Necrons v. SM (Game 1)

This is game one of a 3 game battle report that a friend of mine played. Each game was 1,000 points since he really just wanted to see if he liked Necrons enough to make a full army out of them. Sorry there are no pics of the game since there were a large number of proxies and it would have been rather confusing, still there can be something learned from each of these games. Everything said in the report is direct from my friend’s notes and is his own insight for the game; my own analysis can be found at the very end. 

Necrons
HQ=Imotekh (Royal Court: LORD with Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, Sempiternal Weave, and Resurrection Orb & CRYPTEK with Harbinger of Destruction, Eldritch Lance, Gaze of Flame, and Solar Pulse)
Troops=Necron Warriors 13*, Necron Immortals 10*
Fast Attack=Canoptek Scarabs 3 Bases*
Elite=Lychguard 5*, 4 of which have Dispersion Shields and Hyperphase Swords

Space Marines
HQ=Calgar
Troops= Tactical Squad 10* with Lascanon and Meltagun, Tactical Squad 10* with Heavy Bolter and Meltagun
Elites= Assault Terminators 5*, 5 Lightening Claws, Venerable Dreadnought with Twin-linked Lascannon and Twin-linked Autocannon

  

This game for the both of us was more of an experimentation rather than just a bloodlust of a game. Turn one was very uneventful of everyone moving up however the fact that Imotekh made it night fighting automatically was nice for me. Not only that but he could call down D6 Str. 8 AP 5 lightening on every unengaged enemy unit on the board by rolling a D6 result of a 6 for each enemy unit, this never happened because my rolling wasn't great and I forgot about it halfway through the game but it was a very nice aspect for my HQ. By turn 2, he had shot away 3 Necron Warriors and 5 Immortals through the use of standard bolter rounds and his dreadnought, though he could not kill any of the Lychguard with their 4++. All of the Warriors stood back up and 2 of the Immortals resurrected as well. By turn 3, G assaulted my Lychguard/Imotekh with Calgar forgetting his Orbital Bombardment and inflicting quite a few wounds but I again made my 4++ saves. Moreover, G also managed to mishap deepstriking his Assault Terminators 2 times and never saw combat because of constant reserve fails and mishaps. G also failed to realize the threat Necron Scarabs pose to vehicles as they stripped his armor values down by 8 in one assault phase!! Effectively making his rear armor down to 2 so it was extremely vulnerable to the Scarabs and basic weapons because his front armor went from 13 to 5!! By turn 4 his dreadnought was completely annihilated by basic Gauss weapons because of the armor it now had and Clagar failed to do anything to the Lychguard and Imotekh, mainly because he was assaulting by himself a squad of higher Initiative Necron Terminators, due in part to his double powerfists reducing his Initiative to 1 and my 2 Initiate got the first strikes (not smart when facing Necrons). G coincided by turn 5 because he literary had a single squad of 8 Tactical Marines left and I had effectively lost nothing.

Overview:

In this Particular Game I realized that fighting Necrons can be a challenge for an ill-prepared opponent. I was fully confident that Greg and his Assault Terminators were going to cut a swath through my ranks with their Initiative 4 and pairs of Lightening Claws, and yet my Terminator equivalents proved to be the VIPs of the game. Granted he did not roll good at all with Deepstriking and reserve rolls and by turn 5 there was so little on the board for him he just decided to coincide. For G and his SM it wouldn't have probably been better not to assault the Lychguard with a single HQ and to not deepstrike his Terminators. If it were me I would have had Clagar call in his Orbital Bombardment and have him attached with the Assault Terminators as an unstoppable melee force. I think if he would have done these things, realized that I am Initiative 2 across the board so he should always take advantage of that, and realized the threat of Scarabs to vehicles, he would have surely tabled me or at least the game would have been much more interesting. This game I realized that my Necron HQ's are more of "support" HQ's rather than like normal HQ's that could stand their own in certain aspects; mine cannot and should always be attached to a squad. This game was very one sided but not because of units and their abilities, but thorough tactical errors in my honest opinion.

  

Analysis- Named characters should not be brought into games of 1,000 points. For the most part they are very expensive and it is rather difficult to get the full worth out of them. G should have kept his lightning claw terminators with Calgar instead of trying to deep strike them, maybe even make them thunder hammer termies for the extra punch and survivability. He should have also upgraded his tacs and venerable with missile launchers and flamers. Blast weapons cause 2x wounds to units ike scarabs. It probably wouldn't have hurt Calger to get put into challenges with Imotekh either. This game is also a lesson in concentating your combat power against one unit of Necrons at a time instead of spreading it through multiple units. That's all I got for this game, good one though!