Battle Report: Tyranids vs. Necrons (7/14/12 RTT Round 2)

On 7/14 I brought my 17 model Nidzilla list to Game Empire Pasadena for a 1500 point 6^th edition 40K tournament. There was a great turnout of 26, including both Yakface and Blackmoor. The TO wanted the event to be as close to the rulebook as logistically possible meaning rulebook missions, random objectives, allies, and fortifications were all in play. Naturally I didn’t face anyone with allies and forgot to roll for random objectives in every game.

In round two I was matched against Scott W., a Necron player. Both Scott and I are going into this game with 20 battle points. While Necrons is already a hard match up, Scott’s list looks like it could be a killer;

Overlord (MSS, Warscythe, CCB)

~Cryptek (Destruction)

Overlord (MSS, Warscythe, CCB)

~Cryptek (Destruction)

7 Immortals

~Night Scythe

7 Immortals

~Night Scythe

7 Warriors

~Ghost Ark

Annihilation Barge

Annihilation Barge

Doomsday Ark

My army is weak against three things; deathstars with rerolls, mobile ranged dark elder, and mech necrons. The AV13 makes my mass of S6 shooting far less useful, and the ability to have my units lit themselves in combat with MSS is devastating when you consider they all have low leadership values and AP weapons. I also do not have a way of dealing with fliers.

The mission is ‘Purge the Alien’ which is the new version of kill points with Hammer and Anvil deployment. Fortunately his guns only have a 24 in range Scott will not be able to take advantage of the long deployment.

I deploy across the entire table, setting up to have cover if he seizes. Similar to my game against Tau I choose to not reserve my trygons (and tyrant in this case) as I need to load the table with targets. This will hopefully prevent focused fire and keep some things alive to get in combat. I choose to outflank with my gants, keeping them off the table being that they are an easy kill point. Scott matches my spread deployment putting both annihilation barges, a command barge, and the doomsday ark in the top quarter and a command barge and the ghost ark with warriors and crypteks in the lower half of the table. Night fight was in effect and Scott did not seize.

Tyranids 1

First move I make is a huge mistake – flying the tyrant out of cover. I wanted to rush him forward to get rear armor next turn, but in the process put him out in the open. My Tyrant has Endurance, and successfully gave himself feel no pain with it. I shuffle the rest of my army forward in the ruins with the tervigons giving FNP to the trygons, both tervigons perils with double ones.

Necrons 1

Right away we have a rules issue as we are not sure if his command barge can sweep attack a flying monstrous creature. I assumed that the barge could only sweep grounded units, but after checking the rulebook and consulting the TO it is ruled as a legal move. I lost a wound from the sweep. He then shot the first annihilation barge, getting 10 hits off of his 4 shots. All 10 wound, and I fail 7 3+ saves and 6 5+ FNP rolls losing my Tyrant. That hurts as I lose not only a kill point, but my warlord, and first blood. Scott then charged his chariot into my trygon. I failed my MSS roll and after combat only have two wounds remaining, but held due to synapse.

Necrons 3 – Tyranids 0

Tyranids 2

Up top I move my tervigon to a position seven inches away from his command barge. I then move my trygon to be an equal distance from the annihilation barge and the command barge. My reasoning here is to be in a position where if the tervigon makes the charge on the chariot I can bring in the trygon too. Having two models fighting the overlord means that even if I fail my MSS roll I will still have one monster able to fight in the combat. In the bottom I position my models to all charge the chariot which is fighting the trygon. Up top my tervigon rolls a 4 on the charge, several inches short, so my trygon charges the annihilation barge. I use a smash attack but miss all four of my to hit rolls, and even with rerolls I only manage to get one hit. I end up getting a weapon destroyed result and take off the tesla destructor. In the bottom combat the tervigon randomly is decided as the MSS target, doing one wound to itself. I explode the barge and put a wound on the overlord with my attacks. The overlord attacks the trygon, failing to hurt it.

Necrons 2

Scott gets both night scythes in from reserve and drops off his immortals at their base. In the top half of the battle he uses his shooting to take out my tervigon, in the middle he sweep attacks my trygon and then charges it. Between the Warscythe and a failed MSS the trygon goes down. In the combat with the other overlord the tervigon is selected as the MSS recipient, passing its Ld test. The trygon kills the overlord. It is at this point that I ask which overlord was his warlord; it is the one which is still living. I consolidate toward his front lines.

Necrons 5 – Tyranids 2

Tyranids 3

My gants do not come in again. I am relegated to a small group of models in the bottom ruin. It is key that I get some kill points while keeping them alive. I move the carnifex unit forward and cast Onslaught on them. This will allow them to both move toward the doomsday ark and shoot the immortals. The tervigon goes toward the ghost ark but leaves its base clipping the ruins. The trygon takes a central position to intercept the vehicles on the top as they come toward the bottom. I run the carnifex unit out so only the back of their bases are in the ruins and kill all of the immortals from shooting.

Necrons 3

Scott moves the central night scythe off of the table. The top one moves into the middle of the table and takes a wound off the trygon, bringing it down to one. Scott moves the ghost ark into rapid fire range and unloads on the tervigon, doing two wounds I believe. Scott sweeps my carnifex unit and shoots his vehicles at it, by the time he is done charging I am down to one carnifex with two wounds left.

Necrons 5 – Tyranids 3

Tyranids 4

The gants come in on the top table edge. At this point I need a home run to come out ahead, and knowing that gants are an easy kill point decide to try and take the top immortals with them. I kill none shooting, lose a gant from overwatch, and then lock in combat after neither side could get a kill. This was illegal as you can not assault after coming in from reserve. The tervigon and trygon join the carnifex in combat with the overlord. The tervigon gets MSS again and does one wound, bringing it down to 3 or 4 remaining. I explode the barge and kill the overlord. All of the models consolidate forward trying to get cover.

Necrons 4

Both barges shoot at the trygon, killing it. The Carnifex passes a few saves against wounds from the two arks. The night scythe from the middle is hugging the far table edge. Not sure why the other one didn’t come back on the table. The immortals kill 4 gants and I break from combat.

Necrons 6 – Tyranids 6

Tyranids 5

The gants continue falling back. The carnifex explodes the doomsday ark and the tervigon explodes the ghost ark.

Necrons 5

There is still no sign of the off the table night scythe. The other night scythe is still barely on the table in the bottom right corner. His top units shoot and the carnifex and kill it. He fails to wound the tervigon with the warriors and crypteks. His immortals roll poorly and only kill one gant.

Necrons 7 – Tyranids 8

I am in shock that I am ahead right now after the rough start. I roll the dice and the game continues. Due to time turn six would be the last turn.

Tyranids 6

My gants regroup and position themselves in cover. Even though this is a kill points game I spawn seven gants. The reason I spawned them is so that if I wipe out the warrior squad I can have a bigger footprint to prevent the everliving crypteks from getting back up. Shooting I fail to wound the warriors squad. I charge in with both the gants and tervigon. The warriors kill two gants ant between both of my units I kill four warriors. He fails his leadership and I am able to run down his unit. I consolidate the warriors into one ruin and the tervigon back toward the bottom left ruin. I chose to go back this way as I would be able to get the area terrain bonus while forcing his top vehicles to only be able to snap fire on me. The tervigon has two wounds right now.

Necrons 6

The night scythe on the far edge is able to turn and stay on the table. We measure the 90 degree turn several times as I am surprised by his ability to stay on the table but he was correct. The other one doesn’t come on again. He is just out of range of shooting the tervigon, so close we had to call over an impartial eye. Instead he shoots it at the spawned gants who fail every one of their cover saves. The top immortals kill two gants and the unit breaks. It then comes down to the moment of truth, can his annihilation barges get my tervigon off the table and out of his deployment zone? He rolls a ‘6’ on tesla getting three hits, he does three wounds. I have a 3+ armor save and a 5+ FNP save,  so I should be able to do this right? Nope I fail two and the tervigon dies.

Necrons 10 – Tyranids 9

Talk about a close game. I was feeling pretty down around turn two and three when I was losing models and he seemed invincible, but my monsters really showed resiliency even in a bad matchup. I should have been more conservative with my Tyrant as well. I could see an argument be made for deploying all of my units on one flank, but I feel doing so could have given him better positioning to have an extra turn of shooting before I could get in combat. Not sure what ever happened to his other scythe, I think he just forgot about it. I don’t believe it matters for scoring as without it he beat me by one point and with it I am sure he would have been able to take out some of my units even faster.

Coming up: 3 Battle Wagons, Some Lootas, and a Load of Orks Waits for me in Round 3!