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Brian was gracious to accept a game and host it at his place. This served 3 purposes for me. First, I've not played a single game against necrons since I started playing in March. Second was another round with a possible GT list. Third was to playtest another GT mission.

We decided on Heroe's Glory (available on DaBoyz GT page).

My list:
T Prime +TS, LW/BS
2x Hive Guard
1x Venomthrope
5x Ymgarl Genestealers
10x Termagants
Tervigon + TS, AG, Catalyst
4x Rippers
10x Hormagaunts + TS
10x Hormagaunst + TS, AG
5x Genestealers + TS, Broodlord
12x Gargoyles +AG
3x Raveners + Rending
3x Shrikes + TS, AG, BS's
Biovore
T-Fex + RC
Trygon + AG

Brian's List (approx)
Lord + Orb, Warscythe
5 Pariahs
9 Flayed Ones
3x 10 Warriors
2x 3 Destroyers
Monolith
10x Immortals

The Table:


Brian won the roll and chose to go first. He placed his objective in the open:


I placed mine behind a ruin:


Brian deploys as such:


Pariahs are in the crater. The blob goes front to back Flayed Ones, Warriors, Immortals, Warriors, Destroyers. Lord is right in the middle to orb the whole lot.

I deploy as such:


Tervigon is in the middle of the pack. Trygon on the right flank with Raveners, Prime, Hive Guard, and Venomthrope. T-Fex is on the left flank with Gargoyles and Shrikes. Genestealers outflanking, Ymgarls hiding in the ruin in his DZ behind his Monolith. I fail to sieze.

T1 Necrons - A couple units advance as does the Monolith. His pie plate scatters and ID's two Raveners.


T1 Nids - Well my plan is pretty simple. Stop the Monolith and I prevent the teleport mobility from threatening my objective. The only problem is T-Fex is the only thing that can hurt it. Stop the Destroyers and he can't turbo boost to contest. I advance as much as I can. Trygon, Hormagaunts (TS/AG), Ravener, and Venomthrope + Prime advance up the middle. Gargoyles and Shrikes head for the far flank. In shooting, the Biovore blasts the Immortals but fails to wound. T-Fex misses x2. Hive Guard knock over 2 Flayed Ones. I run with several units.


T2 Necrons - Monolith lets rip with the little guns taking out 1 Gargoyle, 2 Hormagaunts, and 1 Hive Guard. Pariahs gun down the last Ravener. Combined shooting from Warrior units mow down the lead Hormagaunts.


T2 Nids - Ymgarls and Genestealers both arrive right where I need them.



I break off the Prime from the Venomthrope and join him to the Hive Guard. They get Catalyst. Everything advances full speed. In shooting, Biovore knocks over 2 Warriors. T-Fex and Hive Guard whiff. Genestealers multi-assault 2 Warrior units and the Broodlord casts Aura of Dispair. Ymgarls morph for toughness and assault 3 Destroyers. Genestealers kill 7 warriors and lose all 4 Genestealers. Broodlord is out of contact with the second unit, first one breaks and gets swept. He's left in the open to get shot. Ymgarls kill only 1 Destroyer gah.


T3 Necrons - 3 Warrior and 1 Destroyer stand back up. Brian splits his fire here and puts 2 wounds on the Broodlord, 4 wounds on the Trygon, and kills the Venomthrope. I can't believe the Broodlord survived! Flayed ones assault the Ymgarls. In CC, the Ymgarls knock over one Destroyer and I lose 3! I pass morale, but damn I just lost CC to Necrons. I rolled poorly in almost every CC this game.



T3 Nids - Now I'm starting to sweat. I'm losing 100's of points a turn to shooting. All my stealers are failing. My Trygon is in position to strike, but the Monolith is mowing through me. I take the money shot with the T-Fex, hit, pen, and explode the Monolith! It explodes with enough force to take out 4 Gargoyles and 1 Termagant. My Gargoyles jump into assault range of the Flayed Ones, Destroyers, and Ymgarl mess. Shrikes head to the ruins. Broodlord has 1 wound left and runs for the other Destroyer unit. Trygon considers the buffet.


Meanwhile, Rippers, Hormagaunts, Tervigon, and Biovore protect my objective. The only threat to that was the Monolith. Tervigon was just on the other side of the wall providing Synapse.


In assault, Trygon stretches for the Immortals. He rolls a 6 for terrain and makes b2b. He survives their strikes from cover. He kills 5, they break, and he sweeps them. Broodlord knocks down 1 Destroyer and survies their swings. Gargoyles knock over 4 Flayed ones and I lose another Ymgarl.


T4 Necrons - 1 Destroyer and 1 Flayed One stand up. Things are starting to look better. Monolith is gone and I've tied up the Destroyers and eliminated the Immortals. Brian shoots my Trygon down to 1 wound and assaults it with Pariahs (5). I kill only 2 and the other 3 spear my Trygon. Lord assaults my Broodlord and misses! I knock down 2 more Destroyers. Ymgarl and Gargoyles also knock over 2 Destroyers.

T4 Nids - I've still got a long run to his objective. No chance he can take mine. No HQ deaths yet to create a 3rd objective. T-Fex moves and runs 6". With no AP and no vehicles left, I gotta get him in template range. Prime advances and joins Termagants. Tervigon spawns 9 more with doubles. Shooting does nothing again. Shrikes jump in and assault the Lord with the Broodlord. I kill the remaining Destroyers and Lord and consolidate the Shrikes into the ruin and the Broodlord gets 1" and gets ready for a firing squad. I lose my last Ymgarl to Flayed ones and go down to 1 Gargoyle after no retreat wounds.


T5 Necrons - 1 Destroyer, 1 Flayed One, and the Lord stand up. Shooting drops 2 of the 3 Shrikes, the Broodlord, and I lose my last Gargoyle in CC.


T5 Nids - Prime breaks off and goes for the Pariahs. Shrike jumps down and assaults the Warriors on his objective. Shooting does nothing again. Prime drops all the Pariahs, Shrike takes down 2 Warriors. I was going to assault with my Termagants, but would have gone though cover and struck last so I prayed for a t6. Brian rolls a 1 and the game ends!



We tally up and I hold my objective and contest his. No HQ's died to create a 3rd objective. I am ahead in VP's but not by the 650min for the secondary objective. We end up at 17-9 Nids-Crons.

It was a fun game. I lost a lot more than I planned to shooting and failed in many of my assaults. My list is MSU style though with minimum unit sizes more designed to tarpit which they did well. His Destroyers only got to shoot 2 turns as with his Immortals. I should have started my T-Fex all the way forward as only the Particle Whip could hurt it. It would have been in better position near the end that way. I ended up 3-4 models away from phase out and the T-Fex might have accomplished this with templates had I started him closer. Two DZ objecive missions are also tough. I need a scoring unit and Synapse to defend which is usually Prime + Gaunts. But for this mission I needed my Prime to die. I usually use Tervigons on offense as they can support the advance and spawn late for 6" + 6" + d6" contest. I couldn't commit the Tervigon to the advance without losing synapse on my own objective.

I guess if I had to do it again, I would put the objective in terrain and guard it with Termagants instead of Hormagaunts. That way they can fail instinctive behavior and stay lurking. Put all 3 MC's up as far as I can on offense with the Venomthrope for cover. Since your own objective is worth 3BP and opponent's is 7BP, there's not much point in defending if you can drop your opponent's mobility.

MVP goes to the Broodlord who stood alone at the end of T2 and survived until T5. I gotta remember to sacrifice an HQ to reap max points in this mission.

Thanks for sharing - sounds like an interesting battle!

You're absolutely right about the Tyrannofex - they need to be forward-deployed against most opponents, in order to have the opportunity to put all of their weapons to use. Otherwise, you're paying way too many points for them. (They also make good cover for Tervigons against enemies with a lot of AP 3 firepower.)

I like your metallic green carapaces. Do you have an up-close picture of your T-fex? The conversion looks interesting, but I can't make out all the bits at this range.

Seconded on the paint job for the Tyranids. Beauteous. The Necron opponent had a nice looking army as well.

Well played too! I looked at the Tyranid list and was a little confused (very different than most you see here on Dakka) but I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of damage it could do! I do think that if you take this list to GTs you might need to bring a bit more dedicated antitank.

Janthkin - There are a couple pics of my T-Fex here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/310484.page
It's a Carnifex with Trygon bitz, greenstuff, and a small plastic tube.

Jet - Here's my approach to "Tanks and Anti-Tank". I only play Tyranids for now and I classify them through Tyranid eyes in 3 categories: av10 (rear armor), and av12+ (all around or front).

Examples of the first category are rhinos, razorbacks, predators. Tyranids are built to tear things up in CC and allthough they have some shooting AT, it's not like playing SW. I took T-Fex and HG, the best AT units in our codex IMO. Zoanthropes get shut down too easily, Venom cannons are too unreliable for a 1 shot weapon.

What I'm getting at is "av10 (rear armor 10)" vehicles can be taken down in CC. These units typically are not a threat themselves so much as what they can carry. Even Predators and Vindicators are much less of a threat to Tyranids then what could be inside a Rhino. Now, everything in my army can glance av10 and most can pen, either with biomorphs or defensive grenades from the venomthrope buff. Glancing av10 is usually all you need as a Tyranid. By scoring a glance, you have a good chance of stopping said unit from shooting or moving or both. If it's a shooty tank, they aren't shooting or you're getting free hits next round. If it's a transport, the squad inside will have to jump out if they want to do anything, which makes them available to your hungry critters. Moving vehicles = less shooting with some BA and Eldar exceptions, even they will be taking less optimal shots.

The side effect of my ragtag list is target saturation. Shoot whatever you want, the others will get through. There's a lot of speed and scything talons between Trygon, Hormi'sx2, Raveners, Shrikes, and Broodlord. All of those can pen av10 except Hormis but they can still glance.

Av12+ - LR's, Drop Pods, Dreads in CC. These pose some challenge but that's what T-Fex is there for. Trygon can punch dreads, even my 5 man stealer units have taken down dreads and defilers. Drop Pods - usually ignored. LR's are a threat because of what's inside. Almost always a CC unit. Go ahead, try to bean Nids in CC...

The hidden threat is open topped transports with shooty units inside. Tyranids fear shooting the most and now the whole unit inside can fire.

The key here is this is a hardcore comp GT list. It's not going to be optimized, but Nid MSU seems to work for now. If you read my blog in my sig, you'll see this list is 3-0 so far against comp armies. One had a LR, 2 rhinos, pred, vind, dread, ww. The other had 4 rhinos and a defiler. Anti-tank was not a problem in either game.

Thanks for the CC, kep it coming.