DeathWing finally make an Appearance
I finally managed to get my army partially painted and assembled and got down to the local GW in time to get in a game. Scott offered to play against me with his Necrons, quickly put together a list and we got down to the game.

Game: 1315pts. Seize Ground (4 objectives) with Spearhead deployment.

Necrons
Scott had a Lord with Veil, The Deceiver, 2 squads of 13 Necrons, a squadron of 5 Destroyers and two separate Heavy Destroyers.

DeathWing
130 Belial w/Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield

160 Venerable Dreadnaught: Assault Cannon, SB/DCCW, Extra Armor

250 DeathWing Terminator Squad: SB/Powersword, AC/Pfist, SB/Chainfist, 2xSB/Pfist
245 DeathWing Terminator Squad: SB/Powersword, AC/Pfist, 3xSB/Pfist

265 LandRaider, Extra Armor
265 LandRaider, Extra Armor

1315 pts

Deployment

I circled the locations of the objectives for clarity.

Deployment
Scott won the roll to go first, so he picked a quarter and started setting up. He placed everything in a close phalanx behind some trees near his "home" objective.

I placed everything as close to the center as possible, with my first LandRaider just inches away from my home objective and facing toward another one, while the other LandRaider, my Dreadnaught and Belial all crouched in cover on the other side of the building.

After we had finished placing, the Deceiver moved the Destroyer squadron off to his left, bringing it into Line of Sight of my first LandRaider. Scott asked if I wanted to Seize The Initiative, but I wanted to see what he would do, so I declined.

Turn 1
N: 2 Necron Heavy Destroyers shoot at a LandRaider and manage to Immobilize it. Deceiver moves up behind the central building.

DW: I disembark the Terms from the immobilized LandRaider. Thinking in terms of keeping my army together, I disembark my other Terminators as well. Everything except the LandRaiders are out of range. 3 Godhammer shots and 6 Heavy Bolter shots zip downrange. 2 Dead Heavy Destroyers.

commentary: Bad move. I should have kept them in their LandRaider and made a beeline for the Lord+2 squads, letting the foot squad fend for itself. Instead, I compounded the problem of one immobilized LandRaider by effectively immobilizing the other one.

Turn 2
N: The Necron Lord Veils a squad behind the immobilized LandRaider. Destroyers kill 3 Terminators from Chainfist squad. The Deceiver assaults my Dreadnaught, blowing it up, which kills the sergeant from the second squad of Terminators.

DW: Everything charges the Deceiver. 3W to him, I lose 2 Terminators from the second squad. Both LandRaiders put their firepower downrange, killing 2 Destroyers.

commentary: T8 isn't too bad to powerfists, but invulnerable saves and 5W, plus I5 and MC attacks that _ignore invulnerable saves_ are definitely a big deal! Bad idea. Even though I hadn't realized quite how nasty the big D is, I still should have recognized that fighting him would get me nowhere. Even if I won, he would have badly damaged me, and I wouldn't be any closer to claiming objectives.

End of Turn 2

Turn 3
N: The veiled squad moves up and rapid-fires into the mobile LandRaider, stunning it. The Destroyers fire into the immobile LandRaider, but don't do any damage. Since Deceiver was hit by the Thunderhammer, he attacks at the same time as my powerfists. He kills 2 Terminators (the last of that squad) and takes 1 Wound in return.

DW: The mobile LandRaider backs into the veiled squad, but they just move out of the way. It fires it's Lascannon sponson and manages to hit, but fails to wound. The immobile LandRaider fires into the Destroyers again, killing another one. Since the Deceiver had avoided being injured by Belial's Thunderhammer last turn, he attacked at I5, killing the remainder of the Terminators and Belial himself. At this point, my opponent asked if I wanted to end the game there and I conceded. While the LandRaiders could still contest and damage units (for now) The Deceiver and Necron shooting would quickly fix that, and he still had 2 units that could claim objectives.

commentary: Scott definitely didn't want to shred my army like that, and I could tell he felt badly about it. He even said that if he'd realized what a small army I had, he wouldn't have included the Deceiver. Frankly, it was my fault I got shellacked, so no worries there. As far as the Deceiver goes, I was actually glad for the experience. I'm going to face stuff like him with this army, and I apparently needed the wake-up call.

End of the Game

Final Score: DW concedes, but it would have been Necrons claim 1 objective and are contested at another. (At that point, he could have gotten a much higher score if we had continued.)

Experience is What You Get When You Don't Get What You Want
I learned a few things from this game. The first thing is not to charge the Deceiver! Hehe, more specifically, I don't have to charge the big guys. The Deceiver only moves 6 inches per turn, which is the same speed my slowest units move. I could have spent the whole game walking away from him and shooting at Necron Warriors.

My opponent's advice afterward was to "Make the Deceiver commit. Go to one side or the other. When he moves to chase you, go the other direction." He had some other advice, most of which were things that I have heard before and had even planned to do (but then didn't.)

The first was to walk around the table. By physically changing location you get a different view of the board and _literally_ change your perspective. In doing so, it helps you put the various situations on the board in perspective. (Sure, you are losing that assault badly, but that unit around the corner will be able to rapid-fire the enemy when they win, and your other squad is taking an objective.)

Similarly, don't plan ahead. Many players will plan what their moves will be during their opponent's turn, so that they can save time. While that's very useful to a large army player (such as Tyranids) I don't have that many models to move now, so I can afford to take more time. As Scott pointed out, when you make plans like that, you tend to stick to those plans, even if later events during your opponent's turn change the situation drastically. By not having a plan, you aren't stuck to one idea and can choose freely.

The final one was the most basic. Remember the objective. This was an objective-based mission. As long as I could claim one more objective than my opponent, regardless of how much of our armies were left, I would win. I didn't need to kill the Deceiver to win. If at the end of the game I had a single Terminator standing on an objective while an immobilized LandRaider contested a Necron objective, I'd win. Basically, it all boiled down to thinking and not getting stuck on one plan of action.

What are my Options?
I restarted this army to have a thinking army. I wanted to be able to have each unit have lots of options and be able to choose the best each turn. Instead, I went back to old habits and kept my army together, when it would have been better to let them separate. I played like a Tyranid!

There are definitely some things I could have done better this game. First, I should have moved the mobile LandRaider past the Deceiver and toward the (at the time) Lord and 2 squads on that side. My other squad should have moved diagonally away from the Deceiver and fired into the Destroyers, while the Dreadnaught and Belial should have moved sideways (same side as the mobile LandRaider) away from the Deceiver to lend their firepower in support against the 2 Troops squads. The Deceiver would have had to choose which way to go, and my Terminator squads would have certainly gotten away. Next week I may end up putting together sort of an "armchair general" version of this game, based on what might have happened if I had thought a bit more.

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