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Alright, so here is a brief write-up of a league match I had today against a new player at my FLGS. I was using the new necron codex, and he was using chaos daemons. This was his second game (ever!) so I made it a point to go easy on him while talking him through the rules of the game. I do not consider this game a fully detailed analysis of the strengths/weaknesses of the new Necron codex, but rather I just wanted to reflect on some things that worked in the game.

The lists:

My list (1000 Points Necrons):
HQ - Overlord - Warscythe/Phase Shifter
Catacomb command Barge - 225
2x Crypteks - Harbinger of Destruction x2 - 70

Troop - 7x Immortals - Tesla - 119
Troop - 7x Immortals - Tesla - 119
Troop - 7x Immortals - Gauss - 119
Heavy - Annihilation Barge - 90
Elite - C'tan Shard - Pyreshards/Gaze of Death - 250

992 Points

His list (1000 points Chaos Daemons)

HQ - Bloodthirster with upgrades
Heavy - Daemon Prince - Khorne upgrades
Heavy - Soulgrinder - Tongue/Vomit (?)
Troop - 10x Bloodletters
Troop -10x Bloodletters

Alright so pre-game analysis - He has a close combat army that is designed to get in my face as soon as possible and tie me up in close combat (or kill me outright). I know my shooting is going to have to be on par to deal with those monstrous creatures. We roll up Capture & Control, Dawn of war, and I win the roll to go first. I decline, giving him the first turn and he chooses his soulgrinder and bloodthirster as his preferred wave. I deploy nothing, electing to walk everything in on the first turn. I decline seizing the initiative.

Turn 1 Daemons:

He starts by rolling and getting his preferred wave. The soulgrinder arrives about 14" away from my table edge in the center of the table, and his Bloodthirster near my objective. Since I have nothing on the table for him to shoot, he runs both and passes the turn to me.

Turn 1 Necrons:

So the game had a strong start for me. I moved the immortals on across my table edge, keeping out of assault range of his two units as best as possible. Then my CCB turbo-boosts over the soulgrinder, hits twice, and explodes it. I take the move back, however, and just turbo boost somewhere else on the table (for a cover save) because I didn't want to ruin a new guy's experience to the game with a brand new codex trick that he couldn't have even known about to prepare for. Speaking of the trick, the way I read it, it's legal for the Overlord to make his sweeping attacks even while turbo-boosting. That is pretty powerful, but did I play it right? Anyhow, Gauss immortals rapid-fire on the soulgrinder and immobilize it, which I don't undo. The annihilation barge puts one wound on the bloodthirster, and both eldritch lances either whiff or can't see to shoot the bloodthirster. The c'tan moves on the table and runs 1". After having caused what i consider sufficient damage, I pass turn.

Turn 2 Daemons:

The rest of Chris's reserves come in. One unit of bloodletters deep strikes near my immortals with gauss, the others deep strike near my objective behind the bloodthirster. The daemon prince deep strikes near my c'tan shard. The bloodthirster then moves directly towards the Annihilation barge. Soulgrinder shooting puts a wound on the c'tan, bloodletters run to spread out a bit, then the bloodthirster assaults and explodes the annihilation barge.

Turn 2 Necrons: Wow. I have a lot of monstrous creatures right in my face now, with power-weapon furious-charging infantry not far behind. The Lord zooms across the soulgrinder once more but misses with his attacks this time. The c'tan shard moves towards the daemon prince, and the immortals take up firing positions. The gauss-wielding immortals rapid fire the nearby bloodletters, killing 4. The two squads of immortals with tesla carbines open up on the bloodthirster, and put 2 wounds on him when it's all done. With nothing else to do, one squad of immortals charges into the bloodthirster (in what was probably the 2nd most foolhardy move on my part for the evening). Due to poor rolling on my opponent's part, I only lose 2 immortals and then proceed to not wound the daemon in return. I pass my Ld check and stay locked in combat. Over by the c'tan/daemon prince combat, the c'tan goes to two wounds and the prince takes a couple wounds in return. he passes his fearless saves and combat continues.

Turn 3 Daemons - Soulgrinder fires at the immortals (but misses). The bloodletters move towards the c'tan and daemon prince. In combat the c'tan kills the daemon prince and the bloodthirster kills and sweeps the immortals. Another rules quandary here - I place an ever-living token where the cryptek fell, and the bloodthirster only consolidates 1". I actually succeed my 5+++ for the cryptek (the only one all game I'll add) and am able to place him within 3" of the marker without being closer than 1" to the enemy. Even though the immortals were removed as casualties through sweeping advance, was I allowed to still place an everliving token to bring back the cryptek? (Immortals were gone for good).

Turn 3 Necrons - the Overlord sweeps the soulgrinder for a third time and finally explodes it. The immortals move towards the center of the table (trying to get to an objective marker) and the c'tan approaches the bloodletters. The remaining tesla immortals backpedal and line up shots at the bloodthirster, and this time the tesla is enough to bring it down. With his 3 heavy hitters down, the game from here is just more or less mopping up bloodletters with the c'tan and overlord. I won't bore the thread with the further details except for this one:

BONE HEAD MOVE OF THE NIGHT: (made by me, the necron player) -- My c'tan was in a protracted assault with a squad of bloodletters. He was down to his last wound, so i thought i'd go ahead and help him out. My overlord and a squad of 6 immortals assaulted into combat to assist, and sure enough the bloodletters were on target and managed to kill the star god shard. The resultant explosion killed 4 more bloodletters, but also wounded my necron overlord and killed 2 immortals (nearly losing me the combat). The combat finiished with the Overlord and remaining immortals actually wounding the bloodletters enough to kill the rest of them. Game ends, necrons total victory via tabling.

Overall I had a lot of fun, and the guy I was playing against seemed to as well. He will be coming to play regularly and I could tell that even though he was new to 40K he's not new to strategy and tactics games. I look forward to facing this guy again in the future, especially after he's given the rulebook a few spins and gotten more than 2 games under his belt.

Thanks for reading the wall of text! I will start taking pictures at these league games, It would make for such better battle reports.

Order. Obedience. Unity.

That's a good look and explanation of the new Necrons...

My friend is frantically painting up his for a game tonight! I run some CSM and I've been a bit worried because he wants me to fight blind and won't let me read his codex til we are playing.

Neat to see the new Necron Codex in action. It looks like they can do some nasty things. They will be tough army to beat. Cheers.

Good first showing for the cronz!

Great Battle Report!

Just wanted to say, you did fine with the CCB Sweep attacks. if you move at combat speed, you hit on a 3+, Anything other speed a 4+. So, you were fine to move flat out, and still hit the Soul Grinder with your sweep attack.

It sounded like Gaze of Death and Pyreshards didn't do to much for you this game, what are your thoughts on those powers?

If I could make a suggestion for the 'Cron list...

I think swarm of spirit dust is an incredibly underrated power. Offensive and defensive grenades is huge, but best of all STEALTH, for just 20pts. Any necron vehicle should be big enough to obscure a C'tan, and 3+cover/defensive grenades is just nasty.

But really, great batrep

Great report! It is good to see Necrons coming out strong.

Just 2 smalls things, you can't take 2 Harbingers of Destruction with only 1 Overlord (Only allowed 1 Harbinger of each per Overlord), but its an easy mistake to make.

As for your Cryptek, ever living means he'll always get his 5+++ no matter what! You were playing it just fine

Vemores32 wrote:Great report! It is good to see Necrons coming out strong.

Just 2 smalls things, you can't take 2 Harbingers of Destruction with only 1 Overlord (Only allowed 1 Harbinger of each per Overlord), but its an easy mistake to make.

As for your Cryptek, ever living means he'll always get his 5+++ no matter what! You were playing it just fine

Actually, he can even take up to 5 Harbingers of Destruction as long as he doesn't double up on the unique wargear.

More info to be found in this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/409340.page

Ofcourse he can. Only if he had 2 wargears eg 2 solar pulses, he would need a second overlord.

Krilau wrote:

Vemores32 wrote:Great report! It is good to see Necrons coming out strong.

Just 2 smalls things, you can't take 2 Harbingers of Destruction with only 1 Overlord (Only allowed 1 Harbinger of each per Overlord), but its an easy mistake to make.

As for your Cryptek, ever living means he'll always get his 5+++ no matter what! You were playing it just fine

Actually, he can even take up to 5 Harbingers of Destruction as long as he doesn't double up on the unique wargear.

More info to be found in this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/409340.page

Oh. I do apologise.

You sir have made my morning *goes back to the cave to fiddle with lists*

Warboss Gutrip wrote:If I could make a suggestion for the 'Cron list...

I think swarm of spirit dust is an incredibly underrated power. Offensive and defensive grenades is huge, but best of all STEALTH, for just 20pts. Any necron vehicle should be big enough to obscure a C'tan, and 3+cover/defensive grenades is just nasty.

But really, great batrep

I kind of consider that Power of waste, just for the fact that offensive grenades are useless on the C'tan. It is probably the most useful of the cheap powers though. Getting a 3+ cover save could really help his survivability some.

Sasori wrote:Great Battle Report!

Just wanted to say, you did fine with the CCB Sweep attacks. if you move at combat speed, you hit on a 3+, Anything other speed a 4+. So, you were fine to move flat out, and still hit the Soul Grinder with your sweep attack.

It sounded like Gaze of Death and Pyreshards didn't do to much for you this game, what are your thoughts on those powers?

I didn't mention it in my batrep (mostly because I was typing from memory last night and very sleepy) but the gaze of death is totally worth 50 points - as long as your c'tan makes it into combat. I gained 2 wounds over the course of the game and killed 6 bloodletters all together with the gaze that game. That means it made almost double it's investment back in points just by the bloodletters, not taking into account the extra 2 wounds. It's expensive but it hits a lot more models than I would have imagined before trying it out. Pyreshards is okay as well, because the c'tan hits on 2+ with shooting attacks, so it's usually on target.

Thanks for reading the report everyone.

Cool to see that Gaze of Death worked out. So far, I've only used Writhing Worldscape, and Transdimensonal Thunderbolt. I'm going to have to give one a try with Gaze sometime.

Sasori wrote:Cool to see that Gaze of Death worked out. So far, I've only used Writhing Worldscape, and Transdimensonal Thunderbolt. I'm going to have to give one a try with Gaze sometime.

I just had a thought - a mob of 30 boyz w/ powerklaw nob vs c'tan -- unless they charge they're only s3, so they can't hurt t7 at all. The c'tan goes first then defends against the klaw, then a huge template (albeit s3) hits probably 15+ boyz. Gaze of death, aside from gaining wounds back lost previously in the battle, is a great equalizer vs hordes. It's not cleansing flame, but we can't all be Grey Knights right?

Interesting report. I am surprised that your opponent only chose to DS 2 units in. I would have been inclined to drop in 3 units since he had 5 total units. Adding the Daemon Prince to the mix would have been good with the SG already there.

The Turbo Boost of the Command Barge is an interesting play, I had not considered it. I will have to grab the codex and look to see how that works.

Necrons are, imo, a nightmare matchup for Daemons. They have a ton of s4/s5 shooting and can absolutely wreck Daemons who tend to get crushed by small arms fire.

Great bat rep! Also I'm just a little confused about what "ever living" does. Do you get to roll for it every turn, or just once all game?

ever living - you get to make your get back up roll even if the squad is dead. It is on a 5+ and can not be modified to a 4+ with res orb. It was not triggered on squad dying but upon him going down. Slight difference but I thought I would point it out.

Great bat rep and I need to think about take back moves to show new players how I could have done something but not do it so they want to keep playing. Because at the moment I just don't do it and don't tell them other than briefly mention I could have.

runmymouth wrote:ever living - you get to make your get back up roll even if the squad is dead. It is on a 5+ and can not be modified to a 4+ with res orb. It was not triggered on squad dying but upon him going down. Slight difference but I thought I would point it out.

Two exceptions - An overlord carrying the res orb himself, or a lesser lord from the court doing the same.


Otherwise spot on description.


And to the take back moves, I was really just hoping for a weapon destroyed/immobilized result anyway, when the thing exploded I decided it would be bad form to do such a thing to a brand new player. It does help show the new guys how devastating some combos in the game can be without demoralizing them to the point of QQ.

We both had fun, and that was the important part.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

calypso2ts wrote:Interesting report. I am surprised that your opponent only chose to DS 2 units in. I would have been inclined to drop in 3 units since he had 5 total units. Adding the Daemon Prince to the mix would have been good with the SG already there.

Being his second game and all, I just chalked it up to inexperience on his part. His Bloodletters had icons of chaos (i didn't know it until after he brought them in and told me) - I would have dropped them in first and then used the icons to guide in the heavy hitters on turn 2/3. I'll remind him of that next time so he doesn't make the same mistake twice.

Tell him not to bring icons at all at this point level actually. They are a waste of points, especially having 2 of them. He will mishap a bunch at first, but eventually he will figure out how to DS w/o using the crutch that is icons.

The only place I ever see them is in big games where things get crowded (I run 1 at 1850 in my second wave because SG's have such a large footprint) or for wound diversification on a Blood Crusher unit.