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1500 Point
Dawn of War
Annihilation

Myself - Necrons
Lord + Res Orb
Lord + Destroyer Body + Warsythe
2x 10 Warriors
9 Immortals
5 Destroyers
10 Scarab Swarms
Monolith

Opponent - Imperial Guard
Company Command Squad + Flamer + Melta? – Chimera w/Flamer
5 or 6x Veteran Squad + LasCannon + Melta + Chimera w/Multilaser
Might have been a regular platoon filling some chimeras. Not sure.
Vendetta (the one with 3 twin linked Lascannons)
Leman Russ w/Plasma Cannon
Manticore + Heavy Bolter


Deployment
I deployed one squad of warriors and a lord w/ResOrb in rocky terrain in the lower left about 1/3 of the way up the board.

My expectation was that my opponent would be unable to effectively kill Necrons spread out in cover with long distance shooting. Therefore, my opponent would have to come to me and I wanted plenty of time to shoot up his vehicles and contents. I wanted my other warrior squad advancing behind the monolith.

My opponent held all units in dawn of war reserve.


Turn One – The real setup
I walked/ran my immortals to get in range of the resorb. They also enjoyed the cover. The monolith came in near enough to lend support in case I failed a lot of WBB rolls. Another squad of warriors moved into cover on the other side of the monolith. Scarabs turbo-boosted and spread out in front of the monolith. Destroyers took cover behind rock formations in the lower right side of the table. The destroyer lord turbo-bootsted up to a tall cliff face.

I would have liked to hide my second warrior squad behind the monolith, but there wasn’t any room. I didn’t want to stick them in the rocks with the other two squads as that was already a target rich environment for his blast templates. I didn’t think to turbo-boost the destroyers somewhere for a better cover save.

My opponent moved his units on as a simple vehicle gun line with the ability to shoot at just about anything on the field. The tank and command squad chimera was opposite my troops, the manticore in the opposite corner and other vehicles lined up in between. He tried to shoot me up but failed to see me due to night fighting rules.

One mistake I just realized, he probably should have made a difficult terrain check on the vendetta which parked itself on a rock pile. I was wondering about his reluctance to charge forward. Was he expecting me to come to him?

Necron – 0
Guard – 0

Turn Two – Um…nothing too exciting
The warriors and immortal squads shuffled forward a bit. The monolith moved forward 6”. Scarabs turbo-boosted to the right, simply for their cover save. Destroyers moved 12” forward and to the left in line between the manticore and warriors. The destroyer lord moved 12” forward towards the manticore. The destroyers took some shots at the chimera next to the manticore. I was hoping to prevent it from shooting up my lord. Unfortunately, I didn’t get enough angle on the shots to get side armor and we declared the chimera under cover. That block of terrain is high cliffs. I believe it was at this point the chimera is immobilized. The lord was out of assault range.

Ok. I’m thinking I can approach his forces but I need to stick to cover until I knock out some of the vehicles. If I can get the monolith to chug across the field a few turns, I can cause lots of damage and provide cover for warriors to advance behind it. Then I can teleport troops in front of the monolith to open fire with their gauss weapons and glace vehicles to death. And I’m thinking my lord is about to die.

My opponent moved his CCS forward towards my warriors. The tank knocks down a bunch of warriors and immortals. The manticore hits the monolith a few times and scatters one shot onto the warrior squad. The monolith gets a weapon destroyed and can’t shoot next turn. The warrior squad permanently looses about two warriors due to the high strength hits. The vendetta and several veteran squads shoot the destroyer lord with las cannons and do nothing. I think some of the squads couldn’t see the destroyer lord up on the cliffs and so shot at the monolith or destroyers. Three destroyers are knocked down, but the squad doesn’t flee.

Yea! He’s charging me! With one vehicle? Well it has a heavy flamer and that command squad. Maybe he’s got an exciting close combat unit in there. That manticore did some real damage to my warrior squad. I’m glad he didn’t target the squad to begin with.

Necron – 0
Guard – 0

Turn Three – Explosions
Most of my downed necrons get up, except the squad away from the res orb hit by the manticore. Total WBB losses of one warrior, one immortal and one destroyer I think. I again move up the monolith, which can’t shoot this turn. The scarabs turbo boost to form a long line in front of the warrior squads, in case his CCS wants to talk a walk. The separated warrior squad runs toward the res orb. The other warriors and immortals get a dozen or so long range shots off on the chimera but it’s under smoke cover and any glancing hits are saved. The destroyers moved slightly for a side armor shot on the CCS chimera. Out of 12 shots, I think I had 11 hits. After smoke cover saves, I think I still had three penetrating hits and a few glances. The chimera exploded taking a wound off the commander and killing a guardsman but they were too brave to cower in the smoking hole. The scarabs were too far from the CCS to assault. The destroyer lord assaulted the manticore, got 4 penetrating hits and the manticore exploded. The lord took cover behind the immobilized chimera.

Heh! I like this. I’m going to bag that CCS for sure and the manticore won’t be raining ridiculous amounts of large template destruction down on me. Too bad I didn’t think to put the scarabs closer for a possible assault on dismounting troops. And I should have taken a dangerous terrain check when the destroyer lord floated into the manticore’s remains.

My opponent moved his CCS squad forward, and flamed my scarabs killing one swarm and taking two wounds off another. Some more shooting into my warrior and immortal squads knock some down. Oh, the tank and possibly one vet squad wipe out my destroyers. I think he had at least three blast hits from the tank. The vets near the destroyer lord knock off two wounds with their melta and las cannon. And a lot of las cannon fire is pumped into the monolith. The monolith exploded, taking out a warrior nearby. The CCS assaults the scarabs and take off two wounds, which finishes off another swarm. The scarabs kill the three remaining guardsmen. The officer is stupid, or brave and continues to fight.

Ouch! The loss of the destroyers hurts. Maybe I should have taken a chance and flown them into cover before. They had no saves against the plasma and lascannon shots. I wasn’t too pleased by the loss of the monolith. It had been soaking up lots of fire. And now I wasn’t going to be able to shield my advancing squads and teleport them into rapid fire range on his vehicles. Oh well, I was winning. Maybe I could just hang back and let him keep taking pot shots at me.

Necrons – 3
Guard – 2


Turn Four – Another dying day for the guard
Again a number of downed necrons get up. A few warriors and immortals shoot at the tank but can’t manage to get a glance. The other warrior squad finally moves into res orb range so they can stop getting instant deathed by the las cannons and plasma hits. I don’t want to give up a kill point by losing the squad. The scarabs lose another swarm to the commander but finish him off. In consolidation, they spread out as much as possible. The destroyer lord jumps over the immobilized chimera and goes for the undamaged one below the cliff. I think it got three penetrates and a glance. It was destroyed and the squad inside had to bail out the back hatch and my lord was floating by the rear corner. There was just enough room for four guys to stand in the available space.

Happy days! Two more kill points. I was worried about my scarabs getting blasted to oblivion and giving up a kill point. My lord only had one wound and would likely be dead soon. I thought an immobilized vehicle was a kill point. Not so I found after a check.

Question: Should the squad have taken a leadership test to see if they panicked due to 25% squad loss?

My opponent had his troopers scramble to the top of their wrecked chimera. Two troopers died in dangerous terrain tests. They gunned down the destroyer lord with melta guns. Everyone else in range of the immortals blasted them. Half a dozen immortals went down and some warriors from each squad due to scattered plasma blasts. Those not in range, fired on the scarab swarms and I was left with three swarms. None of my troops panicked.

Question: Should the guard squad that lost 50% of the troopers in the move have taken a leadership test after they got to the top of the chimera? I’m thinking they should have.
Also, I just realized some of the shots hitting the scarabs were probably strength 6 multi-laser shots. They should have instant deathed whole swarms rather than simply taking off some wounds. I probably still would have been left with a swarm though.

Necron – 4
Guard – 3

Turn Five – And more guard dying
I think I lost two immortals and one or two warriors after the WBB rolls. The destroyer lord managed to get back up! I had the scarabs turbo-boost out of the way where they wouldn’t even be visible to much of the enemy. The warriors and immortals again tried to glance the tank from the safety of their covering terrain. Again they failed. The destroyer lord got two penetrations on the next chimera down the line. The chimera exploded and took out about half the squad inside. The squad passed a pinning test. I think the lord took a wound from the explosion and went down again.

Just biding my time, sticking to cover and hoping the game ends. And if it doesn’t I don’t think he can phase me out now. After double checking, that squad from the last chimera explosion should have taken a panic check after they passed their pinning test. I could have gotten another kill point if they’d run off the table.

My opponent simply tried to shoot up my immortals and warrior squad again. The one heavily damaged warrior squad took several plasma blasts and was down to a single warrior. Several immortals were downed as well. No one panicked.

Necron – 5
Guard – 3

Random game length roll came up with… Game Over.

Final Analysis
Ok, these are just my thoughts. I’m interested in other opinions.

Perhaps I should have deep struck the Monolith. That would have meant a lot more shots on my troops, but I think he should have been shooting at my troops to start with to try and phase me out. Also, my original plan was to play defensively thinking he would come to me since all those chimeras with one lascannon each weren’t going to hurt me badly enough to lose squads.

I shouldn’t have put the destroyers in range of the tank’s plasma cannon. There was no good reason for me to do that. The center block of terrain was too low to offer cover to high floating destroyers.

If my opponent hadn’t sent in the CCS Chimera, it would have gone much better for him. That was 3 kill points and only managed to lure the destroyers in range of the plasma cannon due to my mistake.

This IG player just spanked me last week. Kudos!

well I felt I'd give my two cents on a few things about your crons'

one thing is your monolith is always capable of shooting it's particle whip even after facing a stun or shaken. the only limitation is choosing whether to use the gauss flux and/or portal or to only use the whip. If you succumb to a stun or shaken you cannot fire your flux arc, but you may still use the portal or the particle whip.

second would be your destroyers. I'd recommend that in a 1500 game you have at least between 2 squads of 3 or 4. that way you may keep them close within 6" of eachother but not need to worry about a bad turn wiping out all your best shooting.

second with your destroyers I would have made sure to sweep his flanks to shoot at his chimera's to take advantage of the weak armor 10 of his sides. very easy to get a pen with your destroyers that way and expose his weak troops inside.

They are your best models though so be sure to keep out of range or site of anything you can't deal with for the moment.

your lord with destroyer body did well to go opening some cans though I would have very likely attached the scarabs with him and given then D. Fields and turbo boosted the first turn to give them the cover save. since most I.G. I've seen cluster tanks for all of their side protection it's easy to have your scarabs nibble at two or three tanks at once.

if you have some spare points even give the lord a lightning field. It doesn't usually come in handy. but against I.G. troops it does very well in my experience. auto hitting and wounding on 4 for every wound your scarabs had taken in that round of combat.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
also I wanted to say congrats on your victory. Any win with crons' is often well earned.

hollowmirror wrote:one thing is your monolith is always capable of shooting it's particle whip even after facing a stun or shaken. the only limitation is choosing whether to use the gauss flux and/or portal or to only use the whip. If you succumb to a stun or shaken you cannot fire your flux arc, but you may still use the portal or the particle whip.

I brought that up in the game, then thought, "oh come on, they can't mean that for shaken rolls". I wanted to move along rather than reading the codex during the game. I'll remember in the future to take the shot.

hollowmirror wrote:
second would be your destroyers. I'd recommend that in a 1500 game you have at least between 2 squads of 3 or 4. that way you may keep them close within 6" of each other but not need to worry about a bad turn wiping out all your best shooting.

Perhaps 2 squads of 3 and pull the points out of an immortal and 2 scarabs. This game the immortals did nothing, but in other games they have been responsible for doing the most damage.

hollowmirror wrote:second with your destroyers I would have made sure to sweep his flanks to shoot at his chimera's to take advantage of the weak armor 10 of his sides. very easy to get a pen with your destroyers that way and expose his weak troops inside.

There were only two ways to do that. Expose myself to the tank (which I did and it killed them) or go up on the cliffs where they would have been put in range of melta guns. On hindsight, if they hadn't been destroyed, the proper thing would have been to move them up on the cliff the next turn, near the manticore and do as you suggest.

hollowmirror wrote:your lord with destroyer body did well to go opening some cans though I would have very likely attached the scarabs with him and given then D. Fields and turbo boosted the first turn to give them the cover save. since most I.G. I've seen cluster tanks for all of their side protection it's easy to have your scarabs nibble at two or three tanks at once.

Not sure that's an option I want to pay for. I've lost two games against tyranids where D.Fields wouldn't have helped anyway. The games I won or was at least tied were against mechanized lists where the monolith, destroyer lord and gauss glance death was sufficient.

hollowmirror wrote:if you have some spare points even give the lord a lightning field. It doesn't usually come in handy. but against I.G. troops it does very well in my experience. auto hitting and wounding on 4 for every wound your scarabs had taken in that round of combat.

I often boost my scarabs out with the lord to grant their 2+ cover save. But this time I felt they were going to be needed to block more assaults out of chimeras, which didn't actually happen. And I didn't see what they were going to do against vehicles. What my opponent was doing was something I'd never seen before. After a vehicle was destroyed (not exploded) he would climb his troops up on top of it. I'm assuming he did this so that any assault would be through difficult and dangerous terrain. I would attack at initiative 1, and assuming I survived, would have another dangerous terrain check when leaving. Now I'm thinking I should have had the scarabs tag along with the Lord. The lord could have broken off and opened up a tank. Don't want the scarabs near an explosion. Next turn, the lord could move on to the next tank and the scarabs could have moved in to clean up the soft organic bits that came out.

By the way, I had no idea what I would be facing that game. I just popped up to the FLGS and when someone offered to play a game I suggested 1500 points because the list was already made.

I can understand what you mean by not wanting d. fields all the time or lightning fields either. If you aren't sure who you're playing against than it's likely for the best not to take lightning fields. Though the D. fields are often worth there price. since only a single army has no transports being nid's.

oh a point I like to bring up usually though is that I don't often think a lord with res orb is worth it's points. My argument being that the only thing robbing necrons of their we'll be back in the shooting phase is weapons twice the strength of the toughness. since ap 1 and 2 do not keep you from getting those rolls.

with how necron lists are made in 5th edition for now almost all our necrons are toughness 5 aside from the mandatory warriors. since most people will use either regular or heavy destroyers or immortals. all toughness 5. This means that if your opponent wants to rob them of their we'll be back they will need strength 10 weapons. Not all to common and when they are there are always high priority to start with.

warriors should often be tucked into ruins or cover for their protective save and to make assaults easier so that will help reduce casualties from str 8 or greater until they are under control as well. I will usually put one squad of warriors in reserve to walk on to make my opponent wait for any likely phase out and to make them walk on where it's helpful most to me.

so basically str 10 should already be a priority and should be eliminated as soon as possible. str 8 only matters against your warriors and I never take more then 2 squads of those no matter what the points. The only other thing that matters is in close combat and in my experience if you're not getting your armor save your likely going to lose by a large margin already and I wouldn't rely on not getting sweeping advanced to be able to make use of that orb to begin with.

all of that comes together to not really make me think that a lord with res. orb will do anything for you that you can't do for free with careful planning. That also opens you up to easily take those few destroyers.

Question: Should the squad have taken a leadership test to see if they panicked due to 25% squad loss?

Yes they should have, any non CC losses generally count as shooting casualties so thats a morale check, alternatively i've heard that if the whole squad can't fit outside when they emergency disembark the whole squad is destroyed, although the 4 remaining guys seems more correct

Question: Should the guard squad that lost 50% of the troopers in the move have taken a leadership test after they got to the top of the chimera? I’m thinking they should have.
Also, I just realized some of the shots hitting the scarabs were probably strength 6 multi-laser shots. They should have instant deathed whole swarms rather than simply taking off some wounds. I probably still would have been left with a swarm though.

Yep, they count as shooting casualties, same as overheating plasma gun casualties

Good win however, i love the solo crazy destroyer lord.
I can imagine the guardsmen. "WHY WON'T YOU DIE??!??!", while the necron lord slices through tank after tank

hollowmirror wrote:oh a point I like to bring up usually though is that I don't often think a lord with res orb is worth it's points. My argument being that the only thing robbing necrons of their we'll be back in the shooting phase is weapons twice the strength of the toughness. since ap 1 and 2 do not keep you from getting those rolls.

Interesting point. In this particular game, I believe it made a difference as I was being pummeled by 8 Lascannons (3 twin-linked) and the manticore before I wrecked it. But if I imagine I had another squad of destroyers instead. Yes, even in this battle, things probably would have gone better for me. Another option I'm missing is a veil. I've often used the veil to good effect moving a squad of immortals around. But with more destroyers, a teleporting immortal squad becomes less interesting.