50 point massacre from round 1 sees me on my way to game two!
Dashofpepper's Garden of Silence:
HQ: Deceiver
HQ: Necron Lord + Destroyer Body + Phase Shifter + Rez Orb + Warscythe
Troop: 11x Warriors
Troop: 12x Warriors
Fast Attack: 3x Wraiths
Fast Attack: 3x Wraiths
Fast Attack: 3x Wraiths
Heavy Support: Monolith
Heavy Support: Monolith
Heavy Support: Monolith
Mission 2: Gambler
Overview: It’s a game of dice right? Well that’s not nearly random enough. Let’s throw in some variable number shenanigans and see what happens…
Line of Retreat: Units that fall back do so toward their own table edge via the shortest route possible as described by the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook (pg 45)
Game Length: At the end of game turn 5, roll a D6. On a 3+ game turn 6 is played. At the end of game turn 6, roll a D6. On a 5+ game turn 6 is played. At the end of game turn 7, the game ends automatically: Alternatively, the game ends immediately when the tournament organizer declares that time has elapsed. Players should not begin a new turn if there is insufficient time remaining to complete the turn.
Dashofpepper's Garden of Silence:
HQ: Deceiver
HQ: Necron Lord + Destroyer Body + Phase Shifter + Rez Orb + Warscythe
Troop: 11x Warriors
Troop: 12x Warriors
Fast Attack: 3x Wraiths
Fast Attack: 3x Wraiths
Fast Attack: 3x Wraiths
Heavy Support: Monolith
Heavy Support: Monolith
Heavy Support: Monolith
Mission 2: Gambler
Overview: It’s a game of dice right? Well that’s not nearly random enough. Let’s throw in some variable number shenanigans and see what happens…
Line of Retreat: Units that fall back do so toward their own table edge via the shortest route possible as described by the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook (pg 45)
Game Length: At the end of game turn 5, roll a D6. On a 3+ game turn 6 is played. At the end of game turn 6, roll a D6. On a 5+ game turn 6 is played. At the end of game turn 7, the game ends automatically: Alternatively, the game ends immediately when the tournament organizer declares that time has elapsed. Players should not begin a new turn if there is insufficient time remaining to complete the turn.
Deployment: Pitched Battle/Objectives
The table is divided lengthways into two halves by drawing an imaginary line through the middle of the short table edges. The deployment zones are 12 in. from this center line, as pictured to the right. Players roll off and the winner chooses to go first or second. The player who goes first may select which side to deploy on. Iniative may be seized on a dice roll of 6+ before the first turn of the game.
3 Objectives will be placed for this mission. The first objective will be placed in the exact center of the table. The other two objectives will be placed 24 in. from the long table edges and 18 in. from the center objective.
Mission Special Rules:
Objectives: each player will receive 15 points to allocate to the 3 objectives any way he chooses. The points will be allocated before the game starts and recorded on the score sheet in secret. DO NOT REVEAL THE POINTS TO THE OPPONENT UNTIL THE END OF THE GAME. The player going first’s rightmost objective will be objective A, middle objective B and the leftmost objective C. If the objective is captured by your forces, you gain objective points equal to the points YOUR OPPONENT allocated to it before the game begins.
Objectives:
Primary: Good Guesser
-Obtain 10 or more objective points more than your opponent: 25 points
-Obtain 5 or less objective pointss more than your opponent: 20 points
-Obtain equal objective points with your opponent: 15 points
-Obtain 5 or more objective points less than your opponent: 10 points
-Obtain 10 or more objective points less than your opponent: 5 points
Secondary: Hide and Seek
-Control more terrain elements than your opponent: 15 points
-Control the same number of terrain elements as your opponent: 10 points
-Control less terrain elements than your opponent: 5 points
A terrain element is controlled by having a unit (even non-scoring infantry, vehicle, etc.) completely within the terrain without an opposing infantry unit, vehicle or walker completely within the terrain.
Tertiary: Faked out
-Your opponent captures an objective worth no points: 5 points
-Your opponent does not capture an objective worth no points: 0 points
Modifiers:
+5 if you killed your opponent’s most expensive HQ (only the character, not the retinue or unit joined)
Reserves: Enter play on controlling player's long table edge.
Game Two gets me pitted against my evil nemesis Lucas. This diabolical maniac always ends up getting faced off against me on the top table during game three, but this time we meet each other during game two. I joke of course – Lucas is a very nice guy, looks like a friend of mine from college, and is nice to boot – he’s one of the better players at the store, and I love rolling dice with him – we rag on each other endlessly in good humour.
Lucas’ Space Wolves
HQ: Wolf Guard Battle Leader, Wolftooth Necklace, 2x Fenrisian Wolves, Saga of the Warrior Born, Frost Weapon
HQ: Rune Priest with Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane, Chooser of the Slain
Troop1: 5x Grey Hunters, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard, Meltagun + Las/Plas Razorback
Troop2: 5x Grey Hunters, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard, Meltagun + Las/Plas Razorback
Troop3: 5x Grey Hunters, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard, Meltagun + Las/Plas Razorback
Troop4: 5x Grey Hunters, Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard, Meltagun + Las/Plas Razorback
Elite1: 4x Wolf Guard with Combi-Meltas and Wolf Claws
Elite2: 5x Wolf Scouts with a Meltagun
Fast Attack1: 2x Thunderwolf Cavalry; one with TH/SS, one with Stormshield only.
Fast Attack2: Landspeeder with Multi-Melta and Heavy Flamer
Fast Attack3: Landspeeder with Multi-Melta and Heavy Flamer
Heavy Support1: 5x Longfangs with Missile Launchers + Squad Leader
Heavy Support2: 5x Longfangs with Missile Launchers + Squad Leader
Heavy Support3: 5x Longfangs with Heavy Bolters + Squad Leader
Elite1: 4x Wolf Guard with Combi-Meltas and Wolf Claws
Elite2: 5x Wolf Scouts with a Meltagun
Fast Attack1: 2x Thunderwolf Cavalry; one with TH/SS, one with Stormshield only.
Fast Attack2: Landspeeder with Multi-Melta and Heavy Flamer
Fast Attack3: Landspeeder with Multi-Melta and Heavy Flamer
Heavy Support1: 5x Longfangs with Missile Launchers + Squad Leader
Heavy Support2: 5x Longfangs with Missile Launchers + Squad Leader
Heavy Support3: 5x Longfangs with Heavy Bolters + Squad Leader
His army is actually pretty sweet. Its an Egyptian themed army.
Pre-Game Tactical Assessment:
Razorfang spam…pretty standard. All of it scares my warriors, but there is plenty of terrain for them to hide in if I stay away from the edges to avoid the scouts. Lascannons always scare my Monoliths. Four of them aren’t too bad, and there are none in the Longfang pack. STR8 weapons don’t scare the Monoliths…but they could get lucky. The biggest concern is that it is an objective game and he’s using an MSU army – it is going to be difficult to deal with all of it with the few units that I have.
Here’s a shot of our table. I’m told that it was made for Necromunda and then broke apart into terrain for 40k. Massive multi-level terrain on the far left and right, and two sets of ruins in the middle.
We roll off for first turn, and my massively awesome dice roll gets trounced.
We each secretly allocate points to objectives. I put all 15 points on the left objective. I like the idea of all or nothing, especially when I can’t cover the board like he can. What I don’t know until the end of the game is that he put all 15 points on the same objective. ><
He deploys!
Side-shot of his deployment:
I like my playstyle. I go for the throat, I kill stuff, and I couldn’t care less about objectives…unless I don’t kill everything, in which case I worry about objectives. I’m pretty new to Necrons, and am finding that I can’t necessarily play that way with this army. I didn’t consider HOW he deployed, where he put his troop choices...or I would have seen that he was stacking up the left side of the board. That has tactical merit. I didn’t notice.
I deploy!
My Deceiver and one warrior squad deploy behind the terrain piece on the right. It is tall enough to BLOS to my warriors. I deployed my warriors on the table because with objectives in midfield, I need to get them up there. With four lascannons on the table, I’m not trying to meander my Monoliths up the table, so I intend to deep-strike them – and my wraiths can’t reserve for fear of coming in piecemeal, so I may need the Monolith(s) that come in to portal them for WBBs. All of which means that I can’t afford to spend my Monoliths on my warriors. Then again, I never want to spend my Monoliths on my warriors.
On the left, I deploy my wraiths and my warriors. My wraiths and destroyer lords are hiding from LOS from some of his stuff, but the wraiths are too tall to be completely obstructed; their spines stick up. The warriors are out of LOS though.
The positioning of that piece of terrain on the left should give me the ability to turbo-boost up the board behind some terrain; we’ll see how it plays out.
A shot of my back alley.
All three monoliths go into reserve to deep-strike, and I roll to seize. I get it! On reflection…not so meaningful. I have nothing to alpha-strike him with.
Dashofpepper Turn One:On the left side, my warriors get a 5” move and use it move 3” up and 2” forward – starting their methodical plodding up the field.
Meanwhile my wraiths turbo-boost up the side of the board. Addressing a point from my Necron tactica about the ease of assaulting wraiths to pull them away from the Rez Orb…the Lord is attached to the rear unit so cannot be assaulted. And the leading wraith in both front units is less than 6” away from t he Lord. No assault can pull me 6” away from the Rez orb or away from another wraith unit. That’s a general philosophy for all Wraith movement.
Over on the right, my warriors don’t get enough movement via dice to robo-vault up a level, so they start plodding up the ramp. The Deceiver skirts 6” straight ahead, then runs another few inches. I was having trouble getting my hand in there, so I ran him as well to skip multiple attempts to reach in there and maneuver my models around.
My warriors from the rear as they’re plodding up the ramp.
I have no shooting or assaults, so my turn ends! I think I ran the warriors too. Maybe I didn’t run the Deceiver during the movement phase. *shrug*
Enemy Turn One:
He starts moving his razorbacks forward towards the objectives, 12” apiece and popping smoke across the board. One of his razorbacks immobilizes itself.
Both landspeeders move flat out towards my wraiths.
Razorbacks in midfield moving up 12” to pop smoke.
The sixes are for smoke!
His Thunderwolf Cavalry move over my way and run 4”…looks like he’ll be in a 12” assault range. I hadn’t counted on that.
On to shooting!
His longfangs in his rear midfield that are on top of the ruins can see the spines of my wraiths. >< He opens fire! The first one misses and scatters off the table.
The second one misses and scatters off the table.
A couple more missiles hit and he scores one wound on my blue wraith squad and two wounds on my yellow wraith squad.
I roll for saves and fail one from my yellow squad.
Assaults!
His Thunderwolf Cavalry assault into my blue wraith squad, but his battle leader can’t make it into base contact…Or far enough ahead that I can pile into him either. I swing and do one wound to his TH/SS TWC. In return, he does nine wounds. My saves:
Indeed, I saved three out of nine 3++ saves. My wraiths go down and he consolidates out.
Dashofpepper Turn Two:
Four wraiths down, and I roll my WBBs. The squad of three all gets up!
The lone wraith from my yellow squad gets up too! Woohoo!
I do the 2” coherency WBB shuffle with four newly alive wraiths into my newly sized unit of six wraiths.
I roll for reserves and get all three monoliths! Daaaaaang.
The first Monolith attempts to deep-strike on top of the ruins that two of the longfang squads are camping out in and hits on target.
The second monolith attempts to deep-strike in midfield and scatters 9” towards him.
The third monolith attempts to deep-strike where the red scatter die is and hits on targets. It was a bit close to the board edge, but I couldn’t think of a better place for it.
I apologize for the blurry shot, but here’s my monoliths in almost a line in the middle of his models.
Movement!
My wraiths circle up around his TWC. The Lord is still attached to the unit of three; moved in such a way that the Lord will get in with only one model , and its not the one with the Thunderhammer. Wraith-Wings like to control assaults. That way, when I assault I’ll get most of my wraiths in with his Leader, the rest into his unit of two, only one model able to swing on the Destroyer Lord, and both wraith units within 6” of each other and the rez orb.
On the far right the warriors move inwards away from the board edge and potential wolf scouts while the Deceiver moves up 6” towards his heavy bolter longfangs.
On to shooting!
The Deceiver runs out into the open! And towards his heavy bolters.
On the left, my warriors had moved up in the movement phase. They rapid fire onto the razorback in front of them and get SIX glances.
Three punch through his smoke screen, and I get a weapon-destroyed result and two immobilized result – removing his lascannon, the twin-linked plasma, and immobilize it.
My monoliths open fire. I made a mistake here: Flux arcs are strength 5 – and I thought that the immunity to always fire extended to the flux arcs, but it doesn’t. Lucas, if you read this I apologize. >< I learned to play Necrons from the guy I got these Necrons from (in trade for my Tau) and am quite used to Monoliths deep-striking on my Tau and flux arcing the crap out of them. Well, won’t happen again. Rules mistakes happen on both sides, but I generally only point out mine.
Between my monoliths and his cover saves, I immobilize (and wreck) one flat-out speeder. The other gets stunned. Four longfangs from one squad die and two from the other die.
My wraiths assault into his Thunderwolf Cavalry.
My 3 wraiths against his unit score nine wounds! He fails two of them, one on each. One die is missing from the picture.
The TH/SS already had a wound and dies, and the SS TWC takes a wound.
Five wraiths swing into his battle leader (and one into his wargear) and deal six wounds to the battle leader. He fails two and hangs around.
He swings back, and I pass my invulnerable saves! He fails leadership, beats me on initiative, and runs 3D6 straight off the board edge.
Having forgotten that his heavy flamer on the speeder is stunned, I consolidate into a flamer unfriendly pattern.
Enemy Turn Two:
Reserve roll for scouts, and they don’t come in.
One of his razorbacks breaks towards my warriors on the right 12”.
On the left, his grey hunters disembark from the weapon destroyed and immobilized monolith, but their 2D6 isn’t quite enough to get them onto the terrain so they stop at the edge.
His Rune Priest disembarks alone and eyeballs my wraiths.
On to shooting!
He casts Murderous Hurricane on the closest wraith unit, gets 11 hits, and kills one. He says, “You’re now in difficult and dangerous terrain.” Then he pauses for a moment. Then he says, “Oh, shit. I forgot about the wraith movement.”
His grey hunters open fire on my warriors and score two wounds.
His heavy bolter longfangs deal a wound to the Deceiver, and the lascannons that can fire (and longfangs) fail to hurt my Monoliths.
I oblige by failing two saves.
I seem to be missing a picture of the ensuing assault, so those two dead Necrons may have been killed in close combat, not in shooting. The warrior unit passes leadership and sticks around.
Dashofpepper Turn Three:
My dead wraith WBBs onto his feet again!
One of my two warriors stands back up as well.
My central monolith passes a dangerous terrain test and floats down off the ruin, then teleports the warriors out of combat. I only see 8 warriors there, there used to be 12…one of two stood back up, so I must have taken a couple in the face to Melta or rending wulfen or something.
My wraiths circle up the stunned landspeeder, the rune priest, and his longfangs. Over on the right, the Deceiver closes the distance to his longfangs.
The warriors on the far right 2D6 and move up to the railing of the building that they are in to overlook the razorback down there.
On to shooting!
A particle whip from the closest monolith explodes his razorback on the right, failing to wound anyone inside.
On the left, I think my other two monoliths both flux arced. Looks like I got a stunned and weapon destroyed result on one razorback and stunned the landspeeder, as well as finishing off the mostly dead longfang squad. My wraiths move in for another massive multi-assault.
The Deceiver assaults into the longfangs!
The wraiths swing, and destroy the landspeeder, destroy the empty razorback, explode the middle razorback (which wounds three of the guys inside fatally) – but his runepriest survives unscathed, as do the longfangs. The exploded razorback’s passengers are pinned.
The Deceiver kills several of the longfangs he’s in combat with, and they flee off the board.
Enemy Turn Three:We’re down to about 30 minutes left out of our two hours. ><
His wolf scouts come in and he brings them in on the right corner of his deployment zone by the Monolith. The grey hunters on the right from the particle whip exploded razorback 2D6 towards my warriors and get 2”. They run as well for a massive 1” and fall short of the objective.
On the left, his grey hunters that I teleported my warriors out of combat with move down off terrain onto the objective. His lone Close combat finishes off his rune priest and longfangs.
At this point, we have 15 minutes left. Lucas says that we don’t have time for another turn, and I object. He’s got half of a pinned grey hunter squad and most of another one on the left. In the middle he has a stunned razorback, and on the right a full grey hunter squad that didn’t make it to the objective.
I’m down four warriors, and I have one wound on the Deceiver.
He says, “Well, you win.” I say, “I didn’t put any points on the right objective.” He says, “I didn’t either.” I didn’t put any points in the middle objective either. He says that he didn’t either. We both blink. 30 points on the left objective, and its contested by both of us.
I say, “We have time for another turn.” He disagrees. I’m like, “Dude, you have 3 units left on the table. I can do my turn in 5 minutes and leave you 10 for your turn.” We ask the judge who tells us to take another turn.
Dashofpepper Turn Four:
Tactical mistake here: I should have put my entire effort into taking that left objective. Instead, I continued playing like I normally would for a full game. Especially since we now both know where all the points are.
Here’s what I did do: My wraith swept forward towards the objective. He has 5 tactical marines and 3 freshly unpinned marines in range to do something about that objective.
My unit of three wraiths with the destroyer Lord hop up into terrain in preparation of assaulting his 5 marines. My monolith contesting the objective does an about face and spits out my warriors on the other side to face his marines. My big wraith unit circles in on his 3 marines.
Between three wraith units, a destroyer lord, a Monolith, and a warrior squad rapid firing, I need to kill 8 marines.
On the other side of the board, my Deceiver moves in to his tactical squad advancing on my warriors.
Shooting: My warriors rapid fire into his marines, my monolith flux arcs them…and I kill one. The squad of three loses two.
In midfield, other warrior squad teleported through the right monolith and opens up on his last razorback, immobilizing it, taking its weapons off, and stunning it. I couldn’t see the grey hunters to fire at them, but the flux arc takes one of them down.
Assaults!
The Deceiver cleans up the last grey hunters on the right.
On the left, my big wraith unit piles into his lone grey hunters, and my three wraiths with the destroyer lord pile into his grey hunters.
He makes ALL his armour saves against the wraiths. The Destroyer Lord kills two, and I make my own invulnerable saves. He loses combat by two and stays.
The game ends in a draw on primary anyway. We both pick up 15 for the primary. I pick up 15 for secondary, he gets tertiary (since I have warriors on the middle objective), and I get +5 for the bonus points, for a 35-25 game.
Post-Game Tactical Analysis:
If only we’d had one more turn! I am a bit confused as I write this though. I went first, and we did have a few minutes at the end…but didn’t take his turn…which would have resolved the grey hunter / Wraith + Destroyer Lord Combat, and given me primary as well. Ah well. I think he forgot to fire some lascannons at me during turn two. I also shouldn’t have flux-arced during two. To be honest, we’re good friends and I look forward to seeing him once a month - except I’d missed the previous month’s tournament. He’s also the only player from the shop who posts on Dakka, so we got to talk from time to time, and I think we were both paying more attention to socializing than gaming. Lucas is a lot of fun to play with – if I lived in the area, he’d be the guy I’d go to a bar with on a Friday night to hang out with.
I had fun though, so aside from ribbing him about slow-playing me (which was equally my fault for all the pictures I took) I don’t mind.
Nonetheless, without a 50 point massacre, I’m not headed to table #1 for Game #3; I’ve got 85 points, and two other folks (Space Wolves and Tyranids) have 95 points apiece.
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