Okay so this was originally going to be a battle report but from the second turn I was on the back ropes and forgot to take photos or write anything down really. I will use some of the early photos to gain advice on how to handle a few situations.

I was against friend of mine Ben who tought me how to play epic. He was using his Tourny chaos army (that won the last winter warmer I believe) against my necrons and although it was his first time fighting the metallic nasties he played it really well.




My only tactical experience with the 'Crons was from my last game against a scattered marine force that I fought in sections. Ben had deployed his entire army very close together with some heavy firepower units on overwatch (To the left of the top picture). I only placed a few of my monolith units to his flank just to probe his defense as I was at a loss.




It turned out that he outranged me so I was unable to assault any of his units (If i had of tried I would of endured some overwatch then a ton of support). He wasted time with smaller units and out activation'ed me then managed to throw some meaty blows my way.

Should I have commited my whole force to one of his flanks and made a blood bath for both sides? I was thinking of including a unit of Miniliths (Obelisks) so I could have something to pepper defenders without commiting to assaulting or maybe the deciever to attack to disrupt dug in units...

He just stuck his forces tightly together blasting me with better fire power and had more activations each turn and ground my forces down. What should I have done?



Also not as big a problem...




When I placed my monolith (With no support) It instantly got terminated...

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Wow! Angor: You're in Bristol?! Wicked!! I'll be back in a few months: Al Cameron has got all my epic at the moment so you might have seen it...
Wouldn't worry about losing against Ben's Chaos force: he's been playing with those damed red Cads for a few years now and In my opinion he's become a little too good with them! I think even I've yet to give him a proper kicking in all the games that we've played in the past few years!
Anyway: guess I'll meet you soon: great to see that those Necrons have come out of the Westside!
Yrs,
R>

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Hello Man of Kent. If Al has been playing with your forces then I may have seen them although he is not around that much. Did you used to play at the Bristol Vangaurd? I am always happy to recieve a kicking from more experienced players so let me know when you are back, we were thinking of trying to run a campaign at some point and it would be good to have more players.

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Yeah...Vanguard is the club I'm at when I'm around. But last time I would have been down was 6 months ago I think! I'll be back after the summer though and a campaign is something that I've always been talking about too: probably Imperium Vs Chaos with random Nomadic Orks thrown in for fun on a narrative style but just a neverending tourney might be good too!
Al usually sticks with his wierd Ultramarine Army but you can flip through my painting Blog below to see some of the prettiness: won a few of Epic UK's best painted over the years but think I've been usurped by MageBoltRat's return to the scene now!
R>

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Cool!

We were thinking of a free for all style campaign set on a map fighting for lacations that would provide some minor boost to the holder. Its all speculation so far and if you have a idea for a campaign already it would probably be better to have a more experienced player to take the lead.

Let me know when you are back I would love a game.





On the other side of things... No one can comment on beating dug in foes with necrons?

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Peeling the onion is the standard tactic against static forces. Strip away the defenses a layer at a time with shooting and clipping engagements. Don't teleport in their face, teleport behind terrain. Draw out activations by activating monoliths etc to shoot first, and don't commit any real forces until he has nothing left ot activate. Any forces you do commit, make sure to get safely offboard before he gets a chance to nail them. If he sits on overwatch, let him. He'll have to make a run for objectives on turn 3, and then you should able to take him apart at ease, and should easily be in control of pretty much the whole table.

what ^ said

in addition, castling gives you the advantage as the longer he sits there, the less able he is to capture objectives, which is how the game is won. So, to make it even harder, take out his transports wherever possible. Sure, he can keep castling into the 2nd turn, but then he'll have to march with foot troops to even have a hope of getting his Take 'n' Hold objectives, let alone anything else. And if he tries for Defend the Flag (controlling all the objectives in his table half) all you have to do is get a unit within 15cm to contest to stop him getting it.

Plus, if you land in force (but out of LoS, like ZOmbocom said) on the edge of 1 flank, he'll either have to sit on his butt on overwatch on the other end, or start doubling over to deal with you, neither of which are ideal. Winning's all about making the other player do what he/she doesn't want to do, ideally to your advantage, so just think what would be the worst thing to make your opponent do and then try and get him to do it

oh, and take a pylon or 2, then he'll irrationally spend the whole game trying to destroy them

Sounds like it would be adviable to spread out the objectives as much as possible to make castling even more hard when trying to win the game aswell.

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Okay that seems like some pretty sound advice.

I think I will put together a unit of obelisks to have some long range transport killers. This way I can attack him without commiting to the fight.

I am finiding it really hard to squeeze another pylon into my list. Especially seeing as they dont really do that much.

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It's not their actual attacks that make Pylons "good", it's the psychological effect they have on most opponents, that is, extreme fear, that makes them good... they are probably the ultimate paper tiger in Epic:A. *laugh*

In my first game I found that the Pylon had some good fear effects but manily due to my opponent having flyers. This game there were no really juice targets for it to shoot and Ben had anything vaugely interesting will covered with scouts.

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How does things being covered with scouts make any difference to the pylon? They don't block line of sight unless they're war engines.

Pylons are useful even against Ground Targets. Because they can teleport, they can be placed on top of a hill but still at extreme range. If you are lucky enough to have WE's to shoot at it won't take long before your opponent comes a knockin'. Without WE's the motivation may be more subtle, but good placement on your part (or bad placement on his) could line you up to take out a Leman Russ or Land Raider or other valuable vehicle. If you have two Pylons, that is potentially two units per turn that are getting no save whatsoever, plus all associated BMs. It might even be worth it to split two Pylons up so they are on extreme ends of the table. He deals with one and suffers by the other, or splits his forces. Now the Pylons aren't the end-all be-all, but they do have something that the rest of your army doesn't have: range.

The castling strategy is a difficult one to overcome and I think the advice above is sound for most enemies. Beware Eldar who castle! Their quick move base and plethora of skimmers mean your Objective grab strategy won't work nearly as well. Best to try to place BMs on support formations as well as cause early casualties. I think the Necron would bounce back better than the Eldar would from an early all-out assault.

Equally, if pylons look like being more useful against air targets than land in a particular game, teleport/deploy it behind a building or somewhere else totally out of line of sight, to make it much harder for the opponent to break it.