TJ's Necron/ Chaos Marines at $250 Tourney Round 3 Batrep and Final Thoughts!

TJ here to talk about the third and final game in a recent tournament I attended at Blue Ox Games in Greenville, NC. The tourney was 1850, with a $250 grand prize. I ran my Necrons and CSM allies. If you want more of the list, check out the first part here, game two here or ... just read part three along with my final thoughts below:

The final game pitted me against Mike's Drop Pod UltraMarines.

This time, the TO decided that we would all play the same mission, which ended up being ... Dawn of War + Purge! KP three games in a row! This is why missions should be set before the tourney.

So Mike was playing:

Marneus Calgar
Tigirius
Command squad with apothecary and meltaguns - drop pod
10 Stearnguard 2 meltaguns, 3 combi-melta, 5 combi plasma (I think) - drop pod

3x 10 tactical marines with meltaguns, multi-meltas and combi-grav in drop pods

Stormtalon with Skyhammer

Thunderfire Cannon

While his army was small and elite for a drop pod force, it would get two turns of re-rolling tactical doctorine, has tons of melta (which, if could potentially table me right at the start if he gets lucky) and a beat stick squad with great short range power thanks to Tiggy and Calgar! I think this is a tuned up list designed specifically by somebody who knows how to use it! Mike certainly used everything at the list's disposal, so I had to do everything I could to keep him from overwhelming me early.

Turn 1:

I had to play this game cagey on deployment, so I formed the ninja star formation (above), lol, then moved the star to the left side of the board with a rock in the middle, limiting his LoS to back armor. I also now had jink saves and was fairly certain he couldn't table me. Then the pods came in ... He managed to get a squad on top op that rock, but in interest of conserving KP, he did not combat squad, so he only could choose one target. He killed the Warlord's Barge and then slew him as well with the Stearguard, taking a lead in KP, while also pulling two secondary points. Other than that, lucky jinks and good positioning saved me, thus blunting his initial blow and setting my mind right for my turn.

My deployent and move to the left also meant that Calgar's unit and most of his army was now stuck on one side of the board, this is something I can take advantage of, as I have with my barges in the other two games.

Turn 2:

I boosted the barges away to the opposite side of the board as far as they would go to limit his ability to shoot me with half of his army. I used the comms relay to attempt to keep the cultists off the board and failed, everything else came on.

Unfortunatley, I only managed to kill a portion of one squad and kill a drop pod, though, so he still had the lead.

On his side of the turn, two more pods come on and he killed my cultists and an annihilation barge. His talon also came on and didn't hurt the drake. He had to bunch up his tactical Marines in arder to get the shots he needed, but he didn't mind because he didn't think I would hover the drake.

Turn 3:

I turned the annihilation barges against the talon and shot it down. I hovered the drake over and killed all but two Marines from the closest squad to me, I blew up two more drop pods and my daemon prince finishes off some wounded stearnguard. I have now taken the lead.

From here, I mantain a solid lead throughout the game and manage to kill everything except for Calgar and Tiggy who were left to wander across the board, denied the ability to catch anything in assault. They did hop over the Aegis and take Linebreaker though.

Mike was a great opponent and ran a tight game. His list was also deceptive in the fact that a ton of opponents will get caught off guard with all those re-rolls. Not only was this a bad match-up for him (which happens to us all), but I have been playing almost all my practice games against the new Space Marines and am super familiar with fighting them, which is what helped me decide how I would deploy against the pods.

I ended up winning $250 in store credit for the day and managed to pick up all the Daemons I really needed (troops and skull cannons and a Dread Knight to base my next Daemon Prince off of), oh, and tons of paint!

Final Thoughts on the list:

Well, I have to say that I am very happy with this list. While my Typhus list rumbled along slowly and took care of business in assault, this list was filled with shooting and managed to marry an AV13 wall with 5 flying tagets, while denying my weak troops from the enemy and also allowing me one model that whole sale slaughters troops (Heldrake). The speed of the barges helped me stay out of trouble as well, meaning that I also never had to endanger the troops at all to bail anything out. I think the fact that I played three games of kill points did help me, but I honestly believe that I had enough firepower and decent enough assault to also compete in objective missions, even the Relic, which certainly will be a test for this list.

As far as changes, the DP is going to trade out the mace for the Burning Brand. I would rather have the ability to push out that plus one of the mandatory shooting powers I will have to take from Tzeentch. I do like Tzeentch as it always gave me an AP2 shooting weapon and also, with Gift of Mutation, gave me a re-rolling 2+ armor save for a game. The DP was a great answer to Riptides and other big nasties and I also think it kept the Wraithknight from getting more involved in game 2.

Everyone hates the single Oblit, but this guy was clutch. He could come on somewhere in the backfield and threaten most of the board. He took tons of fire in all three games and also averaged 2 KP per game, which is huge for a cheap 76pt throw away unit. He was my little x-factor and a source of bad decisions for opponents.

While the aegis isn't that useful, it is staying for the Comms relay. I really like being able to just know that I will have a deadly turn two, so I can play the barges accordingly.

The annihilation barges are fantastic. I love the versatility they offer, especially when I push out, then snap fire the top gun and suprise the opponent with around 4-6 hits each - or killing flyers with them from the ground.

I look forward to maintaining this as my go-to tourney list for the next couple events I attend.

With that being said, thanks for reading and I look forward to showing you all the Daemons I am building and painting madly! I am interested on any feedback about the list, the games or anything really, so let's hear it!