1500pts battle report - Tyranids v Necrons

Games have become quite a rarity since 8th edition hit. You've seen my views shift over the half dozen or so games I've played thus far, in particular the last game with PeteB helped move me to a position of acceptance and understanding. I think most of that was due to approaching it less from a competitive sense and more from a learning opportunity, but PeteB was really the architect of that. With this in mind I hoped to replicate that role with Ben and his transition less painfully to 8th thanks to the games under my belt. I'm not entirely sure I was successful but you be the judge. We only went for 1500pts and unawares of the Imperial Guard Codex he decided to try his Necrons for the first time with a mixed list of Warriors, Immortals, a Triarch Stalker, C'tan Deceiver, Imotekh, some Scarabs, Flayed Ones and a Cryptek.

I went with a similar list to when I played PeteB, just managed to shoehorn a Trygon Prime, Malanthrope and four Hive Guard into the mix.

The low down:

• Cleanse and Control
• Table Corners deployment
• Got to choose deployment zone, but deployed last unit [giving Ben first turn], failed to seize.

Choosing this corner meant I had the real LoS blocking ruins to hide the Hive Guard in, as much as the extra terrain in the other corner seemed appealing I imagined moving out of the DZ would render it pointless once the battle lines met.

The C'tan and Triarch deployed closest with Imotekh in the ruin.

Everything in my army except the Carnifex managed to take advantage of the Malanthrope's cloud cover. Unfortunately Imotekh has a special rule adding +1 To Hit, negating the cloud cover :(

Turn 1 and Ben would move his C'tan into the ruin on the right and bring on his Flayed ones in the back of my DZ.

Imotekh brought forth a storm of lightning, instantly killing two Hive Guard with Mortal Wounds. One Carnifex took two wounds and the other just one while the Tervigon also suffered only to be hit by the Triarch's Heat Ray removing half it's wounds. I subsequently forgot about Tenacious Survivor. No First Blood but Ben scored a VP holding one of his objectives.

My turn, and I draw hold objective 6 [out of shot on the hilltop to the left] for two turns - not a chance [I'd discard it at the end of the turn, with hindsight a mistake]. Advance - move all my units out of my DZ. I then do Priority Orders, a new mission I'd never seen before. You draw this and it is a mission solely for your Warlord, who then draws another objective and should he acheive the second objective he scores and additional 3VPs from the Priority Orders mission. My secondary objective - secure objective 3, which is on the hill between the ruins and trees top right. However, my Tervigon was limping along at 6" move thanks to it's wounds. I spreade out, leaving some of the Devgaunts to pepper the C'tan with Devourer grubs and decided to tie him up with the Carnifex. The remaining gaunts brought the Flayed Ones down to just four left. The Stealers moved onto the road leaving me options against the Triarch or the Immortals.

The Carnifex charged the C'tan and despite my rerolls and all the Devgaunt wounds he lived on his last wound and in return killed one Carnifex outright for First Blood.

Genestealers went through the Immortals, leaving 4 behind, one would then 'get back up'. Unfortunately my Broodlord couldn't keep up with them and was left rather exposed on the roadside. As the turn finished the Flayed Ones failed ther Morale appallingly and they fled back to their pocket charnal universe. I'd forgotten to bring on the Trygon or Rippers but felt that may actually be a good thing to have the reinforcements later in the game.

With the Broodlord separated the Stalker scuttled forwards and it's Heat Ray, alongside additional supporting fire, brought the Broodlord down to it's last 2 wounds.

It then stomped all over it's corpse...

... and consolidated next to the Honoured Imperium statue. The Scarabs surrounded the Malanthrope but weren't able to do much damage [despite hitting on 3s, y'know my Rippers hit on 5's and they're roughly the same points...]

Having killed the last Carnifex the C'tan consolidate. I then got Supremacy - hold three objectives. I moved the gaunts onto objective 5 but still within range of the C'tan. I also brought the rippers onto objective 6 on the hill to the top left [remember that objective 6 card I discarded...].

The Devgaunts popped the C'tan with weight of fire.

The Hive Guard got lucky pinging the remaining wounds off the Stalker. In fairness to Ben he hadn't been playing 'Living Metal' or his 'Quantum Shielding' rules correctly but this turn he got the Shielding rolls but to no avail. Over on the other side of the board my Trygon had appeared, needing an 8" charge against the Warriors to get into assault but more importantly get within range of the objective to score Supremacy. My Last re-roll got me the charge. The Genestealers had sliced easily through the remaining Immortals in Ben's turn, leading me to believe I'd perhaps not done all the attacks they were supposed to do in my first turn.

But as they were within 1" of the Immortals, Cryptek and Stormlord I could pile into them, although I'm sure with better positioning I could have perhaps consolidated further away in Ben's turn to then allow me to charge in my turn. Lessons to learn. Anyway, the Cryptek got spanked, a couple of Immortals fell and the Stormlord took a couple of wounds.

Although the Tervigon was heading for Objective 3 I decided to support the Malanthrope, forgetting it's wounds meant it would now be hitting on 5s. Despite this a base or two were squished.

The Trygon killed all but one Warrior, then four got back up again!

In Ben's turn the Tyrgon ate the four new Warriors, but still one remained. The Immortals surrounded the Stealers chopping down a couple. The Stormlord again took a couple of wounds but regenerated one thanks to Living Metal.

I then failed my Morale quite spetacularly [as did the lone Necron Warrior] and both our units perished.

Having been tied up long enough with the Scarabs the Tervigon and Malanthrope fell back. allowing me to reposition the Termagants almost outside my DZ and surround the Scarabs and shoot them to pieces.

At this point we called it. Ben had 2 VPs, plus First Blood. I only had 1 from my D3 VPs for Supremacy [I know, after all that effort too]. However, I'd been on objective 5 for a turn, would be outside my DZ next turn and my Tervigon would be on Objective 3 also, and the Trygon had Linebreaker ultimately scoring me an additional 8VPs.

There were quite a few times during the game we discussed how best to position models to take advantage of the Assault and Pile-in rules, which felt like a learning experience for both of us but sadly Ben ended up feeling even more dejected about the nature of the game and the effectiveness of Necrons in particular. I've been playing him and his Necrons for over five years and only beaten them once, in part due to having a unit of Genestealers I shouldn't have had. It was no doubt disappointing, especially as I thought his first turn was relatively successful. I certainly felt there was more nuance to this game and opportunity for tactics. It's still a flurry of activity early on and yet the subsequent turns still seem to take forever despite the casualties.

A good game, a win, but sadly not the result we both hoped for I fear...

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1000pts battle report - Tyranids v Khorne Daemonkids

For a variety of reasons [life, hobby, a burgeoning passion for Bolt Action] I haven't managed to arrange many games with PeteB this year but we finally changed that with our first game of 8th edition together. I always hoped his understanding of Age of Sigmar would help us through the teething stages of 8th and so this was more like the early games of other editions where we found our feet and 'learned the game'.

The low down:

• Kill points
• Dawn of War deployment on 4'x4'
• We bizarrely reverted to 7th setup - Pete deplyed first and then we rolled 50:50 to see who went first - I won the roll.

Pete's deployment was a symmetrical line of Fleshhounds, backed up by Chaos Spawn on either flank, with two units of Bloodletters with Heralds in the centre and a a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch masquerading as a Khorne DP in the middle.
I went with 18 Genestealers, Broodlord and Carnifex on my right flank, Carnifex and Tervigon on my left with my 30 Termagants [7 Devgaunts, 23 Fleshborers] holding the centre in cover. Everything Advanced forward but I suddenly realised the Genestealers were now ripe for Pete's turn and being gnawed on by the Fleshounds. The only thing to do was attempt the charge - it was 11", so needed 10, rolled a 6 and a 1, used a Command Point to re-roll the 1 and got 5.

They made it and promptly sliced through the dogs but I immediately learned that such a move puts you out of the buff range of the Broodlord - no +1 to hit, no immunity to morale...

In retaliation the Bloodletters, Herald and Spawn attacked back but thanks to my invul saves and Catalyst he could only take down 10 Stealers, still leaving me with 'Flurry of Claws' [4 attacks instead of 3]. I was able to wound his Herald and Spawn and kill a few Bloodletters in return.

Meanwhile my Carnifex was surrounded and taken from 6 down to 2 wounds and the Tervigon was taken to 8. Pink Horrors also appeared out of the aether.

My turn and the Broodlord and Carnifex reached the melee, scything and rending through the Bloodletters while the Broodlord buffed the Genestealers. I had to choose which unit to fight first after the charges - Stealers and get 4 attacks on all three units in the melee, or sacrifice the potential extra attack if the Spawn and surviving Bloodletter killed just 1 and fight with the 2 wound Carnifex facing the Fleshounds on the left flank who would likely die before getting to attack if the Stealers went first. The extra attacks and ability to kill three units meant I went with the Stealers, wiping out all but the Spawn

The Spawn still lived but he was severely wounded and left holding the flank alone and now surrounded by 10 Genestealers. The Carnifex somehow survived anyway, taking a Hound with him. The Tervigon was also able to kill the last of the Bloodletter, thanks to a particularly visions Smite that killed 4 [or 5], to leave just 2 to kill in combat. However, the Daemon Prince now wanted in on the action.

Horrors charged the Termagants, suffering a few deaths to their living ammunition overwatch. 8 termagants died in the combat but with the Tervigon still on 8 wounds they would be reborn. The Spawn also ambled forwards but wasn't able to make the 6" charge. Carnifex and Hounds remained in combat with just 5 Hounds left now.

The Daemon Prince was only able to wound the Carnifex twice. I threw the Broodlord at him - taking off a fair few wounds but that was a mistake as the Prince attacked back causing 8 wounds on the Broodlord - killing it and removing his buff Aura and Synapse. This left the Genestealers to kill the Spawn the hard way and consolidate towards the ongoing combat. All this watched by some Ripper who turned up to gloat on the board edge.

The five hounds continued to harry the Carnifex, forcing me to make at least three out of four 4+ saves.

Which I failed

The Carnifex was gone, answering the question 'who let the dogs out?' - it was the Carnifex. Unfortunately the Horrors also failed their Morale and the remnants of the units disappeared back into the warp releasing the Termagants who were back up to a full brood of 30. They threw all their shooting at the Spawn felling it.

The Stealers surrounded the Damon Prince [who'd spent the last turn doing another 2 wounds to the Carnifex]. Reduced down to 9 stealers and therefore 'only' making 3 attacks each it still could survive the 27 attacks and was slain.

This left four remaining Fleshounds facing the Tervigon, which is where we called it.

Obviously the game went really well for me and it was a perfect example of how the aura effects of having buff characters in proximity to their 'buffees' [the Daemon slayers] works well. Pete made some conscious decisions to make stuff happen, setting some of his units against the Genestealers when he knew they stood no chance so this definitely felt like a 'training' session. I still feel bad about taking out the Fleshounds first turn, I think that reroll alone for the charge won the game as the other Hounds lasted much longer against the Carnifex and ultimately killed him. However, Pete did point out the Stealers went through more than half his army so getting the right target for them is key and ensuring the Broodlord stays alive to keep them hitting on 2s is vital.

I feel slightly more positive because I know have a better understanding tactically, which was one of the issues at the NWO. It doesn't completely overshadow the fact I practically tabled Pete to do it, granted it was a kill points game, which means your priorities are simple but even so I want a close game where we both feel we had chances and fought hard. The other consideration is that this was against a combat orientated list, I wonder just how it would have fared against something shooting it across the table? Although Pete did claim his Daemons had been awesome against Tau so perhaps there's little to fear. Anyway, a lot to think about and certainly more to explore using this type of list.

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1850pts battle report - Tyranids v Necrons

Ben and I haven't had a battle since mid April, so it was about time we did and about time the Hive Fleet Gorgon took on the Necrons once again. We even upped the ante and went 1850pts.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Winged Tyrant Tervigon CC TR Tervigon Plain Tr Onslaught Warp Blast Onslaught Warp Blast Psychic Scream Paroxysm Dominion Dominion Dominion Dominion Magus Tryst Psychic Shriek Dominate INVISIBILITY!!!!!

The low down:

• One of the Maelstrom missions - 3 cards per turn
• Vanguard Strike
• I lost deployment but was asked to deploy first and Ben seized thanks to his +1 to Seize warlord trait
• Warlord Trait - Move through cover and Stealth [Ruins]
• No night fighting.

Ben did give me a sporting chance by not taking the Decurion but other than that there was a lot to be wary of: 6 Wraiths, Triarch Stalker, two units of Immortals, Ghost Ark, Tomb Blades, Annihilation Barge as well as Doom Scythe delivering Lychguard and Warriors into the fray.

I'd used a lot of my Throne of Skulls force, but got three Dakkafex and two Flyrants in as well two Tervigons. The key being I went for two CADs and the Genestealer allies.

Ben Went first and advanced everything, he managed to kill a Termagant in my big brood and the Tomb Blades took my Genestealer hybrids down to 4 and the Magus [on 1 wound] thanks to ignores cover upgrades! He was unable to score any VPs though.

I was extremely lucky with my cards, I pulled hold objectives 1, 5 and 6, which were all closest [or inside] my DZ. Number 6 was in the ruined tower on my left, I spawned out on 9 Termagants to secure it, the big blob got number 1 and the remaining Cultists held number 6 on the right in the wood. Meanwhile the Carnifex and Hive Tyrant took the centre. One Flyrant managed to cast Warp Blast but failed to hit the Stalker, which might have brought his Quantum Shielding down so the Brainleech could glance it.

So instead everything fired at the Wraiths, all the Dakkafex and the Flyrants - 70 shots [plus a few Termagants might have caused a wound] and it was just enough to beat the odds. He failed only enough saving throws and Reanimation Protocols to kill the squad. It was a devastating blow but took all my resources. I ended the turn with 3VPs plus First Blood.

But NEcrons are an implacable foe with a Doom Scythe appearing above

and Flayed ones appearing below. Unfortunately the second unit of Flayed ones mishapped and I deployed them out of harms way in the far corners [although not far from objective 4 so still of use should Ben get the card].

Ben initially brought the Doom Scythe on here, but due to the hull mounted weaponry having little to shoot at moved to the other side of the Chaos Shrine and deplyed the Lychguard onto objective 2.

In his turn 2 Ben managed to complete two missions - capture objective 2 with the Lychguard and Assassinate - killing my second Flyrant [the one with Warp Blast!] with the combined shooting of his Ghost Ark and Immortals. I think the Carnifex I'd given spine banks to was also killed, Ben had managed to recoup the value of his lost Wraiths.

The cards were kind again for me, objective 6 was secured by the remaining Cultists for a second turn and I was able to manifest 3 psychic powers: Tervigon cast Warp Blast, hit the Tomb Blades but they Jinked and survived. Warlord Flyrant cast Psychic Scream but the nearby Immortals survived no problem and something was Onslaughted. Manifesting the powers, even with little effect on the game netted me 2 out of D3 victory points.

Turn 3 and Ben managed to overrun my Cultists with the Tomb Blades.

The Doom Scythe targeted my Dakkafex with little joy, but it [or the Ghost Ark] did deposit a bunch of Warriors in the middle of the board just to ruin my day.

The middle of the board was looking pretty solid and to cap it all those misplaced Flayed Ones did come into their own and secure objective 4 in the top left to score Ben a VP.

Underneath the Skyshield the Flayed ones charged the Termagants. I could only get 16 in pay and managed to bring their number down to 5, but with 25 attacks on the charge they slaughtered the 16 they could reach, leaving them locked with the remaining 13. The Lychguard charged the Dakkafex in the middle, I avoided their Mindshackle Scarabs [I hate them with a passion] and it stomped on one or two but they cut him down with ease.

My turn 3 and I drew objective 4 and 2, [both in Ben's DZ and one held by the Flayed Ones the other by Immortals] and a VP to have three units in my own DZ and none of Ben's. Due to the positioning of the Flyrant I had to turn right instead of left, towards the objectives and give support to the newly arrived Tyrannocyte and Rippers. The Pod had landed almost exactly between obj 2 and 4, the Rippers could claim one as they were ObSec but only with a run which they made. 

The Flyrant took out the Annihilation Barge regardless, while the Tervigon assaulted the remaining Tomb Blades. Underneath the Skyshield the Genestealers broke the deadlock with the Flayed Ones securing me the VP but that is an issue I'll get to at the end...

The Termagants having made a disastrous charge on the Immortals turned tail and were chased by the Immortals, the other spawned gaunts tried to tar pit the Lychguard

Everything else poured fire into the exposed Dakkafex, except for the other broadside of the Ghost Ark which aimed at the Tyrranocyte. The Dakkafex went down to just one wound and then took another 5 that I had to save

Yeah, not on this watch!

The Dakkafex fell.

The Flayed ones wiped out the Rippers to secure objective 4 and a VP.

The Gaunts managed to pull down a few more Lychguard, and I was able to secure objective 5 in the ruined tower for another VP. Meanwhile on my right flank the Flyrant had managed to reach the Tomb Blades locked in combat with the Tervigon. The Flyrant managed to cast Psychic Scream, with Ben looking out on a 12 on the Leadership wiping them out and freeing up the Tervigon.

But they were ultimately slaughtered, leaving the Necron Overlord to hunt larger prey next...

The Flayed ones from objective 4 continued to be useful [considering Ben wasn't going to put them on after the mishap] by wiping out the Tyrranocyte, 

it did kill at least one of them in combat though which is always nice to see :)

The Overlord charged the Tervigon, which was down to 2 wounds so it was not going to survive but as both were Initiative 2 I could achieve mutual destruction with a Smash! attack. One roll of the dice and I hit, and I got a 2 to wound. He failed any save [if he had one] and his Reanimation Protocol but he took out the Tervigon as he went.

This wiped out a number of Termagants in the ruins.

Ben's turn 5 and despite our early start we're pushing 12:30am and Ben manages to secure objective 1 with the remaining Lychguard and 3 to score 2VPs and I think he gets Linebreaker. Given the hour we decide to call it.

For the first time ever Hive Fleet Gorgon has won against the Necrons, with 9 VPs, plus 2 for First Blood and Slay the Warlord I'm on 11 and Ben scores 8 but in writing the report I realise I've cocked up. I'd been thinking how I'd achevved it with some expensive units effectively just holding objectives - the Cultists and Genestealers which I could have done with a 40pt unit of Termagants The Cultists scored 2, for  a cost of 150pts and all the Stealers did was broke the deadlock with the Flayed ones to score 1 VP and they cost 130pts, except when I went to look how much they were I realised when I'd switched from my ToS starting list of 1 CAD plus allies to 2 CADs plus allies I;d had to drop the Stealers to fit the second Tervigon  and small unit of Gaunts in. So in effect I played with the Stealers when I shouldn't have :(

This would make the score more 10-8, I'm pretty sure the Termagants, even with the Venomthrope couldn't have bested the five flayed ones, 13 attacks, plus the 3 poisoned [2+] Venomthrope shots and it's Toxic Miasma. I'd have been lucky to take out three of the five which would have left them in my DZ/table edge. They'd have then been killed by the 20 attacks in return but what would they have done after, and how it would impact the remaining game I can't tell. To say I'm p'ed off is an understatement. My first success ever and I went and screwed it up with a mistake.