Once again I find myself gloating over a Necron victory. That’s two in a row now and I’m beginning to believe that the Necrons aren’t such an uncompetitive army as I had first thought. The Necron Wraith Wing was pivotal in the victory and this time they were still standing at the end of the battle despite being in the thick of the fighting.

My opponent, Adrian, was fielding a Dark Angel Space Marines and this time the army size was 1750 points. So how did I spend the extra 250 points? Well I gave the Necron Lord even more wargear in the shape of a phase shifter and Warscythe making him a 210 point character. ( Just about legal, the codex says that the Lord can replace his Staff of light with a warscythe and have 100 points of war gear). I also added a squad of three heavy destroyers to deal with any heavy armour and I swapped out a squad of 10 Necron warriors for 5 Pariahs. I had a few points left so I was able to increase the scarabs to a squad of 8 to make a total of 1747 points.

Now the most debatable change to the list was the Pariahs. They’re expensive and they’re not Necrons so they dont have the ‘we’ll be back rule’. They also affect the phase out number adversely, so the general advice is dont take them. Well I ignored this because on the positive side they have the same fire power as immortals but they carry warscythes so they can be devastating in close combat and they push down the enemies leadership to seven whilst being fearless themselves. On that basis, I thought that I would give them a chance.

The enemy consisted of 1750 points of Dark angels, which as I remember consisted of the following: 2 razorbacks with two 5 man combat squads embarked, 2 dreadnoughts, 5 terminators, An assault squad led by a Chaplain, A six man bike squad with an attack bike, a devastator squad and a spare squad of marines. The mission was a three objective spearhead set up so rather than go through turn by turn I thought I would take you through how each squad did.

To start with the scarabs did what they do best, turbo boost straight at the enemy gun line finishing just about 14 inches away so that it’s clear they cant be assaulted but licking their lips at the prospect of jumping the devastator squad. Well that sort of thing tends to concentrate the mind, so my opponent had little choice other than to try and shoot the little buggers before they chewed him up. So half of his army opened up on the scarabs. They survived , of course and piled into his devatators. They weren’t going to win the combat but they were going to tie the squad up for a couple of turns and stop them knocking over my troops.

While this was going on my Heavy destroyers stayed well out on the flanks picking off his armour. During the course of the battle, they accounted for one of the dreadnoughts, a razorback and two terminators for no loss to themselves.

The two squads of necrons were holding two of the three objectives, whilst the Immortals & Pariahs advanced on the third objective. They cleared the marines from this objective with shooting alone but I was holding them back as I expected the terminators to deep strike into the rear of my army. I wasn’t disapointed and on turn three in they came. It was at this point that the battle would be won or lost. The situation was that The wraith wing had jumped the marine assault squad and were gradually chewing through them, the Dark angels bike squad were engaged in close assault with one of my necrons squads on one objective and the other objective was now threatened by the terminators and a marine squad in a razorback. Fortunately the terminators scattered towards the Pariahs so Adrian had a simple choice. Shoot at the necron squad and clear the objective but then be assaulted by the Pariahs or try to kill the pariahs first. He went for the Pariahs & killed two and the remainder failed their morale check and so retreated from the battlefield…not so good. However, this left the Terminators open to rapid fire from the necrons. So all my unengaged necrons opened fire, That’e 16 shots from the Necron squad, 20 shots from the immortals & three shots form the heavy destroyers. Under this weight of fire the terminators were wiped out. Even better, on my turn the flayed ones came on and wiped out the bike squad in combat! The crisis was over for the Necrons. They continued to hold two objectives and the Flayed ones and the wraith wing & necron lord were going through the Marines squad by squad in close combat. One of the Wraith squads was assaulted by the last Dreadnought but even under this fearsome attack, the wraiths survived, their high initiative and invulnerable saves saw them gradually dismantle the dreadnought piece by piece…nice!

So will I keep the Pariahs? For the time being, yes. Although they were easily shot to pieces, they posed such a threat that they attracted fire whilst the rest of my army could get on with the job of killing everything else. That said, I might be tempted to substitute them for another tooled up Necron Lord……….

Ok for those of you who haven’t heard of Douglas Bader, he was a World War Two spitfire ace with 22 victories to his credit. Incredibly, Bader had lost both of his legs in a flying accident in 1931 but despite this set back, recovered, retrained and fought in the Second World War with ‘tin legs’. A truly remarkable man who overcame incredible obstacles throughout his career. If you want to know more, have a look at Wickopedia on the subject. I like the summary of his character:

“Bader was considered to be an inspirational British hero of the era. His brutally forthright, dogmatic and often highly opinionated views (especially against authority) coupled with his boundless energy and enthusiasm inspired adoration and frustration in equal measures with both his subordinates and peers.”

Sounds like my sort of hero! So whats all that got to do with Necrons? Well avoiding bad jokes about his tin legs qualifying him as an honorary Necron, Bader was a believer in the ‘Big Wing’ theory, which basically meant that instead of sending Spitfire squadrons up piece meal to attack the incoming German raids in hit and run style, you should send up everything at once in a large formation and hit the enemy in one big battle. So with this in mind, I had decided to rewrite my necron Army list. I was going to be playing a Tau Army and I wanted something nasty to cause problems in the Tau firing line. I had heard that the ‘big wing’ formation for the Necrons is two squads of Wraiths, led by a Destroyer Lord with Res. Orb.

So the complete army of 1500 points was Destroyer Lord + Res. Orb, 2 squads of three wraiths, a unit of 7 scarabs, 3 squads of 10 Necrons, one squad of 10 flayed ones and 10 Immortals.

The theory being that the scarabs turbo boost towards the enemy attracting suppressing fire ( their turboboost & swarm size give them a 2+ cover save….nice!), the Lord & Wraith squads also charge forward in concert, the lords Resurrection Orb providing protection from heavy fire & the Wraiths 3+ invulnerable save keeping enough of them alive for the next round. Add to that, the flayed ones are going to flank attack, so if my opponent is sitting at the rear of the board there’s a good chance that they are going to pile into his gun line. Of course, while all of this nastiness is going on, the 3 Necron squads will be advancing implacably, ( all within 6 inches of each other, so we’ll be back means that even if one squad goes down, there’s still another nearby for casualties to join) whilst being supported by the Immortals.

So how did it all work in practice? It worked beautifully. As I said, I was playing a Tau army and the set up was Dawn of war with each of us defending and objective. The Tau seized initiative & went first but this turned out to be an advantage as it let me see their disposition and took the sting out of the first round of fighting. The Tau have little to shoot at, so they whittle away at the nearest Necron squad & knock down 6, of which 2 get up. Necrons to move. So Scarabs turbo boost towards the Fire warriors, The Big Wing of Wraiths move out towards the core of his army, everything else moves and then runs under the cover of darkness……

Second turn, the Tau open fire but there’s too much to shoot at! The scarabs are already about to assault, the Big wing of Wraiths looks very threatening and the Necron Phalanx has made it clear that it’s going to take the opponents objective. So the Tau open up with everything but I get very lucky with the saving throws on the scarabs & Wraiths and only lose a squad of necrons.

Half of which get up and join the nearest unit to form a mega squad of 13 necrons. Second move for the necrons, Scarabs into combat with a squad of Stealth suits, Big Wing of wraiths now right into the Tau army ( with hind sight I should have turbo boosted these as they would have been into assault by now), Necron Phalanx move & fire and the nearest Kroot are either dead or running and joy of joys, the flayed ones are on assaulting the nearest broadside battle suit. To paraphrase Corporal Jones, the Tau ‘dont like it up ’em!’

Tau turn three and the Tau finally focus everything on the Big Wraith Wing. helped by three crisis suits that have turned up in deep strike, 4 Wraiths go down and the Lord suffers two wounds, leaving him vulnerable to further rail gun hits. One small problem for the Tau through, The Necron Phalanx is untouched and so to turn three for the Necrons. At this point I made a mistake and split the wraith wing. Of the four that went down, two got up again and so I sent two wraiths to deal with the Crisis suits whilst the lord and two wraiths assaulted a fire warrior squad. As it happens, the crisis suits beat the wraiths in combat and the Lord was left with just one Fire warrior to deal with after the nearby Necron phalanx had rapid fired so by splitting my Big Wraith wing I caused it’s demise. I’ll never do that again! However, the Flayed ones had skinned their first broadside and were now advancing on the second, whilst the necron Phalanx had dealt out a fearsome amount of firepower, killing another kroot squad & a firewarrior squad.

Tau turn four and now things are looking bleak. The Necrons are tying down some of his best units in close assault, limiting the amount of fire power at the Tau’s disposal. Add to this, the fact that the Necron phalanx is close enough to choose to assault or rapid fire and there’s no where to hide and the Tau are beginning to crumble. If there is a Tau Corporal Hicks you would hear him saying ‘it’s game over man, we’re history’ in true Aliens style. So the Tau try to redeploy and fire with what they can. The last of the Wraiths go down, along with the Lord and just a couple of warriors and a couple of flayed ones. Necron turn four, the lord gets up again! so it’s back into combat and into the Tau commander! Meanwhile, down go a squad of Pathfinders under fire from the Necron Phalanx. The Phalanx is also now taken the enemy objective and pushed or killed all the Kroot & firewarriors defending it. The Flayed ones have caught up with the last Broadside suit and the scarabs, which have finished chewing up the stealth suits have launched a cheeky assault on the squad of crisis suits!

So to Tau turn five…….nothing left to fire other than a Hammerhead & the burst cannon on the remaining devil fish. Time to try a desperate attempt to contest the objective by flying the devil fish into the danger zone. Necron turn five and the devil fish is toasted leaving the last five fire warriors sitting outside the wreck. The Tau commander is history although the scarabs have now been killed. The Immortals aving safely shepherded the Necron warriors to the enemy objective manage to stun the Hammerhead. The Tau are in big trouble and hoping for no turn six…….unfortunately there is a turn six, so after a pretty ineffectual turn of shooting & the resolution of the remaining assaults, theres not a lot for the Necrons to do other than mop up that last fire warrior team and the game ends with a resounding Necron victory!

Well it’s about time that I had a win with my Necrons, having spent the last month getting beaten to a pulp. So I will bask in my victory for the rest of the week! The new army list worked a treat and although the Wraith Big Wing didn’t actually kill very much, it attracted so much fire that the rest of the army could advance and do it’s job….relentlessly killing the opposition. To be fair, it’s an army designed to beat the Tau. How it will fair against troops with a tougher assault capability remains to be seen. That said, I’ve learnt my lesson, dont split the big wing, overkill is better than no kill and if the Wraiths get pulled out of position, they have a 24 inch turbo boost move to get back to the battle. So the Douglas Bader Big Wraith Wing flys again!