List-Fu: Josh Roberts, 1st at Caledonian Uprising '13

The Warhammer Forum

Results are in for this weekend's Caledonian Uprising tournament, with UK number one ranked player Josh Roberts taking his Necrons through a strong field for the win.

83 players out of the intended 94 players braved the snow to make what is one of the highlights of the UK tournament scene's calendar, with a significant proportion of the top ranked players in attendance. By round three out of five, the top ten tables were dominated by Necrons and Daemons.

For anyone interested, pdfs of of the rules pack and all of the 1850pts lists can be found on the Warhammer Forum here.

Before getting to Josh's list, a few brief observations on the tournament and overall lists:
  • Following the UK trend, Forge World was allowed. A good number of marine and guard lists had hyperios or sabre defence platforms, but surprisingly few brought contemptor dreads. There also only a couple of lists with lucius pattern drop pods (a Space Wolves list with 3 and one in a vanilla marines army. No Blood Angels blender dreads though!). Looking at the overall results and given that the players seemed generally aware and able to incorporate Forge World units into their armies (as with the 40kUK Heat 2 I attended at Brighton in October), my current opinion is that allowing Forge World in tournaments doesn't appear to be breaking the game in the way that much of the internet would seem to believe. The lists on the top tables currently generally appear to be 'pure' GW lists. Something for further thought anyway...
  • Anti-Daemons/Wraiths tactics were notable in many of the vanilla Space Marine lists, using the Null Zone/Thunderfire Cannon combo. Given the results, it didn't seem to help much!
  • For most marine armies, drop pods predominantly replaced rhinos/razorbacks, with the notable exception being Grey Knights making the most of the strength 6 razorbacks. For my initial thoughts on mech in 6th see this article here.
  • Approximate army breakdown (attending): Necrons (15), Tyranids (8), Daemons (7), Eldar/Dark Eldar (7), Double Space Marines (7), Space Marines (6), Imperial Guard/Space Marine variant (5), Grey Knights (5), Eldar & Friends (4), Orks (4), Tau & Friends (3), Chaos Marines (3), Space Wolves (1), Others (9). 

The Warhammer Forum

Anyway, the winning list:

1850pts Necrons, Josh Roberts

HQ 1: Necron Destroyer lord, Sempiternal Weave, Mindshackle Scarabs
HQ 2: Necron Destroyer lord, Sempiternal Weave, Mindshackle Scarabs

Troop1: 10 Immortals, Tesla Carbines
Troop2: 5 Warriors, Transport1
Troop3: 5 Warriors, Transport2
Troop4: 5 Warriors, Transport3

FA1: 6 Wraiths
FA2: 6 Wraiths
FA3: 5 Wraiths

HS1: Annihilation Barge, Tesla Cannon
HS2: Annihilation Barge, Tesla Cannon
HS3: Annihilation Barge, Tesla Cannon

Transport1: Night Scythe, Troop2
Transport2: Night Scythe, Troop3
Transport3: Night Scythe, Troop4


The basics of the winning list comprises of the now familiar set-up of fast, durable wraiths with destroyer lords tanking strength 8 shots up front, backed up by the strong supporting fire power from the triple barges plus air support and durable objective grabbing from the night scythes and warriors.

Of course there is a lot more subtlety to playing the list, and the army does have it's weaknesses (AV13+ at range? Other suggestions welcome!). However, comparing this army to my list building requirements, you can see that it covers the bases well and avoids all but the most basic upgrades, leaving an efficient balanced and focused list.

There were a lot of Necron lists this year, all pretty much variants around the above theme, managing to hold off the 'unbeatable Deamon lists', Tyranids (doing well Stateside), and plenty of other strong Forge World enhanced, anti-flier capable lists.

So congrats to Josh on the win! If anyone has any tips using or playing against this type of list, please feel free to add your thoughts!

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