My Latest Game (Pre-Codex)

[Prot]

I've had a really good winning record with most of my armies, but with Necrons... not so much. Less winning, more re-animating appears to be my motto.

 

I have a game coming up this week, but don't know if I'll play Necrons as we are so close to the new dex and I find it has a mental affect on me.... I keep adjusting my lists knowing there's something I will not continue to use.... like Crypto Thralls for instance. I don't use them right now, even though they are good, because of pending changes.

 

That said I wanted to get a few more games in before the codex drops.

 

This last game was a pretty bad showing for me. I have found that in part this is my fault for picking 'fun' pieces and just accepting the consequences. 

 

The game was against Blood Angels. I have to admit we have a Blood Angels player that is really making the most out of their detachment and I think it's really underrated. The problems I have with my Necrons is 1. Movement, and 2. No damage.  The Blood Angels have issues with 1 Model count, and 2. Maintaing board control/resilience.

 

He had sort of a game plan similar to John Lennon's at the Atlanta Worlds'. Basically he's using the Libby Dread to bounce units around the table. And he had a Redeemer Dread with 6 Drill centurions. And Deathcompany galore with chappy. (Fists) Some Vanguard with Shields.

 

So my ability to get in his zone long enough to score a primary was just not happening. Every unit I dropped in his zone to score, evaporated the next turn, but failed to kill anything in turn.

 

 

Here's a shot of me pushed pretty far back in my zone.

 

My Warriors got very close to dying out, but bounced back big time on 2 occasions. And all I can think was.... damn I'm going to miss their reanimate rule, and the Reanimator 12" aura. 

 

The problem is my lack of AP. And with a plethora of cover in 10th, I think AP 1 is nearly useless. (Since you can't get better than a 3+ save anyway on most marine models.)

 

Here I try pushing back, and the Monolith was never 'scary' enough for him to direct too much attention to it.

 

Highlights/ Lowlights:

-  I lost my Nightbringer on T2 when he used the Libby ability to drop in the Deathcompany and chaplain and took Dev Wounds and Lance on the charge, made the 9" charge and smoked him easily. (In part this is my fault, but I had no idea 6 models could do that. He also didn't remind me he could pick up and drop units until T2. Still it's my fault for not sheltering the Nightbringer better.)

 

- Ironically I did very, very little damage, but in T1 I managed side shots on his Landraider (just the sponson was sticking out) so my Monolith probably had it's best game yet.  (if I didn't get the LR in T1, I would have been annihilated in this game.)

 

- Tomb Blades did nothing. Warriors couldn't touch Centurions or Aggressors in cover. My deep strike units failed to damage anything, (Ophidians, Hexmark, Tomb Blades, etc). 

 

- It was a slow dredge of my warriors almost dying, sucking through the Monolith, trying to regen up using all means available, and trying to plink back. It just was a losing battle from T1.

 

- Probably a shocker for me was the Deathmarks. I set them up on the board because they had a good vantage point if the Blood Angels ever broke mid table. And while I did lose my Nightbringer to the Death Company and Chaplain. I had one good round of shooting with  the Deathmarks and they killed his Chaplain to the wound. I may take them more often....?

 

At the end I called it when I couldn't even take down a speeder with 3 Destroyers, and 5 Praetorians.  The Praetorians would be stuck in with the injured speeder, shot up, fail Battle Shock (losing the objective) While the solo 'unkillable" Death Company would go on to kill the 3 Destroyers.

 

This left me down by more than 10 points with a turn to go and no way for me to preserve any presence out side of my deploy zone (we were playing quarters and I had only one objective all game.)

 

I don't see the nerf to the datasheets making this particular army better. I can only see it being worse, unless it nearly reduces in cost by 30% (who knows with GW these days.) However, I'm still hopeful for the new detachments. They all look 'fun' but the effectiveness will be huge with these datasheet changes I think.

 

 

 

 

[Tyriks]

This is how my recent games have felt. My units have done a little damage here and there, then they do a lot of damage back, and maybe I reanimate enough to hold on, but a lot of times I just lose units too quickly.  Being able to trigger RP after losing a model helps a ton but it always ends up being the only stratagem I use all game, just trying to hang on a little longer.

[Prot]

Yup that's pretty much what I'm doing.

 

This is why it seems so strange to see the re-animation nerfs. I'm not seeing any damage increases coming. Guess I'll wait to form any conclusions until I can test the new detachments.