Batrep: 2000pts Tyranids vs Necrons

With busy season at work ending last week, I decided to treat myself and try to squeeze in a game.  Dean accepted my invitation and brought over his Necrons for more ATC practice.  Since he's played my Dark Eldar twice now (HERE and HERE), we decided to change it up and I broke out my Tyranid ATC list from last year.  I only went 2-3-1 with it, but I still feel like it's my most competitive list, at least with the models I have assembled and painted.

Dean's list:
Overlord + scythe, scarabs, command barge
Overlord + scythe, scarabs, command barge
Court - 2 destruction 1 solar pulse, 1 darkness w/ veil and shroud, 1 lord w/ scythe scarabs and orb
Court - 2 destruction 1 solar pulse, 1 darkness w/ veil and shroud, 1 lord w/ scythe scarabs and orb
Immortals x10 w/ tesla (veiltek and lord go here)
Immortals x10 w/ tesla (veiltek and lord go here)
Warriors x5 (2 lanceteks here)
Warriors x5 (2 lanceteks here)
Wraiths x6 + 3 coils, 1 pistol
Wraiths x5 + 3 coils, 1 pistol
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge



My list:
Tyrant + armored shell, 2x tl devourers, old adversary, regen
Tyrant Guard x3 + lash whips
Tervigon + toxins, adrenals, catalyst
Hive Guard x2
Hive Guard x2
Hive Guard x2
Termagants x12
Tervigon + toxins, adrenals, catalyst
Genestealers x18
Genestealers x18
Tyrannofex + cannon

So following the ATC format, we place 3 seize ground objectives.  I place one within 12" of a short edge in case I want to outflank some genestealers (I almost never do).  Dean places one on the other flank to balance it out and I place the third 12" from my original.  Dean wins the roll off and elects to go first.  Deployment was spearhead.

It's a pretty even spread of robots.  I've now seen what all those tesla weapons can do first hand so I deploy everything very defensively, hopefully out of range of the annihilation barges and in a large block so it'll be hard to sweep over me.

I put my c&c objective 12" from the sg objective in my quarter.  I'm not quite sure how to handle twice as many wraiths as last time, but I will get FnP on the genestealers and run them forward and go from there.  I fail to seize.

Necrons advance up the center.

And towards the left flank.

An annihilation barge rips into a unit of hive guard causing 4 wounds.  I fail all 4 saves and give up the first kp of the game.  Lances put a wound on another unit of hive guard.  Gants take tesla fire from immortals, go to ground, and I still lose 4.

I put FnP on both units of genestealers and advance.

 Believe it or not, the top unit of genestealers rolls triple 1's for terrain and a 1 for their run.  Tfex explodes the central annihilation barge.  Hive guard target wraiths but they pass all saves.

End of turn 1: Necrons 1kp 3 objectives, Nids 1kp 2 objectives

Necrons advance cautiously in the center.

And reposition on the left.

You can barely see the command barges on the left and very bottom.  They swept some gaunts and one wound on the tervigon.  Tesla drops 3 or 4 genestealers from each unit.  Lances take a couple wounds from the tfex and I lose another hive guard.

I continue to push up the middle towards the cluster of 3 objectives the necrons hold.

 Both units of genestealers get FnP.  The unit in the middle gets caught in terrain again.  In my middle, I have two command barges with scarab/scythe lords to deal with.  I spawn termagants with both tervigons (no doubles).

My plan is to assault the barge and surround it while also surrounding my tervigons so the scarab lord can't reach one.  In the center, the tyrant puts paroxysm and one wound on the wraiths.  Hive guard stun the command barge off to the left and tfex stuns the remaining annihilation barge.  My assault pays off as the tervigons get two lucky pens, wrecking the barge while surrounding it with gaunts and kills the overlord as well.

End of turn 2: Necrons 1kp 3 objectives, Nids 3kp 2 objectives

Turn 3 for necrons sees the wraiths attaining assault range.  On the right, he heads deep towards my board edge and away from the tyrant.

Overlord disembarks from the stunned barge and wraiths push for the middle.  Tyrant and guard take a wound from shooting.

Both wraith units assault genestealers and the overlord jumps in also.  One unit of wraiths is paroxysm'd and both genestealers have FnP, one unit even has preferred enemy from the tyrant, but I still lose combat by several.  On the right, I pull genestealer casualties to make a hole for the tyrant to move in.

I move up the tyrant on the right towards wraiths closest to the rest of his army in hopes for a favorable consolidate.

In the middle, I spawn one more unit of gants (hq tervigon burns out) and prepare to send 3 units into the wraits.  The leftmost tervigon heads for the stunned command barge.  The tfex blows the tesla destructor off the annihilation barge.

Mass combat ensues.

30+ gants and 10ish genestealers fail to kill the wraiths and overlord.  He targets gants and kills a load, forcing huge casualties with no retreat wounds.

The tervigon explodes the stunned barge. Tyrant and guard pile into wraiths but I'm still unable to finish off the wraiths.

End of turn 3: Necrons 1kp 3 objectives, Nids 4kp 1 objective

Necrons mostly stand and fire.

Tervigon takes several wounds from lances.  Dean's dice are getting really insane with tesla and assault rolls.  At one point, a unit of 10 immortals scores 13 hits.

Combat rages in my quarter.  I land several wounds on wraiths, but his dice are hotter than terminator saves now.  He kills several more gants and finishes all the spawned ones off with no retreat wounds. I knock down the overlord finally, but he stands back up.

Tyrant and stealers finally finish their wraiths but I get double 1's for consolidates.

I push hard for his quarter. 

In my quarter, I spawn again (no doubles) and prepare to rush the wraiths again.  Tfex finishes the annihilation barge.

The tyrant dakkas down several warriors and 4 stay down.  Hive guard drop the overlord, but he stands back up for the second time.  Gaunts assault the lord and wraiths.  I'm able to drop the lord a third time and he stays down, but wraiths slaughter my genestealers in combat.  He's now down to 1 wraith.

End of turn 4: Necrons 5kp 3 objectives, Nids 7kp 1objective

With the potential for the game to end this turn, Dean makes his move with a veiling immortal unit onto my objective.

In his quarter, he decides to hold the line with the other unit of immortals.

He unloads into the genestealers, I go to ground and still fail 6 cover saves, leaving 1 alive.  Back in my quarter, he nightmare shrouds the unit of 2 hive guard (who are out of synapse), but they pass their test and all saves from the tesla fire.  In assault, my dwindling gant pile causes 4 wounds to the last wraith and he makes every save.  He kills a few more gants with no retreat wounds.

I spawn only 7 gants this time and finally get my doubles.

Unfortunately, the unit of 2 hive guard fails their instinctive behavior roll.  This sucks because I really need to throw everything into those immortals to even have a chance against their embedded scarab lord.  On the right, the tfex goes after warriors while tyrant and tervigon go for immortals with embedded scarab lord.

Tyrant throws paroxysm on the immortals.  Combined fire from the tervigon, gants, and hive guard knock over 4 immortals on the left.  Tyrant and tervigon assault their immortals.  Tyrant fails his mindshackle test and punches himself in the face once.  His lord (now ws1) still hits twice and wounds twice.  I knock over a few immortals, but every singly one stands up.  On the left, gants cause more wounds to the last wraith and he makes every save again.

Dean rolls for the end and we play on. 

End of turn 5: Necrons 6kp 2 objectives, Nids 7kp 1 objective

Not much left to do.  Dean sets up immortals to take an assault.  He shoots the tervigon but I make every save.

On the right, warriors back away from the tfex but get bad terrain rolls.  Surviving warriors and crypteks also back away from the tyrant's melee.  In assault, gants cause yet more wounds to the last wraith which are all saved.  Tyrant and tervigon are able to defeat and sweep their immortals.  Tyrant consolidates towards warriors on the right and tervigon heads for warriors in the middle.  The cryptek stands back up.

That's the HQ tervigon btw, not the scoring one.  Tfex advances on warriors.

Tyrant guns down all the warriors on the flank, but the cryptek gets back up. In my quarter, I shoot and assault with the gants, tervigon, and all 3 hive guard.  The tervigon punches itself in the face twice and I lose combat but everything remains locked.  The tfex assaults the warriors pulling them off the objective, knocks down two, they pass morale, and both casualties stand back up.

I roll for the end and we play on.

End of turn 6: Necrons 6kp 0 objectives, Nids 8kp 0 objectives

Dean has 4 units left, 3 of which are locked in combat.  His crypteks on the right flank try to lance the last  genestealer but fail.

In my quarter, the worst possible thing happens.  My tervigon fails the mindshackle test for the second time and kills itself.  The shockwave finishes off 3 units of my own gants and one hive guard unit runs off the table.  That's 5 kill points from 1 casualty!

       
This will be my last turn, but not many units remain.

Tervigon rushes in to help the tfex.  Tyrant shoots down the last cryptek. My last genestealer runs onto an objective.

Tfex and tervigon finish off the warriors who run away.

The game ends after 7 turns.  Necrons 11kp 1 c&c objective, Nids 10kp 1 sg objective.  That's a 20-10 win for Dean in the ATC format.

Wow, what a game.  These close games can be so epic.  I was in the lead with kp's for most of the game and Dean had more objectives for most of the game.  There were some big swings late in the game with Dean winning if the game ended on turn 5, I had it on turn 6, and he took it back on turn 7.  It's hard to say what I could have or should have done differently due to the extremely mobile nature of his army between fast skimmers, jump infantry, and deep strikers.  What I do know is the dice block I was using is getting retired.  In the first turn alone, I failed 4/4 cover saves on the hive guard and rolled 4 consecutive 1's for genestealers moving in terrain.  Then there's the whole issue of 15 genestealers (with FnP) and 50+ gants failing to kill 5 wraiths.  Either way, it was a very entertaining game.  Watch out ATC, Dean's list is nearly perfect and he's getting VERY good with it!