Game 1
My first opponent was a great local named James. He brought a Vulkan list with Ultramarine colors. The twin-linked melta definitely had me worried (as one big hit will vaporize a flyer) but ultimately I knew if I played it safe I should be fine.
The mission was Kill Points (win by 3), Quarters, then Objectives.
My army can do very well with Kill Points, so I played it safe. I decided to bait my squads on foot behind the aegis defense lines for his Sternguard drop and then run my wraiths away until the flyers did enough damage for them to play clean-up.
Here's how we deployed. I retreated with the Wraiths until turn 3 (and the flyers arrived). I'm drawing a complete blank on whether this was the round where I had horrible re-rollable reserve rolls (and only 1 or 2 flyers came out) or was it my game against the Tyranids... my fault for not writing down!
Both Wraith squads worked their way around the board clockwise. One squad ending up in the far left back quarter (in case it went to quarters) and the other holding the middle to jump out on the remnants. My flyers did the damage they needed to do, destroying armor. It went very fast, I felt sorry for my opponent with the melta shots he did get through he rolled 1's on the damage results table.
We did have one remaining stearnguard model go 7 rounds of combat with a 5 man immortal squad before he finally went down.
We called the game after turn 5, and wrapped up the game in a little over an hour. The kill points were in the 12-2 range.
Game 2
Up to table 4. I was matched with Alex Fennel, a great player. We had a very tight game throughout and he was a joy to play against. Highly competitive games do not need to be a boring grumpy affair. We took time to point out when each other missed something obvious and kept the game moving. I'll feel fortunate that one of my two losses were to the overall tournament champion.
This mission was the modified hammer and anvil deployment with Quarters, then Objectives, then Kill Points. I had a hard time grasping the quarters at this point (eventually got the hang of it).
I deployed in the back portion of my board expecting my flyers to do the dirty work. I went too cautiously and should have overloaded a side to allow my flyers to thin the herd on the other. Alex had a great balanced necron force with a grey knight allied contingent of a strike squad, inquisitor and dreadknight (damn you dreadknight!)
Alex's MVP's by far were his scarabs, mind shackle scarabs (on his lord) and his Dreadknight. I had a unit of wraiths and destroyer lord tied up by a dreadknight that just wouldn't go down. He smartly kept challenging my unit and since my lord cannot take an invuln save, I had to continue to refuse. Ultimately with 1 wound left he escaped and put a hurt on me!
The last turn, the dreadknight shunt moved to my back quarter, killed all 5 warriors in the corner with a sucesfull flame template (could have failed one to-wound), and presented a target that tipped the corner to his favor.
The scarabs were able to make it to my back line and tie up my troops, keeping my units on the wrong quarter. The mindshackles on Alex's lords caused my lord to self-destruct! I just couldn't line up charges the right way in this game.
There was a congo line of immortals to my objective that I made a huge mistake on how I targeted them, my flyer came in the wrong direction and with the new "pick closest to-wound" meant I left a troop on an objective. In the end, there wasn't too much on the board left (except my flyers) from either side.
We had to quickly get our 5th turn in which meant I couldn't push to a 6th and put more shots in by my flyers. It was a well played game by Alex and he won 3 quarters to my 1.
It was his "mastery" of his army (he has been playing it for awhile) that has inspired me to work on my necrons more to get practice on honing my experience with an army. I think I'll see some more of my flyer / wraith force.
Next up games 3 and 4!
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