40k Battle Report: Necrons vs Eldar at 2k
Here is a bat rep of what is most likely my last game with the old Necron codex. Necrons vs Eldar, 2000 pts, annihilation.
I played this game on Oct 15th at New World Comics in Oklahoma City, it was a random pick up game with someone I’ve never met before. We decided on 2000 pts and I decided on this list:
Deceiver
Lord, destroyer body, rez orb, phase shifter, warscythe
2×10 Warriors
2×5 Destroyers
10 Scarabs with disruption fields
3×2 Heavy destroyers
My opponent took something like:
Avatar
Karandras
10 Striking scorpions, exarch with power claw
10 Wraithguard
2×10 Dire avengers with blade storm and other stuff
1 Wave Serpent with twin-linked bright lances and holo fields
2×5 Pathfinders
5 Warp spiders, exarch with 2 spinners
Wraithlord with scatter laser and sword
Wraithlord with scatter laser and starcannon
He won the roll for sides and first turn, so he deployed everything up against the edge of the middle with Pathfinders in two buildings (the brown ruins on the left and the short black building on the right, both flanking his foot units) and the shooty Wraithlord in the back as fire support. One squad of Avengers is, of course, in the Wave Serpent. His Scorpions and Spiders were off the table.
I deployed opposite of him with one Warrior squad in a tall building, another in some ruins to my left (actually the center), Scarabs, Heavy Destroyers, and Lord to the right, and Destroyers and Deceiver in the middle.
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| Alternate angle of my deployment |
He infiltrates his Scorpions and Karandras about 12″ from my lines in the ruins next to the Warriors on the ground floor, so I redeploy my Deceiver to receive the charge.
I fail the “seize the initiative” roll. Just to note, my army gives up a total of 10 KP, his army gives up 12 KP and I’m actually at 1920 pts, not 2000.
Eldar 1
Moving through difficult terrain, his Scorpions only manage to make it to the edge of the ruined building they’re in and can’t pull off a charge. The rest of the army advances and with the combined firepower of Pathfinders, Wraithlords, and a Wave Serpent, he manages to knock off two wounds from my Deceiver. Overall, an uneventful turn for the Eldar.
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| End of Eldar turn 1 |
Necron 1
The Scarabs turbo boost into some ruins on the far side of the table, their goal being to charge at the Pathfinders in the black building near where the Wave Serpent started the game. The Deceiver moves into charge range and eventually charges the Scorpion squad while the Destroyers move into the alley way to snipe at the Dire Avenger squad on foot, killing all but 1, which fails his morale check, but retreats into the Avatar’s fearless bubble and will rally. The Heavy Destroyers shuffle a little to line up shots on the Avatar, taking off 3 wounds while the Lord turbo boosts next to the Warriors on the ground. At this point, I’m thinking the fight is going to be all about this area of the board. In combat, the Deceiver kills Karandras and takes a wound from the exarch!
Necrons 1, Eldar 0
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| End of Necron turn 1 |
Eldar 2
With a good roll, the Warp Spiders appear and rip into the front squad of Destroyers. Along with the Pathfinders and Wraithlords, he manages to wipe out a Destroyer squad. Other Pathfinders kill a Deavy Destroyer squad on their own and the Wave Serpent manages to off another Heavy Destroyer. In combat, the Deceiver kills 3 Scorpions, but they manage to stay in the fight. Somehow.
Necrons 1, Eldar 2
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| End of Eldar turn 2 |
Necron 2
I make two Heavy Destroyer WBB rolls and one regular Destroyer WBB roll. I shuffle my Destroyers away from the alley and the Heavy Destroyers into the mid field (ish), finishing off the Avatar with the heavies and doing no damage to the Wraithguard. I charge my Lord into the middle of the Spider fray, killing one, but not causing them to break. They hit and run away. In combat, the Deceiver finally breaks the Scorpion squad but fails to catch them. They run, but unfortunately they don’t quite run far enough to grant my Lord a cover save or to prevent a charge from the Wraithguard and Wraithlord. Oh, and the Scarabs assault the building, but I soon realize they can’t actually kill the building.
Necrons 2, Eldar 2
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| End of Necron turn 2 |
Eldar 3
The Spiders jump closer to the Deceiver and manage to deal 2 wounds to it, finishing her off. I was sad. They then jumped back for some reason to stand in a line. I’m not sure what they were thinking really. The Wraithguard and lord shoot my Warriors in the bottom ruins while the Wave Serpent drives up, unloads more Dire Avengers who shoot at my Warriors in the building with blade storm and kill… one. Pathfinders and the Wave Serpent shoot at my Heavy Destroyers and knock down 3! This has not been a good turn for me; I lost my close combat heavy hitter and half my Heavy Destroyers. The only good thing is that he accidentally decided to shoot my Warriors with his Wraithguard instead of the Lord that was right in front of them. This would be the mistake that decides the game in the later turns.
Necrons 2, Eldar 4
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| End of Eldar turn 3 |
Necron 3
Two Heavy Destroyers make their WBB and some Warriors do too. I’m concerned at how close the Wraithlord is getting to my Warriors, so I roll badly on my difficult terrain roll and shuffle them backwards. I reposition my Destroyers to gain 2 KP, one by killing the last Dire Avenger and one by reducing the still-running Scorpion squad to under half. I manage to do both. The Lord flies out of the pile and right next to the Pathfinders and Wraithlord in the back by turbo boosting, while the Scarabs abandon the other Pathfinder building and charge the Dire Avengers who just piled out of the Wave Serpent. I end up losing that combat, but kill a few Avengers. The two Warrior squads pile in firepower into the Warp Spiders who are standing in the middle of a street and wipe them out to a man. At this point I feel like I can get one Pathfinder squad with my Lord, the Avengers, and maybe the Wave Serpent, while losing the Lord and a squad of Warriors. However, it won’t actually work out like that.
Necrons 5, Eldar 4
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| End of Necron turn 3 |
Eldar 4
The Wraithlord in front, undeterred by a nuisance like a wall, walks through it and assaults the Warrior squad. The shooting Wraithlord in the rear steps out of the cover to shoot at the Lord (who has two wounds), killing him with just the starcannon. Some more shooting happens, but nothing major.
The Dire Avengers take a lot of casualties from the Scarabs and break this round. They’re under half strength so I ignore them the rest of the game. The Warriors lose a couple, but somehow manage to not break from combat. Unfortunately.
Necrons 6, Eldar 4
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| End of Eldar turn 4 |
Necrons 4
The Lord stands up and assaults the Pathfinders, leaving 2 alive, but they stand their ground.. With a severe lack of targets, I end up shooting the Wave Serpent and doing absolutely nothing. I now remember why I hate holofields. My regular Destroyers turbo boost to the other side of the building to make room for the Wraithlord and to get away from the Wraithguard. In combat, the Warriors decide now would be the perfect time to die, and so they do. The Wraithlord rolls high on his massacre result and gets out of the ruins. I now realized I should have turbo boosted with the Heavy Destroyers too. Oh well. This is going to be a close game, I figured the Wraithlord will tear into my Heavy Destroyers and kill them, Wraithguard and the Wave Serpent will hit my Scarabs, and the Lord will die to the other Wraithlord.
Necrons 6, Eldar 5
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| End of Necron turn 4 |
Eldar 5
As expected, the Wraithlord with the sword charges my Heavy Destroyers, but only kills 1. At Ld9, the squad does not break. He tries to tank shock my Destroyers with his Wave Serpent, but they roll snake eyes; they don’t scare easily. Next his support Wraithlord charges my Destroyer Lord. Of course my Destroyer Lord hits the Pathfinders and kills them both for the KP while the Wraithlord only lands two hits, one wound, and I pass the save. Then the Wraithlord does me the courtesy of failing two no-retreat saves and goes down to 1 wound.
Necrons 7, Eldar 5
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| End of Eldar turn 5 |
Necrons 5
This could be the last turn of the game, so I charge his Wraithguard with my Scarabs to hold them up; they don’t do a lot of damage in close combat, so my Scarabs can just take a beating for the next two turns if need be. I let loose 6 Destroyers into the back armor of the Wave Serpent and manage to shake it about 8 times. I then charge it and still do nothing. Did I say I hate holofields? By the way, I found out that Wave Serpents can’t take holo fields after the game ended. I would have killed that thing 5 times over by now. My Destroyer Lord manages to inflict one wound on the shooty Wraithlord to finish it off without taking any wounds in return and starts to make its way back to the main battle while the other Wraithlord completely whiffs on my Heavy Destroyers.
At this point, I’m planning on holding the Wraithguard forever, getting into combat with the Wraithlord with my Destroyer Lord, and downing the Wave Serpent. My Warriors need backup because they’re at the top floor of a building with nowhere to go. Turn 6 could have been close, but it never happened because the game ended.
Necrons 8, Eldar 5
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| End of Necron turn 5 |
Necron units alive:
Destroyer lord
9 Warriors
6 Scarabs
3 Heavy destroyers
6 Destroyers
Necron units lost:
Deceiver
10 Warriors
2 Heavy destroyers
2 Heavy destroyers
5 Destroyers
Eldar units alive:
10 Wraithguard, 1 warlock
1 Wraithlord
5 Pathfinders
1 Wave serpent
Eldar units lost or broken:
10 Dire avengers
10 Dire avengers
5 Warp spiders
Avatar
Wraithlord
5 Pathfinders
10 Striking scorpions
Karandras
Thoughts on the game
Although I would have liked to face Wolves or Blood Angels in my last game, Eldar with a heavy wraith theme holds a sentimental place in my heart; it’s probably the army I’ve played against the most. My usual opponent runs a similar amount of wraith units and generally finishes 1st or at least top 3 in any tournament he goes to. The Deceiver is usually instrumental against this type of army; I really have no other way to take down Wraithguard, even without fortune, so when I lost the Deceiver so early and without much effect, that put a huge dent into my plans.
Now I normally don’t take a Destroyer Lord, although every time I have, it has been a useful unit. In this game, it got two KP by itself without dying (permanently). So the two MVPs of this game were the Destroyer Lord and the Scarabs (who also did a great job).
My main mistake, I think, was deploying Warriors in the small ruined building. I should have placed them either on the right side of the large destroyed building, or on the second floor of it. I’m also thinking I should have gone to ground with the Deceiver to survive the Warp Spiders. My second main mistake was not turbo boosting my Heavy Destroyers along with my regular Destroyers to get away from the kool aid Wraithlord. But they ended up tarpitting it, so it sort of worked out, although I would have rather shot it to death.
But overall, it was a fun game. I don’t think my opponent’s list was hugely optimized (no Fire Dragons, no Farseer), but Wraithguard and Wraithlords are two of the hardest units for Necrons to kill at the moment.
So what about the new codex?
I think I want to build a new army based around mobile firepower (of course), but backed up by monstrous creatures. I’m not sure about HQ and troops yet, but my elites will most likely contain a C’tan or two, my fast attack will be all Destroyers, and my heavy support will depend on many things, but I’m leaning towards a Tomb Stalker or three from Forgeworld. That way I can make a list similar to this one, but with a more deadly close combat punch, more deadly shooting (AP3 instead of AP4 destroyer salvos, albeit with 33% less shots), and less dead weight troops.
So how did I do? Any other major mistakes? How can Necrons win, even against a “mediocre” codex with an 80 point disadvantage, by more than 50%?
