Thursday, March 8

"March of Wolves:" SW vs Necrons




After diving into the codex the last few weekends and writing a few articles on Necrons this last week I decided to play a game with them last night.  Because it is "March of Wolves (month)," I played against my good friend Mark and his new Thundercav list. Here is a rough idea of the lists we played.



Wolves:
Thunder Cav unit 4 guys with two shields and one mark of the wolfen, power fist, melta bombs
Wolf Lord with Saga of the bear, runic armor, storm shield, Wolf claw
6 long fangs with 5 missiles
6 long fangs with 5 missiles
9+1 Greyhunters with power weapon, banner, melta gun with attached wolf guard with fist in rhino
9+1 Greyhunters with power weapon, banner, melta gun with attached wolf guard with fist in rhino
5+1 gey hunters with power weapon, banner, meltagun with attached wolf guard with fist in rhino
5+1 gey hunters with power weapon, banner, meltagun with attached wolf guard with fist in rhino
Rune Priest (joins small grey hunter squad)
Rune Priest (joins small grey hunter squad)
Lone wolf with Storm Shield and Chainfist
Lone wolf with Storm Shield and Chainfist

Necrons: (this wasn't my list but was a list of another gamer at the store who was kind enough to let me use his army.)
Anrayker in command barge
Overlord in command barge with scythe
5 warriors in a Ghost ark with 2 destruction Crypteks attached (one with solar pulse)
5 warriors in a Ghost ark with 2 destruction Crypteks attached (one with solar pulse)
Annihilation barge
Annihilation barge
Triarch stalker
Triarch stalker
10 scarabs
10 Immortals with attached Cryptek with Veil of darkness
Doomsday ark





I don't want to write a whole battle report but ill go over my thoughts:

The result:  We played with 2 mission goals, "5 objectives," and "kill points," Necrons won on both.

The Thoughts: Wolves
- Don't forget acute senses!  And remember that when you play Necrons you are pretty much guaranteed a few turns of night fight, so don't deploy long fangs anywhere but "forward."

- Lone wolves in pairs with Chainfists and terminator armor really really really scare necrons!  Remember that the ghost arks aren't skimmers so they can only ever move 12" and are usually moving 6" to shoot the crypteks out of them. Plus, when the LW die it gives you KP...Love it!

- Wolf Lords should have either frost blades or Hammers/fist, with the claw the wolf lord got bogged down by the scarabs... With wither the frost blade or the hammer it would have been over very quickly.

- 5 grey hunters + Wolf guard and Rune Priest are actually a great squad in a rhino. Don't underestimate a "small," wolves squad, it can still pack a mean punch!

- Im not sure how I felt on the 2 big squads of Long Fangs, once he started splitting fire I respected them more but Ill have to see more games with/against them to really get an opinion of them.



The thoughts: Necrons
- Necrons are very easy to underestimate (myself included), they have a lot of things that change the way the game is played, like solar pulse and writhing world-scape, know the codex to not get surprised.

- As usual I am always surprised at how long 24" actually is.  As a GK player I should understand that, but it never ceases to amaze me.

- Command Barges FTW!!!

- One of the things I learned is that you need to respect Tesla... Especially when all I can roll is "6's" (seriously two times I fired my tesla immortals and rolled 4 "6's").  That said I was underwhelmed by Annihilation barges simply because of the "AP -" Don't get me wrong, I still think they are a great choice (for now) but I just didn't get much out of them this game.

- I love me some crypteks! Firstly I love the range that they provide but more importantly when preceded by a Trairch stalker they can bring some hurt.  It was because of these guys that I was able to slag all those rhinos off the bat.

Necrons are a sleeper codex! Once you start playing them you start to realize just how disgusting they can be when everything starts to click.  The army benefits heavily from synergy and all that junk.


All in all I had a great game with a new army and was even able to beat on some Thundercav (rolling 6's helps!)


What are your thoughts on the necron codex? Have you played any games with them???


Duke

6 comments:

  1. I have only played one game and loaned my army to another guy to try out so far. Both games was ok, the other guy beat my Chaos list but I also was playing "nice". My game, I lost but felt I could have had a better list...mine was just a throw it out and see how it works game.

    Once 6th hits, I think things will swing in a dynamic favor for them....

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  2. I'm excited to see what 6th does for nerons

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  3. I think you discovered what a lot of Necron players (including myself) have discovered. Necrons seem awkward on paper and it is hard to build a list. However, when you start playing them you see how deadly a codex they can be.

    I started Necrons just after Feast of Blades and played them exclusively till a couple weeks ago. I played them in Ghengiscon and a event at Gryphon. They did amazing! They went head to head with Dark Elder, Space Wolfs and Blood Angels and beat them all. They are ridiculously resilient, put out a lot of fire power and have a lot of dirty tricks! My advice to anyone playing with or against them is to not under estimate them!

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  4. I cant agree with you more CJ, they are a sleeper codec that a lot of people will underestimate

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  5. " Remember that the ghost arks aren't skimmers"

    Ghost Arks are skimmers, did you mean "aren't fast skimmers"? I only ask because I'm not sure if the difference means anything specifically to the Wolves.

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  6. Played a team game of double wolves vs Necrons and Space Marines (Shrike) and I have to say they was pretty damm tough for a baseline unit...the army was not very impressive but did well...something like Imotek, some court models, 4 units of Immortals and a unit of scarabs....

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