Tournament report part 5 + 2014 plans

I know I said I'd only be doing 4 parts, and then contradicted myself a few times in other posts, but I am going to do 5 parts. Just a quick post to show some of the armies that were there on the day, also don't forget this was a 1250pts tournament.

My second opponent's army.

Dual riptide army with a unit of 3 missile broadsides. Was a keen favourite to go all the way, but lost to a khorne army on objectives, tau had 90% of its forces left, while khorne had about 20%. But had troops scattered over multiple objectives.

Space wolves, this done surprisingly well from what I remember.

AV14 spam space wolves, this army won for its store, he actually asked to play me in the last round for a challenge, I was up for it, but the staff said no.

Dual wraithknight eldar, with d-scythe wraithguard in a wave serpent with a spiritseer. I think this also lost on an objectives mission.

Serpent spam, with a wraithlord and fire prism, he came from our store. This army actually lost it's opening game, if it had killed one more fire warrior off of an objective he would of won.

Old space marines, crimson fists drop pods. Two units of sternguard with kantor making them scoring. This actually was best army for it's store.

Dual heldrakes, but no mobile troops so didn't do well.

The tau army that narrowly beat the wave serpent spam army earlier shown, also beat my second opponent in painting score to take overall winner for it's store.

As you have probably seen already, but I'll say it anyway. GW has cancelled any planned future invasions and will not be doing anymore. Their reasoning is unclear, but on their Facebook page they said that it was not convenient for anyone, right so it was not convenient for the gamers. But I'm not going to comment.

So that brings my tournament report to an end. Thank you everyone who's read all of it and again thank you for being so patient. I hope everyone had a good Christmas, I sure did. In terms of 2014, my New Years resolution is to post more on here, at least I will try to. Due to studies and all invasions being cancelled I will not be attending another tournament until July/August/September time (quarter 3). Since GW has stopped all invasions, I am hoping to attend my first non-GW tournament. Not too sure which one yet, as some allow forge world, and some aren't even going to allow escalation and stronghold assault, I'm going to wait until some tournament packs are released. At the moment I'm looking at:

- northern warlords GT

- rapid fire in Stirling

With a few others as well, but these are the only tournaments where the date is already set, or I have a good idea when it is based on previous years. I'm currently in the north of England, so a trip down to Warrington won't be too hard for me, or even up to Scotland for that matter. Also I've registered on rankings HQ, so after the tournament depending on where I come I will get the equivalent points on rankings HQ, and obviously get ranked in the UK. 

So what to expect over 2014:

- another tournament report (at least 1)

- more army updates + painting (I will be taking CSM allies to the tournament)

- display board tutorial (I'm going to need one)

- general tactics (might do more armies)

- preperations for the tournament 

- and any requests that I get.

So that's it for 2013, stay tuned because 2014 is just around the corner. And I'll post up which tournament I'm going to in a few months time, so feel free to say if you're going. You'll know it's me by the army so come over, say hi and have a chat (provided I'm not ripping my hair out while losing a game).

Tournament report part 4

The final part of my tournament report, and of course the final round. At the moment I've got 1 win from round 1 (5pts), and a lose from round 2 (2pts). Last round luckily no one won their game from my store, best we got was a draw and that was only by 1 person. 

My last game was against a ravenwing army, with deathwing and scout reinforcements. His list was roughly:

- Sammael

- Terminator chaplain

- Ravenwing command, ravenwing banner, ravenwing champion and apothecary

- 3 ravenwing bikes with a plasma gun

- 3 ravenwing bikes with a plasma gun

- 3 ravenwing bikes with a plasma gun and a multi melta attack bike

- 10 scouts with snipers and camo acloaks

- 5 deathwing terminators with assault cannon

Deployment was hammer and anvil (diagonal) with purge the alien (kill points) and night fighting (but that had no effect), i had first turn and deployed right on the edge of my deployment zone, flyers obviously in reserves. He deployed all of his bikes and infiltrated his full squad of scouts into a building on my board edge just out of my deployment zone. He then proceeded to sieze the initiative on me, yes that's right 2 games in a row.

Turn 1:

Ravenwing used their scout move as well, he moved his bikes forward. Deathwing terminators and terminator chaplain used deathwing assault to deep strike turn 1 and didn't scatter using the ravenwing command squad's teleport homer. Shooting and with none of my units in cover, 2 annihilation barges go down and he might of done a HP to a ghost ark. Scouts do absolutely nothing.

Oh dear, turn 1 and I'm already on the back foot. I move my vehicles slightlu backwards, and my shooting takes out his bike squad with attack bike and 2 from another squad, also some of the command squad.

Turn 2:

Everything moves in closer, apart from the scout squad. I was a bit luckier this turn as he only does a few HP here and there. No charges this turn.

Only my overlord and immortals come in, with their night scythe transport. Shooting kills the rest of the ravenwing command squad and sammael, and almost the rest of his ravenwing. 

Turn 3:

He claims that his snipers are S3 rending, so they can damage my flyer, I say they can't, but the likely good of home doing anything to my flyers his unlikely so I let it pass. His scouts don't do anything to my flyer anyway, remaining ravenwing move but don't do any damage. Finally his deathwing finish off my last annihilation barge.

My last flyer doesn't come on. I drop my immortals and overlord off into his deployment zone for linebreaker, we have another dispute here apparently I didn't make it clear that it was immortals and overlord in that night scythe, but he lets it pass. Shooting and kill his remaing ravenwing, but only mange to kill 1 scout in building, he makes something like 4 out of 5 3+ cover saves.

Turn 4:

His sniper scouts again don't move and no damage. His terminators move over and their assault cannon penetrates my ghost ark with the destructek in, but living metal saves the damage, but my quantum shielding has gone.

My other night scythe comes on with the warriors inside, the night scythe on the board flies off. Some movement but not much, shooting and I kill 1 terminator and 1 scout, not great. 

Turn 5:

Terminators move into assault range of my damaged ghost ark. Scouts shoot at my immortals and kill 1, but don't pin them, the immortal doesn't stand back up. His terminators assault my damaged ghost ark and wreck it, because the terminator chaplain struck before the power fists at S6. My warriors and destructek do an emergency disembarkation 6 inches away from it.

Night scythe comes back on and lines up the terminators, warriors disembark and target the scouts. Shooting I kill 2 more terminators, then my destructek shoots his S8 AP1 shot at the terminators, since his terminator chaplain was now the closest he took the wound. He failed his look out sir and then his 4++, his remaing 2 terminators pass morale and I fail to finish them off. Other shooting goes into the scouts killing 2 more, but they hold. The game ends on turn 5 and I win by a fair margin.

Sadly the player from my store who drawn his second game won his last game, meaning he took overall store champion. My second game opponent went 3-0 but lost out to a tau player with a higher painting score. I personally got 16/20 for my painting, my best result for painting to date. Part 5 and I'll put some photos up of te other armies, that shouldn't be too hard for me, at least I hope so.

Tournament report part 3

I've done it! I've finally got round to writing part 3, and hopefully the momentum will keep me going to write part 4 as well.

Anyway without further a do, here comes part 3. So game 2 was against Connor Middlemass, and his necrons.

Yes that's right, round 2 and I pulled the player with 18 wraiths. His list:

Destroyer lord MSS Sempiternal weave 

5 Immortals tesla, night scythe

5 immortals tesla, night scythe

6 wraiths

6 wraiths

6 wraiths

Annihilation barge tesla cannon

Every table was playing the same mission and deployment, which was emperor's will and short board edges (can't remember what it's actually called). We rolled off and I got first turn and picked sides. Annoyingly  there was a massive piece of LOS blocking terrain in the middle of the board, and of course wraiths can hide behind it and ignore it when moving. So with a 24" gap between us and my guns having a max range of 24" I deployed right on the edge of my DZ (deployment zone). So I would move up 4/5" with everything and be in range of his wraiths. Usual deployment for me, ghost arks protecting each others rear armour and the 3 annihilation barges spread out. warriors in ghost arks, nights scythes plus overlord and other troops inside, in reserves. My objective is in my back left corner. As I expected, he deploys all 3 units of wraiths on the edge of his DZ, his destroyer lords unit mostly behind the LOS blocking building. His annihilation barge was just behind a wraith unit on the right flank. Surprisingly he deploys both immortal squads in a piece of area terrain (a very very ruined building) with his emperors will objective.

So my predictions of this game are; I'll get 2 rounds of shooting before his wraiths get into combat with me, in theory. So I should be able to kill 2 units of wraiths before the assualt, but my flyers could be shot down by his flyers. I could win this, if all goes to plan that is. My plan was ruined before turn 1, quite literally. If you haven't guessed already, he stole the initiative.

Turn 1:

Connor moved his wraiths up and ran them, all of the wraiths got at least a 4" run. His annihilation barge moved and does no damage, and the immortals just sit on his objective. 

I start by moving everything back, and manage to immobilise an annihilation barge on a building. Shooting downs 5/6 wraiths from 2 seperate units.

Turn 2: 

Neither of his flyers comes in, his wraiths move into an assault position. Annihilation barge moves around and does nothing with his shooting. Due to the positioning of my ghost arks, his destroyer lord and a full unit of wraiths manage to assault both. Luckily for me he only blows up one, the other loses its quantum shielding and I think a gauss flatter array. A unit of 3 wraiths assault the immobilised annihilation barge on the building and wreck. The last unit of 4 wraiths assault and blow up another annihilation barge. 

Erm, it doesn't look good at all. My overlords night scythe comes in with the immortals and overlord inside. Everyone shuffles around, my warriors which were inside the ghost ark don't move. Shooting, and I kill one more wraith from the 3 man squad. Night scythe shoots down 3 immortals, they hold and 1 gets back up.

Turn 3:

One of his flyers comes in, wraiths move around and annihilation barge shuffles a bit, immortals stand still. Shooting, manages to bring my night scythe down to 1HP and takes off its weapon, some lucky evasion rolls means my night scythe survives, so the troops inside don't have to go into reserves. Between his 3 units of wraiths and destroyer lord, my last annihilation barge gets killed, my ghost ark goes and so does the other warrior squad from the other ghost ark.

My immortals and overlord disembark, my last night scythe comes in and my other warrior squad from the ghost ark that got killed last turn, moves onto my objective. Immortal night scythe flies off the board. My stormtek in the immortal squad kills his annihilation barge. My night scythe fails to kill his night scythe, only glancing it, doing 1HP of damage. Test of my shooting is ineffective.

Turn 4:

His destroyer lord and wraiths move back to deal with my immortals and overlord. His last night scythe comes in, his other night scythe flies off the board. Remaining wraiths move in on my warrior squad. Shooting downs my night scythe and his immortals might kill a couple of my immortals but they stand back up. Assault phase and destroyer lord and wraiths assault my immortals and overlord. Only the unit of 4 wraiths makes it into combat with my warriors. He issues a challenge with his destroyer lord against my overlord, I accept. We both fail our MSS tests, hit ourselves 3 times each and successfully wound all 3 times, thus our warlords killing themselves. His wraiths whiff and I hold, but wait his destroyer lord does not get up, but my overlord does, by far my best moment in 40k yet. In the other combat his wraiths manage to down 3 warriors and the cryptek, I fall back, but he doesn't catch me and the cryptek stands up, bring the unit back to 50%. 

Warriors re-group and move back onto the objective, warriors from my night scythe walk on. Remaing night scythe flies on. Shooting is ineffective. In combat only my overlord survives and sticks around. 

Turn 5: 

His 4 man wraith unit move to engage the full warrior squad, while the 2 man unit move to engage the 3 man warrior squad. Shooting and my last night scythe goes down. Into assault and my warriors on the objective die, so do the other warriors and finally my overlord goes as well. And I'm tabled at turn 5. 

So I lost game 2. But it was definitely one of the better games of 6th I've had, espicially when our warlords killed themselves and only mine got up. I find that I learn more from loses than wins. In this case focus on a single unit and take it down, don't take a few wounds off here and there. MVP goes to my overlord, just for taking out his destroyer lord (warlord). 

So part 4 will be the last part and round 3, which I will be facing ravenwing. Thanks for reading and stay tuned.

Getting started with necrons

So I've posted about competitive play with necrons. But not yet about getting started with the necrons. Well not until now that is.....

This post is mainly to help out the gamers from elysium wargames club up in dundee, but also really for anyone else who's starting out with necrons.

Necrons are actually not that bad to start out with. My first 3 games with necrons were in one day, in which I won all 3 games. I was using 2 squads of 9 warriors in separate ghost arks, 5 scarab swarms, destroyer lord on his own and 2 c'tan shards. So not exactly the most competitive list, but it obviously worked. It was easy to use as well, ghost arks + warriors shoot and generally stay back and go for objectives. D.lord and c'tan shards assault anything they could and scarabs assault vehicles and then tarpit infantry afterwards (army pictured).

Most necron units only have one purpose, shoot or assault. What you will find is that most assault units have no shooting, wraiths, scarabs, lychguard and most HQs. Obviously it's not that simple, you have to get them into assault with minimal damage, either through using terrain as cover, or nights scythe deployment. Shooting, well necrons don't like to be assaulted so keep as far away as possible with your dedicated shooting units, e.g. keep your annihilation barges 24" away, simples no?

Necrons have got most unit types in the game possible, so as a first army aren't too bad, obviously vanilla marines are better. When I started playing necrons, they were top dogs. So when it came to picking what use it was easy, as they were well known for how deadly they were at the start of 6th. Now with the eldar and tau codexes, they've had their sting taken out of their tail. So you obviously don't hear of them too much, making it that little bit harder to get your foot on the ladder with them.

A good starting force in my opinion will have at least 2 of the following:

- 5 to 10 tesla immortals foot slogging

- 5 gauss immortals in a night scythe

- 10 to 15 warriors on foot

- 5 to 10 warriors in a ghost ark

At least one of the following:

- overlord all of the usual

- d. lord same as above really

And anything else in the book that you feel comfortable using. It's really just playing towards your strengths, I'm personally an aggressive player, so I use assault based units and night scythes. Avoid named characters, just learn how to use the generic ones and then the named ones, but none of them are really worth using in my opinion. 

Don't think I've missed anything, I hope.

Will hopefully get parts 3 and 4 up of my tournament report by the 1st November, hopefully.

New space marines and the current meta

So the new space marines were put up on pre-order yesterday, on the games workshop website. Which coincidently crashed and was pretty much down for the whole day. 

But what does this all mean to the meta of big competitions. At first glance you might think space marines might move into higher tables at competitions. Now with anti-flyer fire from the stalker/hunter, pretty much unmatchable firepower from the centurions. 

Well lets look closer into it then, note that this is based on very strong rumours, but still won't be definite until release day;

Stalker:

Armed with the Icarus stormcannon array, which can fire at 2 seperate targets. Weapon profile is roughly the same as a long-barrelled autocannon, but slightly different, if think its 1 less shot but str. 8. AV 12/12/10 with 3 HP, so pretty average for a marine vehicle. But here's the problem, it only has skyfire, so with no interceptor the flyer can have a good go at the stalker before it gets to fire. Yeah not so good anti-flyer then.

Hunter:

Again suffers from the same problem as the stalker, only has the skyfire special rule and no interceptor. It's armed the skyspear missile launcher, which has a 

str. 9 AP 2 heavy 1 armourbane profile. But at BS 4 and one shot, if you miss then that's the shot gone, if chronos works the same and gives the vehicle he's in his BS 5, then put him in the hunter if you really want/need to bring one. I almost forgot if you do miss, then there is a slight chance the missile will hit the flyer later on in the game, so that's quite neat.

So the new marines don't really have that great anti-flyer, but both new vehicles come in at under 100pts with no upgrades, so not everything is bad.

Devastator centurions:

Probably the last word in how much firepower can actually come from just 3 models. If you thought tau battlesuits were mini fire bases, then you'd now be wrong. Similar profile to a broadside, but combined with a marine, WS and BS 4, str. and T 5, 2 wounds and 2+ armour save. Can be armed with an array of weapons to deal with any foe, from lascannons to grav-cannons and hurricane bolters to missile launchers. Can also be upgraded to have night vision and split fire, so can engage seperate targets just like the farsight bomb. But they have no invulnerable save, so when up against plasma/melta fire, or a just a dedicated assault unit, they fall fast. Also space marines now have a large heavy support section, so units will be fighting out for places in players army lists.

Assault centurions:

Close combat based centurions, why? The whole idea mentioned above is to avoid combat based units. So having to charge head on with these is just dangerous, great for killing vehicles up close, and maybe some infantry, but again why? IMO avoid putting them in your list, use your elites slot for something else, like sternguard. They're  not cheap either, a unit of 3 will come to around 200pts.

Grav-weapons:

One of the most talked about weapon in 6th, rumours of it have been everywhere. So we know they wound against the targets armour save, so excellent against riptides and wraithknights. But how will they wound a model without an armour save, I don't actually know, they will either wound them on a 6+, or a 7+ and so impossible. Against vehicles, 1-5 does nothing and on a 6 causes a penetrating hit. 

General army:

Most of the units in the codex got cheaper, so you'll be seeing more models when playing against marines from now on. I think games workshop wanted people to focus on a more fluffy lists when deciding what to put in their army, so they made the specific chapter tactics. I think this was a brilliant idea, so the army can only select one set of chapter tactics, but the primary detatchment can select an allies detatchment of another chapter. So in other words, space marines can now ally with.... 

....  Erm space marines I guess.

So back to my original question; will the new space marines change the current meta? And the answer to that question is yes. Due to the new grav-weapons, tau/eldar players won't bring 3 riptides and loads of wraithknights, they'll be too scared of facing a grab-weapon heavy list. You'll be seeing a few more serpent spam lists I'd say, and probably tau gun line with fire warriors, and still the odd 1 or 2 riptides.

Tournament report part 2

Well this is part 2 of my tournament report. If you haven't checked out part 1 yet, then skip back a post and have a read. Format and my list is also in part 1 as well. Points for this round were:

Win=5pts     draw=3pts     lose=1pt

So as I said my first game was against a lovely guy called Steven. He ran a deadly dark eldar list with 8 dark lances, 2 razorwings and 4 raiders. This is the closest I could get to his actual list:

- Archon with haywire grenades, huskblade and shadow field

- 5 Incubi including Klavex with demiklaives in a raider with dark lance, flickerfield and nightshields.

- 10 Kabalite Warriors in a raider with dark lance, splinter racks, nightshields and flickerfield.

- 10 Kabalite Warriors in a raider with dark lance, splinter racks, nightshields and flickerfield.

- 10 Kabalite Warriors in a raider with dark lance, splinter racks, nightshields and flickerfield.

- Razorwing Fighter with 2 dark lances, flickerfield and 4 necrotoxin missiles.

- Razorwing Fighter with 2 dark lances, flickerfield and 4 necrotoxin missiles.

So he deployed with one raider in a building with kabalite warriors in, and the other 3 raiders creating a wall between the building with the raider in and another building in his deployment zone. I deployed so all 3 of my annihilation barges were out of line of sight, so even if he moved then only a maximum of 2 raiders would be able to pull line of sight to any one raider. My ghost arks deploy slightly covered by a building, but pretty much in the open, sort of to pull him away from aiming at my annihilation barges, as I don't mind losing a ghost or 2. I attempt to sieze the initiative, but fail and so onto turn 1. It was crusade with 3 objectives, he got 2 in his deployment zone and I got 1 for mine. He puts both hi in seperate buildings and I put mine behind a building to block line of sight to it. Warlord traits were either useless, or I can't remember them.

Turn 1:

So he moved around slightly to create a complete wall with his raiders. The one that moved out of the building doesn't get immobilised. He fires all of his dark lance into 1 of my ghost arks, aiming at the front armour and all 4 either fail to hit, or fail to glance/penetrate it. The rest of weapons can't harm my vehicles. 

I move all 3 annihilation barges at cruising speed, so they all snap fire, to get into range of his raiders due to the nightshields. I move my ghost arks slightly to get my 5+ cover save on each of them from jink. Shooting goes off, ghost arks do nothing, but I destroy the incubi/archon raider for first blood, but no one dies in the explosion with an annihilation barge. Another annihilation barge blows up a kabalite warrior raider and kills 2 kabalite warriors in the explosion, they are not pinned though. The final annihilation barge fires at the kabalite warrior squad, as its the  only target in range and I only kill 1 and he passes morale as well.

Turn 2:

Only one of his razorwings come on, remaining raiders move around as well. Razorwing fires at a ghost ark and fails to do anything, raiders fire as well and also fail to do anything. Kabalite warriors from the blown up raider, move into cover/building to get closer to an objective, they also run but only move an extra 1". His incubi and archon move and prepare to assault, he makes his charge and only does 2 hull points of damage, I think he got a penetrating hit and shook/stunned it, either way I ignored it with living metal, but thats my quantum shielding gone still though. He's really having rotten luck with his dice rolls today and its only turn 2.

Only one flyer comes on, the one with my immortals and overlord in and I line up the razorwing. Everything else moves about. One annihilation barge fires at another kabalite warrior raider, at full BS and fails to destroy only managing to do 2 hull points of damage and shaking it. 2nd annihilation barge fires at the kabalite warriors going for the objective and kills 4, morale is failed and they run off the board. Ghost arks are in a position so when they fire at the incubi/archon wounds get allocated to incubi. The ghost arks and warriors/crypteks fire at the incubi/archon  and manage to kill 2 incubi and pass morale. The last annihilation barge fires at manages to kill the klaivex and insta kills the archon, due to a failed shadow field save. Currently were tied on objectives, but I'm winning with first blood and slay the warlord. 

Turn 3:

His other razorwing comes in, he backs up the raider thats untouched and disembarks his kabalite warriors onto on objective. His shaken raider backs up slightly, and he snap fires the dark lance into my night scythe and some how destroys the twin-linked tesla destructor on it, dam, his luck might be changing. His razorwing shoots at the damaged ghost ark and wrecks it. His last 2 incubi charge my necron warrior squad from the wrecked ghost ark and they make it in, Overwatch fails to kill either incubi. In combat, 2 necron warriors and the cryptek fall and no incubi die, I pass morale and the cryptek and 1 necron warrior passes their reanimation protocols save.

My other flyer comes in, the other night scythe flies up and drops my immortals near an objective, the one that's unclaimed in his deployment zone. My last ghost ark moves to get into range of his kabalite warrior squad on the objective. My annihilation barges move around, one moves at cruising speed so can only snap fire. Shooting from an annihilation barge wrecks his already damaged raider, the newly arrived night scythe shoots and fails to bring down his remaining flyer, I think I only managed to do 1 HP. The other annihilation barge that moved at combat speed couldn't pull line of sight to the kabalite warrior squad which had just had its raider wrecked, so snap fired at the razorwing and brought it down, the large template landed on my wrecked ghost ark. The annihilation barge that flatted out shoots and explodes the last raider that just dropped its troops off on an objective last turn, the blast, nor the tesla arcing hit the kabalite warriors on the objective, finally the ghost ark and necron warriors inside shoot at his kabalite warrior squad on the objective and kill 2 due lots pf passwd cover saves. Close combat and the incubi only kills one necron warrior, no incubi die and I pass morale, but the necron warrior doesn't stand back up.

Turn 4:

With only 2 incubi and 2 kabalite warrior squads left on the board, Steven was really beginning to feel the pressure. The warrior squad on the objective does nothing turn, the other kabalite warrior aqua not on an objective shoots at my immortals/overlord and kills 2. I then proceed to fail morale and fall back about 7", this actually pulls onto the objective, so if I rally on my turn then they're claiming it. So those 2 immortals can't stand back up again. Back to the necron warrior and incubi combat, his incubi kill 2 more necron warriors, but the remaining 2 and cryptek bring down one of his incubi. I pass morale and one necron warrior stands back up.

My immortals/overlord re-group and along with 2 of my annihilation barges proceed to kill the entire kabalite warrior squad not on an objective. I disembark my necron warriors from their ghost ark onto the objective in my deployment zone, I also disembark my other necron warriors from their night scythe near the other objective in his deployment zone, I'm not in range to contest. Shooting from my night scythe, last annihilation barge, ghost ark and necron warriors kills only 5 kabalite warriors, due to some high cover save rolls, but his high rolls are his downfall as the final 3 fail morale and fall back off the objective. In the final incubi kills my cryptek and fail to kill him off, I pass morale though, but my cryptek doesn't stand back up. So at the end of turn 4 and I've claimed 2 objectives, slay the warlord, first blood and linebreaker. Steven's got 3 kabalite warriors running away, needing insane courage to 

re-group, his final incubi still locked in combat claiming him linebreaker. 

Turn 5:

His final kabalite warriors keep falling back, they shoot at my warriors but fail to do anything. In combat both sides whiff their attacks. 

My necron warriors in his deployment zone move onto the other objective and the they shoot down the last 3 kabalite warriors. In combat both sides whiff again. He rolls to see if the game ends.....

And it does, his line incubi saves him from being tabled and claims him linebreaker. 

final results:

He's got linebreaker with his lone incubi.

I've got warlord, first blood, linebreaker and all 3 crusade objectives.

I think I won that round, taking home the maximum 5 points. 

Afterwards we shook hands and he said well done, and I said that his dice rolling with his dark lances was his downfall. He got bad luck on the first 2 turns with them and failed to do any damage. 

My entire army achieved very well in this game, everything went smoothly and I just stuck to my tactics. Target priorities, the raiders and then drop troops off on objectives. No real MVP in my army for this game, probably Steven's lone incubi was his MVP.

In the rest of the competition; Steven's luck didn't change in round 2 either as I caught with him and he lost that game as well. But in round 3 he found his feet and won a game. 

Round 2 was after lunch and all my nerves had gone away. We sat on the same table as the store managers and they have us a lesson in the psychological game that is warhammer. And these are store managers telling us how to convince your opponent to 

re-deploy his entire army for your advantage, just with some sighs, various glances, eye rubbings, tapping on the table and all sorts really. Who said this game was played fairly haha.

Round 2 and I was against a great guy called Connor Middlemass, and that's all I'm saying until part 3.

Tournament report part 1

So I went to my competition that I said I was going to, but the question is did get everything done on time for it??????

Well if you look at the image above, then you can see that I did manage to get everything built and fully painted before the competition, well 20:45 the night before. You might have noticed that the left ghost ark is damaged, more than slightly as well. 5 out of 10 of the gauss flayers have fallen off of it. I brought them with me and asked a judge (my local store's manager) and he said that I wouldn't lose any points if they were broken off. So that was it, my army was set up and all my problems had been solved. 

My list in short was:

Overlord, MSS, weave, warscythe + res orb

3 stormteks

Destructek

5 warriors ghost ark

5 warriors ghost ark

5 warriors night scythe

5 gauss immortals night scythe

Annihilation barge tesla cannon

Annihilation barge tesla cannon

Annihilation barge tesla cannon

As I waited for my first opponent I caught up with a some familiar faces. To my disheartening I recognised one person I didn't want to see on the 40K tables. Back at the 1000pts tournament earlier this year he brought the 12 wraiths list (pictured up in earlier posts). He was back with his necrons again, and at 1250pts he had 18 wraiths. I wished him good luck and he said he was thinking if bringing a triptide list, but couldn't get it  finished in time.

Pairings for each round would be as follows; 

Round 1: pick someone who isn't from your local store 

Round 2 + 3; opponent picked for you from a different store again, except done Swiss style.

Winning store would be the ones who scored the highest average (total score/total number of players for that store)

So as I sat down next to my army and waited for someone to place their army on the same table. I watched as someone from my store came up to my table said "no, just no" and turned around and headed for another table. That was before we got told to play someone from another store. About another 4 players done the same, they were just too scared of my necrons. Eventually a judge said "does anyone want to play this fine gentlemen here, with his necrons on the end table there who's not from his store?". Eventually someone plucked up the courage and placed their army next to mine.

His name was Steven McVikar and he was lovely chap. He had a nicely painted dark eldar army, and a cunning plan to break anyone's morale. I was confident going into this competition that I'd have a shot of winning. Then Steve started his cunning plan, he had 8 dark lances in total in his army, 2 razorwings and 4 raiders. This spelt doom for AV13 wall tactic with my necrons. He also then told me that he'd played necrons for 7/8 years before this and knew all the strongest and weakest points of the necrons, and most of the tactics. Oh and did I mention he got first turn and it was night fighting turn 1. So all my confidence was gone, he had plenty of anti-tank fire and night vision to ignore cover granted from night forgetting. Yikes I was now really nervous, see how that game goes in part 2. 

Post a comment below on how you think this game will go, and if I have a chance on winning the whole tournament?

Apocalypse, what does it bring to necrons

Well, finished my exams now and had a good long holiday, but now back to it all, back to reality I guess.

APOCALYPSE!!!!! Yes the new rules set was released a month or 2 ago, to bring it more in line with the current 6th edition rules. I haven't got a copy of the book, but I had a flick through it and necrons got a reasonable number of formations, compared to what we used to have. 

The infinite phalanx looked interesting and so to did the acquisition phalanx. The formations were basically units that we'd love to field in regular games together, but either cost too much in points, or just aren't competitive. Lets take the acquisition phalanx, it really emphasises the surrogate host rule of Trazyn the infinite, in regular games I'd personally love to field Trazyn and 20 lychguard, so he becomes unkillable as he keeps replacing lychguard. But in regular games it costs 975pts with no upgrades for the models and will just get blown away in a few turns. 

But that's what apocalypse is really all about for all armies, getting to field those units that you've always wanted to field together, even if its completely hilarious and wouldn't work in regular games. But that's why they say come the apocalypse.

Necrons were also very lucky, in that we got access to not one, but 2 new big toys. I'm not going to go into the rules of each one, but I am going to talk about the kit. When I first read rumours of necrons getting to share the line-light for apocalypse with chaos, I didn't believe it. I only started to believe when pictures came through. I think the kit looks great, at first glances it looks like a big monolith,  but if you get to look a one properly, then you'll see the wraith bodies on the sides and all the little scarabs inside. There's also something called a transcendent c'tan inside, I don't really know the fluff behind it so I'm going to feed you with false knowledge. But depending on which one you build, you can mount on a flying stand and use it in your regular games as a c'tan. In my opinion he's different looking and that's great, he really stands out compared to the current 2 c'tan models.

Forge world also put their mark on apocalypse, by releasing an updated version of their imperial armour apocalypse book. In which the necrons also got some more formations, again I haven't got a copy of this book and nor have I even flicked through so no real rules to discuss.

But forge world did release this contents page. The necrons have the following formations:

- Teserect Ark

- Sentry Pylon

- Tomb Citadel

- Tomb Fortress

- City of the Dead

- Gauss Pylon

- Pylon Network

Oh good 3 formations which include the really big necron specific realm of battle game board tiles. The necron terrain does look great, but even for apocalypse it's a bit big. If you've got the space then it's really good and for themed games, but otherwise it might ruin the game with all the rules. Apocalypse is for you to field   loads of miniatures, and not just your usual amount with some terrain. They're battles of epic scale and not a city raid. The new formation with 8 monoliths and one of the new ones (can't remember which one post below which one it is if you know) is what I'm talking about. But that's forge world for you, always doing the massive, the cool, the weird, the hilarious and just stupid ideas. 

But that's just my opinion on it, please by all means get the terrain it looks great and works well with the current necron miniature range. What's your opinion on the whole necrons and apocalypse? Please leave a comment below.

Tactica necrons: sample army lists

So a few posts ago I done a run down on some of the army lists that are competitive for the necrons. I'm now going to do a sample army list for each type, and a quick review.

1) Wraithwing

HQ:

D. Lord Mindshackle scarabs and Sempiternal Weave 160pts

D. Lord Mindshackle scarabs and Sempiternal Weave 160pts

Troops:

5 warriors night scythe 165pts

5 warriors night scythe 165pts

5 warriors night scythe 165pts

Fast Attack:

5 canoptek wraiths whip coil 185pts

6 canoptek wraiths 2 whip coils 230pts

Heavy Support:

Annihilation barge 90pts

Annihilation barge 90pts

Annihilation barge 90pts

Total: 1500pts

So 3 flyers, 3 AV13 vehicles and 2 strong assault units led by very tough HQs. Obviously at higher points you can include more wraiths and troops. The list above is a good alrounder; strong assault, enough troops, anti vehicle + flyer, anti infantry and plenty of firepower. The only real weakness I can see is AV14 and weapons that can ID the wraiths. The list will struggle to deal with AV14, unless you get a D. Lord into combat with its warscythe. Wraiths are strong with 2 wounds, but if they can be ID they won't last half as long, because they will draw so much firepower.

2) Flyer Spam

HQ:

Overlord Mindshackle scarabs, Sempiternal weave, resurrection orb and Warscythe 160pts

Cryptek harbringer of the storm 25pts

Cryptek harbringer of the storm 25pts

Cryptek harbringer of the storm 25pts

Cryptek harbringer of the storm 25pts

Cryptek harbringer of despair 30pts

Elites:

5 deathmarks night scythe 195pts

Troops:

5 immortals night scythe 185pts

5 immortals night scythe 185pts

5 immortals night scythe 185pts

5 immortals night scythe 185pts

Heavy Support:

Annihilation barge 90pts

Annihilation barge 90pts

Annihilation barge 90pts

Total: 1495pts

With 5 flyers in total and 3 AV13 vehicles on the board to start with, to stop you getting tabled, this list packs quite a punch. With 4 very mobile troops choices, each led by a harbringer of the storm. The deathmarks are led by the harbringer of despair, for an AP1 flamer that wounds on a 2+. The immortals can be armed with either gauss blasters, or tesla carbines, I personally prefer gauss blasters on immortals in night scythes. But watch out, since all flyers have to start in reserve and you have to have something placed on the board, watch out for alpha strikes, these lists hit hard turn one, and if you've not got anything left on the board, you've lost, hence the 3 annihilation barges.

3) AV13 Spam

HQ:

Overlord with Mindshackle scarabs, and Warscythe in Catacomb command barge 215pts

Cryptek harbringer of destruction with solar pulse 60pts

Cryptek harbringer of destruction 35pts

Cryptek harbringer of destruction 35pts

Cryptek harbringer of destruction 35pts

Elites:

Triarch stalker with heat ray 150pts

Troops:

5 warriors in a ghost ark 180pts

5 warriors in a ghost ark 180pts

5 warriors in a ghost ark 180pts

5 warriors in a ghost ark 180pts

Heavy Support:

Annihilation barge 90pts

Annihilation barge 90pts

Annihilation barge 90pts

Total: 1500pts

So this is list has no less than 9 AV13 vehicles in it. I didn't put any flyers in on purpose, but you can if you want. You can quite easily create an AV13 wall with the ghost arks, and use the rest to protect your flanks and harass your enemies. Obvious weakness being vulnerable to high strength attacks, and just general anti vehicle fire.

4) Scarab farm

HQ:

Overlord with Mindshackle scarabs, Sempiternal weave, Resurrection orb and warscythe 160pts

Cryptek harbringer of the storm 25pts

Troops:

5 warriors night scythe 165pts

5 warriors night scythe 165pts

10 immortals 170pts

10 immortals 170pts

Fast Attack:

10 canoptek scarab swarms 150pts

Heavy Support:

3 canoptek spyders with gloom prism 165pts

3 canoptek spyders with gloom prism 165pts

3 canoptek spyders with gloom prism 165pts

Total: 1500pts

So a very simple build, 3 units of 3 canoptek spyders and a full unit of 10 canoptek scarab swarms, for new models to be spawned onto. I decided to back it up with a small fire base, consisting of 2 units of 10 immortals on foot, so I'd personally arm them with tesla carbines. And also 2 units of 5 warriors on night scythes for more troops, which are highly mobile. Just be careful not to lose all of your scarab bases, then you won't have anywhere to place your newly spawned ones.

5) Resurrecting Deathstar

HQ:

Nemesor Zandrekh 185pts

Varguard Obryon 160pts

Cryptek harbringer of destruction 35pts

Cryptek harbringer of destruction and solar pulse 60pts

Troops:

5 warriors in a ghost ark 180pts

5 warriors in a ghost ark 180pts

20 warriors 260pts

10 immortals with tesla carbines 170pts

Heavy Support:

Annihilation barge with tesla cannon 90pts

Annihilation barge with tesla cannon 90pts

Annihilation barge with tesla cannon 90pts

Total: 1500pts

I chose to put Nemesor Zandrekh in this list to buff the warriors up even more. Remember to keep the ghost arks within 6" of the large warrior unit, so you can use the ghost ark's rule to resurrect D3 models, this may include Nemesor Zandrekh, if he ever fails his reanimation protocols save and dies. I also put in Varguard Obryon with 10 immortals for some mobile teleporting troops, as well if the large unit of warriors gets charged, then his "the Varguards duty" special rule will kick in and he will automatically leave his unit and teleport to join that respective close combat.

All of the lists above have been made with my preferences. Obviously you can make a list that fits your playing style and that keeps to one of the themes listed above.

Tactica necrons: competitive list builds

In this post I'm going to talk about competitive necron army lists, the most common used ones and some uncommon ones.

1) wraithwing
These armies are fast and are brutal in combat, they can also withstand a lot of punishment as they move up the board as well. The army is based around wraith squads, usually one squad is led by a D.lord with MSS and sempiternal weave. As the wraiths can move like jump infantry and ignore terrain expect to assault on turn 2, if not definitely turn 3. They also have a 3++ so can ignore most firepower targeted at them, and those ID weapons as well. These squads are usually backed up with annihilation barges and warrior/immortal squads in night scythes. Obviously adding flyers into the force, brings even more speed and mobility to your army. 

2) Flyer spam

As the title of this tactic says, stick as many flyers as you can in your army. Necron's still have some of the best flyers in the game, especially the night scythe, as no other transport flyers have quite the same rules as it does. Models inside don't take hits if it gets blown out the sky and simply get placed into reserve. Also models inside of the night scythe can disembark even if the flyer is zooming, so other flyers become vulnerable as they have to go into hover mode, while your's does not. This army is fast, very fast, you can pretty much place your units down on the board where you want them, meaning you can really make some last minute moves that my might win you the game at the end of the day. But using this sort of list will mean that you dont deploy much on the board at the start of the game and if your opponent gets first turn then he has a good chance of tabling you. Get around this by putting annihilation barges in as your heavy support choices and you'll start off with some AV13 vehicles on the table.

3) AV13 spam

Basic idea in these sorts of lists is to put as many vehicles in your list as possible. Due to quantum shielding on all of our vehicles, front and side armour values count as 13, until the first penetrating hit has been rolled. With the new rules it's a lot harder now to penetrate higher armour value vehicles, which makes necron vehicles one of the toughest in the game. You can effectively create a AV13 wall and slowly move up the battlefield, while your opponent tries to down them as quickly as possible. But just a word of warning as soon as one of your vehicles takes a penetrating hit, it will more than like go bye bye, due to it being open-topped.

4) Scarab farm

The basis of this list is 3 units of 3 canoptek spyders, you can give them upgrades as well if you want, I would maybe give each unit 1 gloom prism for anti-Psyker, if I have the points. You will also need at least one unit of scarabs of minimum size, this is because the canoptek spyders have to place their newly formed scarb bases onto an existing unit. To play safe I either start with a unit of 10 scarab bases, or 3 smaller units and each gets paired up with a unit of canoptek spyders. I do this because if your opponent is smart then they will target your scarab units first, to negate the canoptek spyders' ability to form new bases to the unit. So either place them in cover in turn 1 if your opponent is going first, or straight away create new bases if your going first. Eventually your opponent will keep shooting at your scarab unit(s) and you'll keep forming new bases to replace the list ones.

5) Resurrecting deathstar 

This tactic is very very rarely used. The idea uses the ghost arks ability to bring warriors back to life after reanimation protocols. But the wording on the special rule is unclear and it's been confirmed that ghost arks can also bring independent characters back to life that were attached to the target unit and any other royal court characters that were also attached. So simply get 2 units of 5 warriors in ghost arks, and at least a 15 strong unit of warriors (preferably 20). Put an overlord in that unit with a resurrection orb and a member from his royal court. And simply watch your opponent shoot at the unit, kill as many they can, resurrect some with the resurrection orb and some more with the ghost arks. You can go one step further if you want, another overlord for a second royal court, or a destroyer lord to give the unit preferred enemy (everything!).

  

So there are 5 ideas for a competitive necron army list. There are obviously different tactics out there, and tactics that work for each individual's playing style. I currently run lists which are a mix between AV13 spam and flyer spam, so usually troops in ghost arks and night scythes, backed up with annihilation barges. So I have lots of firepower, mobility, resilience and troops to hold objectives.

I'm probably going to do a post on sample army lists for each of the ideas above. Feel free to comment below about your opinion(s) on these tactics, and which tactics you like to use, or use against necrons for that matter.

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