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As many of you know, my buddy Reecius (and his partners) recently opened a gaming store up in Martinez, CA. jy2 had a chance to go up there earlier this week and check it out; I found myself at loose ends today, so I thought I should do the same. Being gamers, after some obligatory chatting, we decided to play a game.

Reece has been having some success with his scarab-spawning Necrons of late; I happened to have my Tyranids in the car. Interesting note: somehow, in spite of attending most of the same tournaments over the past couple years, Reece & I have never played a game before.

First, an apology for the blurry nature of many of these photos; I was taking pictures with my tablet, and it didn't work out too well. Hopefully you can follow the action; Reecius will be along shortly with a video batrep of the same battle, which should be much clearer.

Janthkin's Tyranids
The Swarmlord
Tyrant Guard w/Lash Whip

3 Hive Guard
2 Hive Guard
8 Ymgarl Genestealers

16 Termagants
Tervigon (Cluster Spines, Catalyst, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs)
15x Genestealers (Toxin Sacs)
8x Genestealers

20x Gargoyles (Toxin Sacs & Adrenal Glands)

Tyrannofex (Cluster Spines, Rupture Cannon)

Reecius' Scarab Swarm
Imhotek
-Cryptek (Chronomotron)
Zandrekh
-Lord (Scythe, Scarabs)

20x Warriors
5x Warriors
Ghost Arc

10x Scarabs
6x Wraiths (Whip Coils)

3x Spiders (1x Gloom Prism)
3x Spiders (1x Gloom Prism)
3x Spiders

Mission: Seize Ground (3 objectives)

Reecius won the "place objectives" roll, and would place 2 to my one. After placement, the board looked like this:

The third objective is hidden from view, but it's near the stack of shipping containers on the bottom of the picture.

The interesting thing about the objective placement, is that Reecius elected to concentrate all 3 objectives on one-half of the field. He was really hoping to win his choice of deployment zone, I think....

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Well, with that deployment type, one of us was going to have a pretty significant advantage, by having all 3 of the objectives on our side of the field. Unfortunately for Reecius, I won the roll, and elected to go first.

Pre-game considerations:
I've given this matchup a bit of thought in the past, and I'm pretty confident. I need to do a few things to win: I have to dictate what the Scarabs can hit on their initial charge (probably by building screens with disposable units, like 'gants and gargoyles); I have to have one of my hammer units on hand to counter the scarabs when they do hit; and I have to take that Ghost Ark down, so it can't keep restoring downed warriors.


Tyranid Deployment

I elected to outflank the little 8-model Genestealer squad, and the Ymgarl would be deployed via the Dormant rules.

I tried to deploy fairly evenly, with the Swarmlord central, the Hive Guard & Tervigon holding the left flank with Gargoyles available to screen, and the Genestealers & T-fex holding the right side with the Termagants to screen.

Necron Deployment
Reecius surprises me with his deployment - I was expecting something a little more central, with the hard-to-destroy scarabs forming a screen for a Relentless advance of shooting warriors. Instead, he castles, and the scarabs are at the extreme edge of the battlefield.

I secretly note where my Ymgarl are napping.

Imhotek fails to seize the initiative, and we begin....

To be continued

Video to come!

Tyranid Turn 1
I'm in an interesting position for a Tyranid player - I don't really need to advance on my opponent. He doesn't have a lot of dangerous shooting, and all the objectives are in my immediate control. I do need to shift my right flank over, though - The Swarmlord is integral to my anti-scarab plans, and the Genestealers are my best hammer unit. Time to side-step....


The Gargoyles benefit from Catalyst this turn, and the unit of 3 Hive Guard move far enough forward to take a few shots at the giant Warrior block. They drop 3 Warriors; 2 stay down. Otherwise, it's just moving & running, as I bring my right flank in.

Necron Turn 1
Time to see how Reecius is planning to advance.

Oh. As it turns out, he isn't. The Wraiths pull in, the block of Warriors back up, the Ghost Ark moves just a little to try and gain cover from the Hive Guard...and 9 more Scarabs are born (with a couple of Spiders getting wounded by the process). Reecius was very careful with his Warrior movement, and they are perfectly positioned at 19" from the Gargoyles - out of my assault range.

Lightning flashes, and 4 Gargoyles are struck down. The Warriors & Ghost Ark then open up on the Gargoyles, inflicting 9 wounds...and I make 7 FNP saves. Nice.

Tyranid Turn 2
Reecius rolls for Imhotek's thunderstorm...and it continues.

I roll for Reserves, and even with the Swarmlord's +1, the Ymgarl stay Dormant. The outflanking stealers do arrive, and thanks to Swarmy's reroll, they arrive on the side I prefer, where Reecius kindly left me a large gap to get at his Spiders.

(off-camera to the left: the spiders, scarabs, and Ghost Ark, along with my freshly-arrived outflanking stealers. What a lousy picture!)

More movement brings the second unit of Hive Guard into play, while the Gargoyles move up further to continue to threaten his Warrior block (while remaining out of range of his Scarabs). I don't get a lot of shooting, but I make up for the lack of quantity with some fantastic quality - the forward Hive Guard fire on the Ghost Ark, hit with 5/6 shots, roll 3 6's to penetrate, and blow it apart in a giant 6" fireball. A few wounds are inflicted here and there; most significantly, an already-wounded spyder takes a second wound, indicating exactly which unit I will be assaulting.

Assault comes and goes, with a total of 2 spyders now dead and the 3rd locked in combat (at the cost of 1 genestealer). More importantly, Reece is going to have to do something about that unit of genestealers in his backfield - that last spyder isn't going to hold them up long.

Necron Turn 2
I believed this was the most crucial turn - if Reecius didn't start advancing in a serious way, the game was mine, as he wouldn't be able to get at the central & right objectives at all. So his movement was going to be telling....

The large block of Warriors did inch forward a bit, ending up about 10" from my Gargoyles. The Wraiths came over to take out the genestealers in his backfield, leaving his other units of spyders free to advance with their Scarab children (+6 more bases this turn, 2 spyders being dead & 1 locked in combat).

The shooting phase had an amusing moment when the giant, relentless Warrior block rolled snake eyes on their Night Fight check, leaving them with no targets at all. Otherwise, the Necron shooting was non-existant. The Wraiths succeeded in wiping out my genestealers, but I was happy with the trade - I got 2 spyders for my 112 pt investment, plus forced Reece to pull his Wraiths well back from his front lines to deal with them.

Tyranid Turn 3
This turn was certainly going to be interesting. We started with Imhotek's roll, which Reece initially failed, and then rerolled via the Chronometron. (Yes, we're aware this is controversial; no, we don't need to revisit that issue in this thread.) Then I roll for reserves, and the Ymgarl wake up. They were, of course, sleeping in the ruins on my left flank, where one of the objectives was. Here's comes the sneaky part of my "how to deal with Scarabs" strategy....

First: movement!

The Gargoyles move up, intending to assault the Warriors. They were going to be fairly unsupported in so doing, though - the Ymgarl got Catalsyt, and (in the Shooting phase) The Swarmlord gave the Ymgarl Furious Charge. The Ymgarl moved out of their ruins, ending up about 5" from the Scarabs. Shooting from the unit of 2 Hive Guard killed 3 bases of Scarabs, so the Ymgarl fleeted a little closer. Other shooting dropped a few Warriors from the giant block, but the Tervigon's Cluster Spines were denied a target when I rolled poorly for Night Fight.

So, onto the sneaky part:

The Ymgarl had Furious Charge; they then mutated for +1 strength...which made them S6, when they charged the Scarabs. They instant-killed 11 bases, took 2 casualties in return, and killed another 10 bases with "No Retreat" saves.



In other news, the Gargoyles lost 11 models (out of 14), and only did 6 or 7 casualties. I carefully removed the closest models, leaving the 3 survivors out of synapse; they broke, and escaped the Necron attempt at Sweeping Advance. Their fallback dropped them into Synapse range (but they wouldn't rally until my next turn, if they lived that long). It also left them very much in the way of the Necron advance.

In all, a pretty good turn. Because I couldn't spare any buffs for the Gargoyles, they got abused in close combat; I probably shouldn't have assaulted at all, but even the 3 survivors would be enough to continue interfering with the Necrons. Good enough!

Necron Turn 3
At this point, Reece was fairly sure he was unlikely to win, or even draw, but he had a couple last gambits to try.

Here come the Necrons! The Wraiths advance, to threaten my Tervigon, and the Warrior block comes over the wall. Lightning strikes again, killing 5 Termagants (no real loss). Warrior shooting drops one of my 3 advance Hive Guard, while Imhotek's Staff...rolls 3", and ends up killing a single Gargoyle. Being already broken, they auto-fail the morale test, and fall back further, and almost prevent the Wraiths from assaulting my Tervigon.

The Warriors assault the forward Hive Guard, while the Wraiths combo-charge the rear Hive Guard and the Tervigon. The Necron Lord w/his Warscythe chops up my Hive guard, with only a little help from Imhotek's Gauntlet of Fire, but the Wraiths stall on the Hive Guard + Tervigon combo, only managing a few total wounds.

Meanwhile, in spite of fresh reinforcements (only a few, given the distance his scarabs were from some of his spyders), the Ymgarl continued to kill Scarabs; this turn, they mutated for +1 Toughness, meaning the Scarabs needed 5's to hit, 6's to wound, with 4+ armor & 4+ FNP. I lost nothing; Reecius lost 2 bases.

Tyranid Turn 4
Endgame time; the Warriors were exposed to the Genestealers, and the Wraiths were dangerously close to His Swarmyness.

First things first, though - Imhotek's lightning storm continued to rage unabated.

Otherwise, there was some movement:

(Plus a little spawning - the Tervigon made 11 Termagants to claim the leftmost objective, and ran out on a 1-5-5 roll.) The original unit of Termagants, between movement & running, claimed the middle objective, and made excellent progress towards the (still invisible) rightmost objective.

We started the assault phase over on the left, with the ongoing Ymgarl-Scarab fight. The Ymgarl went with +1 attack this time, and thinned the Scarab herd further; there's just a single base left (for now).

Swarmy gave himself Preferred Enemy, and then he & his Guard charged the Wraiths. Careful placement on my part ensured that while the Guard contacted a Wraith (as was therefore dropped to Initiative 1), the Swarmlord could only support. Not being an independent character, though, this didn't hinder him at all - he swung 5 times, hit 5 times, wounded 5 times, and instant-killed 5 wraiths. The final Wraith, with a single wound remaining, survived all my other attacks, wounded the Tervigon twice more, and then died to "No Retreat." Meanwhile, the Genestealers assaulted the Warrior block, killed 9, lost 3 in return, and won combat by 6. Reece rolled his leadership...and it came up 2-3; he failed by 1. The Necrons were run down, and Reece conceded defeat.


Tyranid victory: Glory to the Swarm!

Jy2's Analysis of the Game
This is actually a very tough game to predict. Scarab-farm is strong against mech armies and shooty armies (thanks to Night-fight). Janthkin's nids are neither. Immotehk's lightning storm doesn't really do all that much against an all-foot army such as nids. At the same time, I'm not sure if nids have the volume of attacks to kill those scarabs fast enough. Even my paladins couldn't kill them off fast enough, though I couldn't use my force weapon against them due to the fact the Reece kept canceling my psychic power with his gloom prism (we played it that the gloom prism did work against Nemesis Force Weapons). Can Preferred Enemy toxin sac genestealers succeed where my paladins failed?

What necrons have to watch out for are the genestealers and ymgarls. The only unit that can stand up to those stealers are his scarabs. Reece will lose a lot of scarabs, but with the ability to generate 9 bases each turn, they should survive. However, this will lock up both units for a while. Not even the wraiths will survive against the stealers, especially if stealers get the charge. Then those ymgarls will just cause havoc to no end when they come in. I predict that they could possibly be the tyranid's MVP's as they will tie up and kill a lot of spyders when they do come in. Either that or they will wipe out Immotehk's unit. Both types of stealers are extremely dangerous to the crons.

The tyranids will have to watch out for the scarabs and wraiths. Wraiths will actually do damage if they get the charge and can survive anything nids put up against them except for the large unit of stealers with Preferred Enemy from the Swarmlord. Then the scarabs, though not as dangerous to nids as they are to other armies, are a very good tarpitting unit. You can be sure Janthkin will bait them with a screening unit and then try to finish them off with a multi-unit counter-assault.

Overall, I think tyranids will win this one. They are playing the tyranids' best mission - Seize Ground. Here, necrons will finally realize their most glaring weakness - the lack of scoring units. Only 2 troop choices compared to the tyranid's 5+ scoring units. While crons are busy fighting nids, that sneaky tervigon will spawn enough troops to overrun the objectives and take this game, even after all the genestealers and Swarmlord is dead, struck down by his own bonesabres against mindshackle necron lord.


------------------------------------------------------


D'oh! Ninja'd by Janthkin's actual battle report. Lol.

You're a little late...

Fetterkey wrote:You're a little late...

Yeah, when I was writing my Pre-game, the report wasn't out yet.

@Janthkin & Reecius:

Great games guys. Janthkin is probably one of the craftiest players that I have played against. He wields his nids like a surgical scalpel and then goes and operates on his opponent. The furious assault by the ymgarls was ingenuous. And he used his Swarmlord tactic against my Crowe in the last game we played against. Swarmy doesn't have to be in base with you to attack you as he is more of a glorified sergeant than an IC. These are all tyranids tricks that I've experienced firsthand while playing against Kevin (well, maybe not the furiously charging ymgarls, but ymgarls are annoying nonetheless). I am sure Reece will remember them next time as I had.

Reece, I was wondering if you had forgotten that the Swarmlord lets the nids re-roll outflanking? It seems as if you took a gamble that his stealers will come in from the wrong side without realizing Swarmlord's ability.

jy2 wrote:Can Preferred Enemy toxin sac genestealers succeed where my paladins failed?

What necrons have to watch out for are the genestealers and ymgarls. The only unit that can stand up to those stealers are his scarabs. Reece will lose a lot of scarabs, but with the ability to generate 9 bases each turn, they should survive. However, this will lock up both units for a while. Not even the wraiths will survive against the stealers, especially if stealers get the charge. Then those ymgarls will just cause havoc to no end when they come in. I predict that they could possibly be the tyranid's MVP's as they will tie up and kill a lot of spyders when they do come in. Either that or they will wipe out Immotehk's unit. Both types of stealers are extremely dangerous to the crons.

Now that you've seen the outcome, are you surprised? I was pleased how well the ymgarl accomplished their task - they completely removed the scarabs as a threat - but that was what I expected from them.

I think the Necrons would be better served by adding a second unit of scarabs, to give the spiders a fallback position, should the first unit be neutralized, as happened here.

Swarm versus swarm, I was really looking forward to this match to! So who said the tyranid codex was to nerfed to be able to compete?lol They certainly did quite well here. That was crazy how they managed to take out 21 bases in one turn. Nice batrep!

Nice Report.

When I saw the lists I knew the Necrons were in trouble.

o just as i expected....big monsters plus no high strength, low AP weapons=bad day for necrons.....bugs are by far the bane of my crons also

I wanted to see a ork horde list versus this necron list but it looks like tyranids will do the trick as well! The problem with scarab farm list is that it's a scarab farm...haha if your opponent has the tools to take out that unit you're in big trouble. What's great about it though is that the most popular tourney lists often don't so it's a great rock paper scissor army.

Wow, Tyranids tore the scarabs apart. I need more genestealers in my swarm. That was a heck of a move with the Ymgarls, completely removing the scarabs as a threat.

I wonder how Reece might play differently or change about the list to handle a swarm army like Janthkin's 'Nids. If he'll change anything at all. Looking forward to that video report.

nice game! i had little faith in the necrons winning.

someone asked if Reece will change his list after playing this game...i don't think so. as also stated, it's a rock/paper/scissors list that excells vs. shooty-mech armies. i think necrons will continue in this mindset reguardless of how bad they get rolled by 'nids.

i'm liking seeing the necrons in action. anyone playing 'nids at the moment has to love a matchup that heavily favors themselves along with an armylist like necrons that can cause a loss or two to mech lists in tournament play. I hate to say this but i think the necrons not only helped the necrons in organized play but also strengthened the chances of 'nids performing well in tournaments.

thank god for the scissors!

Good rep; I'm finding the very same weaknesses when I use Scarabs. Awesome against tanks and mech, horrible against any sturdy infantry.

Well played tho!

Holy moly.

I was always expecting the 'Nids to win to be honest; whilst Reece is an excellent player, I've seen what Janthkin can do with his Tyranids and... well... he didn't disappoint.

Brilliantly played Janthkin, to say the least. I'll be interested to see Reece's interpretation of events too.

Great report Janthkin and expertly played.

Couple of quick questions:
- Would/did you consider assaulting the genestealers into the warriors instead; to hopefully hold them up so they definitely cannot reach your objective (probably already had the gargoyles and 'guants set up for that role though)?
- Did you find swarmy contributed enough, even with fairly minimal combat?

- Reece; what do you reckon this suggests for your Stormy-Scarab-Swarm list, or is it just a 'one-off' as a result of playing Janthkin?
- Does this also make you consider a 2nd squad of Wraiths as jy suggested before; to better handle infantry and monstrous creatures?

Scarab farm seems cool but when you look at how many ways armies can generate tons of S6 attacks they aren't so intimidating. So much board space and FOC needs to be used for the farm that I don't think it's the best use of points when you could have scoring units, devastating anti-infantry shooting, and/or monster counter charge units. The Scarab farm will take care of the mech heavy meta, but it won't sweep aside the strong armies that have been around the last 12-18 months.

Awesome report with incredibly savvy play by Janthkin, looking forward to more. Thanks!

Just Dave wrote:Couple of quick questions:
- Would/did you consider assaulting the genestealers into the warriors instead; to hopefully hold them up so they definitely cannot reach your objective (probably already had the gargoyles and 'guants set up for that role though)?
- Did you find swarmy contributed enough, even with fairly minimal combat?

Hi Just Dave,

I'm not sure what you mean by the first question- did you mean the scarabs? Of course I'd throw the stealers at the Warriors. I like them against the scarabs, too - add preferred enemy and catalyst, and while they won't be instant-killing scarabs, they'll still kill 16-18 bases on the charge (after no retreat). Necrons have no answer for large units of stealers; they have to try and shoot them dead. The gargoyles and gants were mostly to make sure the swarms could only charge what I allowed them.

I think Swarmy did all I needed him to this game: he made sure the outflankers arrived to harass the Necron advance in the right spot; he was essential to the Ymgarl's performance against the scarabs; he single-handedly destroyed the wraiths, albeit in garbage time; and he influenced Reece's deployment a bit, as Reece prefers never to engage him in hth.

Janthkin wrote:As many of you know, my buddy Reecius recently opened a gaming store up in Martinez, CA.

Haha, its our store. Myself, Frankie Reece, and Luis. All are shared partners in the store.

Anyhow, to bad I couldnt have seen that game. I was on my day off.

Janthkin wrote:

jy2 wrote:Can Preferred Enemy toxin sac genestealers succeed where my paladins failed?

What necrons have to watch out for are the genestealers and ymgarls. The only unit that can stand up to those stealers are his scarabs. Reece will lose a lot of scarabs, but with the ability to generate 9 bases each turn, they should survive. However, this will lock up both units for a while. Not even the wraiths will survive against the stealers, especially if stealers get the charge. Then those ymgarls will just cause havoc to no end when they come in. I predict that they could possibly be the tyranid's MVP's as they will tie up and kill a lot of spyders when they do come in. Either that or they will wipe out Immotehk's unit. Both types of stealers are extremely dangerous to the crons.

Now that you've seen the outcome, are you surprised? I was pleased how well the ymgarl accomplished their task - they completely removed the scarabs as a threat - but that was what I expected from them.

I think the Necrons would be better served by adding a second unit of scarabs, to give the spiders a fallback position, should the first unit be neutralized, as happened here.

No, I wasn't really surprised. IMO nids actually match up well againt crons. Necrons don't really have the volume-of-fire to take on nids, at least not with the Scarab-farm build. But I didn't foresee how good ymgarls could be against scarabs.

What necrons need is not a 2nd unit of scarabs, but another unit of wraiths. Wraiths are not only their best counter-assault unit, but also a very good offensive unit as well with the resilience to get into combat. Too many scarabs unbalances their army, especially against the likes of your army, daemons, the green tide, draigowing and other foot-lists, much in the same way that too many psyfleman dreads unbalances a GK army against the same types of armies. Against their primary enemies - shooty mech - night-fighting should protect those scarabs. Ymgarls and shunting incinerator dreadknights are probably the only 2 exceptions, of which Reece faced both in just 1 week.

Yeah, I got my ass handed to me in a big way! Kevin crushed my poor crons! Haha.

I made several mistakes and it was a really bad match up for me, as we both knew.

Kevin out played me, and he is the best nid player in the country, so well done to him! It was a fun game even with getting my teeth kicked in. those ymgarls (both kevin and my favorite nid unit) combined with the swarmlord was brutal! That wrecked me.

when we theory hammered the list out, we knew bugs and daemons would be the worst match ups, but you don't see them often so it was an acceptable weakness. Now we just need to come up with a way to play through that weakness!

And yes, the stord is a partnership, not just mine =)

Reecius wrote:Yeah, I got my ass handed to me in a big way! Kevin crushed my poor crons! Haha.

Yeah, he did that to my grey knights as well the first time I played against his nids (2000pts Competitive Grey Knights vs. Janthkin's Tyranids). Lol

Great batrep...it's always nice to see the nids pull out a win.

So Reecius, if you accept this is a bad match-up for the Necrons will you be changing your list in any way? Nothing really big, just small changes to increase efficiency in some of the match-ups that aren't that great.

For example if you lose Zahndrekh that frees up a lot of points that could go into another unit of scarabs or Wraiths.

Would like to hear your thoughts.

Reece, I think you had all the tools to make this a win. You could have deployed a little differently to make sure that the outflanker stealers and ymgarl's wouldn't have wrecked your plans as much as they did, since you knew they were coming.

It almost seems like you should have led with the wraiths as a speedbump for the genestealers and ymgarls, or something like that. Hell maybe the 20 man warrior squad could have bubblewrapped them or something. If you would have gotten the charge off on the ymgarls, it would be a whole different story.

Excellent report, and kudo's to Janthkin for the win.

The problem with Ymgarls is that their hiding spot is determined after the enemy deploys. That and it was an objective game so the bug player will have a pretty good idea of where the necrons needed to go. It is tough to deploy in such a way that avoids the Ymgarls.

The key to beating tyranids. Be in cover, very few Tyranids units have offensive grenades

I guess if zandrekh was able to use his special ability to strip furious charge away from the ymgarls they would have been tarpitted by the large mob of scarabs. However since they weren't on the table during the necron player's turn, they weren't an eligible target for said ability.

Interesting report, thanks for posting it up! It's good to see these inherent weaknesses in necron lists as well as their strengths with the new(ish) codex.

Kudos to the extremely polished report, and congrats on the win, Janthkin!

Good to see Tyranids still snappin' necks and cashin' checks!

Oh my... the ymgarls...

While normally I'd go for necrons, I like to see Imhotek lose.
Janthkin, you're always so damn good with those nids, well done!

Well played, Janthkin and masterful use of Genestealers and Gargoyles.

I'm not sure what Reecius had in mind, but it's not a good idea to deploy near side board edges against Swarmlord + genestealer combo unless there's a lot of cheap sacrificial units to block outflanking genestealers. Janthkin's nid army has a lot of tar-pitting units.

Thanks for sharing!

SabrX wrote:I'm not sure what Reecius had in mind, but it's not a good idea to deploy near side board edges against Swarmlord + genestealer combo unless there's a lot of cheap sacrificial units to block outflanking genestealers. Janthkin's nid army has a lot of tar-pitting units.

I keep waiting for Reece to post the video up, where he answers that question. Psychologically, I think the outflankers were important - they threw Reece off his game, and forced him to react to me.* In terms of what they actually killed, they weren't huge contributors, but the value of taking your opponent off-script is nearly incalculable.

*And I think he overreacted by committing the Wraiths there, instead of positioning them for something more decisive on turn 3, like occupying my massive stealer horde before they could hit the Warrior block; the scarabs could have cleared the stealers without much effort, and without giving up much in terms of field position; alternatively, he could have tossed another unit of Spyders in there; without the charge, a unit of 7 non-poison 'stealers is unlikely to kill even a single Spyder.

DarthDiggler wrote:The problem with Ymgarls is that their hiding spot is determined after the enemy deploys. That and it was an objective game so the bug player will have a pretty good idea of where the necrons needed to go. It is tough to deploy in such a way that avoids the Ymgarls.

The "Dormant" rules are fantastic for that reason (and others) - it's a reactive deployment option, so they are always in the best available spot, but your opponent has very little he can do about it - the Ymgarl can't be hurt before they arrive, short of completely filling the area terrain you suspect them of occupying (which is much harder to do in practice than theory).