So with 5 av13 vehicles, wraiths, and 2 mindschackle units, this list could be a big challenge to my army. Dean won the roll and elected to go second. I believe he chose objectives for his primary and table quarters for his secondary. I chose kill points and table quarters. Deployment was pitched battle.

I chose scout for my grand strategy and gave it to one NDK. I deploy the scouting NDK centrally with the razorback squad and interceptors behind cover. The other NDK went on the right side and the stormraven on the left. Mordrak would be deep striking with his ghost knights.



Dean castled up using ruins to cover the immortals and wraiths and ghost arks to shield his other vehicles. I scout the one NDK towards his arks and the game begins.

Mordrak's unit deep strikes on the right side of his formation, away from the wraiths. The scouting (finished base) NDK jumps up 12" and the other NDK shunts up to shield Mordrak's unit.



In my backfield, the interceptors move up 12" as do both vehicles, dumping out their units to fire all psycannons.



Every single psycannon and stormraven shot is ineffective against the av13 wall. The scouting NDK assaults the front ghost ark and explodes it killing 2 warriors.



Dean shifts his last ghost ark back 6" to make room for the overlord to sweep the scouting NDK (1 wound) and jump out to assault the shunted NDK. Wraiths move up to assault and the other vehicles shuffle for shots.



Dean's shooting almost entirely fails with 2 lances, tons of tesla and gauss only causing 1 wound to the shunted NDK, 1 to Mordrak, and 1 ghost knight. The wraiths cause 1 wound to their NDK and he causes 1 back (failed force). The shunted NDK uses daemonic excommunication as we were playing it that mindhackle scarabs could activate force. He also passes his mindshackle test, causes 2 wounds to the overlord, and takes 1 back. I'm really surprised all my units survived both shooting and assault phases, but Dean's dice were rolling below average and mine were above so far.

I pull Mordrak's unit out of the ruin but get a poor terrain roll. Razorback and stormraven move up a bit.



All of my shooting combined explodes the triarch stalker and immobilizes the command barge. I assault Mordrak's unit into the overlord (primary with banner) and multi onto the wraiths.



Everything works out well with the mindshackles targeting the brotherhood banner, the shunted NDK finishing the overlord (also fails everliving), and the scouted NDK surviving the wraith attacks again. However, Dean saves at least 8 instant death saves and the ghost knights pile in. The shunted dreadknight cannot reach the remaining assault with 6" and consolidates 1".

The deathmarks arrive and veil behind the razorback squad and mark it for death.



Immortals move up and the remaining ark and annihilation barge shift for shots.



Dean's home field shooting fails again with everything combined only dealing 1 wound to the unengaged NDK. The deathmarks with the veil-tek flamer wipe out the razorback strike squad. Immortals wipe out the interceptor squad with tesla (I failed more 3+ saves than I passed here). In assault, the NDK survives the wraiths yet again and wipes them out with the help of the ghost knights.

I send Mordrak's unit towards the immortals, the scouted NDK after the annihilation barge, and the shunted NDK after the ghost ark.



My last strike squad moves back to engage the deathmarks.



The stormraven drops 6 frag templates on the immortals and causes zero casualties after RP rolls. Ghost knights assault immortals, NDK's assault the annihilation barge and ghost ark.



The scouted NDK explodes the annihilation barge but the shunted NDK fails to hurt the ghost ark. Mordrak perils on hammerhand and I lose one ghost knight to minshackle scarabs. I kill a couple immortals but we lock and the minsdhackle lord moves onto Mordrak. In my backfield, I assault the deathmarks, kill a couple, and we lock.

Pic are getting blurry and a few were totally unusable so I apologize. We were gaming on a corner table and the lighting is the worst in the room.

Dean has the immobile command barge left, ghost ark with warriors, warrior + cryptek on foot, and immortals who are engaged. He tries to drop the NDKs again (each has 1 wound left) but either fails to wound or I pass my saves. I kill a couple more immortals and lose another ghost knight. In the backfield, my strike squad finishes off the deathmarks.

Now the top of 5, I move the NDK's to save Mordrak.



The stormraven goes flat out into the bottom right table quarter. The shunted NDK wipes out the last warrior and cryptek on foot. The scouted NDK jumps into the immortals and breaks them with Mordrak. I fail to sweep and they run but stay on the board.

Dean's last unit of warriors (in the ruin next to the ghost ark) try to shoot down the closest NDK and the lance misses again.

We roll for the end and the game continues.

One NDK moves to escort the broken immortals off the table. Mordrak moves on the immobile command barge and the NDK on the right moves to assault the warriors in the ruin.



My dice finally smite me as Mordrak assaults the command barge, perils on hammerhand (1 wound left), dies and takes the remaining ghost knights with him. The last necron warrior unit is also wiped out in assault by the NDK.

At this point we call the game as there's only an immobile command barge left. I have kill points 10-3 and table quarters 4-0.

This battle was interesting but a bit lopsided due to the dice. We both rolled averages overall I bet, but my low rolls always came up for mindshackle tests when that was good and high rolls came up on invulns for my NDK's. One of the tricks to beating this list is also deploying outside 30" of my scouting units if I deploy first. Overall, I couldn't have asked for much more this game as just about everything went my way except Mordrak's suicide, but I shouldn't have tried hammerhand with 1 wound left.

Next game is against Astorath BA with a stormraven and land raider.

I won the roll and chose to go first. For scoring, I chose table quarters for primary and kill points for secondary. Bill chose objectives and kill points I believe. Deployment was spearhead.

I chose scout for the grand strategy and gave it to both NDK's. Everything deployed on the front edge of my semi circle with NDK's at 3 o'clock and 6 o'clock shielding the razorback and interceptors respectively. The stormraven was more central and Mordrak would be deep striking.



Bill deployed his loaded land raider on his semi circle despite me explaining the mechanics of grand strategy and personal teleporters. His drop pod is arriving turn 1 and he reserved his fully loaded stormraven so mine doesn't shoot it down. I scout both NDK's towards the raider and he fails to seize.

Mordrak and his ghosts arrive near the center just over half way to provide counter assault. The NDK's move up to the raider. The interceptors, stormraven, and razorback hold the backfield quarters. I forgot to use warp quake.



The ghost knights run to form a screen and all my shooting bounces off the raider. The NDK's get 10 auto-hits though and wreck it.



Bill's drop pod comes down behind my razorback.



And the assault marines come around for revenge.



The tac squad out of the drop pod explode the razorback with melta squads, killing 1 knight. He puts 2 wounds on the nearest NDK with shooting and assaults in. I get lucky and smash 4 marines and break them in combat. I fail to pursue but consolidate close enough to keep them running.

I bring the interceptors over to lend a hand in the backfield. The stormraven goes flat out to gain a cover save and into my weak table quarter in case it does get shot down. In the middle, the ghost knights and NDK's form a wall to receive the stormraven's units (but hopefully out of assault range).



Combined fire from the strikes and interceptors drop several tac marines. Ghost knights knock out 3 more assault marines with bolters. Interceptors assault the tac marines and I lose the justicar (and mc hammer) to perils attempting hammerhand. I kill several more assault marines, lose another knight, and we lock.

Bill's 600pt+ stormraven bundle doesn't arrive. The broken assault marines fall back but remain on the table. We move right into assault and the backfield brawls gets down to 3 interceptors vs 1 tac marine.

I let the broken marines get away as I don't want to get punched when the stormraven arrives. My stormraven goes flat out for cover and lands near the table quarter split.



My interceptors finish combat and consolidate towards the right.

Bill's stormraven fails to arrive again. His 3 tac marines regroup and duck into cover. Nothing else on the table. Oh, I think the drop pod snipes one strike knight in the crater.

I continue to hold the center and bring my stormraven up to the middle line this time. It looks like I'm kinda castled up, but everything is on the border of table quarters so I can capture next turn.



A couple pot shots put down the last assault marines.

Bill's stormraven finally arrives!



He fires some bloodstrike missiles at my stormraven but only stuns it (I fortitude it off later).

Now the top of turn 5, I push all my units to capture 3 table quarters. I take a couple shots at his raven but fail to penetrate. The strike squad wrecks the drop pod.

Bill gets out Astorath's death company to hold his backfield and moves his raven towards one of my table quarters.



And the game ends at the bottom of turn 5.

I hold table quarters 3-1 and have kill points 4-1. Not the most exciting game ever due to lack of action, but fun to play anyways since Bill is always a nice guy whether he's winning or losing. This was pretty much a textbook example of what can go wrong when a small elite army reserves and comes in piecemeal. I definitely won that one in the deployment phase when the land raider ended up being in first turn assault range after scout moves. I had already cleared the far side of the table and pulled back to a safe distance by the time he started making his reserve rolls so the only thing his raven could have accomplished when it arrived was firing a couple missiles.

With 32/32 battle points, I head to the top table to face ChrisP and his infamous (around here) tyranids.

I won the roll to go first. For scoring, I had to choose objectives as primary as I hadn't chosen that yet. My secondary would be kill points. Chris chose kill points and table quarters. Deployment was "triangle" (18" from each corner and connect diagonally).

I chose scout for my grand strategy and gave it to the based NDK. I deployed across my diagonal and Chris elected to go full reserve (smart vs my list). His genestealers would outflank and ymgarls went dormant. Everything else would arrive on his board edge.

Turn 1 everything moves up and the ghost knights drop in front of the stormraven to board next turn. Strike knights disembark from the stormraven.



Turn 2 the ghost knights embark on the stormraven which pulls back 12". The razorback moves 12" in case the ymgarls arrive. NDK's hold the center out of assault range.



If you look carefully at my positioning above, I've already made a couple mistakes and Chris jumps on them.

He rolls his reserves at the top of his turn 2 and gets: shrikes, gants, hive guard w/ prime, and tervigon. After measuring his 12" move for the shrikes, it's pretty apparent that I overextended my strike squad into assault range (1 of my 2 scoring units).



I've also misjudged the size and placement of the stormraven and put it in range of the hive guard walking on. They immobilize it and due to the angle it was facing, I won't be able to mindstrike his tervigon. Shrikes also make their difficult terrain test and massacre my strike squad.

End of turn 2: KP 0-1 Nids, objectives 1-0 GK, quarters3-1 GK

So now I'm in a real pickle. My stormraven cannot use the mindstrike missiles and only the lascannons have a chance to ID the shrikes. I send the closest NDK towards the gaunt bubblewrap. Mordrak's unit disembarks and heads towards the center in case the ymgarls come out. I could have gone after his shrikes, but I have to protect my only scoring unit now.



I kill one shrike with shooting and assault the gaunts, killing a few and locking.

Chris gets his ymgarls at the bottom of turn 3 out of the central forest.



Regular genestealers arrive on the left flank effectively out of the fight, but straddling the center line between 2 table quarters.



Shrikes move back to take out the engaged NDK.



Hive guard explode the stormraven. Ymgarls fleet and surround my razorback.



Finally I get some luck as he pens the razorback once but only shakes it (will fortitude off next turn). The engaged NDK also survives the toxic shrikes, killing one.

End of turn 3: KP 2-0 Nids, objectives 0-0, quarters 3-1 Nids

Chris has really made me pay for my early mistakes so now I feel like I'm playing for the draw. I send up the second NDK and interceptors to try and take down the shrikes.



My razorback tank shocks but the ymgarls pass their morale. Mordrak brings the ghost knights up to hunt some bugs. Strike squad disembarks.



In the center, combined shooting and assault wipes out the ymgarls with no casualties. Up top, things go very badly. He allocates 6 attacks on the interceptors and causes 5 wounds thanks to poisoned power weapons, wiping them out. The NDK's are finally able to finish the shrikes with successful force activation despite shadows.

Chris's tyrant finally arrives right behind the NDK's. His prime also breaks off from the hive guard to lend a hand. Hive guard and tervigon start heading for the middle.



On the left, the genestealers move up claiming an objective and straddling two quarters.



The tyrant, guards, and prime jump into assault and finish one NDK.

End of turn 4: KP 4-2 Nids, objectives 1-1, quarters 2-2

So now it's the top of 5, I'm in bad position, and the game could end soon. I move the razorback over 6" to get a clear shot at the genestealers as he's mistakenly placed too many out of cover. Ghost knights and strikes also form firing lines.



After all my shots, only the broodlord remains.



My NDK miraculously survives combat and causes 3 wounds to the tyrant unit. I could have wiped out the entire unit with force activation but I fail thanks to shadows.

Chris moves up the hive guard and tervigon.



My NDK finally falls and all of his units consolidate left towards the table quarter split. We roll for the end and the game continues (Doh! See below)

End of turn 5: KP 5-2 Nids, objectives 1-0 GK, quarters 2-1 GK

I only have 3 units left so I put the shrikes and razorback in the left quarter and Mordrak's unit in the right.



I don't remember what I fired at but I believe Chris made every save.

He spawns a huge unit of gaunts and moves towards the quarter split again. Terrain keeps him from crossing.



The prime joins 3 surviving gaunts in cover and the hive tyrant crosses the quarter line. The broodlord hides.



We roll for the end and the game continues again.

End of turn 6: KP 5-2 Nids, objectives 1-2 Nids, quarters 2-2

I string out my strike squad between 2 objectives. The ghost knights head for gaunts.



The razorback and strikes are able to shoot down the 3 surviving gaunts and the prime. Ghost knights fail their terrain test and don't reach the gaunts.

Chris spawns another large unit of gaunts. His tervigon crosses the quarter line.



His hive guard target the razorback and explode it. Everything else targets ghost knights but they survive.

The game ends on turn 7. KP 6-4 Nids, objectives 2-0 GK, quarters 2-2

Going back to the primary/secondaries, I chose objectives and Chris chose KP's so we both won primaries! My secondary was KP which I lost and his was quarters which we drew so the final score was 10-13 in favor of Chris's Nids!

Wow, what a back and forth game! He definitely outplayed me in just about every way from going full reserve to capitalizing on my mistakes. I was really lucky to score anything at all. Very enjoyable game overall as are all games with Chris. He ended up taking 1st overall with 3 more battle points and 7 more comp points than me. I took 2nd overall and was totally fine with that hehe. I love it when the final game of the tournament is the closest fought and most fun.