Black Templars vs Necrons

I played a game against Ryan's Necrons on Saturday night.

My list was very similar to my last - the only changes were to Chaplain Veigne who was run as a Reclusiarch and given bionics and holy orb:

(BT1) Marshal Geryn - Terminator armor, thunderhammer, storm shield
(BT1) Reclusiarch Veigne - bolt pistol, Terminator Honors, 3x cenobytes, Bionics, Holy Orb
(BT1) Champion Miyato - Accept any challenge

(BT1) Crusade #1 - 10 initiates, 5 neophytes, power fist, melta
(BT2) Crusade #2 - 6 intiates, 1 neophyte, lascannon, plasma gun
(BT3) Crusade #3 - 5 initiates, 1 neophyte, missile launcher, plasma gun in a (LB) razorback with lascannons, smoke and extra armor (henceforth called laserback)
(BT4) Crusade #4 - 7 initiates, 3 neophytes, power fist, melta, 2 bolters rest bp/cc in a (DP) drop pod

(SB) Sword Brethren terminators - 5 with 2 assault cannons
(DN1) Dreadnought - smoke, extra armor in a (DP) drop pod
(DN2) Dreadnought - twin linked lascannons, missile launcher, smoke, extra armor, venerable tank hunter

Ryan was using his current tourney list (from memory):

(NL) Necron Lord - Resurrection orb, Staff of Light

(NW1) 10 Necron Warriors
(NW2) 10 Necron Warriors

(IM1) 5 Immortals
(IM2) 5 Immortals

(DE1) 5 Destroyers
(DE2) 5 Destroyers

(HD1) 1 Heavy Destroyer
(HD2) 1 Heavy Destroyer
(WR) 1 Wraith

Deployment

This is basically what the deployment looked like. I had it in mind to take pics every turn but the battery on my camera was getting low and I kinda forgot since I was having such a great time. To my extreme right was the laserback and attendant squad on my side and on his were the 2 heavy destroyers, both behind the hill and out of LOS.



We rolled up an Alpha Secure and Control and set up the table. I won the roll to decide who gets first turn and opted to go second.


Turn 1
Some of the warrior shifted forward a bit towards the counter in the chapel. One of the heavy destroyers took a shot at the laserback but missed. The wraith would hide behind the hill in the corner until the top of turn 6 and then zoom 24" over to claim the objective nearest it.

My turn 1 was as uneventful. On the left flank the Hellfire Dreadnought took shots at the monolith but did nothing.

Turn 2
The heavy destroyer fired on the laserback again but the blessed hull was proof against his weapon (he rolled a 1 for armor pen). The destroyers shifted slightly to get a bead on the large crusade as did a unit of immortals. The lord left one unit of immortals for the other. Through the shooting I ended up losing 7 initiates thanks to lousy armor saves - 2 in the first volley and then the back breaker - the destroyers caused 7 wounds and I failed all but 2. Ouch. It did get their blood up though and they advanced a whopping 8" effortlessly clearing the difficult terrain and setting up a nice charge on my turn. The dreadnoughts drop pod didn't show up.

Marshal Geryn left the crusade at this point determined to advance on the heavy destroyer (and allow the crusade to overrun in the likely event that combat was won). Crusade #4s drop pod drifted back and a way from the action though landed between the objective on the far right and the rest of the table. They would spend the rest of the game guarding this artifact. The terminators also had a horrible rearward drift and ended up without LOS to anything. The laserback blasted a whole through the heavy destroyer. The remnants of Crusade #1, though battered and wounded fired at the Immortals behind the temple rather than proffered warriors. Though I lost out on a few shots, the reasoning became obvious when I was able to charge both the warriors and immortals. Enraged beyond words the Crusaders led by their Chaplain and following the example of the Emperor's Champion all but decimated by the metallic fiends. Whatever self preservation remained within them triggered and they tried to flee but the Crusaders ran them down and then consolidated into the destroyers. I was awfully self satisfied. Unfortunately there was unforeseen xenos trickery ahead...

Turn 3
Me: "Wait a second, what do you mean you don't have to be a part of the unit to teleport it?"
Ryan: "Eat hot gauss, zealot..."
Me: "Wow, that's a lot of shooting " (scoops up everything but the EC and the Chaplain)
Ryan: "Now take 8 saves between the 2 characters."
I think he cackled madly here. He may have even rubbed his hands together.
Me: "The Emperor Protects"
Yep, four 3+ and four 2+ saves. At this point all the bad rolls I had made were redeemed. And I even got a 5"consolidate out of difficult terrain towards the other unit of destroyers. On the left flank, however, the venerable dreadnoughts toughness was not enough to withstand 9 necron warriors at short range.

The other dreadnought had apparently changed his mind on his ammo loadout in light of this new development and was having the servitors redo it. It's the only reason he still didn't show up, I am sure. However, Reclusiarch Veigne and Champion Miyato charged a unit of destroyers and turned them all into so much scrap metal.

Turn 4
The loss of 5 destroyers mitigated the shooting somewhat but I still lost the Champion and took a wound on the Chaplain.

Here I took a calculated risk that didn't quite pay off - instead of charging the unit of immortals that were escorting the lord I decided to try and take the lord out. It was an alpha mission and scoring characters don't really matter, but I desperately wanted to get rid of the resurrection orb. Besides, I feared that he would just teleport the remaining immortals out of close combat through the monolith and bring back any that failed the first WBB roll. I caused 2 wounds and took only one in return. However, instead of winning combat I was dead. Guess I shoulda ponied up for that extra wound. The dreadnought showed up and rolled the first 6s with autocannons I had seen all game - guess the extra time loading sabot rounds was worth while. The Terminators added their fire and took out the last of the destroyers.

Turn 5
The necrons consolidated their position claiming the objective on the far left in the shadow of my wrecked dreadnought. The lord and immortals took shelter behind the chapel claiming the objective there. Things were getting tight.

The razorback moved out about 6" from his squad to get a better shot at the monolith. He destroyed a weapon on the monolith but didn't reduce it's threat or the fact that it was claiming an object in the ruined hulk of the chimera fighting position. The squad fired its missile launcher in hail Mary shot that hit the monolith and then glanced on a 6. I picked up the die and cast it knowing that, basically with a 6 I was still in the game. The die bounced and spun teetering between a 2 and a 6. When it finally settled I was still in the game!

Turn 6
The wraith zoomed out and claimed the objective closest to it putting the tally at 3 for the necrons (two on far left flank, 1 in the chapel), 2 for me (the one that drop podded and the termies claimed the one under the monolith wreckage). The necrons shifted slightly to deny firing lanes and the game looked over.

Or did it... I moved the terminators towards the center of the table and got a good enough difficult terrain check to move from 4" 'above' the monolith objective to within 6" of the chapel. That contested that one. The now unclaimed objective under the monolith was a good 18" from the next closest scoring unit (the laserback squad). However, in the turn before you may remember that I advanced the laserback 6". I moved the squad their full movement and loaded up into the vehicle which then tore the full 12" right next to the final objective!!! The game ended in a very well fought draw.


After Action Report:
WOW! What a game! Ryan's play was pretty solid throughout and the list is pretty brutal. There are 44 "Necron" models which seems a bit low until you realize that 24 of them are t5. Combined with the monolith phase out seemed quite far away indeed. The dice rolls were kind of odd - I had bad rolls quite often, but when it was really clutch they came through smashingly.

Templar Roll of Honor:
Again the Emperor's Champion was clutch coming through when he was most needed. The Chaplain and cenobytes were awesome and kept the game from being an early massacre against me with that 8" RZ.

Finally, a specific shout out to the Laserback which was the difference between a loss and a draw in this mission. I have gotten lots of suggestions to drop it but it is a consistent contributor as long as you are aware of its limitations. I can say without a doubt that another small unit wouldn't have had the same effect in this game. Perhaps a speeder would be better, but I don't currently own one.

Once more the army as a whole performed well. There was no "chaff" or units I wish I hadn't taken. Really goes to show the value of having a specific role or two in mind for every selection in the army list.

Templar Enemy Eternium:
That monolith just would not die. I knew it was vital to Ryan's plan and therefore worthy of destruction. Also, as in my game vs the Eldar the enemy HQ was again a thorn in my side. Destroyers are just plain nasty, especially when neophytes are in the majority.

Vow review:
Again, not really worthwhile as there were not any protracted combats and the vast majority of killing done was by the characters and in one round a ton of neophytes and 3 initiates and the chaplain reroll was of far more use.

Overall:
Again, a great game. What more can you ask for than a competitive but cool opponent and some good looking armies. I just need to finish mine up!