Ancient Enemies

Instead of the fourth age of man campaign (which seemed to be going down in popularity) this saturday the store was holding a mini gamesday in preperation for the main thing (I have to tell you I have been to the main thing and I would advise you all not to waste your money! Go somewhere free like Milton Keynes Campaign they are far better... oh yeah and the models are the same... but cheaper!). There was a scrap demon challenge and an armies of parade clinic, but myself and A from tale of two gamers arrived after all this for the Big Apocalypse game! I had originally been playing tennis so I had said I wasn't coming but my partner cancelled so we caught the bus to the store with our fully painted eldar units.

The game was a smaller version of their Gamesday game which the store will be hosting.
Here are the lists:

The Wraiths of Iyanden
Yriel of Iyanden
Farseer with 3 warlocks
Farseer with 3 warlocks
10 wraithguard with 1 spiritseer
10 wraithguard with 1 spiritseer
10 wraithguard with 1 spiritseer
10 wraithguard with 1 spiritseer
10 wraithguard with 1 spiritseer
10 wraithguard with 1 spiritseer
6 Harlequins (my unit)
Wraith lord
Wraith lord
Wraith lord
Wraith lord
Wraith lord
Wraith lord
Warp hunter (A's)

I had originally planned to come along and join in with some of the wraith units in the first part of the hour before I left for the bus, but then I realised that I had some Harlequins in my Dark Eldar force so I brought them along.

A brought along his forge world warp hunter with the Doom of Mymera rules (which are written by a lady who looks like she would tell you to be quiet in Sainsburys). Its a very very nasty tank that can do alot of damage... I can't remember if I've faced it before...

The necron force was basically the two staff member's necrons put together with a few detachments from some customers.
The Necrons of the tomb world
Overlord
Overlord
Overlord
Illuminor Szeras
Destroyer lord
C'tan shard of the deciever
Triarch stalker
10 lychguard
10 immortals
10 immortals
10 immortals
10 immortals
10 immortals
15 necron warriors
15 necron warriors
15 necron warriors
12 scarab swarms
Doomsday ark
Annihilation barge
Annihilation barge
Annihilation barge
3 canoptek wraiths
Canoptek spider
Canoptek spider
Canoptek spider
Doomsday cannon
Megolith

The Necron force was gigantic compared to our small army, but we were far more elite and ready to take on anything they threw at us. In the centre of the Necron army was teh huge Megolith! It followed all the normal rules for a monolith except that it had three structure points and allot more nasty stuff. We had two hours to play. Our objective was to destroy five of the eight pillars that were feeding power to the megolith (each pillar counted as an armour twelve vehicle... and to make it worse... they all got we'll be back!) whilst still leaving at least one model on the field.

As our wraith hordes advanced we felt confident of an easy victory. Turn one had seen us blast down a pillar which had not returned, and the D cannon on the warp hunter had opened up killing two lychguard and wrecking the Triarch stalker... in turn one! However the necron barage was more damaging than expected and the Doomsday cannon (firing an apocalypse template) blasted apart swathes of the wraith guard. We suddenly began to feel allot less confident...

The Necron forces began to close on us with the scarabs, Lychguard and canoptek spiders taking the lead along with the three overlords. My small gun line of six wraith guard and a spirit seer sood firm and true with the Harlequins dashing out along their right flank and my wraith lord firing from behind the wraiths.

I then sent my harlequins in for the charge, they dashed in to combat taking out nine scarab swarms before being annihilated by a rear charge from the lychguard.

Our thin yellow line was holding back the swarm of necrons whilst our wraith lords opened fire on the last pillars (we had already destroyed three pillars and kneeded just two more to win) with a barage of bright lance fire.

With the monolith spawned from the megolith and our line crumbling away fast, we quickly opened fire on the last pillars with all our bright lances blazing! My wraith lord took down one pillar and one of the others took down another. However this was the last turn and there was still a chance that one of them or both of them may pass their we'll be back tests. So we decided to take down another with the Warp hunter's D cannon... but we were told by one of the staff that it could not fire this turn as we had contested one of the rules. Now I may get a bit side tracked here as we all know that bending the rules to suit a better reality is much approved if not encouraged, but this sort of rule bending could be described as competitive in the extreme! However rant aside it made no difference and both of the pillars failed their we'll be back roles. With twenty minutes left we concluded that our policy of holding the dire avengers back on the very far boad edge secured us victory, though a narrow one.

In the spirit of the gamesday ocassion there was a raffle at the end. For every ten pounds you had spent you got two tickets. I had decided not to enter as my money is reserved for Rupert's royalist cavalry force and if I were to get anything mad by Games workshop then Wayland games or Wargames emporium sell it for much cheaper (do not fear Games workshop will not go out of business if we stop buying, they make a 76% gross margin so they can easily cut their prices to get us interested in it again). But as our side had won the game we all got two free tickets, and as my tale of two gamers partner had bought a hobby drill and got two tickets from it we decided to stay.

Up for grabs was five mystery bags (later revealed as a unit of savage orcs, a drednought, a tau skimmer, five lychguard and something else), a fully painted copy of dread fleet, a large bag of eldar and the necron terrain set (basically the necrony pieces of terrain from todays game, plus the megolith and Doomsday cannon).

In the draw I was some how called out?! and the five lychguard were mine. I'm not quite sure how this happened... and I don't think the chap with sixty tickets who didn't get a think was either...

Anyway a good game that you are never likely to play again (we worked out that the entire eldar army would cost you around £700).