Finishing at 5 in the morning before the tournament I got the Wraiths up to gaming standard so I could take them to the tournament (I also quickly added some blue to my WIP Sypder as well). At 2 in the morning I released I wasn't going to finish them at the rate I was going, so you'll notice that I didn't paint the red in between the tail sections on the back 3 Wraiths. They are very very far from finished, but I still got compliments about them at the tournament which is nice.
Practice Game
For this game and the tournament games my (1500 point) list was:
Combined Arms Detachment:
Lord (just stock with a Staff of Light)
2 x 10 Warriors
3 Spyders
Canoptek Harvest Formation
1 Spyder
5 Scarabs
6 Wraiths
Destroyer Cult Formation
Destroyer Lord (Voidreaper, ie. a Warscythe with Master-crafted and Fleshbane)
3 x 3 Destroyers
3 Heavy Destroyers
We played maelstrom hammer and anvil, and in hindsight the deployment played into my hand, as it stopped the Grey Knights using their mobility to pick on isolated units because out 24" wide deployment zones were so packed.
Bad target priority meant I took a wound off a dreadknight while leaving a rhino on 1 hull point (should have focused on the rhino), however some destroyers on the other flank killed the other rhino to get me 1st blood.
Next turn I tied to whittle away wounds on the dreadknights while continuing to build up the scarabs. I was taking a few casualties, but not much as the Grey Knights did not have too much firepower (particular with a terminator unit in reserve). I charged one of the dreadknights with wraiths and attacked destroyer lord, but the destroyer lord did not make it into combat and the dreadknight lost by 1, ran away, and I did not catch it.
3rd turn the dreadknight flamed some destroyers, but it left the last model from the unit out of range, while the dreadknight the other side charged and killed a unit of destroyers. My response was to kill a dreadknight with the wraiths, bring the other dreadknight down to 1 wound with the mainly with the heavy destroyers over a couple of turns, with the destroyers doing a number on the advancing purifiers. The scarabs who were quite big charged the Libby who was with the remaining purifiers and drowned them in attacks, but it still took a few combat phases for the Libby to die.
Although a unit of terminators had deep struck into my back field, the other had had to move backwards to get an objective, so with me having a large lead in the maelstrom points the game was effectively over
Overall my army had nice mobility without reducing it's firepower, and in this game I got lucky in that the maelstrom cards went my way, and my opponents saves were a bit poor at the start of the game. A good opening game for the Necrons at 1500 points.
1st Tournament Game vs Khorne Daemonkin
A cracking game against another mate. I went into the game a bit to confident, thinking of all the internet hype that khorne deamonkin made chaos better but still not in any way good. Never underestimate an army you have never played before. The Khorne army was a very fast assault army, that imho had been built very well to use the advantage the army had. It had 2 units of blood letters in rhinos, another in reserve, a unit of khorne hounds, a Maulerfiend (think dreadnought with 2 special close combat weapons that can move 12" a turn), 2 Soul Grinders, 2 small units of bikes and to round everything off a bloodthirster.
Because my opponent had a maelstrom card to kill a character he moved the centre of his line (mainly the bloodthirster) towards one flank that had the necron lord with some warriors, so i mainly went the other flank - I wasn't scared of the bloodthirster. We both cleared up our respective flank, my wraiths clearing up any infantry they encountered, and the destroyer shooting doing well. I cleared up the 2 units of bikes, 3 units of bloodletters and 2 rhinos, while Khorne had killed my necron lord, 1 warrior unit, the unit of spyders and the formation spyder. So I only had my destroyer lord with wraiths as a heavy hitter, while Khorne had most of their big hitters. Luckily for me the game had to end turn 4, and I had won by 1 point, only because I killed a maulerfiend with the last shot of the match for 2 maelstrom points. If the game had gone on I think the Khorne would have pulled it back and even had a chance of tabling the necrons if the game had gone on to turn 7.
Big lesson was not to underestimate fast assault armies. The mobility of my army was very useful to move away to one flank and concentrate my shooting and assault, a more static army would have been rolled over a lot easier.
Tournament Game 2 vs Tau
I wasn't expecting the New Tau, but the codex had come out just in time. However the player doing the tournament comp, to put in mildly, doesn't like Tau, so made a few rulings that were definitely anti Tau. This had nothing to do with the new codex's coordinated firepower rule, just plain arbitrary rule changes; snap shots could not be modified (the only army that can modify snap shots is Tau), plus GMCs could only fire 2 weapons (which although is sometimes debated, no tournament I've heard of has ruled it that way). Out of all the formations in the game the Firebase Support Cadre was one of 2 banned, and this was the same comp that did not modify anything to do with Necrons or Eldar at all.
We were playing the diagonal deployment and the mission was Purge the Alien. Running across the battlefield into Tau guns was not going to do my infantry any good, so the necron lord and 20 warriors stayed in 2 ruins near my corner of the board and were ready to go to ground if anything looked at them.
The board was dominated by a big building section. It was a big L shape that blocked line of sight for infantry, but the opponents Riptide and Stormsurge could see over it. the building had doors so units could go in it. Looking from my table side, I was deployed in the bottom right, and the buiding started in the about 12" on the bottom left, came accross to nearly the middle of the board, and went up towards the other side of the board stopping about 20" from the other table edge. One door was at the top of the building, and the other was at the side close to the edge of my deployment zone.
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| [The layout I faced was more of a large L shape with a door and one end of the L, and another at the corner of the L shape] |
It was really nice terrain, but I think it was better suited to a role playing or small skirmish game, but we have to deal with the terrain that's set-up at the table, and being able to pick table corners I got a massive advantage. For those interested in the terrain you can follow the link here.
To take advantage of coordinated firepower my opponent had taken lots of small infantry units, a unit of 4 drones (his auxiliary for his formation), 2 units of 5 pathfinders, 3 units of 6 fire warriors. This was complimented by some big hitters; a Riptide, a Stormsurge (with the shorter ranged main gun), a Hammerhead, plus a Commander with some Crisis suits. The infantry and drones looked like 6 easy kill points, so I aimed to ensure they died as soon as possible.
After set-up almost everything went to plan. The Wraiths went through the building for a turn 3 charge, while the scarabs were built up by 4 a turn to also rush round the building for a turn 3 charge. The destroyers used their mobility (6" move, D6" run, plus 2D6" assault move) to rush up the board with even the spyders running every turn.
Return fire from the Tau was minimal, particularly with the Heavy Destroyers instant killing the broadside, the Spyders regenerating the Scarabs faster than they were being killed (mainly from scattering blasts), and the Destroyers losing a couple of members due to their good toughness & armour saves.
My opponent got very unlucky with the turn three assaults in that the pathfinders charged by the scarabs rolled double 1 for their morale test and got locked in combat. One of the 3 units of infantry the wraiths were in combat also did the same thing locking them in combat.
Rather than counter charging with the Stormsurge, it just shot at the destroyers and spyders. So when the wraiths and scarabs were free he following turn (having killed their opponents in the Tau turn) they set up a massive single combined combat. After the destroyers killed the crisis suits, the scarabs charged the commander, some rallied pathfinders, and the hammerhead, while the wraiths charged some rallied firewarriors, the commnder and the riptide. The fire warriors and pathfinders were slaughtered, the hammerhead was wreaked, the commander and riptide didn't do much and then didn't roll double 1 for their break test and both ran off the board, leaving the Tau with just the Stormsurge, and a double digit deficit in victory points.
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| [It's nice to have a Stomp option] |
We got to see the Stormsurge in action, and he did roll a 6 on one of his stomps killing 3 wraiths, luckily they had fearless to give the rest of the army time to run away :)
This game mobility and speed was again key, any extra infantry I took in my army to make it a decurian would'nt have added anything, and would have reduced what could run at the enemy with any change of getting there.
Coming Next
Two big wins, and the next game was against Eldar, which will follow in the next post, along with I thought of the army and how I will tweak it going forwards.
Until then, Happy Gaming :)
Rathstar