NECRONS vs. ELDAR 1000pts

January 18th 2007

Necron Forces Cull Of Species 1042 (PDF)	Eldar Forces
Mike Adams	Adam
HQ Necron Lord + Staff of Light, Veil of Darkness Troops 10 Necron Warriors 10 Necron Warriors Elites 7 Necron Immortals Fast Attack 3 Destroyers Heavy Support 1 Heavy Destroyer 1 Heavy Destroyer	HQ Farseer + Runes of Witnessing, Runes of Warding, Doom, Fortune Troops 7 Dire Avengers 1 Exarch + Dual Shuriken Catapults, Bladestorm 8 Dire Avengers Elites 6 Wraithguard + 1 Warlock + Conceal 9 Harlequins + Harlequin’s Kiss 1 Shadow Seer Heavy Support 4 Dark Reapers

Battlefield & Mission

The game was played at the Excalibur shop in Madrid, who provided all of the terrain. Our mission was to play until thrown out of the shop, and whoever eliminated the most enemy (in terms of points) won the battle.

Setup & Deployment

The armies deployed and ready for battle

Adam (Eldar) won the roll-off for choice of sides and we deployed our forces, alternating one unit at a time, until all units were on the table. Adam also won the roll-off for choosing whether to go first or second. He had made a defensive deployment and all of the Necrons were hidden, so Adam decided to allow Mike (Necrons) to take the first turn.

Mike: First a word about army selection, deployment and choice of first turn: Ha, ha, ha! The Deceiver’s laughter echoed through space and time… After getting Adam really nervous about the frightening power of the C’Tan in the days before the game, his great deception was to send a Necron Lord to lead the army instead.

Another bit of deception was to equip the Lord with an expensive piece of C’Tan technology which would hopefully come as a complete surprise – the Veil of Darkness (true enough, after the first turn Adam famously remarked "well at least the Lord and his bodyguard are effectively out of the game", after seeing off some Dire Avengers, because they were deployed right out on the flank of the battle).

Finally, maybe it was a case of nerves, who knows, but Adam deployed his army in the relative open and then handed me first turn. Excellent!

OK, for my part I very nearly threw it all away by underestimating the Harlequins and not taking sufficient care with them. Read on to find out what happened…

Anyway, my deployment consisted of hiding all my troops behind cover, because I didn’t at this stage know who would get the first turn and I’m not used to Eldar so I didn’t know what sort of hideous firepower they had. I deployed my Heavy Destroyers as two separate units, fairly centrally so they would have good fields of fire when they came out of cover. And of course I knew that the Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers could just nip out of cover and fire when needed. I deliberately put my Lord and elite squad of Immortals over on the far right flank, firstly so they could overwhelm that flank but primarily to fool Adam into thinking that they would not be decisive in the game. In fact of course the intention was to use the Veil of Darkness at the crucial moment to teleport where needed and deliver the coup-de-grace.

Necrons Turn 1

Mike: So, on the first turn I decided to risk bringing all my Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers out of cover to concentrate their fire on the hard-looking Wraithguard standing behind an open wood in the middle of Adam’s deployment. Yes, the Wraithguard were hard, with all manner of saves. But my firepower got through and I was pleasantly surprised to get three kills.

The Warriors would remain in cover, there seemed no reason to move them at this stage. The Immortals (and Lord) advanced and got a few shots in with their Assault 2 Gauss Blasters, in fact enough to kill a few Dire Avengers and send them running for the hills! Now, the psychological advantage I had at this stage should not be underestimated. Adam realised his mistake letting me go first, and I had a fantastic round. Straight away Adam was fighting a comeback. The only problem is, W40K is not like real battle, in this game troops just come back for more even after being devastated, which is what happened in the following turns.

Eldar Turn 1

After the first Necron turn -
note the depleted ranks of Wraithguard and the Dire Avengers nearly running off the table

Adam: After losing 3 Wraithguard and 3 Dire Avengers I was kicking myself for giving away the first turn so cheaply. As we were pushed for time I chose this tactic, I was trying to draw out his Warriors, as they were all hidden (along with the entire army) and the shuriken catapults only have an 18” range, and I was using Harlequins without transports. In the end it proved very costly.

Firstly I rallied the broken Dire Avengers and placed them behind a building for cover. I then cast Fortune quickly on the Wraithguard and tried to Doom one of the Destroyers: out of range… arghh..! Things were not going great.

The Farseer also joined the Dire Avenger squad. I then pushed forward with the Wraithguard and the Dire Avengers in the centre. I ran the Harlequins up the right hand side and behind cover (rolling a 5 for Fleet). It was an "interesting" tactic to keep all of the Necron Warriors hidden so I couldn’t shoot at any of them. Instead I was forced to shoot at the T5 Necrons (not good).

During shooting I managed to destroy… nothing! The worst was 5 clean hits on the Destroyers with the Dark Reapers and then wounding with 1, which was duly saved. The luck seemed to be going all one way...

Necrons Turn 2

The Eldar centre has moved forward to close the range (note the Harlequins in the foreground)

Mike: I was still feeling pleased with myself. This turn I did more of the same from the first turn and took a few more casualties from the Eldar. There was a small pile of Eldar dead at the side of the table and not a scratch on the otherworldly metal carapaces of my sweet machine army.

Now maybe I fell into the classic trap of overconfidence. I allowed the Harlequins to advance and thought they were too far to assault…