Honorguard are afraid of the dark? (GK vs Necron Batrep)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had the opportunity to play in a 2K tournament on Sunday.  My first round was a lucky, but convincing win against an SW list.  My list was:

Draigo
Paladins (5) with DH x2, Halberd x2, Pyscannon x2, and Banner
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
GKSS (5) with Pyscannon and Pysback with SL
Venerable Rifleman
Rifleman Dread
Stormraven with TLMM and TLPC and SL
Dread Calgar with Teleporter

The tournament itself was a three-round tournament with each of the three deployments. The objectives for each round were the same: three sieze ground objectives, two capture and control objectives, and KPs. Winning an objective was worth 10 points, draws were worth 5, and losses 0 for a max of 30 points per round. I didn't get army lists from my opponents so I am going from memory.

Round 2
Deployment: Pitched Battle

For the second round, I was paired off against a Newcron player with an interesting list.  He was still in the process of finishing his army, so he was lacking some of what I would consider the harder units in the codex.  His list was:

Stormlord
3 Lords with Scythe and Res Orb
1 Transmorg Cryptek with Harp
20 Warriors with Ghost Ark
20 Warriors
20 Warriors
5 Lychguard with Scythes
7 Deathmarks
1 Heavy Destroyer and 3-4 Destroyers


When I looked at his list, there wasn't really much that scared my list too much.  He only had three troops, so he would have a hard time taking enough objectives, especially since I had mobility and a larger number of units.  I figured I would be able to pick most of my fights, and as long as I hit the Warrior blocks with multiple units, I should be able to wreck them in CC.  He had VERY little in the way of actual anti-mech, so I felt comfortable staying in my boxes and whittling him down.  As long as I did not allow the Lychguard to get into combat and did not end up in Rapid Fire range of multiple Warrior blobs, I was confident that I could get a win.  My only real concern was Stormlord's nightfight/lightning... I don't like the dark.  The board setup was lots of ruins/area terrain with a mix of big and small pieces and looked like this:

The yellow circles represent the Sieze Ground objectives and the red represent the C&C.  I labelled a few of the main pieces of terrain as reference points.  I was able to make the DK and Dreads scoring with Grand Strategy, and I won the roll to go first.  I deferred to him because I wanted to be able to contest objectives on the last turn, and nightfight would make the first shooting phase uneventful anyway.  He deployed blocks of Warriors with Lords on both his C&C objective and the sieze ground objective on his side of the board.  He placed the other block with Stormlord and Lord above Building 2 with the Ghost Ark in front for cover.  He deployed the Deathmarks with Cryptek on top of Building 4 and deployed the Destroyers and Lychguard above Building 1.  I don't think he wanted to bother with deepstriking Deathmarks with all the Warpquakes I could put out.  That and he wouldn't have been able to attach the Cryptek.

When I saw his deployment, I decided I would focus on the two objectives closest to my side and use the Stormraven or Calgar to contest his C&C objective at the end of the game.  That would leave his Deathmarks and two Warrior blocks with nothing to shoot at for most of the game.  I could then focus my firepower on the Destroyers and Lychguard while the Pallies and Calgar camped the objective near Building 2.  Because I did not feel like having my MSU army eat Mind Lightning all game, I decided I would go all reserve... except Draigo.  The Pallies would not need his protection against anything but the Heavy Destroyer Lascannon, so I wanted him on the board for the +1 to reserves.  I put him in Building 3 out of LOS from everything.  I held everything else in reserve, and had the Pallies ride in the SR.  My opponent then "marked" Draigo with his Deathmarks as that was the only thing on the board.  I don't know if that was right or not, but he was happy with it and I figured it wouldn't matter.

Turn 1
He moved the Destroyers and Lychguard forward into Building 1 while the Stormlord blob and Ghost Ark moved towards Building 2.  Lightning did nothing... and neither did I.

Turn 2
He rolled a one for his nightfight, so the storm ended.  My all reserve strategy paid off!  He shuffled the Destroyers and Lychguard further into Building 1 while the Stormlord blob settled in on the objective near Building 2. 

I rolled for reserves and got everything but the Stormraven, Calgar, and a Razorback were all scared of the dark.  I rolled a Razorback in on the right near my C&C objective along with one of the Dreads (I forget which), while the other two Razors and Dread worked up the middle, hugging Building 3 to get cover from the Cryptek.  I poured everything into the Destroyers and killed a couple of regulars.  I was shocked at how much fire they were able to absorb. 

Turn 3
He stayed put with the Destroyers and Lychguard and moved the Stormlord blob and Ghost Ark right up to the 24" line and hunkered down on the objective.  Shooting from the Cryptek took the weapon off of one of the center Razors (I forgot about the AP -, so it should have been a Stunned) and reduced its AV by one.  The Destroyers shook another Razor who would pass his Fortitude test next turn. 

The rest of my reserves came in, so I tried to set myself up for a big Turn 4.  I turboed the Raven to the 24" line right below Building 2, and the DK took a 12" move and run to follow as close as he could to the Stormlord blob.  The Razor from reserve rolled in 6" near the center of the board, I think.  The weaponless Razor moved around Building 3 towards the center objective and popped smoke.  I moved the other Razors forward 6" and hopped a GKSS out of the Razor still near Building 3 and Draigo so they could help shoot at Destroyers.  The TLMM from the Raven blew up the Ghost Ark and killed a few Warriors, but they all got back up.  Shooting brought the Destroyer squad down to one regular Destroyer, but I couldn't finish off the last one--so another one got back up. 

Turn 4
He moved his Destroyers and Lychguard forward towards the dismounted GKSS.  The Destroyers killed a couple of the dismounted GKSS with shooting and prepared to charge.  The Stormlord blob shuffled to get a shot with the Stormlord's staff (which I completely forgot about!) on the Raven and Calgar.  He also declared he was rapid firing with the blob.  The beam did not reach my DK, but still proceeded to Immobilize and Wreck my Raven.  I made ANOTHER mistake here as I forgot about the Warriors being relentless and hopped the Pallies out right in front of the Raven, thinking they wouldn't be able to charge.  Oops!  He assaulted the Pallies and dismounted GKSS and I got Hammerhand off with both.  The GKSS killed one Destroyer which may or may not have gotten back up (I can't remember).  The Warrior battle was bloody... I lost several wounds, but killed a lot of Warriors.  Stormlord managed to bounce a couple of S10 DHs off of his invulnerable to stay alive.  I won combat, but he stuck and got a few Warriors back.

Uh Oh!  My Pallies were now tarpitted and I had lost one of the two units that might be able to contest his C&C objective.  I dismounted the GKSS from the Razor closest to the rightmost objective and moved them towards the Stormlord/Pally scrum.  I hopped Calgar where he would be be able to charge in and support the fight.  Draigo came out of hiding and set up to countercharge into the Destroyer melee.  Shooting wiped the Lychguard out.  In the assault I took out the Destroyers and Warrior blob.  I also managed to kill the Stormlord.  However, the Stormlord and Lord BOTH got back up and hopped back into combat (not sure if this was right).  So now I had to kill them both again and because the Lord still had an Orb, they could take another 4+ Everliving roll next turn.

Turn 5
Nothing much happened with shooting as the Harp missed, and a few Gauss shots pinged off of a Razorback.  Assault saw Calgar, the Pallies, and the GKSS kill the Stormlord and Lord again.  If they stayed down I could get Calgar out of combat and shunt him over to contest my opponent's C&C objective.  If either of them got back up, I would be screwed... but he failed both.  I took the consolidation move to get Calgar closer while the Pallies settled onto the objective.

On my Turn 5, I shunted/ran Calgar to within range of the Necron C&C objective.  If my opponent had spread out his Warrior blob, he might have been able to keep me from getting within 3", but he didn't think about it.  I also started rolling everything I could towards the objective incase Calgar went down.  Any left over shooting I had went into Deathmarks and I killed a few.  I rolled to see if the game ended and it continued!

Turn 6
He didn't have a lot of options at this point.  He basically unloaded the Deathmarks and two Warrior blobs into Calgar and some heroic saves left him alive with a wound remaining.  Woot!

I pretty much had it in the bag no matter what at this point.  I kept Calgar within contesting distance and also got the weaponless Razor and GKSS within range.  Shooting might have killed the Deathmarks and Cryptek, but I don't remember.  I elected not to charge the Warrior Blob on the C&C objective with Calgar as that many Warriors with a Lord could easily take down his last wound, leaving me up a creek.  Now he would have to kill three units, including a vehicle to hold the objective.  However, the game ended anyway.  I had two Sieze Ground Objectives, my C&C objective (and contested his), and more KPs so I received another full 30 point win.

Summary
To be honest, I played a VERY sloppy game and I am lucky it didn't come back to bite me.  I think I made the right call on going full reserve, as I avoided all the lightning/nightfight shenanigans.  However, I should have pushed his objective harder and probably sent Calgar and a Razor that way immediately.  Even had I remembered the Stormlord's staff, I would have probably still moved the Raven up to the same spot.  I needed the Pallies stuck in with that blob.  I definately should have been smarter about how I piled them out though.  I really didn't need the DK over there, and should have sent another GKSS instead.  That would have removed the possibility of getting tarpitted there and not being able to contest his objective. 

I also should have done my last turn slightly different and made it harder for him to have multi-charged if it went into a Turn 7.  It would have been tough for him to use his remaining 2-3 units (can't remember if I killed the Deathmarks completely) to take another T6 2+/5++ wound off of Calgar, kill 5 GKSS guys, and take out an AV10/10/9 Razorback that moved 12".  However, it was still possible, with 20 guys there.  He could have used the Warrior blob on the Sieze Ground objective to kill Calgar while the Deathmarks whittled down the GKSS and his other Warrior blob charged the Razorback and GKSS guys.  I would knock off a few warriors, but I think the 35+ attacks left would have still got the job done. 

In any case, he still was fighting an uphill battle the whole game.  I had major advantages in mobility, range, and CC on him, and he had almost no way to deal with all of my mech.  At the end of the day, that was enough to allow me to win while not playing my best.  So going into the final round I was tied with another guy with 60 points, but I had a pretty sizeable VP advantage on him (tiebreaker)  So next up: Vulkan Marines!