Sunday 15 January 2012

Small 1250 battle report

I was in my local GW yesterday and had time to get a couple of games in. The first was against a good player who has just recently started necrons so he wanted to play with his WOP army. I've played this guy numerous times, usually with his daemons, and the games are always exciting. this is my first game against newcrons although I do know a lot of their abilities based on online reading.





The lists;

I made this list on the spot to test elements of my tournament list independently. This always gives you an idea of what each unit can be used for and what to expect from them.

Coteaz

10 x paladin
    warding stave/apothecary
    Mc sword/storm bolter
    hammer/stormbolter
    hammer/ psycannon
    sword/psycannon
    sword/storm bolter
    halberd/ psycannon
    mc halberd/psycannon
   halberd/storm bolter
   brotherhood banner/storm bolter
755

3 warrior acolytes w/ bolter    15
Razorback w/ assault cannons and psybolt 85
100

3 warrior acolytes w/ bolter    15
Razorback w/ assault cannons and psybolt 85
100

3 warrior acolytes w/ bolter    15
Razorback w/ assault cannons and psybolt 85
100

3 warrior acolytes w/ bolter    15
Razorback w/ assault cannons and psybolt 85
100


My list comes to 1255 so my opponent added some wargear to make up for it. his list is from memory and uses the photos to fill in the gaps. Bare in mind, I don't own a copy of the necron codex so some entries may be named incorrectly.

Overlord w/ressurection orb, warscythe and other bits and pieces
Destruction cryptec w/solar pulse and st8 ap 2 gun

Ctan shard w/writhing worldscape and assault 8(?) st4 gun

2 x 12 warriors
1 x 10 immortals w/tesla carbines

5 x lychguard w/warscythes

2 x 5 scarabs

From the outset, I didn't think he had the tools to take down the paladins or my razorbacks. It all depended on the mission as to whether he would be able to get the win.

We rolled the dice and they came up spearhead, capture control. The Draw mission!
I didn't think I could lose but it would take more work to get the win.
We played on a 4' by 4' board which reduced the need for my transports speed but also increased the effectiveness of both sides shooting, with most sides likely being in range.
My opponent won the roll for first turn and made me go first.

My set up was as follows;



Coteaz in the razorback at the back, providing an aura for sanctuary, paladins in front of my razorback wall, protecting my fragile troops. The paladins were set up further back than necessary to prevent an extra turn of fire coming in from his whole army. The idea is to advance the paladins into midfield and block access to my objective. Coteaz' razorback will zoom up and to the left, flanking around the building and the rback on the right will zoom up to the right. I fully expect him to commit the scarabs to attack my two forward tanks and the C'tan into combating my paladins who will struggle to wound with the exception of the hammers. 
I don't worry too much about the scarabs who will suffer from psycannon fire causing instant death.


This is my opponents deployment. He placed one warrior squad and his cryptek on top of his objective, the immortals held the center of his line with the other warrior squad in a forward position, evidently going to advance towards my objective. The Lych guard were set up behind his lines so he could counter assault with them. The two scarab swarms were set up on the far flanks of his lines, in response to my deployment, but they are not in this picture.


Overall view of deployment.


His deployment again, showing the C'tan hidden from fire behind the building and the scarab swarms.


My first turn saw him pop his solar pulse making it night fight, severely limiting my firing options. I decide to hold ground with my paladins, so that I cannot be fired at by his whole army, even if everything moves forward. Cotback and the right flanking rback move forward hoping to be in range of the scarabs.
The razorbacks both fail nightfight so cannot shoot which ends my turn.


His scarabs move and fleet, the right hand squad hoping to hide behind the building. The advanced warriors move towards me, hoping to get in range, as do the immortals with lord. His cryptek blasts a paladin into oblivion and the shooting from the warrior squad sees another paladin lose a wound, but that is all from his turn.



My turn two sees my paladins advance along with the razorbacks moving further along their paths.  The scarabs cannot hide from my psycannons but cover sees only one base die on the right. On the left, coteaz' razorback cannot see anything. The paladins shoot at the warriors holding his objective and also hiding the cryptek. They suffer 7 casualties, fail morale and flee. Being under half strength they cannot regroup and that ends the threat of instant death on my paladins. I couldn't have hoped for better but it was very lucky for me...

Unfortunately, a combination of my forgetfulness and galaxy S camera blur has left my visual record of the next two turns useless, so you will have to make do with my commentary :p

 On my opponents turn, he moves his warriors forward into rapidfire range and rushes his scarabs towards my razorbacks. The C'tan glides through the terrain to threaten me with a charge if I advance further.
All of his shooting sees several paladins reduced to one wound. Out of the three units thet shot at them, one of the paladins failed every single armour save he took but mercifully passed two FNP saves. In the assault phase, his right hand scarab swarm charge my razorback and knock four points of armour from it but sanctuary prevents the other swarm charging.

My turn three saw my razorbacks move further up, getting both scarab swarms in their sights, the paladins skirt out of charge range of the C'tan until I've dropped a few wounds from it.
My shooting sees one swarm removed and the other depleted to just one base. My paladins halve the immortal squad but two get back up.

My opponents turn three goes very similarly to his previous turn. Things advance into rapidfire range which was a mistake and is in fact the move that won me the game. The Lord switches squad to the Lych guard. Everything then fires at the paladins dropping several wounds from them but not removing any of them. the last scarab base charges coteaz' razorback and drops three points of armour, which is fairly good for a single base considering it moved the previous turn.

My turn four goes exactly to plan. Coteaz' razorback cruises past the scarab base, which moved out of the way, and towards his objective. My back field razorbacks move up, one to shoot the last scarab base and one to shoot the C'tan. The razorback with armour 7 moves towards the warriors to get in range of the C'tan. The paladins advance and spread out, setting up a multi-assault on the C'tan, the immortals and the remaining warrior squad, which was a tragic tactical mistake on my opponents behalf. One of the hammers manages to move so that he can get in base contact with the C'tan.
My shooting sees the C'tan lose two wounds and the last scarab base die to razorback fire. The paladins refrain from firing to remove the risk of one of the units fleeing and messing up my assault.
The assault was declared against the Immortals and the closest model moves into contact and then the rest of the paladins move in, with three fighting the C'tan, three the immortals and three the warriors.
The C'tan causes three wounds, which are all saved thanks to the stave and two of the swords. There was no way he would win the combat, but he does reduce all of the paladins to a single wound. The immortals all die and the warrior squad run. The C'tan blows up and wounds three paladins. We were unsure as to whether my stave would work on these but erred on the side of caution and said the didn't (these were the causes of the paladins being on one wound each.)


From here it was just a case of mopping up. The Lych guard didn't stand a chance against all of the paladins and were removed wholesale, as was the lord but he managed to get back up, even though I did my best to not allow it to be placed within two inches.
The only point that could have stopped me claiming his objective was my tank immobilising itself on the terrain but I rolled a 3 for my test.
There are some pictures for you to enjoy below and the document the movement in the last turn.



Conclusion and thoughts.


My game plan went exactly as I planned but I don't think my opponent could have done a lot about it considering his limited army list. He lacked the anti-tank to deal with a list full of tanks and terminators that need anti-tank weaponry to kill effectively.
His tactics were slightly lacking in that he allowed a multi-assault rather than feeding me sacrificial units. and focussing on stopping my tanks.
The most he could have achieved with his list was a draw though.
So I learned I can beat suboptimal lists! Wooohooo.
There were some other lessons to be learned here though.
I did not expect the amount of damage my paladins took and at a higher points level I would say I could have lost the whole squad. I would definitely need to protect them better.

I could have used one of my back field razors to better effect this game, probably by BLOS to my paladins, but at the start of the game I wanted to make sure I'd keep my objective.
I look forward to playing this player again when he expands on his list and hopefully I will get a run for my money when he breaks out the competitive lists I know he can write.

Newcrons do seem to lack the capability to take down multiple tanks, especially when they can shrug off suppression fire like grey knights razors can. I think the hardest list for me to face would be an AV13 spam list. I know psycannons don't care about av13 but psyflemen would definitely struggle to put multiple threats down quickly.

That's it for my first battle report on here! I hope you all enjoyed it and there should be several more to come when tournament season hits.

Bede.







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