Longtime Dakkanaut
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I continued my comeback tour by bringing my trusty dusty Crons to the Maul in the Mall 2012.
It was held in the same Mall as usual, but this time we were in the food court. Convenient and Delicious.
The field looked roughly like this (I missed 3 armies, so there could be up to 3 more of some faction).
Necrons III (I had one)
SM III
GK IIIIIIIII
Nids III
BT IIII
Tau II
SW IIII
IG III
CSM II
BA II
DE IIII
E I
My list was basically the same as I've been practicing/playing with. It's strong vs. assault, weak vs. shoot and scoot, medium vs. gunlines.
Necron Overlord w/Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, Catacomb command barge, Labyrinth
Necron Overlord w/Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, Catacomb command barge
5 Immortals
5 Immortals
5 Immortals
Annihilation barge
Annihilation barge
Annihilation barge
C'tan w/moulder of worlds, shards of spirit dust
C'tan w/lord of fire, pyre shards
8 Lychguard w/shields and swords + 1 Necron Lord w/rez orb and warscythe + 1 cryptek w/-d3 charge wargear
Game #1:
Objectives
Primary (Scoring unit Table Quarters, only troops may score or contest quarters)
Secondary Kill Points
Tertiary Most models on the enemy's side of the table
Night fight round one and two.
Enemy: Shoot and Scoot Dark Eldar
HQ: Baron Sathonis
2 units Wracks in Venoms w/night shields
2 units Warriors in Venoms w/night shields
1 unit of Wyches in Raider w/night shields, flicker fields
3 units of Chosen-equivalents in Venoms w/night shields, w/blasters
3 Ravagers w/night shields, flicker fields
Big ole beast master pack
Wugh, that's about as bad as it gets. A mission that requires me to not castle up, and a foe that shoots and backs up, and can obliterate my high toughness with millions of poison hits. A rough matchup right out the gate. In particular the Night Shields will be aggravating.
He has 5 highly mobile troops to my 3 static troops. I can only win primary if he makes a mistake AND the dice go my way. Secondary is simply not in the cards. Tertiary I'll lose as a consequence of secondary. This game is a gamble on primary. I'm going to head forward and essentially melt, and hope he loses track of the missions long enough for me to take out his transports, and then bet on bad DE leadership.
He gets the first turn, but gives it to me. (Huge mistake there. He's thinking about having the last turn in an objective mission, but what he's done is give me a round of shooting later on.)
I am deployed bottom middle, he deploys upper right, all the way in the corner. Another mistake. The game is now in play for primary, if I can just get hot dice. (average won't do, I need high rolls)
Necrons 1: I boost my Overlords at him, everythign else moves + runs. I don't go a straight line, looping some forces upper left to squeeze him into the right upper corner.
DE 1: He opens fire, crippled by Night Fight he leaves a C'tan with one wound and destroys a transport and kills the Overlord who was inside. Transport was immobilized.
Necrons 2: Still can't shoot anything worth it with my barges, so they open up on his beast unit. They basically cripple it, hits jump to and shake two ravagers, destroy a transport. Overlord got up, he charges Baron Sathonyx, but the Layrinth fails (Ugh!). He doesn't get up this time. Other barge boosts over and kills a troop vehicle. Explosion leaves 1 Wrack, which I think was pinned.
DE 2: He kills my C'tan, shakes 2 of my barges(groan), they also suffer more serious damage and lose their quantum shielding. Does some damage to C'tan number 2.
Necrons 3: We move towards him again, my last overlord charges a transport that moved 6", destroys it. One of my barges immobilizes his Wyches raider.
DE 3: He polishes off my assault elements, wiping out the Lychguard and last C'tan. He destroys 2 of my Barges. Baron charges Necron Overlord, ultimately he'll hit and run away from this.
Rest of game: Not much more to this. He swaps around his troops to get primary, and sends a ravager down eventually to get tertiary. I am all but tabled as this draws to a close. I needed to ignore his shakes on my barges on the critical turn, I needed great saves, instead of lousy saves, on my Lychguard and C'tan. Really, I needed a list better suited to this battle.
Round #2:
Vs. Grey Knights
Draigo
10 Terminators (heavy wargear, led by invincible guy)
10 Terminators (heavy wargear)
5 Paladins (heavy wargear)
1 beefed up Inquisitor
Primary objective: 5 objectives
Secondary objective: control all 5 at one time or another
Tertiary objective: Kill a chosen squad of theirs while keeping a chosen squad of yours alive
Dawn of War:
My asseessment:
Draigo-wing is popular, but he's doing it wrong. No psychotrope grenades, all terminators instead of all paladins...I can win this mission against this army. Rewards of getting 0 points in the first round I guess.
Top 1: He goes first....reserves his whole army to teleport in. Uh...
Bottom 1: I go, take 4/5 objectives at one point or another in the turn. I guess secondary won't be tough.
Top 2: All Grey Knight units arrive (he's fortunate here). They warp in with one Terminator unit landing far away, one Paladin unit landing pretty close, and one terminator unit (the one with the invincible guy) landing right on me.
Bottom 2: C'tan plus Lychguard charge and kill the invincible guy's ten terminators. Skimmers shoot down his solo inquisitor. Troops take the last point.
Top 3: Paladins multi-charge and kill 2 of my annihilation barges. Troops shoot at a Command barge, but don't get it because the Lord takes a wound.
Bottom 3: I hang out and shoot at paladins, troops move to take objectives far from his stuff.
Top 4: Paladins destroy a C'tan, take it's explosion with some wounds.
Bottom 4: More shooting at Paladins, drive, by's, etc. I try and use the command barges to hem in the paladins and confine them to one objective.
Top 5: He tries to send in his paladins on the Lychguard, but the Seismic crucible keeps em away. Paladins take down the command barges.
Bottom 5: I mess up this turn and end up needing a good run check to get immortals to an objective, not specifically a huge deal, but I also moved a C'tan away form contesting an objective. Lychguard and remaining Lord charge his Paladins. Nobody breaks, heavy casualties on both sides.
Top 6: We scrum, his paladins take an objective, destroying another barge. Immortal dude pops up and takes an objective (Grr...)
Bottom 6: We finish off his main unit, massacre to contest an objective.
Final score: Necrons primary (3 objectives to 1). Necrons secondary (had em all in turn one or two). Nobody tertiary (Lychguard still alive, as is the guy who can stand up every round).
Last round:
Maul in the Mall signature mission!
Vs. Tyrannids
Hive Tyrant w/guns, 2 Hive Guard
3 Zoeys
max Ymgarl's
Tyrannofex w/railgun
Trygon
Big unit of Hormagaunts
Big unit of Termagaunts w/twin linked devourers
Special rule: everything is sustained assault, may outflank or come from your own edge.
Primary: Destroy more VP's
Secondary: Kill enemy General, keep your's alive
Tertiary: Kill more than 2.5k points
This one reads better as a narrative than it does as an actual round by round blow by blow.
I've actually been in his shoe's before, a few Maul in the Mall's ago, and this mission is simply unkind to a melee army up against a shooting army. Most of your models spend the game trudging, most of their models spend it shooting. Over time the differential goes way against you. This was much worse than normal though, as Necrons are masters of the mid range game, while Nids want to close with their foes. So anywhere they successfully closed with us, they were in range of the guys who walked back on the board and did their 24" shots.
Basically I pressed forward and took the center, then gunned him down as he came back on the board. I had a run of hard luck when his Trygon got to my lychguard, assaulted them, won combat (??) and ran them down (!!). It set me back a lot on points, but ultimately the momentum of this game couldn't really be stopped.
The primary was always going to be mine, but the secondary was exciting. He chose to use his general, and it tore through a C'tan, my non-general overlord and survived a full shooting phase (it had 2+ save). It finally fell in turn 6, and the double VP for it put me over the 2500 threshhold by like 30 points.
Always rough when you lose in round 1 and then get easy matchups the rest of the day. Lots of time to regret that first game. It's a list weakness though, shoot and scoot DE is very tough for this list. I'm thinking of ways to match that, need those new Wraiths to come out!
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