Nick speaking,
After losing the roll off to place the objectives and to see who goes first, it seemed like my Necrons were going to struggle in this seize ground mission against Orks, but after the three objectives went down exactly how I wanted them too, and I was giving the advantage I wanted by being passed first turn, was this going to be the game where I got a win for my old Necrons?
With one objective in the middle of the table, one to the left just in front of my pitched deployment zone and one on the right side of the board, I set up my capstone. Going first meant I could use the Deceivers grand illusion ability, so I deployed a lonely set of Destroyers in the open on the right side of the board as bait. I know my opponent always runs with Commandos, so I leave one unit of Warriors in reserve and castle up the rest of the army on the left. I leave the Nightmare Lord and Scarabs in the middle ready to move over to the right when the game begins...
The lonely Destroyers get some attention and a biker squad is deployed opposite them, five Koptas deploy opposite my castle with some Rocket Boyz, Lootas and a Big Mek with his 'funny' gun. about thirty Gretchin deploy mid table and three units of twenty boyz go into reserve with the Commandos. Before I do my illusions the Koptas do their scout move and end up about two inches in front of my Warriors! I redeploy the lonely Destroyers into my Capstone and we are ready for turn one...
I advance forward with the plan being to contest the right objective with the Nightmare Lord unit, Hold my objective with the Warriors backed by destroyers and Deceiver and then to contest/hold the centre objective with the Monolith. I keep one unit of Warriors spread on the rear board edge to try and push Snikrots flanking Commandos to the side of my phalanx. I then gun down the Koptas forcing them to run away at half strength. Ork turn one, and with an extra six inch movement the Rocket Boyz fly across the board getting into assault with my Destroyers, wiping out one hole unit, whilst the Lootas shoot out two Warriors...
On turn two, three Destroyers get up and join the other unit of four making one big unit that I shoot at the Lootas, killing only one because of cover saves. The Deceiver assaults the Rocket Boyz as my reserved Warriors come on, again trying to stop the Commandos from being able to multi assault when they arrive. Orks turbo boost the bikes to the centre next to my Monolith, and the Lootas fail to shoot anything. One unit of Boyz come on opposite my capstone from reserve, and the Commandos wipe out one unit of Warriors on my table edge. I use misdirect and pull the C'tan out from the Rocket Boyz assault...
In turn three I tank shock the bikes with the Monolith making them run, whilst I shoot the Monolith and Warriors at the Rocket Boyz taking them down to three. I then had to decide what to do with my twenty one, strength six Destroyer shots! Finish off the three Rockets or go for the Lootas? I go for the Lootas, killing eight of them, but they don't run away. I then assault the Commandos with the Deceiver forcing them to run. Orks target my Destroyer with the big mech and roll a double five for his 'funny' gun, taking him across the board into assault with them! Rocket Boyz join in and assault the Destroyers as well, wiping them all out with a full rack of power fist attacks, whilst more Ork Boyz come on from reserve in a Central position!
On turn four I move the left unit of Warriors towards the objective and keep within six inches of the running Commandos, whilst teleporting the other unit of Warriors to the middle of the board behind the Monolith, I then turbo boost the Lords unit in front of the Warriors for protection. At this stage I am thinking that I need to clear out the Gretchin on the middle objective, with my Destroyers gone I may not be able to hold the one on the left, and I will need the one in the middle. I shoot out the Rocket boyz with the left Warriors and assault the Big Mech with Golden boy to clear the decks around me. Orks last twenty boyz come on from reserve toward the right objective and the bikes regroup at long last. An abysmal Waagh sees the greenskins only moving a couple of extra inches each, but the group on the left make it into assault with my Deceiver before I misdirect out!
On turn five, the Deceiver manages to pin the group of boyz closest to my objective and the Lord and Scarabs assault the Gretchin after the Warriors soften them up from shooting, wiping them out in the sweeping advance. At this stage I have two objectives as I hold the one on the left and the one in the middle, with the objective on the far right being empty. For some reason, all of a sudden I feel like I'm playing my Eldar as I wait for the Ork turn five and hopefully the game end! Orks Turbo boost the bikes to contest the middle objective and fail to get close enough with the other two groups of Boyz to hold anything. One objective to me and none to the Orks, but the game goes on...
With the Deceiver in assault with the Boyz on the left, I am stretched a bit thin and start to have a few problems. The far right Boyz are within touching range of the right objective, so I turbo boost the Lord away from the Scarabs to the back of the objective within three inches of it, whilst the Scarabs turbo boost to the front of the objective making a wall. Orks can only assault the Scarabs, so my Lord will be there to contest it. I teleport the middle Warriors through the Monolith to try and rapid fire on the last remaining problem, twenty Boyz within reach of my objective. I do well and kill half of them with no cover saves. With my Warriors off the middle objective the bikes are free to contest, but it was either that or a group of twenty Boyz, and at this stage, if the game ends I was betting on a draw anyway!
The remaining Boyz move towards my objective and assault my Warriors that are holding it, I lose the assault by two and all I have to do is throw an eight or less to stay contesting the objective, sadly I throw a double five and end up running out of the three inches. My last minute back up plan, is to misdirect with the deceiver and contest it with him, all I need is about eight inches with the three dice. I throw a one, two and three! Six inches, and I am out of range. Now its one objective to the Orks and the other two are contested...
Game ends on turn six with a roll of a one!
Conclusions? There is only one! I figured I would hold up enough in the assault with the last three Rocket Boyz against my Destroyers. I planned on teleporting them out and shooting them down with Warriors the next turn. I should have killed the last three Rocket Boyz with my Destroyers when I had the chance, even if twenty one, strength six shots was a bit overkill! Lesson learnt.
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