2,000pts Imperial Guard vs Necrons
Necrons
Anrakyr
Catacomb Command Barge
1x Cryptek – Harbinger of Destruction, Solar Pulse
Necron Overlord – Mindshackle Scarabs, Phase Shifter, Warscythe, Weave
Catacomb Command Barge
1x Cryptek – Harbinger of Destruction, Solar Pulse
5x Warriors
5x Warriors
5x Warriors
5x Warriors
10x Canoptek Scarabs
6x Canoptek Wraiths – 3x Whip Coils, 1x Particle Blaster (Raveners)
5x Canoptek Wraiths – 3x Whip Coils, 1x Particle Blaster (Raveners)
3x Canoptek Spyders – Claw Array, Gloom Prism
Doom Scythe (Vendetta)
Doom Scythe (Vendetta)
Imperial Guard
Lord Commissar – Camo Cloak, Power Fist
Platoon Command Squad – 4x Flamers
Infantry Squad – Lascannon, Power Weapon
Infantry Squad – Lascannon, Power Weapon
Infantry Squad – Lascannon, Power Weapon
Infantry Squad – Lascannon, Power Weapon
Infantry Squad – Lascannon, Power Weapon, Commissar w/Power Weapon
10x Penal Legions
10x Rough Riders – Power Weapon (Chaos Seekers)
2x Sentinels – 2x Autocannons, 2x Search lights
2x Leman Russ Demolisher – Hull Heavy Bolter
2x Leman Russ Executioner – Hull Heavy Bolter, Plasma Cannon Sponsons
2x Leman Russ Russ – Hull Heavy Bolter, Heavy Bolter Sponsons
Jy2 Challenged my Leman Russ IG which I had recently won an RTT with, to a battle with his excellent Threat Overload Necrons. Jy2 and I have a history of fighting some really good games, and I was expecting this to be no different.
Crons have schooled Necrons in our test games, and I assumed I would be fighting an uphill battle, that plus Jim is an excellent player.
Here are our pre-game thoughts:
Necrons (Jim:)
I don’t think guards will stand a chance! My crons are going to rape them. I’m going to pull out so many shenanigan moves that his guardsmen won’t be able to sit down for a week due to all the burt-hutt. 
Just kidding. Nothing like a good trash-talking to buildup our friendly rivalry. 
Reece’s guards is a most unusual army indeed. Then again, so are my necrons. In fact, we are both “anti-meta” armies in that both of our armies make most of the current pre-dominant AT useless.
But honestly, I think Reece will have his hands full. I’ve got 7 very fast threats waiting to alpha strike him – 2 lords on command barges, 2 doom scythes, 2 wraiths and my scarabs. Under the cover of 2 turns of Night-fight (3 counting Dawn of War deployment) and he won’t be able to shoot me down in time. With only 1 searchlight, he may at most wipeout 1 unit a turn. That just isn’t enough. He’s going to have to count on tarpitting me with his super tarpit blob-squad, which I suspect is what he will do. However, if anything, I will tarpit his blob squad with my scarabs first, thus giving free reign to my wraiths to wreak havoc on the rest of his army.
My opponent will have an interesting dilemma. Should he spread out his tanks or castle them up? If he castles them up, he can screen them out with his blob squad. If he spreads them out, he won’t be able to blob up to protect then. In that case, my guys will just go through his screening units like a hot knife through butter. I suspect he will spread them out to make me chase after them. But honestly, I’d probably just ignore them and go kill his troops.
Sentinels will deploy on the board with the rest of the army. It would be foolish to outflank them because I will already be on his units by Turn 2. The unit I really have to watch out for will be his rough riders. Those sneaky guys will be going after my weaker troops. Bah, let them. They will be able to kill 1 at most before I shoot them down with my other warriors.
To tell the truth, I think IG will be the underdog this game. They will only get 1 turn of good shooting before my crons are upon them. My army is just too fast and too many.
Now let’s see if Reece can make me eat my own words come game day. 
Imperial Guard: (by Reecius)
It will come down to who strikes first.
As so often happens with IG, the first roll to see who goes first is the most important. If I can strike him before he hits me, I will do massive damage.
With Searchlights on my Sentinels, I have a chance to cut through the Solar Pulse on one key unit per turn. So, we’ll see!
This is obviously a unique IG list, means to spoil the meta game, but this will be a great test of its worth, as Scarab Farm lists tend to dominate IG (I play one myself!)
I think that so long as I can get my searchlights in place to take out key units early game, I will be fine. If not, it will be a tough battle. The Rough Riders will struggle with Wraiths, but they will be great for hunting down the little MSU scoring units.
If I can not cut through night fight, and Jim pulls off an alpha strike with his Night Scythes, and a charge with Wraiths and Scarabs, I am in deep $#!+!
pretty much the way id expect necrons vs guard to go, though honestly I was expecting the scarabs to end up doing the majority of the damage.
Yeah, my first turn of shooting was terrible. I know my list was not optimized, but that was kind of the point.
It was just so frustrating to see the dice take a crap on me like that. When combined with Jim being a top notch player with a great list, it doesn’t leave any room for bad luck!
Wow. Even the square dice failed you. Just wasn’t meant to be. Also, I assume this ‘Crons have schooled Necrons in our test games,’ to mean Crons have schooled Guard….
May want to fix that 🙂
Haha, yes, that is what I meant! Crons have taken guard to school in every game so far.
Yeah, Jim is very good, he played smart, and the dice crapped on me! Haha, just not my day.
Yeah. Don’t beat yourself up at all. I can see what you were going for. A lot of bad luck for your overall strategy.
Yeah, it happens. I like two things: experimenting with new lists and playing the best players I can.
That means I can and do lose games sometimes. I am OK with that, though.
That’s true. Having fun is the most important part, and you’ll always learn more from a loss than a win. I always come away from any loss with a hundred new ideas. 🙂
Thanks for the game, Reece.
I was kind of surprised that Reece deployed the way he did, castling up in the corner. From my experience, that usually isn’t somethine you want to do against my crons. I was kind of expecting Reece to split up his tanks, with his demolishers in the middle and the other 2 to the flanks. That’s why I deployed the way I did so that I could hit his tanks in the corners.
Luckily for me, I was able to recover from Reece’s refused flank deployment just because my vehicles are so mobile.
We did make 2 mistakes in the game. One was the combat between my wraiths and the blob squad. In that battle, I lost combat but that is because I forgot to count his Lord Commissar into combat res. Though I don’t think that would have made much of a difference to the outcome.
The 2nd mistake might have made a difference. Anrakyr fired his Tachyon Arrow and blew up a demolisher. I played that wrong as I shouldn’t have been able to fire after because I moved at cruising speed. Sorry about that Reece.
I’ll let you make it up to me the next time we play. 😉
No worries about the mistake, Jim. I look at that is payback for the rules goof I made in our last game. No worries.
I think my strategy was not too bad, I just needed to do more damage the first turn, and tie up your closest squad of Wraiths for a turn. Had I spread out, I could have gone after your easy KPs a bit more, but hey, I took a risk and it didn’t pan out. That’s the way it goes.
A VERY entertaining battle. I have played against the IG three times so far and each battle has yielded a win for me (the crons). Unfortunately it has been the scarabs and the night fighting which has won the battle for me each time. I am excited to see my IG friends overcome the scarab issue so I can start finding out what everything else does. lol
Also, I can now see why Doomscythes are good… the AV 11 always scared me, but when they’re a disguised threat like in this list, what can the player do? If they shoot down the scythe then the scarabs and wraiths on on them…. tough stuff.
Glad you enjoyed it! Definitely some interesting data to be had, and an informative game.
Yeah, Doom Scythes scare people quite a bit, but they aren’t the real threat in the list.
In all of our test games, IG have been on the losing side of the Necron/IG battles, but I think a lot of that will change with increased familiarity. I think Crons have the advantage, but in time, we’ll find ways to level the playing field.
In my opinion it is the perfect storm for the IG… Stormlord or other Night Fighting hijinks, combined with the scarabs, and some spyders for fun and suddenly it’s over before it began.
I tried out a Stormlord/Scarab Farm list based on your battle reports, but 2k and I started with 23 scarab bases… by the time my middle unit hit it was over 30 strong. The IG player did nuke it off the table before it hit his lines, but unfortunately there was another unit of (now 20) scarabs coming down his right flank.
I think the list would get crushed by Hordes, but I’m gunna try it.
Yeah, it was certainly a bad match-up, but that is OK. I don’t mind playing bad match-ups as they are good practice for tournaments when they can and do happen.
So… the FAQ ruling on targeting non-shooting attacks out of firing points… does that mean, JY2 can’t use Anrakyr like this anymore? Or…. does this not count open-topped as there are no fire points on open topped vehicles?