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I've gotten more heavily back into the game lately, and was dragooned down to the ATC. I shook the dust of the ole Optimum Crons and tried to figure out what their current version looks like:

Necrons 2K, Battalion

Overlord w/Warscythe
Cryptek
10 Immortals w/Tesla Carbines
10 Immortals w/Tesla Carbines
10 Immortals w/Tesla Carbines
9 Immortals w/Tesla Carbines
9 Scarabs
9 Scarabs
9 Scarabs
5 Deathmarks
Shard of the Nightbringer
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge


Round 1:

Vs. Blood Angels

This list was basically a lot of 5 man death company units, some characters to give aura buffs and a few scouts to hang around and score.

He mostly null deployed, just a few scouts hanging out on the edges of the table.

I made the fortress, scarabs and barges on the outside.

He dropped down ,beat up the scarabs/barges. I countered with immortals and Nightbringer and got the advantage. I was able to push this to a table later on in the game.

Thoughts:

Fundamentally, the problem was that he couldn't assault immortals due to the scarabs in the way, and immortals shot hard enough to kill death company without letting them get too close.

Round 2:

Vs Ad Mech

His list was 4 Onagers, Belicaul and another repair guy, and 2 units of the big robots.

He went first, rooted the robots and raked me over with his guns. I shot back, killed an onager.

Next turn he absolutely let me have it, just flensed me with the double shooting robot units, all scarabs dead.

I struck back on bottom 2, killing 2 more onagers (he missed the roll to get cover saves, thank goodness).

On top 3 he let me have it again, killing just about every thing I have. The only models I had left alive were my cryptek and a small unit of immortals.

Bottom 3 I cowered behind LOS terrain.

He shifted into move mode on turn 4, but he was a ways back. I continued to cower.

On turn 5 he got the Relic, got to his 2 objects, I ran for my own and got lucky that the game ended on bottom 5.

Thoughts:

Very rough list, 10 robots firing twice is 180 shots, rerolling hits via Belicaul. I couldn't really stand up to that at all. If I'd seized I might have had a shot, but if there hadn't been LOS I'd have been tabled. I don't think playing differently could have gotten me any more points.


Round 3:

Vs Orks

He had, basically, 4 big bricks of orks with buffing characters in the center, and some stuff to hang back and shoot.

I was very hopeful at the start of this game, Tesla vs. Orks feels about as good as it gets.

He advanced, I fired on him, killed about a unit and a half. I had the scarabs and such set up to block his charges.

He moved up again, shot scarabs and charged. I messed up very badly here and let him get into Immortal units. Combination of underestimating the effect of advancing before firing and the lootas shooting 3 times each and doing better than I expected at hunting scarabs.

With him locking up immortals I was forced to move the game into a hand to hand state...but I'd already lost the Nightbringer in the initial blitz, so I had no one to keep Ghazkull honest, and he rampaged all over.

Eventually, basically everyone in both of our bricks were dead. He had like 4 boys left, 2 units of lootas and some grot artillery. I had a unit of Immortals and I think a cryptek. He was on 2 objectives to my one, secondary was tied, and I got a minor lost.

Thoughts:

I lost this one when his top 2 charges were able to reach the meaningful parts of my lists. I placed my blockers improperly, and formed the scarabs poorly (allowing him to swarm around them and prevent fallbacks). My experience with blitz lists had been with berserks from rhinos, which worked very differently from the Orks advance/charge shenanigans. I think I could have won this game, if I'd played better. This one stung.

Game 4:

Vs Guard/Grey Knights

His list was a null deploy, 16 acolytes lurking in a corner and a bunch of stuff that was going to rain down all around me. I fenced off with scarabs and waited.

They landed hard on one flank and lit me up. Draigo was giving everyone rerolls and they were in terrain, so the Necron vs. enemy infantry shooting match wasn't as much of a mismatch as it normally is.

In general, though, I started to get the edge, until Saint Celestine bltized me. Nightbringer took her apart, but she cost me a turn of shooting and delayed their line's collapse. Next turn it happened again.

Finally, though, after 2 rounds of basically my whole list fighting Celestine I got back to the business of shooting at the Grey Knights and got the edge. He had the chance to fight back, but one of his thousands of psykers blew up in the middle of a bunch of others, and things fell through for him.

Thoughts:

I don't think I really made any mistakes in this game. It was tough, but I pulled it out. Game really impressed how important cover is, I could have had a much easier time of it if my immortals had been in cover.

Game 5:

Vs. Genestealer Cult/Tyrannids

His army was mostly null deployed, just some stuff sitting back. He got the deployment roll on me, and ended up with most of the objectives so I was slogging it.

I stayed on the side of the table, so that I only needed 3 sides of a square, scarab units handled that job.

He made the big ambush, ripped the scarabs apart, I counter shot with immortals and got his little bugs, and charged in Nightbriner on the big stuff. It took a couple of rounds but I was ultimately able to break through.

The big struggle of this game was getting across the table through the waves of stealers. I was only able to get the big win because the game went 7 turns.

Thoughts

Only reason this one was doable was that I'd faced a lot of first turn charge lists previously. In general it was a lot like game 1. Screen, fall back and use immortals to destroy the blitzers. This one was by the numbers.

Game 6:

Vs. Eldar skimmer spam:

He had about 11 skimmers with really long range guns. I walk 5 inches and shoot 24...

This game was an exercise in partience. I basically chilled out and made saves. Good fortune had put most of the objectives under my feet.

My army was pretty resilient, I tried to get everyone who could get cover into it, aided by a board with a lot of terrain. He had to start making his move about turn 4.

He sent in wave serpents to try and seize the objectives, but once they were in range I was able to tesla/charge them down. I ultimately took a minor objective, mostly just because I was going last, which is always an advantage in objective game.

Thoughts

The hard part of this game was not trying to go and get his skimmers. It was the right call, but letting turns go by without attempting to bring the fight to the models dealing all the wounds feels weird. It paid off though, in terms of still having enough stuff to fight off the late game objective rush. Sigh... how many editions has Eldar played the 'hang out outside of range and then steal the objectives last turn' game? Some things never change.

Overall list thoughts:

After playing with this list I'm definitely down on the Deathmarks. The uses I imagined for them never materialized. I'm also a bit iffy about the Barges. I need the mobility, but they tend to keep the die, and they don't shoot as hard as their weight in immortals. Ultimately, I think they are worth it, the mobility and the Quantum Shielding are aces when they are working.

I'm considering trying out a unit of lychguard, which would entail upgrading the Overlord to Anrakyr and the cryptek to Oirikan. Having something fighty and tough to destroy would be a very interesting change to the list.

Once Forge World is legal I'd really like to try out a Gauss Pylon list. I think that would fix a lot of my issues, and is generally a model with a lot of promise.

Great tourney, as always, and I hope to go back next year.

Nice report. Sounded like you had a fun time overall.

nce Forge World is legal I'd really like to try out a Gauss Pylon list.

If you were playing using ITC rules then yes they are already legal. You can look up the ITC pack for this edition.

Great report! Thanks for sharing?

So do you know how you did as a Necron player and Overall? Which team did you play for?

Our Necron player did not do so hot (disclaimer: only guy who did hot on our team was our Knight player, got best Knight player of the tourney with 105 out of 120 points).

Our thoughts on Deathmarks are kind of similar. A smart/experienced player isn't going to give you the chance to use them, for what they are for.

I think Warriors are where the money is. Our Necron player got paired against the overall best Cron player in round 5, and he had a ton of warriors. No Immortals. I played one game against crons, and the immortals that guy had, didn't make it very far. To big of a threat to let live, and to expensive to bring the numbers necessary to get the job done.

I wish I had time to pay attention to more of the games, but I was to busy trying to figure out which ritualistic sacrifices I needed to make to get my dice back into the game...