... in which the Necrons give SeerK a run for his money!

Damn! So close to victory, yet so far away.

Yesterday I took on SeerK's Dark Eldar Webway list out at the FLGS. I ran the exact configuration that I talked about in my last post, but let me recap it real quick:

10 Warriors (Reserve)
10 Warriors (Reserve)
2 Monoliths
5 Pariahs
2 Heavy Destroyers
5 Immortals w/ Necron Lord, loaded with a Res Orb and VoD
The Nightbringer

Where things went wrong for me, was the mission type... Capture and Control, coupled with a deployment of Dawn of War.

SeerK had Initiative, so let's delve into the game:

I chose to keep all my troops off the board, and walk them on during turn 1.

Turn 1: SeerK moves his 2 Raiders across the board and deploys a squad of Wracks, and opens the webway portal close to my edge of the board.

I move my army onto the board, leaving my 2 units of Warriors in reserve. Directly in front the Raider that deployed the Wracks, the Nightbringer and the squad of Pariahs come on and open fire, wiping out most of the squad and sending them fleeing. Monoliths flank them to the right, while the other Raider gets to deal with the Lord and his Bodyguard of Immortals and 2 Heavy Destroyers. The Heavy Destroyers open up on the Raider and wreck it.

Necrons move on the board

Wracks get the warscythe welcome

Ohhh.... where did all your fiends go? So sad.

Turn 2:
SeerK gets 2 squads of Wytches and his Beastmaster and pack to come thru the center webway. One squad of Wytches goes into the difficult terrain to control the objective. I found this a little lame, because, yes they were within 3 inches of the object, but there was a wall of impassable terrain inbetween them! Oh well, rules are rules. The Beastmaster pack runs for my Lord/Immortal squad. The other squad of Wytches opens fire on the Nightbringer, landing 3 wounds with their poisoned weapons.... The remaining squad of Wracks forgets to open the second webway... Assaults!: The Beastmaster pack hits my Lord/Immortals, taking down 4 immortals. The Wytches assault the Nightbringer and Pariahs failing to even inflict 1 wound. In return, they cut down 5 Wytches, Insta-death style. Now, the Soulless Pariahs do their thing. Wytches leadership is reduced to 7, minus the five casualties... SeerK needs snake eyes to stay in the fight. The Wytches break, and the Nightbringer cuts them down.

Beast pack attack!

What Wytches?

My Turn 2:
Move the Pariahs closer to the remaining Wytch squad and open fire, killing 2. 2 Immortals get back up, and the Lord uses the VoD to warp away to his objective, opening fire on the Wrack squad that has only 2 men remaining. The Heavy Destroyers bug out (Turbo Boost) to the other side of the Raider. Monoliths drop particle whips on the Beastpack, inflicting only a couple of wounds. Nightbringer makes a beeline for the Beastpack. The Pariahs assault the Wytches in difficult terrain, and thier powered/poisoned weapons take out the 5 Pariahs.

 

Whats left after the Nightbringer's demise

Turn 3:
 The last squad of Wytches and the Talos pain engine emerge from the webway. The beastpack turn on the Nightbringer. The Wytches also move in on the Nightbringer, laying in some heavy fire. The Nightbringer takes his last two wounds and explodes with a S6 AP2 5" radius, taking the bulk of the 3 squads that were surrounding him. The squad of two wracks fire on and then assault the Lord/Immortals with no effect, but losing another Wrack. The Wytches assault and take down one of the Monoliths.

Bottom of 3:
Reserves unit of 10 warriors come in, entering from the edge of the board. The Heavy Destroyers lob some fire at the Raider with no effect. The warriors fire on the Wytches, taking one or two out. The monolith continues to move toward the other objective, dropping a particle whip on the Talos pain engine. The Lord/Immortals finish off the remaining Wrack.

Turn 4:
The pain engine lays into the Warriors. The full squad of Wracks move in on the Heavy Destoryers, firing, but not doing any damage. The Raider moves in on the 2nd objective, blocking the Monolith's path. The Wytches move in with the remainder of the beast pack to secure the 1st objective. The Wracks assault the Heavy Destroyers, killing both. The Talos pain engine assaults the warriors, taking 5 down.

The monolith continues around the Raider. Three warriors rise, and they remain locked in combat with the Talos, making no progress. The Immortals fire into the Wracks.

Turn 5:
SeerK's Wracks consolidate and move towards the 2nd objective. The raider parks in front of the 2nd objective. The Talos takes 2 warriors down during the assault phase, while the rest of his troops hold.

And here is how I lost:

At this point, I honestly thought I had SeerK. It was a gamble, but I thought for sure I could pull it off. Alas, the dice disagreed.

The last reserve of 10 Warriors emerge from the portal on the Monolith, surrounding the 2nd objective, contesting it. They open fire on the Raider with 20 shots, getting only 2 glances by the time everything is said and done. I needed that Raider gone to not contest the objective, so the Monolith unleashes a particle whip on it. Direct hit. Pens. Flicker Fields reject the hit. Damn. 21 shots into the Raider, and it is still there. That is where victory died.  The best I could hope for now is  tie. The Lord/Immortals use the VoD to teleport over to the 1st objective. Unfortunately, I could not get close enough to the objective because of the 1" rule. I literally was 3 1/8" away. They fire are the beastpack, but I don't remember if they did anything, as I had mentally conceded at this point.

SeerK rolled to see if we go to turn 6, and no. Game Over.

So close! I learned a lot during this game. I feel pretty good that I didn't phase out, and I wiped out more than 50% of his army while keeping more than 50% of his. I believe I would have been ahead in kill points, but I can't say for sure, since we weren't really paying attention because it was a capture/control. SeerK has put a lot of time and play testing into his webway list, and I feel like my Necrons went the distance against it.

If this is any indicator, I think my list will hold up well at the tourney on Saturday. I have no illusions of winning (I am running Necrons after all), but I think I have a solid and competitive team that will be fun to play.

That's it for now, kids. Report on Saturday's tourney to come next!

Battle Report 11.21.2010

Whew. That one didn't go how I planned.

Seer Karandras' Dark Eldar concept was a solid one, but my Necrons ran much more smoothly this time. He led in kill points the first half of the game, but I was able to keep on trudging from behind and over come him in the end.

Initial Deploy

Initial Deploy

I figured since he started with only 3 skimmers, that I'd be able to tear them apart and get heavy casualties. The big flaw with his list was that he couldn't hurt the monolith.

That aside, I had a huge fight on my hands. First turn, those skimmers made it over to my half of the board, and got right up in my grill. I moved a squad of warriors up the mountain to intercept, and my monolith out and the rest of my army following. I left my Flayed Ones in reserve, so that they could outflank, a mistake against this army. They were so fast, by the time they came in (turn 3) I had to run them to get them remotely close to the combat. In hindsight, I should have had them infiltrate. Against a slower army, the outflank would have been fine, but I was too slow for the Flayed Ones to be any use at all.

They're on us!

My squad of warriors went to open up on his skimmer, and I *should* have had 24 shots raining into it, but the shadow shields on it made it so none of my guys could rapid fire and only 3 guys were in range for a single shot. Losing 6" off your range is a PAIN.


His troops all start piling out of his skimmers, and one of his Homonculi opens a webway portal right in the middle of the map to let a unit of Grotesques onto the board.
I'll give it to the Necrons here, they are resilient little buggers. SK kept knocking them down, but they kept getting back up. My Necron Lord had a squad of Immortals paired with him, and he was equipped with a Staff of Light and a Veil of Darkness. Every time SK got a squad to charge into hand to hand, the Lord would simply teleport them away, and the immortals would open fire when they reappeared. The Monolith kept the Grotesques at bay, and was the most effective piece in the game I'd say. The Nightbringer went into hand to hand with a squad of Wracks, and was very effective in cutting them down. The sad part they were just as effective against him. I HATE POISON WEAPONS! I find it hard to believe on a logical level that poison could affect a soulless machine. I'll give it against the C'Tan, but not the Necrons.... Either way, two squads of Wracks took out the Nightbringer, but they took heavy casualties. The Monolith and the Lord/Immortal Squad mopped up the rest, which is what put me up on kill points.

Since I had a squad of Flayed Ones (doing nothing, granted) out in the boonies, I never reached my phase out number, despite having the bulk of my troops obliterated. I lost a heavy amount of troops because of "powered" weapons that denied me my "We'll be back" roll, poisoned weapons that were wounding me too easily IMO, and not getting any armor saves for it at all. That part was pretty frustrating. When I was able to make my WBB rolls, I had a good ratio of success, so I probably lasted longer against this army than most others would have. I believe it was the staying power of the Necrons that let me edge out a victory here.

Overall, I was pretty satisfied with my list and how it played. I definitely learned to watch out for Dark Eldar, and what nasty tricks they have.