His librarian rolled on Pyromancy (as every good Salamander should) and rolled up Fiery Form and a flamer template witch fire. This was a relief, because I have very little in the way of tools to stop enemy psykers... Other than an abrupt, brutal death by Guass.
His librarian led the force, backed up by two five man marine squads and five Sternguard. Armour came in the form of a venerable Dreadnaught and a storm talon.
The scenario was objective based. Each player placed an objective in their own deployment zone, while a third occupied the very centre of the board (in our case, the central ruins). I chose to drop my objective behind a building near my board edge, upon which I would park my Tomb Blades for the best part of the game. My opponent placed his objective in area terrain near his Dreadnaught.
I deployed in a pretty central position. The board was pretty bare of terrain, so my goal was to cause as much damage as I could to his ground forces before the storm talon flew in and brought a hail of death to my army.
His first turn was largely uneventful, being out of range of all of my ground troops. His Sternguard snapped off a few Kraken bolts but with no results. When I took up the tape measure, I wasted no time in advancing up the battlefield, firing as they went. Because of his drawn-back deployment, my Stalker could not reach his Dreadnaught, but my Destroyers and Warriors unleashed death upon the Marines, the Librarian and his Sternguard bodyguard falling to the heavy fire of Destroyers, while the Warriors and Szeras obliterated the right hand squad guarding his Dread thanks to some incredibly lucky rolling.
Suffering horrendous losses so early in the game, my opponent was caught on his back foot and needed to pull some magic out of the bag. His Storm Talon arrived right on schedule and unloaded its formidable arsenal into the face of my stalker. The Assault cannon failed to achieve anything more than a glance, while the twin-linked Lascannon blasted the Heat Ray clean off the underbelly of the towering mechanical crab. With a single hull point remaining and no weapon, I was left with little choice but to skitter onto the central objective and hide in the ruins.
Illuminor and his minions, having lost the anti-tank support they were so used to relying on, let loose a barrage of guass upon the Dreadnaught, wrecking it with ease, while the Destroyers made short work of the last five marines behind a barricade. The tomb blades crept around the building in my backfield to try and damage the Talon but to no avail.
In the dying moments of the game, his talon flew directly toward my Blades in an attempt to drive me off an objective, but after only killing two, I passed my leadership check and returned fire with the Tomb Blades, who somehow (luck against luck) managed to score some lucky glancing hits and drop it out of the sky. In my mind, this completely justified my choice to select Guass blasters on them over the more popular but less versatile Particle Beamer. Having the ability to overwatch, snap-fire and target fliers allowed me to close out my third game with a third consecutive 20-0, putting me firmly at the top of the ladder, 13 points clear of the player in second. I was very happy with where I was, but after having three matchups that favoured my list, the fourth game was by far the toughest and most bloody.
Or whatever leaks out of Necrons when you cut them... Motor oil?
Looking back, I honestly don't know what I would have done if I had been in my opponent's shoes. I think without the mobility offered by vehicles or the masses firepower needed to take me on in a head to head firefight, he panicked a little and froze. His marines were sitting well back off his deployment line, armed with short-ranged flame and melta weapons that never got the chance to fire. I could tell after the game that he was pretty shattered, as this loss had pushed him down into the middle of the pack and out of podium contention. But as harsh as any loss is, we were all there to win, and we've all suffered heartbreaking defeat.
Onward to the final game.
Thanks for reading,
Gabriel
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