moved my Monolith forward where the Pred was blocking off his Tac Sqaud from Hell and was going to attempt to pull models through the Pred via the Portal of Doom which failed. The Scarabs were set up to either assault the LR or, if they had lost enough models, the Termies. My remaining Troop and Overlord with his retinue scuffled to the right and lit up the Termies taking revenge with average rolling that managed to kill 2 Termies. My Flayed Ones, with not many options left rushed for the empty Rhino hoping to glance it into a Kill Point, but only managed to cause a can't move-shoot and a weapon destroyed result. The Monolith fired some flux-arcs at the Tac Squad and failed to wound anyone while also shooting at the LR and wiffing. The Particle Whip landed perfectly on the Tac Squad, but thanks to the exploded Rhino earlier on, gave the Tac Squad enough cover saves to hold 80% of their starting number. The Scarabs charged for the Termies having their numbers dwindled removing 3 Termies and taking 3 wounds.

Fourth Turn

Fourth turn was uneventful on both sides. The lone Termie stayed in combat and managed to cause 2 wounds to my Scarabs, this guy just wouldn't die!

The LR and Pred fired all 3 Twin-Linked Lascannons at my Monolith, but only managed a Crew Shaken which I saved view Living Metal. The Tac Squad moved out of their cover and went for the Flayed Ones managing to barely make it into assault which resulted in 2 dead Flayed Ones and 1 dead SM. Both Flayed Ones got back up. The Monolith moved out of the way for a Gauss, Eldritch and Harp flurry into the Pred. The Harp whiffed and the result ended up being a Crew Stunned. The Monolith, the MVP of this turn, managed to wreck the remaining Rhino for a quick Kill Point and Crew Stunned the LR by luck of Gauss. We rolled for the game to continue (we both thought it was turn 5,) but rolled a 4 so we fought on, rightfully so.

Fifth Turn

Once again, pretty uneventful. A Warrior died, a SM died, not much else until Assault. The Terminator killed a Scarab base; this melee session was an epic stalemate. As for the the Flayed Ones and SMs, KHops ended up causing 1 more wound than I did. Ld 9 for the check, simple enough...I rolled an 11, again. Statistically this is obnoxious. But wait! Initiative roll-off and KHops rolled a 1, like on turn 3! Unfortunately I once again matched his Initiative and was swept...

Goodbye horrible unit in 3rd and 5th Edition...

We rolled to continue to turn 6 (though we thought at the time it was to continue to turn 7,) but rolled a 2 regardless and the game ended.

Necrons Win: 5-4

Conclusion, What I Learned and Food for Thought

Well, first, until 6th Edition hits Flayed Ones kind of suck, still. They seem as if they're made for 6th Edition like a lot of units in this book, but currently are just slightly better than they were before; which is still awful. Having only 5 in a unit was my own fault, but for their price I just don't see them as that great. The Monolith is starting to look a bit better to me. Yes, it's unexplainable how much worse it is now compared to 3rd Edition, but when compared to a Land Raider rather than its formal-self; I'd put it on-par for what they both do, but better since it's 50pts cheaper. My thought on big Warrior units rather than split units was being able to survive melee; a mistake I will never make again. Lastly, Tremorstave Crypteks rock. Without Seismic Crucible, this game would have easily been a loss for me.

As I said, this wasn't really a strategic list, it was a list of everything I owned, un-proxied. Had I not failed 5 3+/3++ saves in a row and rolled an 11 on my Ld for the Wraiths/Flayed Ones or lost in the two initiative roll-offs with Flayed Ones and Warriors I'm confident I would have tabled my opponent or at the very least not lost any Kill Points had these unfortunate incidents not played out.

KHops had some interesting tactics, including blocking off his Tac Squad with a Pred. That was pretty genius considering what my Troops had done to his last Tac Squad. After a few games with the 'crons I think a good way of keeping up with their ungodly mid-range shooting is to bring everything up to them at once and cut your losses. Having 1-2 enemy units to deal with each turn is what I consider the bread-n-butter of Necron tactics.

So far I'm 3 Wins and 0 Losses with the new Necron codex. With all the talk of this dex being no better than DEldar one of two things is happening here. Either I'm just that good of a tactician, or this dex really is that good and I'm one of the first to unlock its potential. Other possibilities include I'm a smug bastard or I just haven't fought Grey Knights, yet. Probably just one of those last two..

Until next time.