Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello Dakka!

Well, game 3 of the league is in the books, this fight was against a Deceiver-led Necron army. I've changed up my list since my last league game against the Space Wolves, and I got a pick-up game in with the new roster this last Tuesday which ended in heartbreak. I have a lot of faith in the list so I tried it again with almost no change.

Here's the lists:

Necrons
HQ
- The Deceiver
Elites
- 10 Immortals
Troops
- ~14 Warriors x2 units
Fast Attack
- 3 Wraiths
- 5 Destroyers
Heavy
- Monolith
- 1 Tomb Spyder
- 2 Heavy Destroyers

Tyranids
HQ
- The Swarmlord
- 1 Tyrant Guard
Elites
- Venomthrope
- 6 Ymgarl Genestealers
Troops
- 6 Shooty Warriors w/ Deathspitters, Strangler
- 5 Fighty Warriors w/ glands, rending claws
- 19 Termagants
- 20 Hormagaunts w/Toxin
- Tervigon w/ Catalyst, glands, sacs
Heavy
- Trygon Prime w/ glands
- Trygon w/ glands

Mission: Capture and Control
Deployment: Spearhead

The Table had about ~35% coverage, mostly large ruined buildings with a couple of linear obstacles scattered throughout. There were two big buildings on the western flank and in the northeastern corner, then large, open areas of rough terrain/ruins covering the southern part of the table. Finally, the northwestern corner had some ruined machinery pieces.

I win the roll to pick and deploy, I take it and deploy in the south-west. My quadrant had an area of ruins in the back corner and a big piece of ruined machinery just east of that, with a ruined building just inside my northern edge. He got the opposite, with a ruined building in his back corner, and some more ruined machinery at his short edge near the center north. Center of the table was a 12" square area of ruins with low walls.

Objectives: For this game we each placed two objectives, one for the game, and a secondary objective worth league points that did not affect the outcome of the game. Mine were right next to each other on the big area of ruins in my back corner, his were split; the game objective was in the ruined building in his back corner, the league objective was underneath a broken piece of industrial pipe closer to the center north.

Ymgarls are Dormant, I select an area of ruins close to the center east as their spawn point.

Deployment:
Tyranids: Hormagaunts thread through the terrain to form the front line at the leading edge of my Dzone, fighty warriors behind them to the south, Swarmlord and guard behind them. Termagants make up the second line, Tervigon slightly behind them. Shooty warriors take up spots in the area of the building to my north edge that's in my Dzone, Venomthrope sets up amidst the fighty warriors near the Swarmlord to provide cloud cover. Both Trygons are in reserve.

Necrons: One unit of warriors in his objective building, one on the edge of his Dzone at center north. Monolith and Deceiver front-and-center. Wraiths, Spyder, and destroyers by the north edge, immortals and heavy destroyers near the eastern edge, in front of the objective building.

He attempts to seize, fails.

Turn 1
Tyranids: Hormagaunts charge the center with fighty warriors and Swarmlord behind, venomthrope fills the hole I left so he could provide cloud cover to everyone, Tervigon dumps out 10 termagants (no doubles), Catalysts the fighty warriors, then moves up a bit behind the 19 termegants. The spawned unit heads back to sit on my objectives. Shooty warriors take up firing positions, kill a single necron warrior with the strangler, no pin.

Necrons: The warrior I killed gets back up. He moves along the north edge with warriors, wraiths, Destroyers, and the spyder. Warriors in his objective building hold pat, immortals move up behind the Deceiver, who gets bold and walks right at the Swarmlord side of my Hormagaunt screen. Destroyers put a couple wounds on warriors, immortals and monolith roast close to half my hormagaunts. Heavy Destroyers miss both shots. Deceiver continues the boldness and charges the hormagaunts. He drops one thanks to abysmal to-hit rolls, then takes 4 wounds thanks to poisoned attacks! Woo! He loses the fight but makes his morale check, hormagaunts settle in.

Turn 2
Tyranids: Trygon Prime shows up, Trygon and Ymgarls are no-shows. T-Prime drops without scattering right in front of his objective building. Tervigon and 19 termagants collapse back, Tervigon drops a unit of 9 (no doubles) and goes with them, then puts catalyst on the shooty warriors, who jockey for firing positions. fighty warriors move up and past the Deceiver fight, Swarmlord moves up right next to it. Venomthrope trails right behind. T-Prime rocks the Heavy Destroyers with bio-electricity, kills them both. Warriors do squat to the destroyers, no other real shooting from me; rest of the army runs in the same general directions they were going in the movement phase. Deceiver uses his bail-out ability and ditches the hormagaunt fight.

Necrons: Wraiths move up, get in position to hit the shooty warriors. Immortals hold still, Deceiver moves for an assault vector on the fighty warriors, destroyers turn their guns on T-Prime. Spyder rolls up on the new unit of 9 termagants, necron warrior squad in his objective building hold pat, the other squad continues to move along the northern edge toward the west flank. Destroyers, immortals, and the necron warriors in the building all open up on T-Prime, I wince. When the dust and the gauss-arcs settle, I open one squinted eye to find... He's alive with one wound!!! the immortals and destroyers put some heat down and i failed some saves, but the necron warriors failed to put a single wound on him and that was all the difference! Spyder rolls in on the termagants, kills two, I lose one more to no retreat! saves. Deceiver goes bold yet again, charges fighty warriors. He rolls 1-2-2-3 for hit rolls, I offer thanks that warriors are WS5, then put a rending wound on him and he fails his save, then blows up! All but one of the Hormagaunts dies in the blast, one of the fighty warriors drops. Wraiths charge the shooty warriors in cover, fail to drop any, then die. shooty warriors consolidate toward the necron squad on the north edge, fighty warriors consolidate toward the immortals.

Turn 3
Tyranids: Trygon and Ymgarls show up; Trygon arrives without scattering in the north center, ymgarls pop up in the ruins on the east edge right next to the immortals. Tervigon moves up to give the termagants fighting the tomb spyder some help, shooty warriors take up firing positions, Swarmlord & co. move up behind the fighty warriors who are getting in position to rick-roll the immortals. Shots from the shooty warriors and the Trygon put down two destroyers, T-Prime drops two of the necrons holding his objective. Swarmlord paroxysms the immortals, just for good measure. Trygon rolls in on the necrons in the objective building, they go first since I'm assaulting into cover, fail to put the fatal last wound on it. Trygon WTFBBQKGs the necrons, vaporizing 6. Ymgarls warp for strength and charge the immortals with the fighty warriors, kill them down to 2, swings back net no wounds. Immortals and necron warriors both fail their morale and get cut down; T-Prime, Ymgarls, and fighty warriors all roll 5 or 6 for consolidations, T-Prime gets behind a big building wall for some cover, Ymgarls head toward the destroyers, hugging some cover of their own, and the fighty warriors duck into the ruins to claim his objective. But wait! Back over on my side, termagants shank attacks at the spyder, take no wounds in response.

Necrons: Destroyers clear the wall to roast T-Prime, necron warriors collapse back away from the warriors and the Trygon. Destroyers open up on T-Prime, stick 4 wounds to him, all of which he saves! Woo!! Warriors shoot ineffectually, then on to the spyder fight: termagants swing in, wound twice (thanks to the Tervigon's toxin sacs being nearby), and he rolls snakes for saves, sending the spyder to the scrap heap.

At this point, with warriors and a Trygon staring down his last necron squad, and T-Prime ready to charge the last few destroyers across open ground, it's pretty much a done deal. There's no reason to postpone him getting home to start getting ready for the superbowl by bulldozing his last few models, so we call it.

Normally I'd call a 'Man of the Match' and give everything a performance grade, but given how this game went it doesn't seem appropriate. What I will say is that I'm continually impressed with the Trygon. Overall I felt like my list did its job flawlessly. I know Necrons are pretty far behind the power curve these days, but honestly I was very worried about the volume of firepower he had in his list; If I had been forced to walk through all that with my assault elements it may have been a different game.

Anyway, I'm happy to have gotten another game in with the list before next week, as I'm facing off against either Templars packing a pair of LRs or Salamanders rolling TH/SS terminators 10 deep. I need the table time if I'm going to have any chance in either of those match-ups!

-Dis.

Nice report clean and quick with good detail appreciate the read!

All that Necron shooting had me worried too when I played him. The army just seems to be too hamstrung by the points cost per model and by their troop choice just being sort of "meh." Then again that's what you meant when you said the army is behind the power curve. Also the C'tan don't seem to hold up as well as they used too. My hellfire rounds shot him down to 1 wound on turn one in our game and some melta to the face put him down on turn 3. The Necrons need some love from GW soon I think. I agree with you though, the Trygon seems amazing (I think the Tervigon should continually get As on your grading scale, the ability to make new units and give them cool stuff is awesome). I quake in fear at the thought of those popping up in the middle of my Salamanders.

At least your boys have plenty of meltaguns!

I see two viable builds for Necrons at this point. Either you've got to redline the tachometer all the way and go with a fleet of destroyers/heavy destroyers, and hope for the fates to smile on you; or you've got to dump all your points into lots and lots of warriors, a lord, and a monolith or 2 and try to wear out the clock and not die. Both tacks are rough though; the high octane list suffer from the prevalence of qualitative shooting, and the hold the line list is easily outmaneuvered. The army just doesn't have the ability to be versatile in 5th. That being said, it is the second oldest codex still in use, IIRC, so here's hoping the evil toasters are due sometime soon!

-Dis.

Cool batrep. Just thought I'd chime in on a couple of points.

disdainful wrote: He drops one thanks to abysmal to-hit rolls, then takes 4 wounds thanks to poisoned attacks! Woo! He loses the fight but makes his morale check, hormagaunts settle in.

But the Deceiver is fearless...he should have taken 3 armor saves and died right there. Would've served him right assaulting a unit full of poison attacks

The Deceiver fearless!? That Rapscallion!!

I suppose it's my own fault for forgetting rules to a model I used to play every game, even if it was way back in 3rd.

As far as the solid firebase tech for Necrons goes, I totally agree. Such a competent firing line causes a real headache, and considering that, at the 1850-2000 point level I've basically given up on dumping points into Nids that might crack AV 14... maybe, means that I just have to ignore monoliths and hope for the best.

Leaving the backfield unsupported and generally fanning out instead of concentrating his forces opened a door for me to apply massed pressure to one point, and collapse away from the other, and created room for the Trygons to drop in his midfield, dividing his forces into three packets, each less effective separately than as a whole.

In his defense, it was the first game against new Tyranids. Considering the fact that all I've seen of bugs prior to the new book has been stealer shock and hold-out attempts at nidzilla, I expect it'll take some adjustment time for the new bugs to dissolve into the meta fully. A timeframe that I will gleefully ride all the way to the ground like cowboy Reagan on a wild nuke!

-Dis.

An interesting read, thanks for posting.

nids pwn

nids pwn

nids pwn

If he had been more familiar with the new nids, I think he would've done better. The necrons are old, but in capable hands, they can still compete even if they're the underdogs a lot of the times. It's just nuts to charge his deceiver into poisoned gribblies, something a skilled necron player familiar with nids should never do. Instead, use him as a counter-charge deterrent for those deep-striking trygons, TMC's or warriors and shoot down the gribblies.

jy2 wrote:If he had been more familiar with the new nids, I think he would've done better. The necrons are old, but in capable hands, they can still compete even if they're the underdogs a lot of the times. It's just nuts to charge his deceiver into poisoned gribblies, something a skilled necron player familiar with nids should never do. Instead, use him as a counter-charge deterrent for those deep-striking trygons, TMC's or warriors and shoot down the gribblies.

Doesn't help that it's a pretty terrible 'cron list either way. Only one unit of Destroyers? Freakin' wraiths? Two 65 point lascannons that can be shot down by even the most basic shooting? He should have taken another unit of Destroyers and kept them linked via tomb spyder. I really don't see what armies he's expecting the wraiths and heavy destroyers would help against.

yeah, I'd be more inclined to drop the immortals into 2x5 for the shooting split of fire, take another 3 destroyers, drop the warriors down to 10x2 and exchange the remaining 8 for 8 flayed ones. Their terrifying visage isn't something to snuff at, held a Prime, warriors and raveners for 3 solid assault phases.

Very good Battle Report, thanks for posting it!

It sounds like the Deceiver had some bad rolls. Did he try to run your guys away at all with the Dread ability? Against Tyranids he's much better at counter-assault and defending.

Kurgash wrote:yeah, I'd be more inclined to drop the immortals into 2x5 for the shooting split of fire, take another 3 destroyers, drop the warriors down to 10x2 and exchange the remaining 8 for 8 flayed ones. Their terrifying visage isn't something to snuff at, held a Prime, warriors and raveners for 3 solid assault phases.

Actually splitting up the immortals into 2x5 sounds like a pretty damn good idea to me for several reasons. It makes it harder for them to be wiped out, as the Tomb Spyder will let one group join the other if some terrible thing happens like a Basilisk shot. Of course, it could give your opponent a free kill point, but crons will almost always be at a KP advantage because they don't have any transports.