O'vesa Death Star Versus AV13 Necron Spam

 

And the robots went in 2 by 2...

'Sup folks.
My most recent tournament write up continues with a look at my games, who I played, what I did wrong, how I can improve in the future etc.

Tournament was 1850, 5 games - Caledonian Uprising 2014... 116 players.. pure class.

First game up was a tough one, there were certainly easier match up's out there.. but that said, there were also harder ones.
I was playing Chris Scothorne who is a regular tournament player located in the North, plays a lot of his games at Outpost Gaming..
He was running an AV13 Necron army:

2 Overlords, 2 x 3 'bot Courts with S8, AP1 Lance
3 Ghost Arks with 6 dudes in
1 Night Scythe with 9 Sniper fucks
3 Annihilation Barges

8 Av13 vehicles with skimmer saves is not easy. It doesn't matter if you are a cheesy mother fucker running Farsight Tau ( yay! ), if you just don't roll hot, it won't go down!
Now, statistically this was not too bad for me, I just needed to remain in cover from the Lances and Deathmarks (in case of rend) and then just smash my way through the troops and kill them.

The primary was Crusade (5 objectives) with KPs secondary. Tiebreakers as per.

So killing those shitty troops was going to be quite important..

I got first turn and proceeded to push on with my plan.. Firstly, each Sky Ray pummelled a Ghost Ark each, the idea here being to add Markerlights so that the 2 TL, S9 Nova Charged, Ordnance Ap2, Ignores Cover, Tank Hunting  pie plates could hit with a bit more ease...and secondly..being S8 each missile actually had a shot at opening up a Ghost Ark. Over six shots, the chances are not that low..especially given the skimmers hadn't moved yet. So I had a go with that.. then the Ordnance... then the target lockable broadsides were left to clean up troop units and clear it out on turn 1..

Except.. as I said, if you just don't roll high..even with Tank Hunters and 2 dice per Ordnance blast.. you ain't getting anywhere.. and so I just put a few hull points on most Arks, but I was lucky enough to get one Ark for First Strike..I also used a Broadside to pummel the troop unit inside, leaving just one of the 2 Lance Crytpeks in that unit.



Bottom of T2 - Dead Barges, 1 dead Ark, 1 Warlord, 1 Troop

His turn 1, he pushed up into my face with his 2 Overlords on Barges, basically forcing me to deal with them. He threw the Ghost Arks up to get them into range of the Gauss and did the same with the Annihilation Barges.

His shooting was relatively ineffectual, killing a missile drone and a hull point on one Sky Ray.

Turn 2, a couple of solo suits came on, including one in his top right corner to dual flame the cryptke that was annoying me over there.. it still scored, was easy to hide and had a long range Ap1, S8 weapon.. I like my Cypteks extra crispy.
O'Vesa, broadsides and skyray SMS were all used to smash the Overlord Barges, then I had to charge to kill one of them. I failed Mindshackle on a Shielded Missile Drone and it killed itself, O'Vesa then smashed the Overlord to death. The other Riptide had split off and charged the other Overlord..and remained there for a few turns :( 

General depiction of the games unfolding nature.  

Necron 2: Not much. Few Gauss shots everywhere.. 2+ saves and Av13 kept me safe.

Tau 3: More troops come on, about which I am less than happy. I kill off the Ghost Arks, but that is it..the shitty combat between a Riptide and an Overlord continues.
Necron 3: No reserves. A few Gauss shots.. Combat, the Riptide Overlord continues.

Tau 4: O'vesa and Broadies push up to kill troops as do the Skyrays. Flamer suits by the way have been chasing around Crypteks and not doing anything only to then run away in the assault phase to get into cover and hope to not die to horrible lashing from the Lance. Finally, the Riptide treads on the Overlord with a Smash and gets out of there... just in time for..
Necron 4: Deathmarks come in from Night Scythe and get intercepted by 2 Pieplate Riptides. Kill loads of the fuckers, half get back up, it goes from 9 Deathmarks down to 4 after Reanimation.
Troops are all but dead, push in the midfield for more fire into my drop troops. Kill a few.

Turn 5: I move onto objectives, claim a few, kill his troops off and even have time to kill an Annihilation Barge with extreme prejudice from point blank with the solo Riptide.

Game ends 15-5 to me.
I could have pushed for more I think. I certainly think there are ways for me to have gotten more points - I needed to keep my troops alive a bit more and should have been sneakier with them. But the board didn't really have the same level of LoS blocking terrain that was prevalent that weekend. Hills for example were too small to hide even a single Crisis suit behind.
Nevermind.
I stuck to my pregame plan and it paid off.
Chris was a lovely bloke and we had a few laughs and good chat all the way throughout. The kind of game I enjoy - tough, not giving or taking anything with banter and laughs.
I'd happily play Chris again at any event and look forward to future run ins with his robots in disguise.

Next game pushed me up to an ETC player from Belgium running Neil Kerr's Ravenwing bike build from last years ETC...one that has so many tactical options that it is very difficult to beat it big..especially when the dual packs of Black Knights score too in Scouring.. he had 14 scoring units!!!
Keep reading later this week for that bad boy...