Vapnartak Game 3

Game Type: Seize Ground with Dawn of War Setup

Now, let me just start by saying that I really, REALLY, hate Necrons. I don’t know what it is but I’ve never seemed to be able to beat them with my Tau and this game, I’m sad to say, was no exception.

My opponent set up with his 2 units of Warriors and Night Bringer (I think it was the Night Bringer at least, big bugger with a Scythe) in a building pretty much camped on top of 1 objective and pretty close to a second, the third objective was over the other side of the battle field. He held his Heavy Destroyers and a group of Scarab Swarms to come on at the start of turn 1.

I deployed the Devilfish with the Fire Warriors mounted inside close to the lone objective and positioned my Command suits behind cover towards the middle of the battlefield.

Turn 1 kicked off with me yet again failing to seize the initiative so my opponent brought his Destroyers and Scarabs on and pushed them towards the lone objective and moved his Night Bringer in a bee line towards my command suits, fortunately all of his rolls for night fighting came up short so I was spared any fire for the first turn.

On my turn 1 I brought everything on bar the solo suit, my Hammerhead deployed directly facing the building the 2 Warrior squads were encamped in and the Pathfinders moved up to take position in cover at the centre of the battle field, their Devilfish picked up the last unit of Fire Warriors on its way across to lay some fire down on the units pressing towards the lone objective. Most of my rolls for Night Fighting came up pretty well and I was able to knock down a few Warriors and smash a few scarabs (although most of the warriors did get back up).

The rest of the battle was pretty close all in all and we almost got called for time by the referees as things went right down to the wire – I managed to drop my solo suit next to the Night Bringer but didn’t really do anything before he cut him in half with that damn scythe, both Devilfish got immobilised and even though the Pathfinder one was crawling with Scarabs I completely forgot about the Flechette Dischargers on it (all together now....DOH!!!) until after the battle which may have turned things on that side of the battle field around, and although I managed to continually kill a god 7 or 8 Warriors a turn almost all of them stood back up again (I think I only accounted for about 6 truly dead by the end of the match).

Then we got to my Turn 5, potentially the last turn of the game – on my left my opponents Necron Warriors had moved to claim both objectives, I had my Command Suits and still fully functional Hammerhead on that flank but I knew if things went to turn 6 that the Night Bringer would be in the mix as he’d been heading straight for my commander all game. On my right I had a unit of Firewarriors inside an immobilised Devilfish that was crawling with Scarabs, what was left of the second unit of Firewarriors that had crawled out of the wreckage of their now completely destroyed Devilfish and my pathfinders. The Scarabs were close to the objective but not near enough to contest but the destroyers were close enough to it.

My plan for turn 5 was to make a desperate play to try and scrape a draw out of things, or maybe even a win as a very long shot – what I intended hinged on 2 things (asides from hoping for spectacularly bad dice rolls from my opponent), that the fire from my Hammerhead would completely wipe out the unit of Necron Warriors on the closest objective on the left which would leave my command suits free to engage the second squad, and that I could engage the destroyers in melee with the Firewarriors on foot in such a way that would pull them far enough away from the objective marker that they were no longer contesting it and then the Fire Warriors in the Devilfish would be able to get out of the side that had no scarabs on and roll far enough on the run dice to claim it. This would leave 1 objective completely open, 1 contested and 1 in my possession and while it was a very long shot it did at least have a slim chance at victory.

So, I moved the Command Suits into position so they could assault either unit of Warriors if needed and opened up with the Hammerhead on the closest unit but failed to wipe them out, as I needed at least one of these objectives contested by the end of the turn to at least get the draw I fired my command suits at the same unit and launched an assault leaving just one objective in my opponents hands.

On the other flank I launched my attacks and assaulted the Destroyers but my run roll came up short so I couldn't move my free Firewarriors close enough to the objective to claim it.

As things stood we ended up playing turn 6 as well and the Night Bringer tore my Commander and the rest of his unit apart allowing what was left of the Necron Warriors to consolidate back onto the objective. The Scarabs stopped playing with the Devilfish and engaged my unit of Firewarriors in close combat so even if my plan had of come off without a hitch it still probably wouldn’t have changed the end result.

As I did have some Troops left on the table at the end of the battle I only lost one of my 2 points for a loss – there was now no chance that I’d finish on zero points which was a small, well...very small, comfort for the day.

I was now placed dead last on the league table and as the next match would be the last of the day I had one chance remaining to grab the win I had hoped to end the day on.