So, I've had my Necrons a while, and since they've continued to serve me well since I bought back into the army just before Christmas 2011, I've decided to focus on them for the club league rather than buy into a new army. Admittedly, it helps that I have quite a few unpainted Egyptian-style death-robots cluttering up the place and a hobby budget best described as 'negligible' for the first four months of 2013. I just prefer to think of it as a reward for their faithful service and continued failure to be absolute tosh.
Here's a photo of the new stuff, with which the unfortunate readers of GAME OVER may be familiar.
Put this all together and it's at least nudging the 1500 points we've been tasked to paint... so I just paint that over four months and I'm sorted, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, the collection only holds 12 Troops models, and that might be satisfactory if they were super-tough Deathwing Terminators or similar, but alas, they are comparatively squishy Necron Warriors who cower in fear of the ubiquitous autocannon or even the laughing- stock heavy bolter.
The plan, therefore, is to paint up this 1500 points of stuff to qualify for the painting points, but to actually field the new units on some sort of in-and-out cycle, with the Warriors (and possibly Lords) already in my collection to top up some lists that won't just implode the second a Hydra or Rifleman Dreadnought looks at them funny. I'll still have 1500 points of new toys painted up to show for it at the end of the four months, but I'll be pulling odds and sods from the complete collection in order to build some lists that aren't a complete embarrassment.
That said, I might be able to get away with using only the new models for the first month, with a list that looks a bit like this:
- Vargard Koschei - Necron Overlord - warscythe, sempiternal weave
- Catacomb Command Barge - tesla cannon
- Royal Court - 4 Crypteks - all Harbingers of Destruction
- 6 Necron Warriors
- 6 Necron Warriors
- Ghost Ark
My general plan is for the Crypteks to boot the Warriors out of their Ghost Ark and hijack it for use as a gunboat, drifting around unleashing two infantry squads' worth of firepower while they snipe at tanks or heavy infantry off the back. The Warriors shelter beside the Ark and receive some help with reanimating while they cower on whatever objectives they can reach, and Koschei swoops magnificently around trying to hit as many things as possible with his warscythe before he's inevitably pulled off the back of the Barge and killed.
To see whether that plan survives contact with the Enemy, click the button! To spare your eyes the full majesty of my word hoard (even a 600 point game runs to a 1500 word report, you see), I've presented some edited highlights for your viewing pleasure, with a link to the club forum where you'll find the blow-by-blow. If people would rather have the full reports here, I can start doing that next week...
Game One - 600 points vs. Louis' Sons of Tyr (Space Wolves)
I admit, I was a trifle concerned about this one; Space Wolves are up there among the most desirable of the desirable Codices (yes, I know; no, I don't care), and while I've beaten them before, I've beaten a rather haphazard little-bit-of-everything army, not something that was built to compete.
On top of that, Louis had me quite nicely outnumbered and out-teched:
- Rune Priest (Divination power - Prescience)
- 7 Grey Hunters - Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard
- 7 Grey Hunters - Mark of the Wulfen, Wolf Standard
- 5 Wolf Scouts - 1 missile launcher, 4 sniper rifles
- 5 Long Fangs - 3 heavy bolters (oh, crumbs) and 1 lascannon (oh, crumpets)
Look at all those psychic powers and Troops that can fight in melee and Infiltrators and heavy weapons and stuff! Still, nil desperandum, it doesn't do to despair and I'm not sure Necrons can feel despair anyway.
Terrain - big right-angled ruin in the middle, one face toward Louis' board edge and one toward mine. Three small knots of trees in a rough triangle about 12" out from that. Craters to the left and right of the big ruin, about 6" out. Crumbling ruin in the bottom right corner (my deployment zone).
Mission - The Emperor's Will
Deployment - Hammer and Anvil... functionally Dawn of War on a 4x4 board.
Warlords - Vargard Koschei (Conqueror of Cities), Rune Priest (... I actually forget)
Objectives - Lacking my usual morass of Warriors, I figured I didn't want to leave a squad behind to camp the home objective, so I slapped mine in the central ruin and planned on a drive into the middle once I'd cleared out some bodies. Louis put his farther back, near the trees in his deployment zone.
Deployment - Louis set up the Long Fangs on his objective, covering one side of the ruin, the Grey Hunters and Wolf Priest behind the ruin, and left a Wolf Scout shaped hole in the crater covering the other side. I, like the cowardy cowardy custard I am, set up a Warrior squad in hiding on the tumbledown building, the Crypteks behind it, and the Ghost Ark off to one side, since it was the only place where I could realistically hide from the lascannon. I also left the Overlord and second Warrior squad in reserve - I've found that unless I have a clear idea of what a unit's going to do on the table, it's best to leave them in reserve rather than put them down somewhere silly where they block me in or get shot up and don't achieve anything. In this case I had a vague plan that the second Warrior squad would rush for the objective in turn three or four, while the Overlord and Barge would respond to emergent threats whenever they turned up.
Highlights
That. Was. Brutal. Only half a dozen Marines, including the Rune Priest, were left standing at the end, facing the Crypteks and the two vehicles. It's always a privilege to be involved in carnage of this nature, and the game was very close, coming down to a last-minute gamble on the random game length. I decided not to disembark the Crypteks on turn five, figuring that if the game went to turn six, Louis would probably have more trouble cracking the Ghost Ark than killing four Crypteks on foot and winning, and that would leave the Crypteks free to disembark on turn six when the game was more likely to end. Of course, the game did end on turn five and so the Crypteks didn't contest squat. These things happen.
In terms of list performance, the Cryptek gun-barge was superb, hovering around stripping off two Marine squads more or less on its own; the Command Barge less so, largely because for some stupid reason I took Koschei off it in my third turn to assault a few Grey Hunters, and I really don't know why I did that. Doing that let Louis pile into the Overlord, locking his Troops in combat on a crucial turn of shooting for me, and allowing them a consequenceless run into the poor Warriors on their own turn. Still, if ifs and buts were candies and nuts we'd all be diabetic; at the end of the day I made mistakes and Louis didn't and that's why he won!
Result - Necrons 1, Sons of Tyr 4.
Woe to the Dynasty of Charnovokh!
Les claims a long, proud and noble legacy of playing Dark Angels, despite their status as the whipping boys of fifth edition. Apparently he'd have swapped armies if his other faction of choice wasn't Chaos Space Marines... still, credit where credit's due, he's plugged away with these chaps and produced a nice looking army with rather more plasma weaponry than I'm entirely comfortable with.
- Librarian - Divination powers (Prescience, Forewarning)
- 10 Tactical Marines in 2 combat squads - 1 squad has plasma cannon, 1 squad has plasma gun and Sergeant with plasma pistol
- Razorback with twin heavy bolters
- 10 Tactical Marines in 2 combat squads - 1 squad has plasma cannon and plasma gun, 1 squad has... not much?
Terrain - same as last time, since my stuff was already on that table...
Mission - The Scouring (oh joy, so much to remember!)
Deployment - Vanguard Strike
Warlord Traits - utterly irrelevant (we both rolled traits involving swapping Necron Leadership scores)
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| Don't click this photo. It doesn't look good up close. |
Highlights
A flurry of Sweep Attacks, Command Barge assaults, and the Ghost Ark continuing to zap whole squads off the table - barring a lone Tactical Marine who spent two turns weathering the best the Crypteks had to offer. On Les' part, the game was more a morass of misfiring plasma weapons, failed psychic powers, and relying on rolling sixes with his plasma guns to even glance the vehicles. Of course, every time he fired a plasma weapon at them, he wasn't firing it at the objective-camping Warriors. I do wonder why the Librarian didn't end up in the Razorback to give that push a bit more strength; Prescience may have helped that squad out a good deal in their attempts to shoot down the Barge, and they might have been able to soak Koschei's attacks with Forewarning up. Les' other list has quite a few Ravenwing Bikers in it, and I do wonder what that one's like to be on the wrong end of. I also wonder what this army's going to be like when the new Codex comes out; from what we've heard, the fun stuff is mostly concentrated in the Deathwing and Ravenwing units, and the Troops aren't getting much beyond heavy flamers for Tactical Marines.
Result: Necrons 9 (6 for objectives, 1 for Slay the Warlord, 1 for First Blood, 1 for Linebreaker - Koschei counts as a Denial Unit while on foot, right?) - Dark Angels 6 (for objectives).
Glory to the Dynasty of Charnovokh!
To Do List
- make some objective markers. SUPER IMPORTANT.
- prime everything, maybe start basecoating.
- sort out camera for more, better photos.
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