Reanimaniacs: Necrons vs Ultramarines

The Ultramarines have been defending the devastated world of Bagot Prime on two fronts against the forces of Nurgle and Bludteef's Ork horde. The last thing they want to discover is that Bagot Prime turns out to be a Necron Tombworld. Now the Space Skeletons have started to wake up, it may well be the last thing the Ultramarines discover...

Another Skype battle today, with Kraken commanding the boys in blue and me, Pootle, taking command of the Necrons

Newcrons

New toys! I've finally painted up the first batch of Necrons that have been lurking in the leadpile since Indomitus arrived. I'm looking forward to trying out these mid-range hard-to-kill fellows (feel like there are similarities to Death Guard there, who I've been fond of for a while). As this is their first battle, it makes sense to me that the list will be dominated by Canoptek units, which are the slave-constructs that watch over the Necrons whilst they slumber. 

The army is lead by an Overlord with the Veil of Darkness (for a one-time teleport of himself and another unit) backed up by a Chronomancer with a Canoptek Control Node (to give +1 to hit for nearby Canoptek units). They lead a large blob of Necron Warriors with the short-range by deadly Gauss Reapers and a smaller one with the longer-range Gauss Flayers.

Then it's the Canoptek contingent: a Spyder and four Scarab swarms (the former can reanimate one of the latter each turn), three Wraiths (an excellent and mobile distraction Carnifex) and one Doomstalker to (hopefully) melt stuff with its scary Doomsday Blaster.

I've decided to play as the Novokh dynasty, who are the close combat specialists. This will make even the Warriors and Scarabs more effective as everyone gets +1 to charge rolls and an extra -1AP on the charge.

Necrons Patrol Detachment: 1,000 Points, 5 CP

• HQ - Overlord with Veil of Darkness relic, Resurrection Orb, Voidscythe. Warlord trait: Implacable Conqueror
• HQ - Technomancer with Canoptek Control Node and the Voltaic Staff relic
• Troops - 20 Warriors with Gauss Reapers
• Troops - 10 Warriors with Gauss Flayers
• Elites - Canoptek Spyder with Gloom Prism and twin Particle Beamers
• Fast Attack - 4 Canoptek Scarab Swarms
• Fast Attack - 3 Canoptek Wraiths with Vicious Claws
• Heavy Support - 1 Canoptek Doomstalker

Rhyme of the Ultra Mariner

Smurfs! Solid, reliable and often-complained-about, I find myself increasingly well-disposed to the blue meanies these days. They're a mid-tier Marine army, a rare beast in the age of codex creep. Good but not ridiculous, I'd say. 

This is very much a mid-tier shooty list. MSU bolter squads with a light touch of firepower here and there. Sniper Scouts to either grab an objective early or chip away characters, classic castle command with a jump captain and a lieutenant. The main hitting power is a squad of Vanguard Vets with lightning claws. There's a Land Speeder Typhoon for some mobile shooting and some Hellblasters for some rather less mobile shooting, but a solid backer for the gunline. 

So nothing drastic! Reliability is a good pick in an unreliable Maelstrom game, though, and I know where I am with these guys. 

Ultramarines Battalion Detachment, 999 points

• HQ - Captain with Jump Pack, master-crafted bolter, Relic Blade, Warlord with Imperium's Sword trait and Armour Indomitus relic
• HQ - Primaris Lieutenant with master-crafted stalker bolt rifle, Moustache of Command
• Troops - 5 Tactical Marines, sarge has a chainsword, Graviton Cannon for the heavy
• Troops - 5 Tactical Marines, sarge has a chainsword, Plasma Cannon for the heavy
• Troops - 5 Intercessors, sarge has a chainsword
• Elites - 5 Scouts with sniper rifles, sarge has a chainsword
• Elites - 5 Vanguard Veterans with jump packs, sarge has a relic blade and storm shield, everyone else has twin lightning claws except for one guy who has a lone claw and storm shield
• Fast Attack - Land Speeder Typhoon with heavy bolter and twin missile launchers
• Heavy Support - 5 Hellblasters with Plasma Incinerators

Mission and Terrain

Malestrom of War tonight! Our favourite one, where the player trailing on points gets an extra objective. We're playing from the corners, and the objective markers end up as shown above on this lovely wasteland map.

I'm taking Brought Low, Territory Seizure and Heroic Deeds for my objective types, so kill their bosses, monsters and vehicles whilst holding the middle ground. 

I've taken the three that relate to grabbing territory: Raid, Territory Seizure and Hold the Line as the Necrons should be good at board control.

Deployment

Wary of a huge blob of murderbots cropping up in my backfield, I go for an even distribution throughout my zone, hugging cover as much as possible but also keeping near the edges so I can rush objectives quickly. The scouts end up as my backstop - not the most exciting duty for them, but I know Pootle will be hiding their best target, the Technomancer, extremely thoroughly at all times and their shooting is mediocre at best without a squishy character to pick off. 

I put the Wraiths in the woods to my right and the Scarabs and Spyder on my left. These two will sweep right and left and grab objectives A and B. 

The Doomstalker and Technomancer are skulking out of sight behind the rocks with the smaller Necron unit just in front of them, ready to run forwards to the centre if necessary.

The large unit of Warriors and the Overlord also go into the wood behind the Wraiths. I could stick them right at the back of the table and Veil of Darkness them forwards later, but I think I want to threaten to move forwards; hopefully the woods and reanimation will protect them from stray shots.

I win the roll-off for the first turn and choose to go second: many of the Maelstrom objectives are decided at the end of the battle round, and I'm pretty well hidden from first-turn fire.

Ultramarines Turn 1

Having to go first means having to run into the open and get ambushed, pretty much. But there's something I can do to swing the tide - redeploy! Using the Ultramarines strat I leap the Hellblasters, Graviton squad and Lieutenant forward so they can see the wraiths under that stone arch. Picking them off blunts the Necron early game to an extent, and also keeps me hidden from death rays. 

To counter this, I get some godawful objectives. Overwhelm and Dominate need me to hold more objectives and table quarters than I easily can, and Expelled is very easy for the Necrons to deny me. Unless I kill those Wraiths! So I turn on the bullet hose after popping the Land Speeder out round the edge of the hill. 

Wraiths, however, are not the easiest of targets. Especially with my dice! Between some very tame wound rolls and some good saving, I kill as many of my own overcharged Hellblasters as I do the enemy (one each), and that's a somewhat bleak opening gambit over for me. 

Just to really set the tone, my first reanimation roll for one of the Wraiths was 5, 5, 6 to bring one straight back...

Necrons Turn 1

In contrast to Kraken's duff haul of objectives, all mine look achievable: Enemy Repulsed (no enemy in my territory is already sorted), Overwhelming Assault (control both of Kraken's objectives A and B) and Expelled (two quarters with no enemy units in). 

I've started with Protocols of the Sudden Storm, so any units within 6" of a character get +1" move, which will help me get out of the blocks. On my right, the Wraiths surge out of the woods towards the Land Speeder - if I make the charge then I'll control the objective even if I don't destroy the Speeder; on my left the Scarabs grab objective B, whilst the Spyder moves to sit on Objective 2.

The smaller unit of Warriors and the Technomancer move towards the centre of the table, keeping eyes on the Tac Squad with the Plasma Cannon (marked as Intercessors on the map), but the big unit stays skulking in the woods. 

I'm hoping that the Wraiths can kill the Land Speeder to achieve Expelled, but if they don't then I need to kill the Tactical Squad (who were a little farther forward than the map shows). The Technomancer opens up with his Voltaic Staff and melts three of them; that's a great start and the Warriors next to him finish off the rest after some terrible armour saves from Kraken.

The Wraiths make their charge into the Speeder and I play the Disruption Fields strat to boost their strength by one so they'll wound on 3s rather than 4s. However I don't quite manage to finish the machine off, leaving it on a brace of wounds.

Still a good first turn, killing a whole unit of Tac Marines and achieving all three of my objectives.

Ultramarines Turn 2

The objectives are once again not great - I think I've actually picked a bad selection for my army, here. Coordinated Strikes and Crippling Blow are both extremely difficult, because I can't focus my firepower on the Doomstalker very easily. Applied Tactics, however, is more hopeful - kill something with a unit affected by a strategem this turn! And Take It Back goes hand in hand with this. 

So the jump pack troops head for the Wraiths, and the rest of the army shift about to keep a bit of forward momentum towards objectives whilst also being able to shoot the ethereal buggers. The plan is to put a strat on the Land Speeder as it falls back so there's no penalty for shooting, then kill the Wraiths with them (or someone else if need be). 

It goes badly! The scouts get off to a great start by sniping a wraith and a two thirds out of the hovering spectres. I just need to plink one wound off the last one with the Land Speeder, but it misses every shot. And then the wraith somehow jinks round every shot I fling its way, from Hellblasters to Graviton Cannons to increasingly desperate Lieutenant shots. In the process I burn up the rest of my command points in an attempt to score Applied Tactics. 

As the rest of the Necrons enjoy the sight of their distraction carnifexes doing their work, I finally bury them under combined charges from the Vanguard Vets and Captain. So I score Take It Back, but that's not the comeback I needed at all, and I'm out of CPs!

Necrons Turn 2

This turn I'm in the Protocol of the Hungry Void, which would give extra AP and S in combat; unfortunately there's not going to be any combat anywhere near a character to activate that benefit. Particularly in smaller games with fewer characters, the Necron Protocols don't feel very relevant - it's only occasionally they come in handy.

Once again, my objectives are good: Take It Back (control an objective controlled by Kraken at the start of the turn), Dominate (two quarters with units in that aren't in combat) and Push Them Out (control the central objective). Dominate is easy given my backfield and I can achieve both the other two by rushing my smaller Warriors unit at the central objective because the Intercessors are holding that objective.

The Warriors march towards the centre and shoot up the Hellblasters on their way (managing to kill two of them) whilst the Scarabs sneak round the other side of the rocks, backed up by the Spyder.

The Doomstalker lurches out from behind the rocks and takes aim at the Land Speeder. It only has time for two shots, but after a CP reroll the Speeder is finally dispatched.

I'm extremely wary of the Vanguard Vets and can see that they can jump onto my big unit of Warriors next turn if they want to, so they back away from the threat: I know I can still teleport them later so I'm not too worried about this, and I want to maintain the threat of them landing in Kraken's backfield.

The Scarabs and Warriors crash into the Intercessors, only killing one but losing a few of their own in the process (the extra attacks from being Intercessors rather than Tac Marines as per the map helped there). However they are now occupying the central objective so I've one again achieved all three and have set up a big VP lead.

Ultramarines Turn 3

Trading Blows? Tear Down Their Heroes? The Necron leaders are all hiding way at the back, the sensible bastards. Make A Stand is what real heroes do, so my Captain jumps forward towards the middle, the Vanguards following close behind. I could score for killing the big Warrior block too, but that's clearly unrealistic.

The Intercessors fall back but spend my command point on getting ready to run back in, and then I open up with as much preliminary gunpower as I can. 

It doesn't do much. The Hellblasters and Lieutenant have a crack at the bits of the Spyder they can see but bounce off its armour. The bolters batter away at the scarabs and the smaller Warrior squad, whittling the former away to a single base while the Warriors lose a couple but mostly regenerate. 

And then in combat, the Captain and Vanguards once again shine, flattening the nearby Warriors without too much bother. This is great! It does leave them rather exposed, though. At least the Scarabs are finally destroyed as the Intercessors stomp through them. 

Not many points scored, sadly...

Necrons Turn 3

My objectives are Driving Rush (get into Kraken's territory without being in combat), Lines Breached (get into his deployment zone) and Area Denial (no enemy within 6" of the centre). I could achieve the first two by teleporting into the backfield, but I've already got a big VP lead and smell blood: I can put the boot in here and tear the guts out of the Marines.

The Doomstalker moves to stand next to objective 2 (not shown in the map above) and aims its Doomsday Blaster at the jump troops in front of it.

On my right the Spyder moves to finish off the Intercessors and, after the fight phase, reduces them to just two left.

First though, the big blob of Warriors move forwards to clear the Veterans away who are screening their captain. After playing two strats to auto-wound on 6s and separately give extra hits on 6s, they manage to do this despite the pair of Storm Shields.

Then the Doomstalker charges up its main gun and (after CP rerolling 1 shot into 6), melts the hapless Captain...

The Armour Indomitus is supposed to give you a 3+ ward save. Of the five that wound me, I save a mere one. I'll be returning that to the Chapter Requisition pool, it's broken.

"Goodnight..."

The Necrons now have a commanding lead in both VPs and units, so we call the game there.

Result

Necron Victory, 41:8 

This fellow was painted up in a rush the night before the game; Kraken jokingly asked
for a moustache so I added a Blu-tak one and am disproportionately proud of it!

Locker Tomb

Eesh! That went south fast. Between poor objectives (both my choice and my rolls, and my refusal to use my few remaining CPs to reroll), poor dice in the first turn and perhaps a slightly toothless army list for the job at hand, I nose-dived hard early on. 

Necrons are nasty! Shooting them away is very hard, but they seem to crumple more easily in melee. Perhaps I should have taken a Land Raider full of assault troops and ploughed straight into them? Maybe next time!

Yes, I rolled well for reanimation in the first turn by bringing back a Wraith and also had much easier to score objectives throughout. Reanimation tailed off rapidly and didn't really affect the game much however. 

You may be right about combat. Your army didn't have any units with a really high volume of fire (big unit of Aggressors for example) that had a chance of wiping out a unit without allowing reanimation. The Vanguard Vets did manage that quite easily against the smaller unit, though I think even they would have struggled to clear the big unit.

Necrons have lots of S5 and 6 weaponry which makes them good against heavy infantry but  I suspect that they might struggle against heavy armour - they've got a few things like Doomstalkers and Doomsday Arks that can kill tanks, but not all that much.

We talked a bit about the way a unit of reanimating warriors can creep forward with the current rules. It's quite a feature, although I wonder if it was really intended that way? Given you explicitly can't use it to shorten a charge, I'm surprised you can use it in your opponent's turn to sneak a few inches forward or back. Obviously I'd feel differently if I was Necrons! 

It does seem odd to conga-line forwards, though I think unit coherency in 9th makes that slightly harder than it would have been in 8th.

Well, great to see some new hostiles on Bagot Prime. Wonder how they'll cope with Ork rushes?

I look forward to seeing that. Sorry this game wasn't a closer one: hopefully next time!