Throne of Skulls report (UK) 1500pts - January 2012

Throne of Skulls report - January 2012

My list:
Overlord on Command Barge with warscythe

Royal Court - 3x harbingers of destruction with 1 solar pulse,
1x harbinger of eternity with chronometron,
1 x harbinger of despair with veil (to go in immortal squad 1) and
1x necron lord wioth mindshackle scarabs and warscythe (immortal squad 2)

Destroyer lord - mindshackle scarabs

10 immortals - tesla

10 immortals - tesla

5x necron warriors
Ghost ark

2x Annihilation barges

5x wraiths, 1x whip, 1x particle caster

Game 1 - Blood Angels - Capture and control.

He had something like

Mephiston
Land raider with assault dudes inside without jump packs
10 man assault squad
terminator squad with sanguinary priest in stormraven
vindicator

Quite a small list but some potential problems for my list. He won the roll to go first and put the storm raven on one flank and the land raider on the other. I deploy my army opposite the land raider and deploy my vehicles on the outside, with immotals inside the cage. He goes first and moves his storm raven and vindicator forward and the land raider fires some shots at wraiths and command barge to little effect. I manage to down his storm raven so his terminators have to walk and they fail to make into combat the whole game. I bait Mephiston with my ghost ark which he wrecks, but I shoot him to death him in the following turn, finishing off with three cyptek shots to the dome. His deepstriking assault squad don't come on until turn 4 and are imediately tesla'd to death by immortals and barges. My wraiths, destroyer lord and command barge hack up the land raider and then the guys inside. Game ends on turn 5 with me in control of both objectives, with the veiled immortals having teleported together with the destroyer lordto control his. His terminators are pretty much untouched, but still 2-3 turns away from getting to my objective. He has nothing else left. I think I lost a few wraiths, the ghost ark and both annihilation barges.

Game 2 - Draigowing - Seize and control with 4 counters, dawn of war

He has:
Draigo
Librarian
10 paladins (all with different equipment) with apothecary
1 paladin
2 double autocannon dreadnoughts

I know that in this game, he has basically has one squad to take/contest four objectives if I can take out the psyflemen who will be troops thanks to draigo. I make sure to position the objectives as far apart as they can be, and leave one obvious objective for the psyflement to sit on. I win the roll to go first and deploy my immortals with veil 24" on to the board so he can only deploy 6" on the board. I put my assault wing (wraiths, command barge and destroyer lord) opposite the objective closest to his board edge that he pretty much has to put his psyflemen on. He complies and game goes to plan. My assault wing wrecks his psyflemen with minimal casualties (gotta love the barge flying over one dreadnought, immobilising it, then the lord getting out and charging the other, wrecking it) and I keep everything further than 12" from his blob while shooting them to little effect. His single paladin deep strikes in and is immediately nuked by crypteks. He isn't really sure what he should target with his blob and thins out the immortal squads and wrecks an annihilation barge. When turn 5 comes, I move to block off the two central objectives with a barge and the ghost ark, and hold both other objectives with my teleporting immortals and the 5 man warrior squad. I charge the wraiths in just to force his squad together and to hopefully hold him for a turn. He is down to 5-6 men (all on one wound apart from the apothecary) now so can only hope to take one objective. Games ends with me in control of two objectives and the others being contested.

Game 3 - Black Templars - Kill points, spearhead

He has:
Marshall with lightning claws
Champion with 9 guys in a rhino
2x terminator squads with 2x cyclones with tank hunters
2x typhoons
2x 5 man squads with lascannons
vet dreadnought with twin lascannon and tank hunter

This list is pretty much my nemesis. He outranges me, and when I close to 24", he gets to run towards me when he passes a leadership test. Close combat is horrible due to all of the powerfists and power weapons (after rerolling his misses...)

I also play badly and commit the wraiths and destroyer lord (who fluff their attacks) against a terminator squad which allows his marine squad to charge in the ensuing melee. Not sure how much option I had, though, given the damage that is being done to my vehicles from all the tank hunting missiles, lascannons etc. My immortals get charged from 17" away through difficult terrain after I had the temerity to kill a couple from the unit. I lose 8 killpoints to 1. The game is slightly closer than this sounds as I have both terminator squads and one marine squad down to 1 guy each but to be honest this list should beat me 95% of the time.

Game 4 - Tau - Seize and control, 5 objectives, Spearhead

He has
2x crisis leaders I think with 1 bodyguard each
I think 6 suits with a mix of plasma and missile pods in squads of 2
2x railgun suits
2x hammerheads
6 fire warriors
2x big(ish) squads of kroot
6 pathfinders
devilfish
Note: a distinct lack of blacksun filters.

The objectives are placed favouring one side of the board with three on one side and 2 on the other. I win the roll and take the three, which means I know he cannot just castle up. I go first and move my assault wing as close as I can but behind a big forest. I shoot at a squad of kroot who have infiltrated into a wood with my barges. Despite going to ground (so 2+cover saves) I kill enough to cause a break test which they fail. He cannot see much due to nightfighting (from my pulse) and causes minimal casualties. In my second turn I teleport the immortals together with the destroyer lord toward his big blob of crisis suits behind hammerheads I scatter and land even closer than I planned, but right next to the board edge. I buzz the wraiths and command barge towards him as fast as I can, saturating him with targets. I He shoots everthing he can into the immortals (including the template shot from the hammerheads) who lose most of their squad, but crucially the destroyer lord has only taken one wound and I get to make reanimation protocol rolls. The command barge gets a glancing hit from a railgun but he rolls badly and fails to wreck it. Possibly I take a wound to ignore the result. Some immortals get back up and run back to an objective and the destroyer lord splits off and charges the crisis suits together with the wraiths. The command barge flies over a hammerhead, wrecking it, and is close enough to the fleeing kroot to mean they won't rally. I get a lucky with an annihilation barge and wreck the other hammerhead with a side armour shot. At this point he concedes as he has no way of getting to me, his shooting has been largely neutralised, he only has two weak troops squads left and I have pretty much my whole army except for a depleted squad of immortals. Quite a rough game for the opponent but my practice games (which were 2 games v grey knights and 2 games v tau) meant that I very much knew how to play against this type of list. The lack of blacksun filters meant he had only one real turn of shooting against me and my immortals did a good job of soaking this.

You see a shot of game 4 in progress here
[url]http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=353522298000590&set=a.3520345014827 03.93045.212614545424700&type=3&permPage=1[/url]

Game 5 - Space Wolves Capture and Control, Dawn of War

He has:
Rune priest with a power which makes skimmers test for difficult terrain
Something like
4 squads of 10 grey hunters with 2x meltaguns and rhino
2 squads of 5 greyhunters with 1x meltagun and heavy bolter razorback
2 squads of 6 long fangs with missile launchers
Note: no powerfists/power weapons save for the runepriest.

A lot of vehicles and a lot of marines! I win roll to go first and again deploy my veil immortal squad 24" on to the board to force him back. We both play quite cagily for the opening turns and it becomes apparent that he isn't going to to try to take my objective after sending one rhino forward which is toasted and has its guys teslared to death. I blow up/ immobilise a few rhinos and razorbacks with crypteks and annihilation barges. His return fire is limited due to the long fangs walking on to the board, then getting a solar pulse. When they do fire, their shots ping off my command barge or annhilation barges. Heavy bolters are largely irrelevant against my list. There is a central building which I hide my wraiths in. My destroyer lord and command barge are also behind the building, ready to assault the parking lot. On turn 5 I get lucky and blow up the unmanned razorback on the objective with my barge, leaving a hole for my immortals to port into. The scatter a little, but close enough to run to be able to contest the objective. My shooting goes a little crazy at this point and I keep rolling 6s for my tesla shots, and getting good rolls for vehicle damage. At one point I get 12 hits on a long fang unit from an annihilation barge firing 4 shots and wipe it out. My wraiths and destroyer lord charge a blocking grey hunter unit which get in their way and kill about 5. He could have tank shocked the immortal unit at this point, but there was some difficult terrain about so I think he is worried about immobilising himself and thinks he can wipe them out with shooting and a charge from his runepriest. He fires everything he can into the unit. He misses with the meltaguns, (but I don't think it matters too much as I could have gone to ground to give me a 3+ cover save) and then assaults it with one squad with the runepriest, but at the end of his turn there is still 1 cryptek and 2 immortals left standing after reanimation protocol rolls. The destroyer lord and wraiths finish off the grey hunter squad they are in combat with. The game continues into turn 6 and I charge into the melee with the wraiths, destroyer lord and overlord. I make sure that I bring another squad into combat so that there isn't any possibilty of wiping him out (to allow him to tank shock me with his one or two remaining rhinos) and the combat will continue into his turn. He knows he can't shift me from his home objective and concedes.

I felt slightly sorry for my oppponent in this game as everthing I tried to do came off, and I kept rolling some stellar tesla and rending dice which caused absolute carnage. I kept rolling 6s, and he kept rolling 1, 2s with his meltaguns. I think he should have at least tried to assault my objective though, and he should have spotted that I was setting up an assault and attempted to block it a little better.

I end the weekend with four wins and one loss and the best necron player award :D