This universe isn't being enough for two Egyptian themes...
Scarabs at the ready, in the second of my weekend realspace battles, the Thousand Sons take on the Necrons!
No images this time, so you'll just have to let me paint the scene with my words (each one worth a thousand pictures).
We deploy in diagonally opposite quadrants, with the Necron Warriors wrapping around their Doomsday Ark and Triarch Stalker, and putting the Immortals in the fore.
For myself, I send the Spawn ahead. The Cultists, Rubrics and Sorcerers all cower on the back line, where they can find some cover. The Terminators go into the teleportarium.
The Scarab Occult Terminators drop right in the far corner of the Necrons' deployment quadrant. I remember to use the Chaos Familiar Strategem to Warptime them forward, they gun down a few Warriors, but then fail their charge (even with a re-roll). And now they're looking quite isolated and vulnerable.
The Necrons' first objective turns out to be right in the heart of my deployment, which is fair enough. On their first turn, the only Necron units to move are the wee Scarabs, who scuttle over to an objective in a nearby quadrant, just in case they need to claim it.
In the shooting phase, all the remaining Necrons aim every gauss blaster on the Terminators. It's not a pretty sight and thet wipe them out to a Scarab.
The Doomsday Ark picks a different target for its enormous cannon. Seeing a Spawn peeking around the corner, it takes aim and, with some fortuitous rolling, vaporises all three of them.
The Necrons score First Blood (twice over) and I'm wondering how to pull this back with two of my hardest units gone.
This could be my way back: I get two points for Defend and another three for Priority Orders. But I'll need to be quick before the Necrons can reinforce it (only my warlord is allowed to secure this objective, and without Objective Secured rule, any Necron within the same distance will spoil his plans).
My entire line races for the objective. With a very lucky advance roll my Disclord gets within range, then the rest of the Sorcerer, Rubrics and Cultists follow being, with Warptime bringing the Rubrics closer.
I start with Smite on the Scarabs, and take away a base. The Rurbic bolter fire takes away more, and the Soulreaper Cannon just manages to kill the last of them.
The objective is mine - I just need to remain there until the end of the Necron turn to claim all my points.
After much shifting and aiming, it appears the Necrons can't get an angle to isolate the Exalted Sorcerer, which still benefits from being a character.
Even better, their shooting is less effective on a non-target-rich environment (so I foiled them by getting so much of my stuff killed in Turn 1).
The Immortals move forward and shoot away most of the autogun Cultists. I then claim my Priority Objective and get back in the game with 5CPs
I pull the melee Cultists back to my lines and go at the Necron Warriors with the Rubrics. With a free reign in the Psychic phase, I buff and move my Rubric Marines.
Shooting takes away half of the lead unit of Warriors, I then charge with both Disc Sorcerer and Rubrics. I use the Veterans of the Long War stratagem to aid my wound rolls, wipe out the Necrons and consolidate into the Triarch Stalker (to stop it shooting).
Unfortunately I've positioned my Disc Sorcerer badly on the charge. He can now be targeted by every Necron gun, and in their turn, they do just just. My warlord goes down to a maelstrom of gauss fire.
Even worse, my opponent had one hell of a good draw with the objective cards. He's able to claim 4VPs just for advancing the Immortals onto an objective (2 x claim objective cards, plus an addition point for one of them being his chosen objective type) and making sure the unit is entirely in my deployment when he does so (behind enemy lines).
I'm losing on both material and objective points, and I'm now shy one warlord.
I manage to Smite off a wound from the Necron warlord (as I also have Kingslayer), but he's going to heal it anyway. My surviving Exalted Sorcerer hides, while the remaining Cultists shoot and charge the Immortals, but only slay two of them.
Once again in the Necron turn, every gauss gun turns on the Rubrics, and it's their turn to get wiped out. This allows the Necrons to Hold The Live and build up a really commanding lead in points. The Immortals continue to whiff against the Cultists.
My Exalted Sorcerer is already claiming one, and the two denuded Cultist units pull back to claim another one each. Sadly, I only get 1VP from the D3 roll, so my last chance is gone.
The Necrons respond by hosing down another unit of Cultists, claiming an objective of their own.
At this point, the Exalted Sorcerer and his surviving Cultists slip away.
Final Total: 12 - 8VPs - a Necron victory!
Scarabs at the ready, in the second of my weekend realspace battles, the Thousand Sons take on the Necrons!
No images this time, so you'll just have to let me paint the scene with my words (each one worth a thousand pictures).
Armies
Dusty Dynasty - Necrons
I had a new opponent: a thoroughly good bloke despite his choice of evil space robots and habit of rolling better dice than me.
(I don't have the exact list, and it was shooting at me a lot, so this is what I remember it looked like from cover)
Tactical Escalation for this battle, so we get more objective cards as the game progresses (I haven't even rolled a dice yet, and against all this firepower, I suspect I may have to win this on objectives).(I don't have the exact list, and it was shooting at me a lot, so this is what I remember it looked like from cover)
- HQ 1 - Overlord
Staff of the Destroyer, Gauntlet of fire - HQ 2 - Cryptek
Staff of Light - Troops 1 - 11 x Warriors
Gauss Flayer - Troops 2 - 10 x Warriors
Gauss Flayers - Troops 3 - 5 x Immortals
Gauss Blasters - Heavy 1 - Doomsday Ark
Doomsday Cannon, two Gauss Flayer arrays - Fast 1 - 3 x Canoptek Scarabs
Feeder mandibles - Fast 2 - Triarch Stalker
Heat ray, massive forelimbs
Magic Giza - Thousand Sons
Same army as my previous game. Thousand Sons are so expensive, I only just manage a battalion at 1,000 points, but future lists could use something with a bit more punch, like a Helbrute.
- HQ 1 - Exalted Sorcere on Disc of Tzeentch
Warlord: Unholy Fortitude. Relic: Eye of Tzeentch
Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, Frag & Krak Grenades
Psychic powers: Warptime, Death Hex - HQ 2 - Exalted Sorcerer
Force Stave, Inferno bolt pistol, Frag & Krak Grenades
Psychic powers: Prescience, Weaver of Fates - Elite 1 - 5 x Scarab Occult Terminators
Force Stave, 4 x Inferno Combi-Bolter, 4 x Power Sword, 1 x Soulreaper Cannon, 1 x Hellfyre Missile Rack - Troops 1 - 10 x Rubric Marines
Force Sword, Warpflame pistol, 6 x Inferno boltguns, 2 x Warpflamers, 1 x Soulreaper Cannon, 1 x Icon of Flame - Troops 2 - 10 x Chaos Cultists
Shotgun, Autoguns, Heavy Stubber - Troops 3 - 10 x Chaos Cultists
Brutal Assault Weapons, Autopistols, Flamer - Fast Attack - 3 x Chaos Spawn
Hideous mutations
Scenario & Deployment
We deploy in diagonally opposite quadrants, with the Necron Warriors wrapping around their Doomsday Ark and Triarch Stalker, and putting the Immortals in the fore.
For myself, I send the Spawn ahead. The Cultists, Rubrics and Sorcerers all cower on the back line, where they can find some cover. The Terminators go into the teleportarium.
Turn 1
My first objective is right in the heart of the Necron deployment. The Thousand Sons go first and advance cautiously, trying to hug whatever cover is available. The Spawn gallop ahead, looking for an early charge.The Scarab Occult Terminators drop right in the far corner of the Necrons' deployment quadrant. I remember to use the Chaos Familiar Strategem to Warptime them forward, they gun down a few Warriors, but then fail their charge (even with a re-roll). And now they're looking quite isolated and vulnerable.
The Necrons' first objective turns out to be right in the heart of my deployment, which is fair enough. On their first turn, the only Necron units to move are the wee Scarabs, who scuttle over to an objective in a nearby quadrant, just in case they need to claim it.
In the shooting phase, all the remaining Necrons aim every gauss blaster on the Terminators. It's not a pretty sight and thet wipe them out to a Scarab.
The Doomsday Ark picks a different target for its enormous cannon. Seeing a Spawn peeking around the corner, it takes aim and, with some fortuitous rolling, vaporises all three of them.
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| "Don't look into the Ark!" |
The Necrons score First Blood (twice over) and I'm wondering how to pull this back with two of my hardest units gone.
Turn 2
The objective cards aren't much help to me (and I really need them to be), so I burn two command points to re-draw one of them. It turns out to be Priority Orders - my warlord alone must take and defend the Scarab-held objective.This could be my way back: I get two points for Defend and another three for Priority Orders. But I'll need to be quick before the Necrons can reinforce it (only my warlord is allowed to secure this objective, and without Objective Secured rule, any Necron within the same distance will spoil his plans).
My entire line races for the objective. With a very lucky advance roll my Disclord gets within range, then the rest of the Sorcerer, Rubrics and Cultists follow being, with Warptime bringing the Rubrics closer.
I start with Smite on the Scarabs, and take away a base. The Rurbic bolter fire takes away more, and the Soulreaper Cannon just manages to kill the last of them.
 |
| Like a boss. |
The objective is mine - I just need to remain there until the end of the Necron turn to claim all my points.
After much shifting and aiming, it appears the Necrons can't get an angle to isolate the Exalted Sorcerer, which still benefits from being a character.
Even better, their shooting is less effective on a non-target-rich environment (so I foiled them by getting so much of my stuff killed in Turn 1).
The Immortals move forward and shoot away most of the autogun Cultists. I then claim my Priority Objective and get back in the game with 5CPs
Turn 3
I get killy objectives - Overwhelming Firepower and Blood & Guts. I'm unlikely to get both, but I should be good for one.I pull the melee Cultists back to my lines and go at the Necron Warriors with the Rubrics. With a free reign in the Psychic phase, I buff and move my Rubric Marines.
Shooting takes away half of the lead unit of Warriors, I then charge with both Disc Sorcerer and Rubrics. I use the Veterans of the Long War stratagem to aid my wound rolls, wipe out the Necrons and consolidate into the Triarch Stalker (to stop it shooting).
Unfortunately I've positioned my Disc Sorcerer badly on the charge. He can now be targeted by every Necron gun, and in their turn, they do just just. My warlord goes down to a maelstrom of gauss fire.
Even worse, my opponent had one hell of a good draw with the objective cards. He's able to claim 4VPs just for advancing the Immortals onto an objective (2 x claim objective cards, plus an addition point for one of them being his chosen objective type) and making sure the unit is entirely in my deployment when he does so (behind enemy lines).
I'm losing on both material and objective points, and I'm now shy one warlord.
Turn 4
I'm now scratching around for some objective points, and the only viable one is deep in the heart of Necron deployment. So with a heavy heart (or whatever they have in that dusty armour), the Rubric Marines leave combat and take the objective, trying not to trip over Terminator corpses as they do so.I manage to Smite off a wound from the Necron warlord (as I also have Kingslayer), but he's going to heal it anyway. My surviving Exalted Sorcerer hides, while the remaining Cultists shoot and charge the Immortals, but only slay two of them.
Once again in the Necron turn, every gauss gun turns on the Rubrics, and it's their turn to get wiped out. This allows the Necrons to Hold The Live and build up a really commanding lead in points. The Immortals continue to whiff against the Cultists.
Turn 5
I'm thrown an objective lifeline, as I draw Supremacy. I need to grab three objectives, and I have just enough units to do it.My Exalted Sorcerer is already claiming one, and the two denuded Cultist units pull back to claim another one each. Sadly, I only get 1VP from the D3 roll, so my last chance is gone.
The Necrons respond by hosing down another unit of Cultists, claiming an objective of their own.
At this point, the Exalted Sorcerer and his surviving Cultists slip away.
Final Total: 12 - 8VPs - a Necron victory!
Locker Room
Ouch. My first encounter with Necrons was certainly a painful one! An interesting army to play against, and very entertaining. They can certainly bring a lot of firepower to bear, so feeding my best units into their killzone piecemeal was probably not the best strategy.
Once again, the tactical objectives saved what could otherwise have been a one-sided game. With my losses from the first turn, I was really on the back foot, but the fact that I had superior board control (because most of the Necron army never left its gunline), meant that I could claw my way back into the game.
So that's two games and two loses for the Thousand Sons - but let's look at the real story here: in all three games, the only survivors have been the same Exalted Sorcerer model and a handful of Cultists. Something is clearly at play here.
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| Just As Planned. |
How did you find their resurrection skill? Hard to manage or not too dismaying?
ReplyDeleteI was ready for it, so it was tolerable - when I decided to go for a unit, I *really* tried to delete it (strategems + psychic + shooting + assault) and leave nothing left to regenerate.
DeleteThere were other occasions when units I'd chipped away at came back to life - not encouraging, but I hadn't been banking on removing them anyway.
On the whole, I like them as an army. I'd happily play with them or against them.
But I would say that Necron reanimation has NOTHING on the 'Disgustingly Resilient' ability from the Death Guard. That was an absolute bear to chew through.