March of the Undead Robots

I threw out a net for a game this week and a regular Deep Spacer who I have never played stepped up and said "Sure". Thus it was that last night I found myself at the bunker facing down Tyranus_Dominus and his Necron horde.

1500 pts, Seek & Destroy

Eldar:
Farseer
10 Scorpions in Wave Serpent
6 Scorpions
10 Guardians with Warlock in Wave Serpent
6 Jetbikes
5 Pathfinders
2 Vypers
5 Dark Reapers
Fire Prism

Necrons:
Lord on Foot
3 x 12 Warriors
9 Immortals
5 Destroyers
Monolith

T_D deployed his monolith on one flank in cover and I refused that flank and went hard to the other with only the Dark Reapers in cover in the middle. The warriors and immortals stretched across the table and the game began.

The first two turns were heavily in the favour of the Eldar, with the Dark Reapers mowing down warriors and the Pathfinders, Vypers, and grav tanks contributing as much as possible. At the end of turn 2 he failed 8 out of 10 We'll Be Back rolls and that set the stage for turn 3.

As the monolith continued to advance, its blast template kept scattering off target. The jetbikes took some fire but half the squad remained to drive into a necron squad where they tied each other up until Scorpions with power claw arrived to relieve the pressure and knock the warriors down. The smaller squad of scorpions assaulted the exposed Necron lord but failed to wound him and instead got sliced and diced and then run down.

Turn 4 I unleashed a fury of firepower into the Necrons guarding the Lord and knocked down most of the squad. Many get back up but Marc's getting nervous and chose to use the Monlith Portal to get more. From there he nuked the farseer and killed two Dark Reapers. I countered by pouring as much firepower into that knot of warriors as I could muster, knocking down 8 of them and wounding the lord. The Lord with the remaining warrior then failed the break test and began falling back. Enough warriors stood back up to put the squad over half but I was within 6 inches and drove them away. The monolith extracted revenge pounding the guardians and destroying a wave serpent, but I had enough firepower in the bottom of turn 6 to kill the warriors and Necron lord and thus force the phase out with only the Immortals and Monolith on the board.

Victory to the Eldar!!

Analysis: My battleplan from the start was to shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. The Scorpions were really counter-charge/distract units. Plus I didn't have enough painted to take anything else! Concentrating on the phase out was the goal and facing 50 Necrons made that quite intimidating, but since the objective was "kill kill kill" and I didn't have the resources to take on the monolith without gobs of luck, I figured I'd go for it.

T_D advanced into my firing lanes with the assurance of any Necron commander that he could take a beating and still kick ass, but this time was proven wrong. Because he advanced I effectively had two free turns of shooting and some luck came my way as the monolith missed with its ordnance shot and the WBB rolls were poor. As the game heated up in turn three, I had lost only 3 jetbikes and a vyper to 12-14 Necrons.

From that point on I pressed the body, ignoring the monolith and immortals except when there was no other targets and hitting the destroyers and warriors with everything. The Dark Reapers were instrumental in this case and perhaps Marc should have brought more to bear on them early on.

I had luck combined with a good battle plan and managed to win with moderate casualties. It was not easy, and could have gone the other way with the roll of the dice.