Thursday 27 March 2014

Throne of Skulls March 2014 - Tyanids Vs Necrons 'pick up game' with Scott

We managed to get to Warhammer World on the Friday early enough for us to have a game amongst ourselves. The original plan was for me to go up against Liam, and Otty and Scott to face each other with Ben offering Scott advice. Scott's just getting back into the hobby and as he's using Ben's army there's none better to give him tips. However, Liam had heard rumours about my list and for the entire journey to Nottingham had bemoaned how evil it was and refused to square up against it - baby! ;) So I faced Scott and Liam went against Otty's nids.

Psychic Powers
Winged Tyrant HQTervigon CC HQTervigon Plain TrZoanthope
DominionCatalystParoxysmDominion
Warp Blast

Warp Blast

The low down:
  • Purge the Alien
  • Vanguard Strike
  • I think I won won deployment, but let Scott go first and failed to win the initiative.
  • Warlord Trait - Master of ambush - useless
  • Night fighting turn one, I think
I set the brood nest up with the Aegis as a defensive baffle, but that wasn't really going to slow down the Wraiths and Scarabs!

    The Annihilation Barges too would have no problem crossing my 'Maginot Line' but I see it as a statement of intent, as if I'm going to head forwards so it my draw him into the open.


    Everything else hid well back with my Termagants split levelled on the Skyshield.


    Scott sent the Wraith's forwards, backed up by the Scarabs. I know what they can both do and I know how devastating the Scarabs can be on my Bastion so after weathing a few lost Gaunts to Imotekh's Lightning attack I swoooped the Flyrant forwards. Now it may have been overkill and the Wraith's are the more serious threat but I reasoned I could kill the Scarabs with my Brainleech Devourers and despite their cover saves I was able to insta-kill all his bases securing me First Blood and a kill point.


    I think I also put a wound on a Wraith and the Hive Guard took out the Triarch Stalker before he could do any damage with his heat ray. Not sure what the Quad Gun did, everything else scooched around a bit.


    The Wraiths headed off to the Skyshield. The Flyrant is still in shot here but does not appear afterwards. I'm not sure what happened to him, perhaps he was shot down or as the Wraiths eventually took his place on the Skyshield maybe they assaulted and killed him, which is the more likely outcome.


    The Wraiths, having secured a foothold on the Skyshield were mobbed by the Termagants. Every single one bundled in but despite not getting Counter Attack I managed to kill one Wraith, luckily the one with the Initiative reducing whip coils.

         

    Weight of numbers continued to wear down the Wraiths and eventually the Gaunts became my MVPs and wiped them out - way to go little guys! The Hive Guard may have taken out one of the Barges, Scott still had one left and pointed out he'd have been happier with a third one instead of the Triarch Stalker.


    Meanwhile my Trygon faced down a newly arrived unit of Immortals and the Cryptek who teleported them. He eventually won the combat and routed them, eating every last one but was down to 1 wound, either from their attacks or the following shooting phase.


    With him severely weakend I retreated him behind the Bastion and sent the Great Maw forwards to secure Line-breaker. A gamble really as the Trygon was further up the board but in no way to weather any incoming fire, whereas the Tervigon was unwounded but had further to go.


    With the game entering it's end phases I needed to draw the last Annihilation Barge into range of my Tervigon. I accidentally managed it by moving the Trygon further round the Bastion. The Barge could only get a bead on him if he entered my DZ, in which case the Tervigon could smash it and prevent Line-breaker. The Trygon was indeed zapped and I traded the lost VP for the Tervigon getting it's Crushing Claws on the Barge. Unfortunately I don't think I managed to get the Great Maw into Scott's Deployment Zone but in the end it wasn't needed.


    The end result was 8:5 to me, not entirely sure on the breakdown but it does mean I finally beat Ben's Necrons, I just have to do it versus Ben next. Scott was great fun to play, he brings no baggage to the table and winning seams irrelevant, he just seems happy to play. The hilarious thing was his use of those 1" blue dice above. Every time he rolled them the Realm of Battle board would jump along with all our minis. Funnily enough his regular dice are tiny 8mm affairs, from one extreme to another.

    The other really funny part was that Ben came over at one point [he spent most of the game schmoozing with the other players to see what they were bringing tomorrow] and asked what happened to the third Annihilation Barge... Scott hadn't checked his list and did indeed have three, not two barges. I told him at that point to bring it on as a reserve but he carried on regardless. Of course this set up one of the running gags for the weekend of Scott making sure he had 3 Barges, while I was open for a huge amount of friendly abuse about the amount of time it took me to pack away my army.

    This was a great start to the weekend, not because I started it with a win, just because it was a laugh. This was also the point where I found out there was no Best Painted Fortification award. Liam may well have been saying I was going to win best army all weekend but I was not convinced, but had secretly believed I had the Fortification prize at least. Even so the loss of the category was funny in itself as Nick said it had been dropped about six months ago, round about the same time I started building the Skyshield. I think it's a shame, although the Bastion only had one competitor at Battle Brothers - an indication the category was on the wane perhaps - the inclusion of Stronghold Assault really opens up people to build more Fortifications and bring them along.

    Anyway, bring on the next day and battle 1!

    1 comment:

    1. I think it was funniest that Scott had been saying how the necron list would be better if I had put an extra barge in instead of a stalker doh! Anyway glad to see you made it back from TOS Dave I thought you might be still paking up :p lol. Congratulations on winning best painted army you deserved it for you dedication to the Hobby aswell as your excellent painting ability, Oh and thanks also for stopping Liam adding to his vast collection of awards, hes far too greedy :). Thanks also for a brilliant weekend mate I think we all had a great time and Scott for me did the best 2 wins in his first TOS and he has only played 5 times before brilliant. Great battle report mate and no you will never beat me with my Necrons

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