Trying to Tau the Line

For the second round our forces were pretty much the same as the previous game, although this time we rolled the secure and control mission. I knew this was going to be a challenge: how to get a scoring unit of Necron Warriors across the board and then contest the Tau objective in their deployment zone?

I won the roll and set up first, putting my objective on a low hill in the southwest section of my deployment zone. I naturally chose a squad of Necron Warriors to baby-sit the objective (hey, two objectives and two scoring units! I do so much better when I don't really have to think that much!). I deployed the Lord with the other unit of Warriors as far forward as I could, ready to dash across the table towards the Tau. The destroyers and heavy destroyer were deployed more or less as a unit guarding the flank.

However, the Tau seized the initiative and the Hammerhead opened up on the heavy destroyer. Yes, it was going to be this kind of cat-and-mouse kind of game again -- again with heavy destroyer filling the part of the rodent. I should consider painting a series of concentric circles on it and then convincing folks that it was some sort of ancient Necron glyph. There was little other shooting as he had reserved his Troops choices and no others were in range.

The battle unfolded from there: again, the Tau Commander and Crisis Suits were early casualties thanks to the destroyer unit. At this point level, I think it is going to tend to go that way as, with this unit combination, the destroyer unit simply does not have a better target (especially early in the game) than the Crisis suits. They could only glance the Hammerhead or the Devilfish, the Fire Warriors are all safely ensconced aboard their transports, so what's a Necron to do? The destroyers then turned their attention to the Fire Warriors guarding the Tau objective, eventually causing one squad to break (but rallied immediately in the following turn).

Again, the Hammerhead and heavy destroyer each tried to be less effective against each other. In 3 or 4 rounds of shooting, the BS4 heavy destroyer only hit the Hammerhead twice, and failed to glance or penetrate each time. In return, the Hammerhead also only hit the heavy destroyer twice, once failing to wound, and the second time killing the big jetbike.

The unit of Warriors with the Lord never made it across the table -- indeed, they only basically made it in to killing range when the game ended on turn 5. One of the Devilfish attempted to tank shock the squad guarding the Necron objective, but the squad easily passed it's Leadership test and then sprayed the Devilfish with Gauss fire.

Unlike the last game, this time I did not roll so well and the game ended on turn 5, in a complete draw, 1 - 1. The Necrons had only lost a Warrior and the heavy destroyer, while the Tau had lost the Commander, both Crisis Suits, and almost a half dozen Fire Warriors.

I'm not sure what I could have done differently -- wish only two (walking) scoring units my only strategy had been to try and force the Tau off of their objective once the Crisis suits were eliminated, but it would still likely have taken a few more turns of firing to achieve that goal. For the Tau . . . well, I'm not sure what they could have done. With smaller squads of Fire Warriors, they cannot go toe to toe with the Necron Warrior units. The Crisis suits are rarely getting in to range, and I think that's a key factor. I don't think Z is going to bring the Hammerhead with a Railgun again -- it's nice in case I had a Grey Knight Land Raider, but against the Necrons I think he's going to want to outfit it with the Ion Cannon.

Thoughts?

Tau versus Necron Redux

Once again the Necrons will be materializing to take part in another battle. For the second outing, I'm not going to change anything except for some of the wargear that I had purchased for the Necron Lord (mainly as point filler, as buying another Warrior would have put me something like 2 points over the limit). I've been assembling some Wraiths (side rant: in the time it takes to clean up and assemble a single Wraith you could have had an entire squad of Warriors ready to go) but I don't think they'll see action until we up the points cost a bit. I'm hoping to also see a mission OTHER than Annihilation so that I have a chance to see how they'll perform against the more mobile Tau when they have an actual opportunity to get out and run around, as it were.

There are also other difficult decisions to be made. Our last game featured the old standby: beer. For the next game, I'm thinking perhaps of vodka, or perhaps something else? I don't know . . . what goes well with Necrons and 40K?

More to come . . .

Necrons vs Tau 750pt Battle Report (Laertes perspective)

Before the game began:

The list I brought, after some internal debate (okay, not a heck of a lot of internal debate, given that it's kind of tricky at this point level to have very many options with the Necrons):

1 unit of 10 Necron Warriors

1 unit of 11 Necron Warriors

1 unit of 3 Necron Destroyers

1 unit of a single Necron Heavy Destroyer

1 Necron Lord with Res Orb

I knew the Tau forces I would be facing would be highly mobile, so I was somewhat relieved when he rolled "Annihilation" for the mission. I figured that was the only mission that favored my foot troops, as I knew now that he would have to come to me, instead of having the Necrons march across the board and try to contest objectives. I rolled highest and elected to go first, and then subsequently deployed my forces in the far corner of the board, with the larger unit of Warriors and the Lord inside the small forest (area terrain). The Destroyers and the Heavy Destroyer grouped themselves together to the left, and the other unit of Warriors positioned themselves behind the small forest, kind of in a clump ready to move and protect the other flank. The Tau were kind of spread out across the deployment zone, with a Devilfish on either end (containing Firewarriors), with the 'Fish furthest away from the Necrons supported by the Hammerhead and the overall Tau Commander, joined to the unit of Crisis suits.

The first turn was fairly uneventful, as I moved the Destroyer block forward and moved the smaller unit of Warriors out to my right flank. The shooting phase went fairly well, although I was hoping the Heavy Destroyer could do better, it still managed to glance the Hammerheard so it would not be returning fire next turn. The unit of Destroyers reached out to the unit of Crisis suits, as they could just see the Tau Commander beyond the one hill. They managed to cause four wounds to the unit -- this is where things went astray a bit. Z divided the hits in to two on the Crisis suits and two on the Commander, as we were both a little shaky on the rules for dividing up wounds on multi-wound units. While certainly a legal way to do things (allocating the extra wound to the Commander), it was probably less than optimal, as the unsaved wounds end up going through to the Commander and contributes to his early demise. As he was armed similarly to the other Crisis suits, Z tells me he think it wouldn't make much of a difference, but it would still likely have been nice for the Tau to have their Commander around for more of the game.

The first Tau turn is largely movement, with the Devilfish sweeping around the flanks and the Hammerhead moving out near the center of the table. The Crisis suit unit slinks around behind the one 'Fish, but is now within easy sight of the Destroyers. Most of the Tau weapons are out of range, but a few of the burst cannon shells bounce off of the Destroyers.

On my second turn I admit to succumbing to target fixation. The big tempting target of the Hammerhead in the middle of the table is too much for me, and I have the Heavy Destroyer break off from the pack of Destroyers and work in to position to take a shot with the Heavy Gauss Cannon . . . only to a roll a one to hit. The Destroyers stay after the unit of the Crisis suits, and manage to wound one and finish off the Commander this turn. I've mixed feelings, as I've killed the Tau commander but left myself wide open in the middle of the table. The Crisis suits break and start to run, but they're a long way from the table edge so I think they will likely rally.

The second Tau turn has the Hammerhead turn and take a shot at the Heavy Destroyer . . . only to miss with the massive railgun. The Crisis suits, after rallying predictably, turn on the Destroyers and manage to down one . . . but he stands up at the beginning of the next Necron turn. The Devilfish on my left finally discharges the Fire Warriors, but most end up slightly out of range and so only a few shots get through to the unit of Warriors taking cover in the forest.

The third Necron turn saw the unit in the forest finally returning fire, albeit in a somewhat limited capacity, as not all could get a line of sight to the Fire Warriors. They manage to do fairly well, though, killing 3-4 of the Tau. In the center, I attempt to maneuver the Heavy Destroyer to gain a shot at the rear armor of the Hammerhead. I don't take advantage of all of the jetbike rules, and then look it up to my chagrin, as I am only in the side arc. Z offers to let me re-make the move, but I figured I will try the side shot . . . and the Heavy Destroyer misses again, making the point fairly moot. More shooting on the left takes down a few Fire Warriors.

The next Tau turn sees the Devilfish on my right flank finally disgorge the Fire Warrior unit, this time a bit more in range, and the unit of Necron Warriors on my right flank takes the brunt of the fire, downing three. The Hammerhead decides to stop playing with the Heavy Destroyer and holes the ancient machine with a point blank railgun shot. The Crisis suits return fire on the Destroyers, downing one.

The Necron turn starts with all but one of the Warriors standing back up (the Destroyer stays down). The Destroyers move back to within range of the Lord's Res Orb, and the unit of Warriors move forward to get the Fire Warriors within Rapid Fire range. In the Shooting phase, the fusillade from the Warriors almost wipes out that unit, even with cover behind the 'Fish. The Destroyers add to the fire, and kill off the unit.

I'm not quite as sure on the last few turns (I'd had a few beverages by then) -- basically, the Tau on my left flank embark on the Devilfish and move out of range. The burst cannon (from the second Devilfish) and the Hammerhead finish off the unit of Destroyers, but return fire from the unit of Necron Warriors destroys the burst cannon then immobilizes the Devilfish. The Gun Drones are also shot to pieces. The last Crisis suit chooses to move out of range, and the game doesn't end until turn 7, with the Necron forces prevailing by a 3-2 margin in kill points (Tau kill the unit of Destroyers and Heavy Destroyers, Necrons kill the Commander, a unit of Fire Warriors, and the unit of Gun Drones).

In retrospect the "target fixation" did not hurt me too much, as you ended up with a Hammerhead also essentially fixated upon a Heavy Destroyer that was less than half of it's point total. I was also so paranoid with regards to cover saves that the unit of Warriors with the Necron Lord never moved out of the forest, and their shooting only served to whittle down the one unit of Fire Warriors a little (and a few of the models never got to fire they Gauss weapons in anger). In hindsight, the Tau weren't really carrying that many AP3 weapons, a Lord with a Res Orb was standing in their midst . . . clinging to a 4+ cover save may NOT have been the most useful thing they could have done.

I thought the luck was kind of average -- in three turns of shooting I could only get the Heavy Destroyer to hit the Hammerhead once (and could not score a penetrating hit), but I did roll fairly well on the "We'll Be Back" rolls and I thought the unit of Warriors on my right flank rolled well against the Devilfish and the unit of Fire Warriors (then again, just rolling 18-20 dice might also have something to do with that!).

We'll need a few more games to get things to go more smoothly (and doubtless discover more), but I did like that, every time we seemed to have a rules question, we could look it up quickly and the answer was pretty much there. That is, there was not the ambiguity that sometimes accompanied our games of 4th edition.

And now . . . who knows? Perhaps I'll paint more Necrons!.