34 - Pantheon of Woe: Population.....Me

In this episode of the "Grown Men Playing With Toys" podcast, Erik confesses to a crime against his own hobby — being a grouch for two days because he played poorly in a game that he was playing against himself.

Steve holds it together long enough to let Erik tell the story......Barely.

What follows is a full autopsy of a Necrons vs. Ultramarines battle report that had no business being as close as it was.....until all of the sudden it wasn't close anymore. Erik walks us through every decision point, the impulsive miscalculations, and every moment where the Necrons had the Space Marines exactly where they wanted them before snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Along the way they tackle:

• Quicksand — why some games don't go wrong all at once but instead feature a slow build up of mistakes that can bury you
• The CP Economy is Undefeated — one impulsive re-roll and a cascade of consequences that would make an accountant weep
• Deathmarks: Gone But Not Forgotten — the minor unit that haunted an entire game from the comfort of strategic reserves
• Split Personality at Its Finest — the unique psychological torment of losing and knowing exactly whose fault it is
• A formal apology to Cousin Josh — this one's real

Whether you've rage-quit a game, tilted at a tournament, or just love watching a perfectly laid plan unravel one CP at a time, this one is for you.

Formal Battle Report of the game in question: https://gmpwt.blog/2026/05/12/necrons-awakened-dynasty-vs-ultramarines-blade-of-ultramar/

Check out our other content: https://gmpwt.blog/ https://www.youtube.com/@GrownMenPlayingWithToys

Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I was like, well, I I just finished my last game that I'm gonna write up in a battle report, and I didn't play very well. And I'm really upset about it. And you're like, Eric, so you're telling me you're being a pain because you didn't have the most amount of fun playing with your toys.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Welcome to the Grown Men Playing with Toys podcast. They said we're too old. We said on our dice. We're your hosts, Eric and Steve. Eric, we're a little late. But how you feeling today, buddy?

SPEAKER_02 1:01

We're feeling embarrassed.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

I'm sorry, bud. I I don't even know why you're embarrassed, but okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

You know a hundred percent why I'm embarrassed.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

You don't have any reason to be embarrassed.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Oh, I have I have two good reasons to be embarrassed. Okay, I have two reasons. We can debate whether or not they're good reasons, but I have two reasons. Alright, so reason number one, actually, it we'll back up a little bit and we'll do two minutes story time. Because usually it's me doing this to you, and you got to play the part of me earlier this week, which I think you quite enjoyed, which is why we're talking about this, which is I was a bit of a grouch earlier this week, the first two days of this week. Part of it's because we're late in the podcast, but you know, we decided to do the good for both of our marriages things of not recording on Mother's Day, uh, as well as you had some work travel last week. So I I was a bit of a grouch. What was that?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

And whose fault was that?

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Oh, that was mine. But we digress. So I was a bit of a grouch the first two days. Uh, and then, you know, kind of midway through the second day, you kind of did what I usually do to you. You were like, hey, what's your deal? I was like, Well, I I just finished my last game that I'm gonna write up in a battle report, and I didn't play very well. And I'm really upset about it. And you're like, Eric, so you're telling me you're being a pain because you didn't have the most amount of fun playing with your toys? Which was hilarious, but then becomes doubly embarrassed because I was embarrassed in with the performance in the game that I wrote up, and then I had the oh man, I am a grown man who is embarrassed because he didn't play as optimally with his toys as he wanted to, level of embarrassment on top of it.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

You know, it's a good thing that on my side, like we have to do the whole like noise canceling thing on my side because I'm gonna giggle through this entire episode.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

I'm telling you, you're just over there pounding the table laughing.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

It's funny. I mean, I don't I you know, I'm not trying to like share in your misery, but at the same time, it's kind of like all right, let me set the let's set the locale here, right? So you're in your your garage and you're playing against yourself and you're having a bad game. That's just like that's like the perfect setup for like a skin or something on like a nightline. Like we joke about you having split personality when you play these games because you try to put yourself in the mindset of the other side of the table. But it's just I don't know why. I hope everybody else finds it as funny as I do of just having this mental image of Eric in his garage all bummed out because he's having a game bad game, but you're playing yourself.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Yeah, that now you see why the word of the day is embarrassed.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

I don't think it's worth being embarrassed. I think it's funny. I think I think the uh level of analytics that you put into the game just is really interesting that you can even call yourself out for having a bad game in the middle of you playing against yourself. Like you could slant it, you could slant the game so that you're not having a bad game anymore. But you but you don't because you're you're true to the structure, and I admire you. You are a true man to your commitment, and that's that's impressive.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

I appreciate that, even though you're right, I could, and this is completely an unavoidable problem. But yeah, I I had a bad game and it a game that as it progressed. Like you remember the movie the the replacements from like the early 2000s with Keanu Reeve when he was playing quarterback for a bunch of replacement football for a football team.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Great movie, yeah. Yeah, so they have a scene where they ask Hackman like the coach or something.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Yeah. Yeah. So they they have a scene where they're trying to bond as a team, and Gene Hackman asks the room, What are you scared of? And Keanu Reeve says, Quicksand. And everyone takes him literally, and then he's like, No, no, no, like one thing goes wrong. And then another thing goes wrong. And then you try and start trying to fight it, and another thing goes wrong, and then you try and start fighting that, and another thing goes wrong. And then it starts to feel like everything's closing in on you, and then it feels like you can't breathe, and it feels like everything you do is wrong. And it was like it wasn't that traumatic, but it it definitely felt like that kind of game as I was writing it up afterwards and in the moment when I was playing it from one side of the board, which was an interesting feeling, and I I bet we've all felt that kind of moment in games that we played, which is why I wanted to bring it up and talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

So I mean, yeah, I think that this is like a spiral effect, right? You know, when you get that that kind of aspect of I always see this, I at least I feel this way. I always feel this way w with dice. Like like what you just described is like I get one bad roll, I didn't make that charge, right? And that's like this catalyst that goes on to I can't block anything, or I have to hit on twos and I roll three ones. Like it's just like I don't know. I I I I can empathize with how you're feeling because I I I don't I always relate to that when I'm rolling dice for some reason. It just feels like when luck leaves, luck leaves, you know, and it's just gonna keep going and going and going. So so you're in this game. Uh and help me continue to set the picture. So so what what factions were you playing?

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Yep. So it

The Matchup: Necrons vs Ultramarines

SPEAKER_02 7:15

all right, and I guess you know, context for the listeners, I've already written it up. It's gonna be posted to our blog shortly. I'll put a link in the description of the episode so folks can go read about it, see pictures. I've got a full narrative of it, and I do a retro that I write up about where I think things went wrong and some of the embarrassing mistakes it caused. So, in addition to me describing it to you, there will also be a visual aid that folks can go look at if they're interested. Um, so the game was Space Marines Against Necrons, uh, actually Ultramarines Against Necrons. I was playing the Necrons Awakened Dynasty, and it was kind of an up-leveled version of what we call the BDE list that cousin Josh loves to play. Um basically I swapped out the Doomsday arc and a couple other shooting units to put in two Catan and the new Necrosaur model. And then I all I was playing it against the Ultramarines Blade of Ultramar, which is you know the the Ultramarines themed attachment. It's the one of the more powerful ones, it's one of the more meta choices. So I was playing a for me, what is the closest to what you would see as a tournament style meta matchup, two powerhouses going against each other.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

So you're you're playing a game where you know that both sides have the ability to dominate, right? Which is kind of fun, right? So like I can see why the setup's going the way it is, right? So if I if we look at those two from a list hammer perspective, I mean they sound on paper like like this isn't gonna go bad. Like the I mean, well, I take the back. Like it sounds on paper like it could go swingy, right? If you take out certain things. Um so okay, all right. Alright, so the list you got two powerhouse lists. What what what else is in the setup? What's what's the what's the the game? What's the mission? What's all that that you're playing?

SPEAKER_02 9:24

So the game is Lynchpin, which is all about protecting your home objective, because if you control your home objective, you get extra points for every midfield objective you control. And it was on search and destroy, which is the quarter's deployment. So there's that's the one where you have the greatest ability to alpha strike your opponent with a charge if you want, because you can get in their face right away, but you also have the m greatest ability to go wide into all the corners of the board, because the deployment zones aren't the length or width of the board, they're tucked into one corner, so you can go super wide to either of the two corners if you want to stay out of the middle.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

So if I'm being honest, and I haven't fully read the battle report on this one yet, um, because you know, it's somebody had me on airplanes for a while. Um right off the bat, if I look list to list and not knowing the total intricacies of your list, I'm starting to feel like this could slant one way. Um is that kind of how you felt too?

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Um Yeah, I think it was slightly Ultramarines favored. They definitely had more killing power in their list, but I think that the Necron's list had a higher floor. Like I I kind of set this up to be a unstoppable force versus an immovable object type matchup. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

And which I mean, which makes sense against like the way the game you're playing, right? You wanna you wanna hold your home objective and protect what's yours. That's the immovable force aspect, right? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

And yeah. The win condition as I was laying it out from an ultramarine perspective, is I I made the assumption or the calculation that the Space Marines had greater killing power and much better ranged threat than the Necrons. I tried to counterbalance that a little bit with the terrain layout that I picked. Um, I think I was playing on terrain layout three, so there was there was at least some cover, and you couldn't just fire straight across the middle of the board. Um, so it would require the Space Marines to come out and play a little bit. Um so that there the Space Marines' win condition was basically try and bait the Katana out, kill everything that wants to do a secondary action on the the Necron side, and threaten the warrior brick just enough that the Necrons feel like they need to overcommit to protect it because that's going to be how they set up a floor for primary points. And then from a Necron's perspective, it was get the warrior brick out there early, have it control two objectives, both my home and the natural expansion. Ideally stay out of the middle, and then try and use one of the Catan to keep pushing the space the Space Marines off of their natural expansion objective, and then try and use the other Catan, which is the Nightbringer, to either boot the Space Marines off of the middle objective if they dared to go out onto it, or to go out and try and bait the Space Marines out if they just wanted to stay in their deployment zone and shoot, and then you know hope to make a couple of saves and kawabunga him across the center of the board, and now I'm threatening their deployment zone. So it was definitely Space Marines favored, but it it wasn't a huge amount. I saw it as you know, in differential scoring, a game that should be roughly within 10 points of each other at the end of the game.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Okay. So you're in the game now, right? And and everything sounds like you have good win conditions. Like, I'm not hearing where things are going bad yet. I I'm I'm being honest with you. I this sounds like a fun game. Um, like this sounds like it would be a really fun game if I was a space marine. I think from a Necron player, I think this would be a really cool way to kind of show and flex some of your Necron teeth and muscles, um, which I think would be pretty fun too. So so this sounds like a fun setup. Like, what am I missing here? You you're saying you're you're you're all down in the dumps about this, but it's sounding like you you have good win conditions on both sides, you have good, you know, kind almost kind of balance, but you know, um maybe slightly favoring, but for good reasons. Um yeah, so at this point everything was going

Round 1 - Feeling Great

SPEAKER_00 14:06

good.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Yep, everything was going good, and actually the first two rounds went really well from both sides' perspective. Uh Necrons went first. They got their warrior brick, advanced it out, put it on the natural expansion objective, got their primary floor in place, uh, moved Illuminar Zerus and the Necrosor out to protect the warriors so that if anything tried to charge them, I had good counter charges in place. I stuck some flayed ones out near the middle. So, okay, Space Marines, you want to come take the middle. I've got a 60-point bait unit there. You gotta come and commit something to going to kill it. You can't just throw a nothing out there and hold it and dare me to come out. And then I teleported the transcendent Catan over to the Space Marines natural expansion objective and scared them off of it. So turn one went great from a Necron perspective. Kind of a bad secondary draw, so didn't get a ton of points, but was able to dump one for an extra CP. Necrons finish round one feeling pretty good. They've got their CP economy going, they've got the board state the way they want it. Space Marines draw decent secondaries, they don't do a whole heck of a lot their turn. They basically stage up their two Vitrix Honor Guard bricks, they put a ballistus dreadnought out on the center objective to do an action, and then they they get a shot in on the transcendent Catan, but it doesn't do a ton of damage, so it's Transcendent Catan isn't in any danger of dying. So, you know, entering round at the end of round one, both sides are feeling pretty good. It's like a three or a five-point game. Both sides are in position to execute their win condition.

Round 2 - Little Mistakes Begin

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Round two, there's the start of me making a mistake. So round two, Necrons go out. Um, I put the Nightbringer out into the center to go kill the ballistus dreadnought because that's a real threatening unit. Nightbringer does it, but now he's standing on the center of objective all by his lonesome. The transcendent Catan cracks off a charge into a repulser executioner, so it's in melee with a tank now. That's great for the Necrons. So round two, the Necrons push the Ultramarines basically off of all the midfield objectives and establish a really good board presence. And they also take off not a ton of units, but they they do enough to give the ultramarines a bit of a bloody lip. So round two for the ultra up good.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

So hold on, before you before, before you keep going, because I can tell you're you're you're winding up to something here. I did want to make a uh a claim that um Xerus and the Necrosaur sounds like a solid late 80s like hair metal band. That's I think I might need to put that on a t-shirt or something. That's awesome. Um, but so again, you you said this is where things like start. So or so do you at this point know that something's feeling bad, or is it just you know, things are kind of going, you're getting ready to go into you know your ultramarine side, but is there is there a feeling that you're getting during the game that hey, I'm not really sure if this is what I wanted to happen or not? Because it sounded to me like I mean, you set your win condition was you wanted to push them out, you wanted to push the ultramines out of the you know, out of you know, any midfield objective that they were going to be holding. It sounds like you're you're doing well. I mean, maybe extending a little bit with your with your warriors or something, but but it doesn't sound like you're in bad position and you're taking units off the board. So you kind of alluded to that things are starting to go bad, but was that because in the moment you knew it, or is that because, you know, later, you know, second, you know, what do they call that? Uh armchair quarterback or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Oh, hindsight 2020. It's yeah, it's more of the hindsight 2020. The Okay. So at this stage of it, middle of round two, I would say by and large, the necrons are feeling pretty good. The only thing that they would have to feel down about is the transcendent Catan basically whiffed into the repulser executioner. It did like four damage. So I've got so the the Space Marines have two repulser executioners, which are monster and vehicle vehicle killer tanks, one ballistic dreadnought, and then both of their vitrix honor guard units all up. So they've they've got some Death Stars in place, they've got some hammer units, and the Necrons have both Catan exposed and their warrior brick put out. So they're they're in a good position, you know. In hindsight, I can see the starts of where the mistakes happened, but I don't know that they were like there's one positioning mistake, but the rest of it, you know, really starts to happen the back half of round two, and it really starts to go into CP usage and and how I spent that CP in response to some of how the dice were rolling. So it actually lines up a little bit with what you were talking about.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

I was gonna say, so I I'm calling it, and and truly, for everyone else listening along, I I don't know what happened in this battle report. I I didn't see this, so it's kind of funny. Um so I'm hearing this at the first time the same as you all. Um so it's kind of I don't know. I think I'm on to something with the whole like sometimes this whole spiraling effect, it feels like it's centered around dice. Like it it I feel like that's that's when I walk away from a game and I go, man, that was a bad game. I always am worried that I'm gonna go, oh, the dice weren't in my favor, or like, you know, the dice got and we joke about that, and and I've said that after a game and I cringe every time because it's a dice game, right? Like who knows? It's all chance, right? It's all probabilities, right? And variability of what you roll. But I swear to you, sometimes it's just like, you know what, in that game, I don't care what you were gonna do. You weren't gonna you weren't gonna be able to change the course of action. And I mean, I know we have friends that say, you know, dice tell stories, right? Um and I also have a champion who's still in timeout um in the barn. Um, but but yeah, okay. So all right, so you're you're not seeing it yet, but things are starting to go south. And I love that you're already blaming the dice. Okay, all right. So what happened next?

SPEAKER_02 20:57

So it's I would say it's my response to the dice, not the dice itself. And I'll explain.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Yeah, yeah, come on, let me have this.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Nope. So I'll explain why. So, bottom of round two, it's the Space Marines turn. They declare Devastator Doctrine, which gives them the ability to everything can advance and shoot. You know, so all their all their units get assault. And then I also have a stratagem where I can put one unit into a different doctrine, so I use that to put Uriel Ventress and the Vitrix Honor Guard into the assault doctrine, which means they get advance and charge. So Space Marines executing their wing condition, it's okay, both Catan are out, the warrior brick is out, the Necrons have played their big units, it's time to engage. And the the plan of engagement was need to line up both of my big tanks and the ballistic dreadnought on the Catan, and potentially also give enough redundancy where if I can get a shot off on either a Luminosist. Or the Necrosor, you know, get a shot off on one of them as a backup plan, and then need to get both of the Vitrix Honor Guard units into action, preferably Marnius Kalgar with his into the Nightbringer, and Uriel Ventress with his into the warrior brick. And the critical one there was Urial Ventress into the warrior brick because he has what's called a Vectora. So if he's within 12 inches of you, and this was one of the major pressure points in the game, if he's within 12 inches of a unit, it's going to cost you one extra CP every time you want to use a stratagem. And that's that was going to be the pressure that the Space Marines applied because the warrior brick had a lot of cool tricks it wanted to use around reanimation that are predicated around using a stratagem called Protocols of the Undying Legion. And you know, the thought process from the Space Marines was cool, I'm going to stick Uriel Ventress in your face and just make you spend twice what you had planned on every time you want to use that stratagem. So there was a pressure tactic from a Space Marines perspective that was going to be applied in the bottom of round two. So that's the walk-up. The execution of it is we get to the shooting phase. Um the first repulsor executioner, which is engaged with the transcendent Catan, partially whiffs again. I think it does, you know, more not chip damage, but it leaves the Catan alive on like five wounds. So enough that it's, you know, uh-oh, I'm on an island by myself with a Catan that's in melee range of me, and I just used up all my shots, and I don't have any buddies around me because I'm supposed to hold this flank by myself. So that repulsor executioner is not feeling good about life. The second repulsor executioner completely overperforms and one-shots the nightbringer.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Really?

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Yeah, just you know, it's got a uh like a heavy laser cannon or whatever. Both of them go through. The Nightbringer rolls two threes to save. And from a Necron's perspective, I'm looking at it and you know, and I kind of did like a 30-second pause. Do I re-roll one of these staves? Because if I can scam a four up, then I'm fine. And I debated it, and then I thought, I'm not gonna do it because even if I survive on this, I'm gonna eat a Marnius Kalgar charge with the Vitrix Honor Guard. And if the Nightbringer goes down here, I'm actually keeping the Vitrix Honor Guard six inches farther back from me. That's buying me more time where they can't get into my deployment zone and threaten my home objective. I would rather let the Nightbringer die as a distraction than try and invest in keeping him alive and potentially give the Ultramarines a springboard because Calgar probably kills him. He was oath of momented. There's enough attacks there at plus one to wound, and and the the ultramarines had some abilities to you know access to twin linked, which is reroll wound roll for Calgar. Like the Nightbringer most likely was gonna go down that turn. So I made the decision just let him just let him die.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

So I think we're gonna come back to that decision because I think it's gonna play a factor in maybe some of this. I'm I'm just forecasting here.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Yeah, it it does.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Yeah. So I don't know, man. I've been in those positions quite a lot where it's like, do you let this thing die? And I know the whole like aspect of like you you you want to control the pile in, you want to control all those things because you want to make sure that you're keeping the distance there, but at the same time, right? There's this aspect of give the dice a chance, right? Give the dice a chance to do their job too. Um, which I think is unsung sometimes when you're playing uh in the game and you're in the heat of the moment of, you know, like we're we're quick to say like that probity, that probability says this isn't gonna work, right? But on that one chance it does, you know, you get a zanger that basically, you know, takes an entire orc wa on by himself. Um cousin Josh will definitely get that reference. Um and that little zanger was painted gold after that and and and still hangs in the hall of fame. Um but there's there's so as you were describing that in my mind, I'm going, oh, okay. So but knowing that this was a bad game, potentially that's that's a moment where you gotta let the dice give them give the dice a chance to do their job too, right? If you if you if you don't, right, so in this case you didn't want to you didn't want to spend CP reroll, right? Um you know, you had a four up save. There's a chance there was still gonna be something there, and even though um even though that you know you were creating the distance between your home objective, they they still have to make the kill. They still have to not whiff. Um probability's not there, but you didn't give the dice a chance to do their job either.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

Yeah, it's I'll be honest, this one in retrospect, I'm I could argue it either way. I think at the end of the day, I still would make that same decision. I can understand folks who would say you gotta re-roll that invulnerable save. It wasn't in the Vectora, so it wasn't gonna cost two CP. I I can I can see it either way. Um, but it's ultimately I made the decision, you know, I'll just let it ride, and and I'm I'm okay with that one. I don't think that one was a game-altering mistake. But the next set of actions in the shooting phase start to get into the trickle of mistakes that become a flow that alters the game. So the the next thing that happened, because now if I'm walking down the list of the big guns that the Space Marines had to bring to bear, well, both of my repexes have fired, and one of them took down a Catan by itself, which means the last ballistus dreadnought is free to shoot at whatever it wants, because I don't need to bring it to bear against the Nightbringer. So, you know, I I'm I'm kind of double checking, okay, here's what I think I want to shoot, and I go and double-check some of the rules on the Necron side because I know that both the Necrosaur and Illuminor Xerus have some flavor of if you're standing next to this kind of unit, you get loan up. And mistake number one, which is a bit, you know, it's not a catastrophic one, but it starts the cascade is I check it in Xerus's. If you're standing next to infantry, you get loan up. Cool, he's outside of 12 inches from the dreadnought, the dreadnought can't shoot him. I check the Necrosaur, who I assumed had the same kind of rule as Xerus. And I read the fine print, and his says, if you're standing with next to destroyer units, which he was not standing next to.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

He was the big update with the like the destroyer legion type aspect, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:19

So he's the destroyer leader, and I've only ever played him in the destroyer in destroyer detachments. So this is my first time playing him in another one. Hindsight 2020. I should have had him, you know, run up the board holding hands with the scorepec lord, because then he would have gotten his loan up.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

There's a visual. Yep. But I did the necrosaur skipping while holding hands with the square pack lord.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

So ballistus dreadnought, I read that interaction, I go, oh, that's an eligible target. Looks like I'm gonna roll and try and shoot the necrosaur. And I I'd thrown a grenade at him as well. I wanted to try and chip him down. So I think haywire mine throwing a grenade, you know, he's down to half his wounds. Ballistus dreadnought one-shots the necrosaur. So I'm like, all right, this doesn't feel good. And he's in the vector of Ventress. But you know what? That we have a plan for this. The Necrons in Awakened Dynasty have an incredibly annoying stratagem called Protocol of the Eternal Revenant. He's an infantry unit. I can have him stand back up at the end of the shooting phase, and he has fights first, so he's still gonna get to do his job because either he's gonna have to get charged by Ventress and then he'll fights first into them, or Ventress will try and charge around him, and I can heroic in, and same effect, I get the fights first. So annoying. I spent two CP I shouldn't have because he died probably one or two phases earlier than I had expected him to, but we you know, we can fix this. It's an oversight.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Wait, hold on a second. So you've lost all your Catan and now the Necrosaur?

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Nope, the transcendent catan is still up.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Oh, okay, transcendent's still up. I was like, ooh, man, I I will tell you, I would be down in the dumps right now if I was a Necron player, if that was the case. All my Catan and the Necrosor are off the table. So I'm s I'm sitting here with the warrior blob and and and Lupgis.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

Well, so the Necrosaur was standing back up at the end of the shooting phase. So he'll be back up on half wounds. So it's really just at this point it's the the Nightbringer and a squad of flayed ones. So it's it's not nothing, but it's like 380 points worth of units, and it's I was kind of playing the Nightbringer as my distraction carn effects, anyways. He went down a round earlier than I wanted him to, but you know, at this point I'm still going, okay, this I can manage this as a Necron's player. There's some bumps in the road, but there's nothing catastrophic at this point. And I I think I had like five CP in the bank before I had to spend on Eternal Revenant with the Necrosour. So yeah, it stinks that that uh Ventress put him in a Vectora, but I still had three CP after that. So I'm I'm still okay. I've still got the resources I need to play this game, and I've got a Catan that's about to knock out another Repex, and and that will make the Space Marines hurting just as much as the Necrons because you know the War of Attrition will be even. So I'm I'm feeling still pretty good because the Necrons still have board control, and the the War of Attrition is about even, and the CP economy at this stage, at the end of the shooting phase in the bottom of round two, is even. So okay, this this is pretty okay, and because they pushed the Space Marines off of all primary at the start of the turn, the necrons are up on the scoreboard as well. So I'm not gonna say everything is coming up necrons, but it's going close enough to plan that they're going, yep, I I can deal with this.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

The terminator music is still playing in the background, right? It's still it's still being drummed in, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Yeah, at this point, cousin Josh still approves.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

So all right, so we got I dude, we gotta get to the point where this goes bad, because right now I'm not I'm not really hearing it. Like I'm I'm fishing for it here. I can see some spots where maybe this could start going bad, but but this is not warranting Eric being down in the dumps for like four days. So so so help me out here. Where where does this get the cooking?

End of 2 and Round 3 - Epic CP Burn

SPEAKER_02 33:40

So charge phase happens, Ventrus gets in. He you know, because of the positioning of the Necrosaur, he's not able to charge the warriors, he has to go right into the Necrosor who has a big base. Awesome. Necrosor is doing his job. Um and I don't think the Space Marines got any other charges of consequence off, so that they're they're not doing a whole lot of killing outside of the shooting phase that they just had this turn. So get to the fight phase, necrosaur has fights first. So I'm like, you know what? I've got three CP in the bank, and Ventress is positioned to ruin my game with his Vectora. I'm gonna spend two CP on Epic Challenge, which allows the Necrosor to get precision to try and precision out Ventress from his unit. You know, just take Ventress off the board and get rid of that stupid Vector.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

So would you say that from a Space Marines perspective, for perhaps the their their carn effects is kind of taking place at this point?

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Yep. That this is so from a Space Marines perspective, the whole point of Ventress was to pressure the Necron Warrior Blob to force the Necrons to commit a real resource to defending that rather than just letting the warrior blob do its thing. And he was really there to try and bleed the Necron's CP economy dry. And kind of doing that job now. Uh, you know, spoiler alert.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Well, you just got wound up and you're like, okay, and I'm throwing caution to the wind, I'm gonna start burning CP to go take him off the map. So I mean, it sounds like he's doing his job to me.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

Yep. So Necrosor takes him off the map, doesn't kill as many, doesn't kill any of the Vitrix Honor Guard because Ventress makes four more four-up involves than he should, but does enough. Ventress is gone. Okay, Necrons are still feeling pretty good because and then the the Vitrix Honor Guard killed the Necrosaur for good, so he's off the board as well, but he did his job. He ideally would have wanted him to survive the shooting phase and then pop protocol of the Eternal Revenant when Ventress was gone, so that he's still up, he can charge the vitrix honor guard next turn, but we're still okay from a Necron perspective. We're just we've spent one more CP than we wanted, and we lost a half a round worth of the Necrosaur, and probably a half to a full round worth of the Nightbringer. It's not nothing, but those are both manageable, those were kind of expected in the margin of error. Now, where the mistakes start to really come in is in round three. So you're setting me up here.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

I'm getting excited. Where's Eric start Dragon Tail?

SPEAKER_02 36:40

So Necron's turn in round three, and at this point, oh, and the other thing that happens at the end of round two is the transcendent Catan, his dice luck goes completely the other direction, and he one-shots the the other rep ex in the other corner of the board. And that thing explodes. Bad news. But good news.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

He was looking for a Rohan.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Yeah, the Transcendent Catan rolls just enough feel no pains to survive on one wound. So that Catan's up on one wound and now has complete and utter access to that flank of the board. Basically unchallenged.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Yeah, I don't care how many wounds a Catan has. Like if they're unchallenged and they don't have a way to continue, like the like and yeah, yeah, that's rough. Okay. Alright, that sounds like it could be going bad. Alright, keep going.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

So points are still pretty even at this point. The Space Marines had a really good secondary turn in round two. Necrons had a good primary, so it's it's about a dead-even game. They're both even in CP, and they're both about even in the points of units that have been lost. The Space Marines have more killing power, but the Necrons have more units that actually want to just sit on objectives and score primary at this point.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

Right, which is a part of the mission, too.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Yep, and they've got they still have a lot of their action monkey units. They have two squads of Affidians, they have a squad of death marks in reserve, so they're they're feeling okay. So enter the Necrons turn two, and the key thing to remember going into it is the Necrons have two command points. So I have two command points, and I do have my overlord's ability, my will be done to get one stratagem at minus one CP. So that's effectively a third command point as long as I spend it on that warrior brick. And I think I drew no prisoners as a secondary, so it I'm thinking, okay, I gotta kill stuff. So the way set up the turn, and it's basically okay, the warriors are gonna pile maximum number of bodies onto their natural expansion objective. Because one of the really annoying things about Vitrix Honor Guard, in addition to all of the movement shenanigans they have, all the great leaders they can bring, all the killing power they have, and the two-up save that they have, they also are two OC each, which is the same as a Necron Warrior. So the Ultramarines controlled that objective entering round three. So I need to put more Necron Warriors on that. I probably need to kill one or two Vitrix Honor Guard to take that back and just make it a Necron objective for the rest of the game. And then I'm hoping I can take the other side objective up in the other corner of the board. And if the Space Marines want the middle one, they can have it. I'll just make Kalgar and his squad sit on the middle objective, and congratulations, your 300-something point unit is just sitting on the middle objective, twiddling its fingers, scoring primary points for you every turn. That's kind of the thought process of the Necrons at this point.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Yeah, I mean it makes sense, right? At this point that the damage is done, right? You're two turns in, they're living their life. They're like, hey, I can run around as much as I want. You gotta start coming at me and killing things. And you've taken quite a substantial amount of their killing power off the board already at this point. So and and plus you got a Catan floating around out there. Granted, he's on one wound. Right? My man is top dancing, but it sounds to me like he's got a whole half flank that's like, you know, his to go eat up.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

Yep. So it so I enter the movement phase, and in my head, as the Necrons player, I'm thinking, okay, so the big decision point here is what I want to do with that Katan, because he's not supposed to be alive at this point. And this I'm playing with house money by having him having free movement on that flank. There is there's two annoying space marine units on that side of the board, but they're not doing a ton. But they're you know, they're there, or I could try and get him via a long charge or his teleport ability, but then I wouldn't be able to charge and start threatening the Space Marines deployment zone. So the thought process I went through was, you know, ideally I'd like to threaten the deployment zone, but if I do that, I'm gonna go into the line of sight of the repex, and the repex isn't gonna have to move at all. And there it can just sit in a gun lane and pick its targets between any of the things that the necrons care about on the board. I don't want to do that, and it's gonna be an iffy charge, anyways, and I can't get at their home objective. I'm just threatening the deployment zone. So instead, I'm gonna take him back to the flank, to the Space Marines natural expansion objective, and I'm gonna use combination of him and the Scorpec Lord to just clear everything out on that side of the board. And now I'm gonna put Marnius Kalgar's unit into a decision of well, do you just sit on the middle of objective by yourself, or do you try and come to rescue and take back this flank? Because otherwise the Necrons are gonna start really running away with primary. And the goal was I want to get the Kalgar unit moving up and down, back and forth, anywhere but towards the Necron deployment zone, and ideally get it moving side to side and making a bad decision. Bring Xerus up to support the Necron warriors, so he's he's now you know setting up basically an unfailable charge into the Vitrix Honor Guard. He's gonna support his buddies. That's all according to plan. Okay, yeah, movement phase, we're looking pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

There's a lot of parts though to this that have to all go kind of right. So, like from my perspective, 30,000 foot view, right? The way that you just described you're walking through, and it's kind of cool because I can it's almost like we're playing a game with you right now. I can hear the way that you think your way through these things, which is kind of neat, and I kind of like that perspective because you know it's kind of hard when you're on the other side of the table from you. Um But to me, right, it sounds like you're setting up a whole lot of things that kind of have to go your way in order for you to do this. It's not a simple, it's not a simple turn in that you kind of need to stack your things up in order to get what you're trying to go for, right, from a Space Marines perspective. Um I don't know. That that to me just sounds like that could be a that could be uh you know, either a a swingy kind of I need to make a last ditch desperate attempt at something, or it can also go the other way and be like, oh crap, I just I just that's all crumpled because it was a paper house type thing. But I don't know. It's interesting. It's an it's an interesting way that to me you have things kind of set up from a space marine's first perspective. And it sounds like the necrons. Right now are kind of sitting watching and waiting, um, seeing this kind of be set up. So, like, to me, it almost feels like this is what turn three, middle of turn three. Um, to me, it almost feels like you're starting to see the the avenues of you know a kill shot or or like a game push.

SPEAKER_02 44:19

Yeah, that this is the Necron's push turn, and I'm doing I'm trying to execute what you've described as a very classic move that I do in the past, which is I'm trying to set it up so that the Space Marines go into a situation where they are in decision-making overload, because that increases the probabilities that they will make the wrong decision.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Yeah, you're just giving them a ton of choices, and and you're trying to stack those choices on top, which is actually is is what I'm seeing you walk you walk your way through in the game, which is kind of interesting. So, from for all those people that are out there listening, one of the things that I know Eric does to me all the time, and I call him out on it when he's doing it to me, is he's gonna push me into positions where I'm gonna have to make multiple choices, and probably none of them are gonna be good, but there might be one or two that are gonna be a little better than the other one, and he's hoping he can kind of force me into making that bad decision. So it sounds, and that's what I'm hitting at on like it sounds like from a Necron's position, right? You you played the mission a little bit better from their side so far, and it sounds like they have a better advantage in um you know forcing the the Marines to be able to have to decide how to go for this Hail Mary type interaction where you got a lot of key things that need to go right.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

Yeah, yeah, and you're you're this is the setup on why I was so upset at the end of the game, because my favorite thing when I play you know these practice games is when the underdog wins. Because I I go out of my way to not stack it that way, and I go out of my way to play the game as straight up as possible. And you're calling it perfectly of at this point the necrons are in a position where they can put themselves in the in the pole spot. They can put themselves of, okay, now we have control of this game, and the space marines are on the back foot. And and I, you know, through I like to think through the thinking through the movement turn. I'm I'm going, okay, this is the push turn. I've identified the right moment. Maybe it's not a kill shot, but to start doing the the snake smothering you by starting to slowly squeeze and constrict, which is what I think necrons do instead of having a straight-up kill shot. So I've got all that set up. The one last thing at the end of the movement phase, and this one will bear in future, is I looked at it and I go, okay, I've got two CP and then an extra one in the bank where the warriors can do something by themselves for zero CP. I've got the death marks in strategic reserves. The Space Marines are castled up in their deployment zone, so I don't have a good place to deep strike them in, and I don't have a good reason to because the secondaries aren't telling me to do it. I'm going to keep them in reserves and I'm going to rapid ingress to them next year or next turn. Because what that lets me do is it's yet another variable the Space Marines need to think about, because now if the Necrons execute their plan, they've got one Vitrix honor guard squad, which is tar pitted with the Warriors and with the Xeris, and that unit is going nowhere. I've got another Vitrix Honor Guard squad that now has to make a decision between do I sit on the home objective or do I go and try and bail out what has hopefully been some severely damaged units on the other flank, or do I make a press for the Necron's deployment zone? I have a Repex that to shoot anything of consequence is now going to have to advance into the middle of the board, and as a consequence of that repex moving, it's going to expose the deployment zone, and I'll have a rapid ingress spot, and now I can start threatening the Space Marine's home objective. So that's the decision-making loop that they're thinking through is okay, now there's a bunch of really bad decisions I can make the Space Marines make next turn. So we get to the shooting phase, and I forget the exact stratagem for this one, but you know, I had no prisoners as a as a secondary. I look over, and there's like one or two random Space Marine and cursors, which are just two wound toughness four bodies sitting on an objective right next to the warriors. They're part of what was out of seeing the warriors on that objective. All right, free stratagem from the overlord, pop a stratagem that gives me uh re-rolls to hit, blast those guys off the board, easy two points for no prisoners. Awesome. I'm already starting to get my my victory point economy going. And then, you know, I've got Xerus set up. You know, he's there's no one in range of the Vitrix Honor Guard. They do have a surge move, but the Warriors are in between Xerus and the Vitrix Honor Guard, so they can't surge into Xerus. I'll shoot at the um the Vitrix Honor Guard. So Xerus does he does well on the hit roll, but then he whiffs on the wound roll. And the start of the mistakes is I look at it, I'm like, well, I'm shooting a an AP-3, three damage weapon, and the Vitrix Honor Guard are three damn are three wounds each, and they don't have cover. I'm gonna spend a CP and I'm gonna re-roll one of those wound rolls. Because I want I really want to chip one vitrix honor guard down because that'll guarantee I own this objective for the rest of the game. So I spend the CP, I re-roll, lo and behold, the Vitrix Honor Guard roll a five to save. So they're fine, it doesn't do any damage.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

So you wait a second. So they just caused you to spend one of your precious CP that you know okay. Go ahead. That will be. I would cringe a little bit on the side of I I wouldn't want to spend any CP at this point if I'm Necron.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

I agree. So mistake number one. So now this perfectly well thought out machine cold logic plan I had. Okay, there's a bug in the code because I made an impulsive decision to re-roll a dice that I hadn't accounted for in all my calculations. Charge phase. Yeah, there's a bug in the system. So charge phase. Zerus goes into the the Vitrix Honor Guard. Awesome. He's in, that's according to plan. The Catan goes into it was a storm beater hammer strike, he's in according to plan. Scorpek Lord goes into Wardens of Ultramar, which are just sitting on the last flanking objective. He's got an ability for charge mortals, it's kind of like the champion. I roll a six, so he's doing maximum mortals. So he's now super well set up to blow away the wardens of ultramar. Awesome. I'm entering the fight phase, everything is going according to plan. This is great. So I look around, I'm like, all right, the the ultramarines have enough CP here that if I don't sequence this properly, they're gonna do an interrupt. And I so I need to make sure that I'm sequencing this so that I have the Vitrix honor guard who are really the only threat to interrupt. I want you to fight against them first. So I'm gonna fight with Xerus. Mistake number two happens. I look at it, I check his profile, I'm like, oh, he's you know, he's got two attacks, one is extra attack, it's nothing really to worry about. But the the other one, four attacks, AP minus three, three damage. Cool. If I can get those through, then I can do some real damage to the the Vitrix Honor Guard. I can chip one or two of them down. Again, now this objective is mine for the rest of the game. So I spend my last CP on Protocol of the Hungry Void, which gives him an extra strength, which means I'm wounding on twos, and an extra AP, so they would be saving on sixes. The Space Marines, now knowing that they don't have to worry about an interrupt, spend one of their CP on Armor of Contempt, so now they're back to saving on fives. So I roll it out for Xerus. And he he does okay. You know, he he does what I expected. I think he killed two Vitrix honor guard, and then his extra attacks did like one or two damage. So he's he's chipped away two-thirds or one-third of the squad. And then rest of the turn, the the katan blows the storm speeder off the board, punts it into the next galaxy, and the scorpic lord whiffs. That's annoying, but it's not the end of the world because at the very least that objective is contested because he killed enough guys on the charge that the OC is even there. So I'm exiting the turn. I'm like, all right, things are looking up. You know, the the warrior brick is holding an objective. At this point, there is quite literally nothing that the Space Marines can do to take that objective away from the warrior brick unless they magically roll a hundred sixes with the Repulser Executioner, and the Necrons fail all of their saves. Otherwise, that objective is good. Zerus is up, the Vitrix Honor Guard completely whiffed into him and the crackback. I'm feeling pretty good. The detail that is confidence. What's that?

SPEAKER_00 53:58

Is that false confidence though?

SPEAKER_02 54:01

It's confidence with one missing detail. The command point economy for the Necrons says zero. And there are two things that I want to spend CP on next turn during the Space Marines turn. I want to have one CP in my back pocket to use a turn Protocol of the Eternal Revenant on Zerus in case he gets killed, which you need to bring him back. Is not super likely, but it's not nothing. And I want to have that C.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:35

Yeah. I want to have that CP in my hip pocket to use just in case. And I've got the death marks sitting in reserves that I want a rapid ingress.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

So they're not even in play yet. And oh man, so you have two critical things that are that are happening based off of CP economy, and right now you're at zero.

SPEAKER_02 55:01

So the CP, the impulsive CP reroll in the shooting phase will loom large because that's the one CP that at the start of my round three for Necrons, I said, I need to exit this turn with one CP.

unknown 55:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

I feel like we're watching like a three-hour film, and it's like all of these things are stacking up against you, and you don't really know until the end how bad they really were.

SPEAKER_02 55:29

That's how it felt at the end. So we

That's Not Why We call them "DEATHmarks"

SPEAKER_02 55:32

go into the Space Marines turn, and granted, I've got a bit of an advantage because split personality, I'm playing both sides of the board. So I look at it and I'm like, oh, the Necrons just made a mistake. Here's why. You know, they they don't have any CP. They're gonna get the one they get at the start of this turn. You know what? You know, as the kids say these days, bet I'm gonna call your bluff Necrons. Marnius Kalgar and his squad go over to the side objective to go attack the the Transcendent Catan and the Scorpec Lord, declare Devastator Doctrine on the other Repulsor Executioner, roll a big advance, put that on the center objective, and I'm gonna dare you, Necrons, to rapid ingress your death marks because I know you need to do that, but you really want to have the pocket CP in case Xerus goes down.

SPEAKER_00 56:30

So so timeout, right? So I'm gonna take you out of your Marines perspective at this point. Were you sitting there going, uh, why did I do that?

SPEAKER_02 56:39

Well yeah, I was pissed at this point.

SPEAKER_00 56:42

Like it would just be like, oh, you uh come on you more. When you get to the other side of the table, you're just like, Well, that was that was not my best play there. And I just got you know, I'm playing by myself and I just got excited and re-rolled, re-rolled and spent C P for nothing. Like it's just silly. Um, I don't know. I just loved them in a fly on the wall in your shop when you were just like, Oh my god, why did I do that?

unknown 57:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 57:13

So anyway, keep going.

SPEAKER_02 57:15

Yeah, the necron side of my brain was pissed. The space marine side of my brain is going, gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 57:23

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 57:24

So and then the other things that I could do in the Space Marines turn is well, so I know you got this one CP, we get to the end of the movement phase, and this is like when you know, if it was actually two people playing rather than just me versus myself, you you do the dramatic pause and you go, Do you want to do a rapid ingress here? And you watch the other person squirm. Yeah, for sure. So, and at the end of the day, I so again, hindsight 2020, I should have rapid ingressed the death marks. But I didn't. I said, you know what? I think it's more important that I have the protocol of the eternal revenant up in there for either the Scorpec Lord or for Xerus. I'm gonna let them die in reserves. It's just a 60-point unit. They can't really kill anything, anyways. The only character that I needed to precision out is already dead. I I'm gonna I'm gonna let them die. I can play around this.

SPEAKER_00 58:27

Wait, so you chose to leave them in reserves?

SPEAKER_02 58:31

Yep, I chose to let them die and to to try and invest in the characters instead.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

The way that I play and that decision are totally different opposite sides of the spectrum.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

Yep, and it's I'm not convinced that letting the death marks die in reserves was the death blow. But you know, now that trickle of water that is mistakes is is starting to become a steady stream.

SPEAKER_00 58:59

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I I I don't know that that sexy point So the only thing is, Eric, you g you got if you get them onto the table, now there's just something else right for them to focus on, right? And regardless, you know, who knows? You know, they it's an action monkey. It's things that you can do, right? Yep. Wow. So you just handicapped yourself essentially. You took your 2,000 point list and you said, you know what, I'm gonna play with 1940 points.

SPEAKER_02 59:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

Wow. Okay, all right, all right, let's see how this plays out.

SPEAKER_02 59:38

So go into the Space Marine shooting phase, and at this point, the Space Marines, granted, I have an advantage because I'm playing both sides of the table, so I have an inkling of what this the Necrons want to do. Reality, I think anyone with any sort of you know number of reps into a Necron's Awakened Dynasty would know okay, they've got one CP, they want to use that on protocol of the Eternal Revenant on one of their two key characters. That's what they're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:05

And that's that's a given, right? So anytime I play the Necrons, right, I know that they're gonna focus on coming back, right? So they're always trying to keep something in their pocket to allow them to come back. So that's that's just a given.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

Yep. So as a Space Marine player entering the turn, I go, okay, well, I've got my repulsor executioner in the center of the board, and it can see the Scorpek Lord. It can't see Zerus. Well, it it can, but Xerus has loan up, so it can't shoot Xerus. Like, you know what? I'm gonna sequence the shooting phase, so I'm gonna shoot Xerus last with the my last ballistus dreadnought. And and I don't think, you know, Math Hammer says that Xerus probably doesn't die. But I think that's who the Necrons really want to keep alive. So I'm gonna try and kill the Scorpec Lord first, so I get another one of those real uncomfortable. Okay, he died. Do you uh do you want to spend your last CP to bring him back? And so that happens. The the Repex kills the Scorpec Lord. Granted, it then whiffs into the last Catan. So that Catan is still up miraculously.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:18

With one wound? Or well, he he probably healed right.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:22

But so now the the the Necrons are in decision-making hell because it's do you want to bring back the Scorpec Lord? And oh, by the way, if you do, you got Marnius Kalgar and his vitrix guard six inches away with a CP in the bank that are gonna charge you. So it I looked at him, I'm like, no, I'm not gonna bring back the Scorpec Lord. So he dies. He and he's dead dead. Yep, I I stand by that decision. I think that was the right one. And then you know, even though I already knew the probabilities and whatnot, the the gut punches, then move on to the ballistus dreadnought, who completely and utterly whiffs into Zerus. So that CP I've been hanging on to desperately not needed.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

Yeah, that's C I don't know though. I I I don't think I would have brought the score pack alert back either. I I think that in your in your defense in this moment playing armchair quarterback. Um I think that that I probably would have saved that just for the probability that that dreadnought doesn't whiff. I mean that the dreadnought really shouldn't whiff. Um but Xerus, I think I think I think to your list, Xerus is more of a key component. So I I don't know, I can't fault you for that. I think that that's I think that was a solid decision.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

Yeah, it's that one I don't think is a huge mistake. It's just it's a bit of a nut punch when you're like I let the death marks die in reserve so I could hold on to the CP and now I don't even need it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:03

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of rough. So man.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:07

The Vitrix Honor Guard that had been engaged with Zerus, they'd used tactical doctrine, so they fell back. They can now charge again, so they come charging in. Xerus tanks all of their attacks. He like he takes like two damage, he's still, you know, I think four wounds left, so he's still up, he's fine, and then he kills them all in the crackback.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

Yeah, I've seen him take an entire hecaton unloading salvos into him, and he still he just he just took it. So he's I get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:39

So he he's up, he's cleared the Vitrix honor guard. I'm like, dang it, like that that one lone CP I was so worried about. I didn't need it this turn. And I kinda like you said, I handicapped myself, I decided to play the game at 1930 points instead of 2000, and I didn't even need to do that. So we we get to the end of the round three, and at this point I'm like, yeah, like and the the score is tied, it is literally like 2929, and as the Necron player, I am fuming at this point.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:19

Yeah, because you've allowed them back into the game, really. Yep. I mean, so I see the the cascading events that are happening. Um and I feel I feel for you. I I think though you know how you said that you're not sure if the death marks were you know the the the were really any had anything to do with whether or not the game was gonna be a good game or a bad game. I think in hindsight 2020, you know you're potentially going to lose one of those characters, right? But you can only bring one of them back anyway, right? Yeah, so so wait, there's more. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:05

Because you're you're spoiling what I think is the ultimate coup de grasse for the Necrons in this one.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:10

I'm not meaning to, I'm just kind of evaluating what you're giving me here. So, like, yeah.

Round 4 - Final Nail in the Tomb World

SPEAKER_02 1:05:16

So Necron turn four. They in round three, they had also started to move their Affidian destroyers around the board. So I get to turn four, I draw established locus as a secondary, which is you know, you can do a small amount for if you do an action in the center of the board, that's not happening. There's a repulser executioner occupying the entire center of the board. Or you can get more points if you do an action in your opponent's deployment zone. I measure it out. The Affidian destroyers I'd put in in one corner can't quite get fully into the opponent's deployment zone. They can't action if they advance. All right, I'll use them to blow the Wardens of Ultramar off of the objective that's there. They're probably going to be able to do that. Going to die to Kalgar in his squad next turn, but whatever, it denies Space Marines another round of primary. And haha, you can waste Kalgar and his you know 300-point unit killing a 70-point unit of Aphidian destroyers. That's a good trade for the Necrons.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:15

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:17

And so, but now I'm scrambling a little bit because I'm like, well, who's gonna do this established locust subject uh you know mission? Because I need the points. I need someone to score the secondary for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:29

Look up and reserves.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:31

I've got the transcendent catan. He's got this teleport ability. Boop, just move him, put him in the deployment zone, go through the shooting phase. Yep, he'll do the action, do all the rest of my shooting. Rest of the turn goes off exactly as I planned, feeling good. I go to score at the end and I check the data sheet. Transcendent Catan's teleport ability counts as an advance move. So he was not eligible to do an action.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:55

Really?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:57

And again, the nut punch. You want to know who would have been eligible to do that established locust action if I brought them out in round three out of strategic reserves?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

Yeah. All your death marks.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:10

You're actually so I I made the decision of the I can't go back and replay the entire Necron's turn. Because I didn't catch the mistake until I got to the end of the turn. I would have to rewind the fight phase, the charge phase, the shooting phase. It just there's too much to rewind. This wouldn't be something that would be allowable if it were like a tournament or whatnot. Yep. Fair is fair. The necrons have to take this one on the chin. You don't get to do the action, but you can drop that card for a CP. That's the best you can do. So I I I decided to rule it that way. So now cascading of events of not having brought that deathmark squad out. There's now a Catan just standing in the middle of no man's land. Just not no man's land because like what?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:06

Three three wounds left at this point?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:09

Yep. Three wounds left, standing just naked and alone in the Space Marines deployment zone by himself. And so Space Marines enter their turn, and you know, I forget what they drew for secondaries, but it's like, okay, so you know, repulsor executioner will stay what it is. I don't care about the warrior squad anymore, but I'll move the ballista dreadnought up, see if I can threaten Xerus. Oh, the other again, gut punch with this. Xerus failed Battle Shock last time in the Necron's turn. So and I just rolled it. I didn't think to go, wait a minute, I'm sitting at two CP now. I can just insane bravery with him. Nope. I didn't stop to think.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:51

I I imagine you're in you're kind of like a little pissed off at this point.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:56

So Xerus is battle shocked. Yeah, Xerus is battle shocked. So Space Marines, they move a couple of BS units up, they grenade the transcendent Catan, they shoot it with some intercessors using Oath of Moment, Transcendent Catan goes down. Ballistus dreadnought walks up, one shots Xerus. Wow. And I'm like, alright, well, you know what? This is fine. I can manage this. I've got two CP. I can bring him back. Look down. Crap, he's battle-shocked.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:28

That is rough.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:30

And then at that point, it was just, you know, a matter of, okay, now the Necrons don't have enough units to do anything. The Space Marines have complete board control. They're going to dominate primary for the rest of the game. And they've got enough units that they will do enough secondary. And even though entering round four the score was tied, the difference in scoring in the two turns between Space Marines and Necrons in round four opened up a gap that the Necrons were never going to mathematically close. So I think the game ended up being like a 15 or a 16 point difference. Like it wasn't a blowout. But oh man, was I pissed at the end because the Necrons had him on the rope and they let him go.

Wrap up and Lessons Learned

SPEAKER_00 1:10:14

Well, it's interesting. So so playing back through the whole thing, right? And and really appreciate you walking us through your game and you kind of your mindset because it's really interesting to see. And I love being on this side of the microphone, just kind of like watching it unfold. Um so I mean the cool part is you were doing one strategy with the Necrons, which was you were pushing the the Space Marines to have to make all these decisions, but then inadvertently walked yourself into allowing the Space Marines to do that to you. And it all wrapped around your you know ability to keep up with your economy of of need. Yep. Right? It wasn't even things on the tabletop, it was it was things off of the tabletop that were becoming more important.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:10

It was an accounting error with my CP economy and probably too impulsive. Yeah, I'll spend a CP on that decisions, followed by making the wrong call when I was down to one CP and had to choose between two things, neither of which was good.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:34

Strikes me as interesting because you are the first person to give me a hard time when I get real excited about something that's happening because I just want my favorite little model to do my favorite little thing. And I'll be like, no, I'm spending a CP to reroll, and I don't care how important that is. And you'll be like, dude, you do realize that that's like very important in this moment, and you did that.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:57

Yep. Like I said, the feeling of the day, embarrassed because I and as I'm writing all this up, like it everything we just talked about is becoming abundantly clear, and I'm writing it up, and the whole time I'm thinking, you dummy, like how did you just let that your impulsive nature take over in that moment? You you had them, you had the plan, you just had to execute on it, and and you deviated from it, not through any external pressures, just because you you let go of the discipline rope for a little bit. So it I don't know, it that's why I I I think I told you earlier, like it oh, that was so frustrating because the win condition was working and things were going the necron's way despite the fact that it shouldn't. And it's not like I pick favorites going into these games, but it's it's a genuine delight to me when the faction that I think is supposed to lose starts to get into a winning position. So it it was it was one of those where it's like I left the game and I'm like, I let the game down.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:14

Like that this Marines are right now walking around. They're like, Yeah, that's exactly how we wanted that to go, fellas, way to go. You executed the game perfectly. Yeah, but meanwhile, you're like, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:26

Yeah. Meanwhile, I'm sitting in the chair, head down in my hands, shaking my head, going, I let cousin Josh down.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:35

He's so dis I cannot wait for him to listen to this in the morning. He's gonna be so disappointed in you, and it's gonna be fantastic. Uh so I alright. Alright, so you had a bad game, right? It's gonna happen. It happens to all of us. We all make mistakes. That's the kind of the nature of this game. So what's your big takeaway from that?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:58

I mean, it happens. It it's it's embarrassing. Uh it's embarrassing to talk about, it was embarrassing to write up, but it's also it happens, and we're all we're all human, you know, we we make these kind of mistakes. It something you brought up earlier that you do a lot that I think factored into it is Xeris is one of my favorite Necron models. I play him in most of the lists that I care about. So I wanted to see one of my favorite models do a cool thing that I thought was needed to win the game. And I overinvested in it as a result. And that's you know, it's at the end of the game day, it's one game. It doesn't matter like literally at all, because it's just me playing practice games with myself. But there's an element where it's you know, I think you've said this in the past, you know, we all get so emotionally invested in this. I was genuinely frustrated afterwards because you know, it's like when you, you know, any sports you play growing up or whatnot, or when your favorite sports team, you know, for whatever sport you follow has a bad game. It's just it bums you out, it can leave you in a funk.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:16

I think it's really cool though. The like I I'm not trying to like dwell on your bad game, but I think it's it's cool that even in this practice environment that you've created, like you can still have those moments because I I think that that's when you learn, right? I mean I guarantee you that you're not gonna let a set of death marks just rot in in reserves from now on. So it's so funny, dude. That's like the cockiest move ever. Like I don't need I don't need all 2,000 points to beat you. I'll do it with my hands tied behind my back. Like it was a bad decision. You might need 'em.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:59

It was a bad decision.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:01

I find that so funny because you were you don't it's so anti-Eric. You don't normally play that way. You're very like strict and and like if you bring 2,000 points, you're gonna you're gonna use every one of them. Which is something that I struggle with when I play, is sometimes I I honestly f forget about doing things with units and like I don't like go through them like through my chit list of like, did they do something, did they do something, did they do something, did they do something? All right, like I I get excited about the thing that I want to happen and I forget about it. And it's very unlike you to go, ah, I'm just gonna let them die because they don't really matter, because you you don't ever bring anything in your list that doesn't really matter.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:47

Yeah, it's I I think it's because I I got behind the eight ball in the CP economy. It put me on the back foot when I wasn't prepared for it, and so I started to press. And in the course of pressing, I just I made a couple of fatal mistakes. The death mark decision was one, and the the the really silly just forgetting a core rule of the game, and that it said assault discounts as an advance move on the Catans data sheet. Like those two things I think were the death blow to the Necrons, and they were both careless mistakes caused by pressing because I had made a decision that put me on the back foot.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:41

When you're in, you know, your local game store playing against somebody else on the other side of the table, right? You're gonna have those moments where, oh man, I made a mistake. Okay, how do I get out of this or what do I do now? And it sounds to me like if you if you were to put this into like a teams format, the Necrons kind of did their job. Like they they didn't allow a blow out. It's gonna be a low, you know, a low differential game from the format. So like if you put it into that perspective, even though you made mistakes, you still put enough pressure on in round you know, turn one, two, and three that you didn't you didn't necessarily have to play a perfect game in order to keep it close, which is fine. Um I just kudos to keeping true to yourself and true to the game because I think if you'd have gone back and re-racked that whole thing, it it wouldn't have meant as much to you. And yeah, I know you were frustrated, and yeah, I know your favorite thing didn't do what it wanted to do, but um at the end of the day, I don't know, it gave us something really funny to talk about, and I personally have been laughing about it all week.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:50

It's like I said at the jump, it's and it's one of those ones and topping talking through it is pretty, I don't know, cathartic, I think is the word. It's helping, but yeah, like it's this it's this weird mix, and I'm I'm guessing I'm not the only one that's ever felt this way, especially if folks go to a tournament and have this one of these kind of games where you're just like man, I'm really upset at the way like that wasn't me. That's not the caliber I usually play at. I'm really upset at how this went, and now I'm kind of feeling embarrassed that I'm so upset about my toys.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:27

No man, I I I think you're being hard on yourself, but you know, at the end of the day, you know, it's kind of cool to see that it it happens, and it it happens to really good players. You're a really good player, and and I think that that's that's really that's what makes this game so special. So but so going into wrap-up mode, I I think so this is a different type of episode that we've ever done, right? Um, you know, I thank you, Eric, for for telling the story and and sharing um that with me. I knew you were frustrated and I knew we were gonna talk about it a little bit going into this, but I didn't I didn't know why, but it was really fun to kind of be there, I guess, present with you a little bit as you walked through the game. Um it kind of gave a different perspective to like a battle report or some of those things that you you put on the blog. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I I kind of liked it. It was a lot of fun. This was a really interesting interaction. I think you're being hard on yourself. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. I think anybody would have made that that mistake or could have made that mistake. And a part of the game is being passionate about the play and the and the strategy that you're putting together, and and sometimes this stuff just happens.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:43

Yeah, and I appreciate it. Like it's like I said at the beginning, at the end of the day, it's just me playing with toys in my workshop by myself. So the stakes literally don't matter for much other than what I'm getting out of it. And they're I did get a lot of what I want to get out of these experiences, which is I learned something. I I learned something about myself, I learned learned something about you know how to be better at playing the game. So I I it's why I do these things, and it's why I I've got split personality syndrome because I I like getting to those moments and and seeing them play out, even if they frustrate me, which is funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:25

The funny part is you're like, ah, at the end of the day, it's just playing a game, but I I legitimately still have a champion model that I refuse to put in the box with the rest of the he's still in timeout. He knows because he's he knows what he did wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:41

I was just gonna say, he knows what he did.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:44

So I get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:48

Alright, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:48

Well, listen, look, you're gonna play another game this week, it's gonna go much better. What we can't wait to hear for that one, but appreciate you sharing tonight.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:57

Yeah, no problem. And cousin Josh, I'm sorry, man. I'll represent the Necrons better next time, I promise.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:03

You know, if you'd have played Emperor's Children, it wouldn't have gone this way.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:07

I dang it, you stole what was gonna be my closing, which is you want to know what that who this wouldn't have happened to? The Emperor's Children.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:15

That's right. I got to it before you did this time. All right, everyone. We're gonna do uh back to back this week. So um there'll be one more coming after this. So we gotta catch up. So look forward to being back. Thank you everyone for listening, and um, we'll see you in a couple more days.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:33

Yep. Take care, everyone.