Tournament Results

So the Tournament was today and I used the list I posted last night but with Tuvok instead of Tom Paris which came in really handy combined with Dorsal Phasers. Got carried away with the games and didn't take any pictures though.

My blind booster ship was the Vorta Vor, a ToS era Romulan Bird of Prey. It's a bit of a meh ship but it's dirt cheap so it's not all bad. Shame I didn't get the Federation ship but at least it went to Federation players.

There were also 4 Fed players running the Sovereign and Intrepid, all with different lists but that was literally half of the tournament running almost the same thing. Next time I wont run Feds just for something different. Might pick up some Borg for it to be honest, or Romulans.

My first game was against my old nemesis, Jason and his Romulans. He had the new Warbird, a Reman Warbird and also got the Vorta Vor. He used a lot of combinations and had a Warbird firing off something like 7 dice worth of shots at long range. I lost but killed his Vorta Vor and heavily damaged his other ships. I was the only person to kill one of his ships all Tournament.

My second game was against someone I'd never met before (always a good thing when gaming). His name was Andy and he was running a Fed list(so Voyager and the Big E). Thanks to some psychological warfare at the start I managed to get his Voyager to deploy on the opposite side of the board from his other ships and just ganged up on it, swinging round with all 3 of my ships to take out his other 2. He did managed to kill off my Voyager though.

The third and final game was between me and Orkie Dan. We've been practicing against each other for this tournament for about a month now and know each others lists inside out. Our practice results were fairly even but thanks to some nice dice rolling and focus firing on the right ships at the right time I managed to pull out a table against him, loosing my Sovereign in the process.

Jason came in overall first place with Scott in second and myself in third. However thanks to Jason and Scott being the Organizers they would not take the prize and gave it to me as the highest ranking none-organizer. That's a win right? Either way I came out of the £15 event with the Vorta Vor ship, the Ti'Mur ship, the Counter Attack upgrade and the Borg Cube token so I can play the scenario whenever I want. Not bad for a day out eh?

The next event will be Collective Part 2: Wolf 359. Trekkies can guess what that means.

Final Tournament List

My final list for tomorrows tournament is as follows:

U.S.S. Voyager (30) Kathryn Janeway (5) Pavel Chekov (3) Photon Torpedoes (5) Total (43) Sovereign Class (30) Jean-Luc Picard (6) Tom Paris (4) Dorsal Phaser Array (6) Total (46) Fleet total: 89

This build gives me a pair of tough, fast ships with 360 fire arcs that can each do 2 actions per turn. I've got enough speed to get away from the Borg Cube at a moments notice and can still fire while turning around. I decided that for the extra cost the Torpedoes on the Enterprise E were not worth the extra points so stripped it down to a basic Sovereign with Dorsal Phasers instead which let me fit in Tom Paris to give it an extra Defense Die. Also being 1 point down I can claim Initiative over another Federation fleet that is dead on the 90 points. I'll try and get some pics uploaded tomorrow after the tournament and give a run down of how it went.

Dark Heresy

Probably about once a month I'll be GM-ing a Dark Heresy game with a few people at my local club. The events will be chronicled on here after every session for all to enjoy (and so the players can remind themselves whats happened). So far we have a group of 3 (possibly 5). Hopefully it'll be some good fun, we've got some decent people who are up for a laugh but I'm a bit worried they'll all go for combat characters who aren't too bright in a game based around investigating.

Necrons: A Few Games Later

I've managed to get about 4 games in with the new Necron book since its release. While it plays pretty much the same one thing I have noticed over every game so far is that Necrons are extremely durable. I mean ridiculously so. In all 4 games I have yet to loose a whole unit to enemy fire (I lost a Deathmark squad due to them not turning up all game) and it's down to the new way Reanimation Protocols works. Before you could focus fire on a unit and either make them run to keep them down or kill off the whole squad. Now that it's just an extra save I'm sat there with Warriors and Lychguard simply tanking all of the wounds on 4+(3+ for Lychguard)/(3++)/4+++ re-rolling ones. They're nigh unstoppable.

The Lychguards points drop has also made a huge difference. Thanks to that I can get more into the unit for the same cost which makes them much more effective. Combo-ing them with a Royal Court whose Cryptek is armed with the Solar Staff and Veil of Darkness makes them much nastier with them ending up in your deployment zone turn 1 and you can only snap fire against them.

Finally the Catacomb Command Barge is really good as the Reclamation Legions lord. I've been arming mine with a Phase Shifter, Phylactry and the Void Reaper for 205 points. He hasn't died yet. The rider simply Tanks the anti-armour shots and the anti-infantry stuff can't scratch the Barge itself. He then floats around supporting the main infantry blob by keeping them in line thanks to Enhanced Reanimation and Command Wave then when the enemy are near he pops out and murders them in close combat. If a Riptide or Wraithknight shows up then he can deal with it thanks to Void Reaper.

So yeah, lots of little tricks here and there (to the point where one opponent accused me of making stuff up) with plenty of durability makes this book really good.

Decurion List Idea

I was playing around with 1500 point Decurion lists earlier when I came across one I actually quite like (in my head at least). The idea is have a solid base in the Reclamation Legion with the hard punch coming from a Living Tomb. That and I like Monoliths a lot :P

Reclamation Legion - 798

Catacomb Command Barge - 195
- Warscythe
- Phase Shifter
- Phylactry
10x Warriors - 130
10x Warriors - 130
10x Warriors - 130
9x Immortals - 153
- Gauss Blasters
3x Tomb Blades - 60
- Gauss Blasters
- Nebuloscopes

Living Tomb - 700

Obelisk - 300
Monolith - 200
Monolith - 200

The Tomb Blades go hunting anything camping in cover such as Scouts or Rangers/Pathfinders then come back round to support the main force. Command Barge stays central to the main army thanks to it's 12" bonus bubble, darting out to take on things as it needs to. Turn 2 the Obelisk shows up regardless and starts throwing out an ungodly number of Tesla shots. Here's a thing I've noticed though. Teleport Homers, Homing Beacons, Locator Beacons. They all say that the model has to be on the board at the start of the turn to use it. The Living Tombs Obelisk however has no such restriction, so if a Monolith comes in Turn 2 providing the Obelisk is down first it wont scatter.

Although I wont be able to re-roll it there is only 1 Warlord trait I wouldn't want to have. Implacable Conqueror is useless as Reclamation gives out Relentless and Crusader isn't going to come into play as Necrons wont be winning combat any time soon. I wouldn't be upset or thrilled with Immortal Hubris either as it's just a +6" to the Command Barge bubble, the others though would be pretty useful.

The thing i'm not sure on though is whether or not to take out 1 Immortal and have Voidreaper on the Barge in case of big things like Wraithknights or Riptides to rip them a new one.

Decisions, Decisions

I've got until then end of the month to decide what list to take to the Attack Wing tournament. I've got 2 in mind but they use different approaches. The scenario being "last ship standing wins, here's a Borg Cube you can't attack to mix things up".

The main one I'm considering is tougher, harder hitting ships to try and take the enemy out sooner. This has the pros of being harder hitting but the downside of more stuff the Borg can steal with each card being too important to potentially loose. The other one though is less upgrades, worse captains but more ships with better firing arcs (2 with 360 shots and 1 with a 180). I have more ships but

So I have the choice between a bigger punch or strength in numbers. 4 ships total or 3? Better firing arcs or harder hitting shots? Less stuff for the Borg to steal or worse captains?

First Necron Game

I had my first game with the new 'dex today. 2k points VS Imperial Guard with Big Guns (5 objectives) on a 4'x4' table. I played against someone who doesn't take bad lists or units but doesn't quite get them to work together on the table top. In the end he took 2 wounds off of the Nightbringer and killed 1 Warrior which the Ghost Ark replaced. I took the following Decurion Detachment.

Reclamation Legion - 1385

Anrakyr the Traveler - 160
10 Lychguard - 300
- Sword and Shield
10 Warriors - 235
- Ghost Ark
10 Warriors - 130
10 Warriors - 130
10 Immortals - 170
- Gauss Blasters
3 Tomb Blades - 60
- Gauss Blasters
- Shield Vanes
1 Monolith - 200

Royal Court - 370

Overlord - 185
- Resurrection Orb
- Warscythe
- Nightmare Shroud
- Phase Shifter
Lord - 95
- Resurrection Orb
- Warscythe
Cryptek - 90
- Chronometron

Star God - 240
Shard of the Nightbringer - 240

Building a Decurion detachment is ..... different. Quite a few times I found myself going "I can have one of these" then realizing I also have to take unit X and Y to field their formation. The Royal Court is a good example. I wanted that in there so my Warlord could re-roll his warlord trait. The Command Benefit from the Decurion doesn't allow him to do that but the Royal Court formation does. To do this though I also need a Lord (I can live with) and a Cryptek. The Cryptek was not as useful as the Lord. The Lord gets me another Res Orb in my Lychguard and a throw away character for any challenges that might pop up. The Cryptek though gives his unit a 5+ invun. Where is he supposed to go? The Warriors don't need him, he can't keep up with the Tomb Blades or even join the C'Tan and the Lychguard already have a 3++. In the end he baby sat the Immortals in case some Ignores Cover came their way while they sat on a backfield objective. It wasn't great but that's the price of the Decurion.

The Powers of the C'Tan were also a bit annoying.
"Lets fire at the Russ"
*draws Seismic Assault 3 shooting phases in a row*
"Lets try the Command Squad instead"
*draws times arrow*
I thought I was using the Nightbringer not the Deciever. At least he was a MAJOR distraction. He felt the need to destroy the Nightbringer at all costs and fired everything at it, including the Battle Cannon on the Russ, instead of the advancing horde of undead robots. I then simply blasted his army apart one unit at a time.

Overall though I think the Necrons are a good army. The choice between Combined Arms and Decurion is a tough one but I think that if you can make the Decurion work then it'll work well. It's just making sure those units you need but don't want end up with a use that means their points wont be wasted.