When An Unstoppable Force Meets An Immovable Object...

...you get the BFS Winter League Finals!

Mike and his Chaos Space Marines                        Vs.                                                Me and my Necrons

 Such a high profile event attracted a crowd.

Preface:

Both Mike and I had gone undefeated in our respective divisions with a record of 5-0. Each of us then advanced past our divisional rivals to make it to the finals. This would be a match up of two perfect records. A true heavy weight bout. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Lets find out! To add to the suspense, the game was decided by one roll...

Mission:

Emperors Will (NOVA Preliminary)

The 4 corner objectives were in play for the primary goal. If you had all 4 it was worth 4 game points. If you simply had more objectives than your opponent it was worth 2 game points. If it was a tie on objectives you received 0 game points. Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord, and the Center Objective were each worth 1 game point. Tie breaker is Victory points

Preliminary rolls:

*Lists will be published soon.

He deployed his sorcerers with his 25 man squad. The sorcerers got pretty great powers. Sorc 1: Invisibility, Hallucination, Dominate and Sorc 2: Hallucination, Dominate and Mental Fortitude.

He also got d3 outflanking units as his Warlord Trait.

Coteaz rolled forewarning for a 4++ save to his squad and prescience.

Zandrekh got to reroll reserve rolls as his Warlord Trait.

Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

After winning the roll off I allowed Mike to go first hoping that I can utilize last turn objective grabbing.

My deployment. For the first time I let Coteaz and the Strikes ride in the Chimera. Hopefully this would prevent him from having his Drakes and Scythes from flying within 12 inches because of "Ive Been Expecting You". Also, They would be safe from the baleflamers in there!

After a quick turn one his flyers came in. A critical event was my Dreadknight passed his deny the witch roll against Hallucination from one of the sorcerers. He did shoot up the wraiths though with tesla.

All of Mikes reserves came in including the outflanking obliterator and CSM squad. Because of my deathmarks in reserve, Mike decided to hunker down in his back field and play defensively and wear away my fast CC units.

I targeted his scythes as I knew my scythes could handle them due to skyfire. I used my barges to glance his barge to death. My dreadknight hit into his ranks against an obliterator and squished him. On his turn 3 he charged the Knight with invisible Spawn after once again the Dreadknight denied a hallucination from a sorcerer! He was my early game MVP. The spawn bested him in CC but he dropped the spawn down to 3 models.

After destroying the warriors scythe the Drakes flamed my henchmen in the backfield. On the bottom of 3 I tried to down at least one drake by disembarking from the Chimera. Surprisingly I had no trouble against the back armor with the Strikes.

I also marked and shot up the spawn killing 2 more spawn leaving only 1 behind. I also was close to his objective. Hopefully I could get back into the flyer on the next turn and save them for last minute contesting. Mikes turn 4 was short but effective. He hovered and his drake flamed the Strikes killing Coteaz on the last roll! Or did he?! Realizing I had cast my invulnerable save, the strike to die before him was actually alive and I managed to make the save. This would be significant later. 

My turn 4 was also short but decisive. I moved every gun into position to kill the hell drake. Mike hallucinated my deathmarks and they were stuck in enemy territory as their ride had to fly off the board. Needless to say I downed the drake and I now owned the skies. But unless the deathmarks could stay alive it was looking to be a draw. My plan was to control the right objective with warriors that came in from ongoing reserve and the left objective with my Immortals. If Coteaz and the strikes can take the center, or the deathmarks can stay alive, I would win. I did not see a way that I could lose this one now!

An obliterator ran up and meltagunned my lead barge and it became immobile. The one remaining spawn attacked my chimera and wrecked it. A key roll occurred as he failed his 3 inch charge against my deathmarks. The chaos marines rolled snake eyes!

 I had to get Coteaz into the building and at the same time kill those units. I shot the two barges at the spawn and killed it. I charged Coteaz and the Strikes into the Oblit. Unfortunately I could not kill him! AP 3 swords were useless. Coteaz managed to put one wound with his hammer. This would be very bad for my chances to take the center. Either way if it ended on turn 5 I win because my deathmarks contested his objective.

We rolled. It went to Turn 6

The game continued and here is where things spiraled out of control. The deathmarks were now assaulted and could not hold their ground. My Warriors and Immortals held their objectives. His cultists and warriors held his objectives. Coteaz and the Obliterator continued fighting. The Obliterator killed one more marine on the bottom of 6. I rolled my leadership of 10 and failed! An 11! 

This would do me in. The game ended and we counted our points.

After calculating the Victory points and adding in the 50 point bonus for mikes first kill on the scarabs he won 968 points vs my 761 points that remained on the board. If Coteaz and the Strikes did not run, I would have been up 220 additional points, bringing my total to 981, declaring me the winner! I was sick to my stomach...if it happened on the top of the turn they would automatically regroup too. Mike and I agreed that this was by far the toughest game we had played and it was exciting and fun to be a part of.

The league this year was a huge success. Thanks to Ed and the rest of the club members we will look to do another in the Summer. I will have to wait to take my revenge!

Necrons: 35-7-3

Ultramarines: 1-1-0

IG: 0-1-0

BA: 1-1-0

Overall: 37-10-3