Mirror Match - Necrons Vs Necrons at Caledonian 2013

Round 4 of one of the UK tournament calendar spotlights...2013's Caledonian Uprising.
84 players.
High calibre competition and excellent organisation.
Round 4 finds me on table 2 after a cracking first day.

I am at this point slightly miffed.
I practiced a lot verus daemons in order to get prepared for the daemon spam that I envisaged seeing.
There were plenty up on the top tables, but no... I get to play two Necron games Day 2, lol.
Serves me right I guess.

So Rob Sims Crons:

2 x D Lord - Scythe, Shackles, Semp  ( 1 is Warlord obv)

10 Immortals - Tesla

4 x 5 Warriors in Night Scythes

2 x 6 Wraiths

3 Annihilation Barges

Deployment: Dawn Of War
Mission: Crusade

Rob goes first, deploying with Wraiths up front of his Barges over to the left hand side of the board. This is where the greatest density of objectives are, although as you can see across these photos, they are well spread, one objective in each table quarter, one in the middle of the board (NOVA style).
He deploys his Immortals across in the tower on the right, on an objective and looking to hold down a flank.

The key error here is that I can't really out-CC him as he has the D Lords, but I can ignore them.. I'm not planning on ignoring them totally.. what I'm planning on doing is using the psychological threat of force to bully him and keep him playing defensive.
I can't do that all game, but the longer it goes on the better.

I deploy my Wraiths out of sight, my Immortals out of sight on the extreme left behind a ruin and push all the Barges and Overlord on the right, opposite the Immortals and where they can move up the board edge.

Largely, the plan here is to reverse the deployment zone into Hammer and Anvil, forcing his Wraiths to come along the length of the board and away from the action - or, failing that stay out gaurding objectives til I get the last minute, last turn dash to contest...keeping 750 points out of the game.
If he realises what I'm doing and commits them.. fine, I'll deal with them but the longer I don't have to, I can maul the rest of the army.

Turn 1 and Rob realises that I'm going for his Immortals and moves and runs them back off the objective towards the safety of the herd. He adjusts his army slightly, checking I am out of retaliatory fire range and that's that. Turn 1 for him done. He is patiently waiting his fliers to come in and then strike in a coordinated mess. Fair enough, let's divert a little more attention.

My turn 1, I move 30" with my Overlord into the top right corner of the board, looking to keep those Immortals  on the run and away from that objective.. I push my Barges up the field so that they can get some cover and so that they are going to be in range next turn of any centrally placed fliers.
Why would they be in the middle... ?
Well, I'm going to give them some bait.
Tempting bait.
I move one unit of Wraiths up and out of their terrain piece into a position so that they can't be shot the Immortals or by 2 of the Annihilation Barges.
My Immortals continue to play the waiting game as well, waiting for flier support.

Turn 2 and Rob and I agree that in this situation he either wants all or none of his fliers.
He gets them all...


Turn 2 kicks off with all the fliers zooming onto the board, two on either flank, coming in and looking to take out the Wraiths which have moved up.

Bait taken.

Now, it's going to take more firepower than they have, unless he rolls 6's like a boss.. to kill them all with 4 fliers. Rob knows this and also commits one barge to the shooting, although it'll be snap firing.

His other 2 Barges move down the field to the right to engage my Barges, hoping to glance-fuck me to death......well, one of my Barges maybe. Big maybe with 4+ cover and needing 6's to glance.
The Wraiths jiggle for position to make sure they can not be counter charged by the other unit of Wraiths.

Note: Rob was far too concerned about Wraiths can do to other Wraiths. Or his army. He jossled himself about to stay away from the Wraiths when really he should have engaged.

In shooting, Rob kills 3 of 5 Wraiths in the bait unit. I expected one more to go down, but I will take that result. I wanted to launch the wounded unit into his Barges....

He fails to stop my Overlord. He also worries far too much about this..although it would mess up his Immortals.

My turn 2 and unfortunately I get a mixed bag of Fliers. I use terrain and pre-measured distances to keep them safe from the other fliers and move to engage the two enemy fliers on my left. I use the second Wraith unit to move out and block landing sites for the right flank fliers and position Barges (inc Overlord) to take down the right two. If I can stomp his mobility.. game over.
I do so with mixed success. I disappointingly only kill one flier on the left and the barges kill one on the right flank. Not too bad.

Turn 3
One of the fliers (my left in green) zooms over to the right of the board to put fire into my Overlords Barge, the other pushes up to engage the my fliers, 2 of his Barges do similar, one moving perilously close to the middle building.. behind which my 2 surviving Wraiths (from the first flier shooting phase) hide.. hmm..
His Warriors also come in from reserve after being shot down from his flier, one comes in one my right - gunning for the rear of my Command Barge, the other - the far left to skulk in a ruin before legging it to the objective.

His Wraiths are still jockeying, largely because I have used pre-measuring and line of sight to give him no charges. He pushes one group of Wraiths down towards my hiding Veil Immortals, the other edges up to the right whilst maintaining its approximate position. I can see that Rob is unwilling to commit and wants to try and push in so he can control the centre, it's like a boxing match.. except I refuse to engage fully, stinging around instead of throwing in, but I still have enough pressure to avoid him throwing himself straight into controlling the centre.

In shooting, he guns down one of my planes, the other gets immobilised so is on Locked Velocity for the rest of the game.. oh no, wait.. he's killed that one too lol. Nod bad, at least there are no damaged planes to worry about/remember.

He also downs the Command Barge with a load of glances from Warriors and Flier.

My three and my planes come in. Two left on each side. I bring one in to deal with his right hand flier. It also deposits it's Immortal cargo on the hill behind his Warriors (who were trying to kill one of my A-Barges).
The other flier zooms on the left and drops off some Haywire bitches, both of which are going to drop one of his A-Barges.
My 2 Wraiths leap over the central building to charge the ABarge that's hiding behind it.
The other Wraiths move behind the bulding where the other 2 were just hiding, they move so that they are out of sight from the central Wraiths, or so that the best they can get is a 12" charge. We all know that is too much of a risk..
So in the shooting I murder his Warriors out on the right, I kill the flier (black one) on the right. The A-Barges kill the other.
Done. Air is mine.. still his ABarges to go though.
I shoot with Haywire and Flier on the left, but only get it down to 1 hull point. Poor.
I charge with the Wraiths, but they also fail to fully kill their Barge target.

Turn 4
Rob counter charges my Wraiths with his central group.
He charges my Warriors with his other Wraith unit on the left.
His Immortals are now in the centre-rear of the board supported by 2 Barges.
The Barge that was in with Wraiths moves away.
His A-Barges engage my planes and damage one, stripping two hull points.
His Immortals leg it to get close to the central objective.
His Wraiths kill both their targets and he consolidates small.

My 4. I teleport my Immortals to support the slaughter in the centre, going for a relatively safe scatter...and mishap and die.
Fuck.
Well.. good job I wasn't needing them for a scoring mission or mobility.
hmmm.. 260 points down le toilette!

I push my A-Barges (2) into the top right corner of the board, engaging his Immortals.
My Immortals move from their hill to the top right ruin objective.
I have Warriors come in and hide behind an objective, totally out of sight.
The other A-Barge moves across to support the Warriors bravely legging it to the bottom left objective...Wraith/D-Lord fodder..
My planes converge on his centre and fire..I kill another A-Barge, the A-Barges (mine) pump into Immortals, killing a few - 4/5
My Wraiths leap out and charge the one that escaped the 2 Wraith earlier - they charge and kill it.

I'm in a good position here..

Turn 5.
He charges my Wraiths with his Wraiths, charges my Warriors with his Wraiths on the left. Moves a little Warrior group up and runs onto the objective by the fantasy tower thing. His Immortals move onto the centre objective. His remaining A-Barge tries to do something...but fails at whatever it did.

In CC, my Wraiths survive his assault after I roll like a boss and only fail 6 saves from ...loads...22? Just over average..

My 5. I move my Flier over to gun down his 2 warriors on the fantasy tower objective. The other has to leg it as it has no room and no targets.
I am currently 6-3 up, I got First Blood, we both have Line Breaker and neither of us have Warlord point. My Barges move up to kill Immortals, slaying a handful.. we are down to a couple of dudes now on the centre objective, but as long as my Wraiths survive.. I'll deny it anyway.
My flier kills the 2 Warriors on his objective.. making it 6-0 on Primary.
CC... sometimes you just can't NOT roll a 3++ save :)
I made loads and my Wraiths contest the centre.

6-0 on Primary, 2-1 on Secondary.. a 17-3 win (if I remember rightly) for me and enough to without doubt put me up on the top table for the final game versus Josh Roberts and his Necrons. 

Rob is a good player and a good guy. He took everything well, fought hard, played solidly.. but he was too worried about what I was threatening with and let me play how I wanted to play, rather than forcing me into changing to a defensive stance. Depsite going first, I always felt like I dictated that game.. 

Another game where Veil Deepstrike lets me down... :( 

But exciting.. if I win the next game big, I win the whole tournament. 
If I draw or win minor, I come second. 
If I lose.. Top 10.