Pootle here! I realised recently that I've only managed to play one game in 10th edition with my Necrons (though that was a cracker against WintersSEO's 13th). Before the edition disappears I fancied running them one last time and Kraken heroically stepped in to help me out.
Kraken and I played this game a few weeks ago and were going to see if we could work it into the Jimualthuan Campaign, but it's worth publishing before the edition disappears!
Hypercryptic Cross Words
Rather than the most common (and good!) Awakened Dynasty, I decided to try out the Hypercrypt Legion, whose signature move is that at the end of the opponent's turn a number of Necron units that aren't in melee (1 unit for this 1,000 point game) can go back into strategic reserve. Unfortunately 3 out of the 6 stratagems are based around having a Monolith (I don't) and another gives Vehicles a 4+ invulnerable save (all the vehicles I'm fielding have this already). I'm also looking to try out a couple of units that I've never fielded: recently(ish) painted Tomb Blades, Tesla-armed Immortals and (though I've had it a while) a Triarch Stalker.
- Skorpekh Lord; warlord with Osteoclave Fulcrum enhancement (his unit gets Deep Strike) leading 3 Skorpekh Destroyers
- Plasmancer with Arisen Tyrant enhancement (reroll hit rolls of 1; reroll all hit rolls if this unit was set up on the battlefield this turn) leading 10 Immortals with Tesla Carbines
- Hexmark Destroyer
- 5 Flayed Ones
- 3 Tomb Blades with Twin Tesla Carbines
- Annihilation Barge
- Canoptek Doomstalker
- Triarch Stalker with Heavy Gauss Cannon Array
995 points
Ultramarines - Shock Tanktics
Kraken here, and if there's nothing I like more, it's a shiny new detachment rumoured to be overpowered just at the end of an edition.
Given that I've got about a month to try this out, it's use it or lose it time. This is Armoured Spearhead, a bunch of massive tanks that somehow play like Eldar. They springload their infantry out extra fast (in my head, the detachment ability is called Boyoiyoiyoiyoing), they can drive through walls, they can suck the infantry back in with a sort of mini-uppy-downy effect and they can advance and still catapult their contents into your face.
All this, plus some enhancements that are essentially blatant cheating. Heavy tanks that can scout move 9"? Heavy tanks that enter from reserve a turn early? This is terrible cheese and I'm here for it.
Two big tanks, two big squads of heavy infantry, two big damn heroes leading them. It's almost nothing in terms of numbers, I'd be stuffed if we were playing secondaries or such. It also won't take much hosing from that Necron Doomstalker to mess the whole thing up, but let's see how it goes before the Nerfhammer of War descends!
- Terminator Captain - Warlord, relic blade and storm bolter, Tip of the Spear enhancement
- Terminator Librarian - Force Weapon and storm bolter, Armoured Commander
- 5 x Assault Terminators - Thunder hammer and storm shields
- 5 x Terminators - Cyclone missile launcher, storm bolters and power fists
- Land Raider - Quad lascannons, multi-melta, heavy bolter and hunter killer
- Repulsor - Twin lascannons, defence array, hunter-slayer and heavy onslaught gatling cannon
985 points
Mission and deployment
We decide to play our favourite mission for these pick-up games: hold-more-kill-more. At the start of each players turn (from round two) that player scores 5VPs for holding an objective, an extra five if they control two objectives and five more if they control more than their opponent at that point. Similarly, at the end of each battle round players score 5VPs if they killed an enemy unit that round, an extra five if they killed two units and five more if they killed more than their opponent.
As this game is being played out on Bagot Prime, all units have the Sticky Objectives ability.
We discussed before the game that Kraken's army is going to be rather effective at killing but will find it hard to hold objectives (even with the Bagot Prime bonus ability). In contrast, my army (with a boatload of 0 AP Tesla guns!) will find it hard to kill 2+ save Terminators but easy to hold objectives (particularly with Infiltrating Flayed Ones, fast moving Tomb Blades and the army-wide redeployment ability). On the other hand, I'll have a lot of firepower and Kraken will really feel every lost model...and if anyone can roll 1s, it's Kraken!
The Flayed Ones infiltrate forwards on my left flank, grabbing the left-hand midfield objective for me.
The Tomb Blades are ready to seize the right midfield objective, supported by the Triarch Stalker.
The Doomstalker is huddled up against a large tower to try to avoid being seen by the Land Raider; the Immortals screen all around it as I'm conscious that the Terminators can get a hell of a long way if Kraken gets first turn.
The Annihilation Barge takes cover on my lefthand side.
Not pictured is the Land Raider, which was skulking on Kraken's home objective behind a very large rock.
Yes, I have precisely one drop, and it's the Land Raider full of Assault Terminators, led by the Captain. He's got the enhancement that lets his tank pull a 9" scout move. This has clearly already terrified Pootle, his entire deployment (almost entirely done after mine) is about screening the flanks and cowering.
I win the roll-off for first turn, which I think is good as it'll stop that first-turn crazy charge from the Land Raider...
Necrons: turn 1
...However I quickly realise that my overcautious deployment means that I can't get the Doomstalker to move far enough to be able to target the Land Raider at all!
And, following that realisation I find that nothing else can move far enough to get 24" range guns in effective range. So I move cautiously forwards to grab objectives and then that's it for the turn.
The Doomstalker remains huddled up against the tower however, while its Immortal escort shift left somewhat (the righthand route is now blocked by the Triarch Stalker).
Ultramarines: turn 1
I don't need a crazy first turn charge, not when there's Flayed Ones just begging to be crushed. So 40 points well spent there!
That wasn't very bright of me! I should have left them where they were (mind you, nothing was out of range of them really).
We aren't here for rocket science. The Land Raider moves towards the Flayed Ones, the Termies pop out, there's a bit of shooting that doesn't quite remove them, so the Termies charge, bash them all to death and then get back in the tank (which has had to charge too to keep up, I managed to make this complicated for myself).
That means I've killed a unit, which is also more than Pootle's killed. Ten points to me!
Ultramarines winning 10:0
Necrons: turn 2
I score 15 points at the top of the turn for holding one, two and more objectives than Kraken (I have three in fact). In my backfield, the Immortals move out to screen my home objective from the Repulsor.
The Doomstalker can move to see the rear end of the Land Raider (it's a lot bigger than it looks on the map above); the Triarch Stalker moves forwards to claim the centre objective (so I have five under my control now!) and also aims it Gauss Array at the tank.
The Annihilation Barge kicks things off with an effective volley of fire (and some expected ones from Kraken): four wounds down.
Another four wounds come through from the Triarch Stalker before the Doomstalker opens up. Unfortunately it's not as accurate as it needs to be and only one hit gets through, leaving the big tank on 5 wounds remaining.
The Skorpekh Destroyers have deep struck onto Kraken's home objective - a successful 9" charge could just finish the tank off, but fail their charge even with a CP reroll.
Ultramarines: turn 2
Now that the entire Necron force is present and blowing chunks off my army, I've got them right where I want them.
First, the Land Raider drives back the way it came and disgorges Terminators up in the robofaces of the foe.
Then the tanks get going. The Doomstalker cannot be allowed to live, it's the Oath target. Sure enough, the big hulls between them crumple it to the floor. Spare firepower is enough to knock a couple more wounds off the Skorpekhs, but it keeps costing me! That bloody Hexmark is a right liability, shooting back quite unreasonably when I kill his mates.
Having created the perfect conditions for a Terminator sandwich, the last thing to do is slam it shut. This goes just as well as I could hope - the Librarian slays the Hexmark, the Terminators butcher the Skorpekhs and their Lord is left just about standing on two wounds and a pile of dead comrades.
All well and good! I've killed three units, plenty more than Pootle (who managed one). I'm a bit worried about all that board control, though, that's going to be very hard to shift now I've shot my transport bolt.
Ultramarines winning 25:15
Necrons: turn 3
Another 15VPs for holding objectives.
The Immortals left the field at the end of Kraken's last turn and reappear in his deployment zone, aiming to draw a bead on the (slightly) injured Librarian's unit. The Skorpekh Lord passes his battleshock and desperate breakout tests to enable my forces to shoot at the Terminators.
The Annihilation Barge opens up on the Captain's unit in the middle, not from hope of causing damage, but more hoping that I'll cause some splash damage from its Malevolent Arcing ability. No damage is caused to either Terminator unit, but a do put a wound onto the Land Raider.
The Triarch Stalker (not the Doomstalker as per the map - woops, I blew up the wrong construct in the mapper) moves further forwards and manages to take down the Land Raider with its firepower.
The Tomb Blades have flown up onto the gantry and look damn cool in doing so, however their Tesla guns can't cause any damage to the enemy.
Then it's the turn of the Immortals. I manage to forget to use both the Plasmancer's enhancement (reroll all hits if I emerge from reserves this turn) and his natural ability (criticals go off on 5s) but I don't think it would have made much difference. Kraken does roll enough 1s to kill 2 and a bit of the Librarian's unit however.
Ultramarines: turn 3
There's a strat in this detachment that I just have to use, even though I only have a single CP and no massive cause to use it. Ceramite Sledgehammer! And the Repulsor goes busting through a wall and in towards the middle of the board.
It's not super helpful here, but it does get me a good line of sight on the tomb blades. Looking cool doesn't help them much against the Repulsor's defence array, and they evaporate pretty quickly. There's even enough firepower left over to knock a 7-wound hole in the Stalker with a lascannon. Hah!
It's the Barge that's the Oath of Moment, though, and the Assault Terminators cheerily stomp towards it, charge up the hill and knock all its legs off.
The Librarian and his surviving pals do their best to finish off the Skorpekh Lord, but their best isn't terribly good. So they have to go and kick his remaining teeth out by hand, so to speak, but they're more than up to that. Three more dead, although I'm still only holding a single objective.
Ultramarines winning 45:35
Necrons: turn 4
I'm suddenly aware that I only have two units left! I still score maximum points for holding objectives but my turn is rather short (which is possibly why I forgot to take any pics this turn).
The Immortals stay where they are and hose down the Librarian's unit (I remember to use the Plasmancer's abilities this time). They kill the Terminators but the Triarch Stalker's gun can't quite finish the Libby himself off. It then crashes into the Repulsor but doesn't even scratch the hull.
Ultramarines: turn 4
I mean, if you're going to park on the end of my guns, you're just asking for trouble.
The Librarian runs bravely away from the Immortal gunline and leaps into the back of the Repulsor. Even as the Assault Termies come bundling back towards the tank, hoping for a long charge to clean off the Triarch and then rebound on to the middle objective, the heavy transport rolls hot for its guns and burns a pair of holes clean through the spidery thing.
That's good, I've killed one and more again, but it leaves me unable to claim the middle. And that means...
Draw 55:55
Necrons: turn 5
My turn is really very fast indeed. I get 15VPs for holding three objectives, and at the end of Kraken's last turn the Immortals disappeared again, but as I can see there's no easy kill, they reappear in my deployment zone as far away from the Ultramarines as possible so there's no way he'll be able to kill them.
Ultramarines: turn 5
I don't care that I can't kill them (well, maybe just a bit) - with the speed from leaping out of the tank, I can spread out my three units to claim three objectives and score every bit as well as the Necrons.
And that means it's a...
Result: 70-70 Draw!
 |
| I claim this for the book club |
Hurt Locker
I had expected the game to swing one way or the other heavily so although it was at some level unsurprising that I scored loads of hold-more points and Kraken loads of kill-more points, I was still very pleased that it balanced out exactly.
I didn't get full use out of the Hypercrypt Legion abilities. although arguably teleporting the Immortals in and out again was critical in being able to kill a unit of Terminators and then get the hell out again.
So I didn't use the 9" scout move, I didn't do a massive turn one charge and I didn't really use that reserve move to burst in unexpectedly from the flanks. All I really achieved was scaring Pootle into being too cautious!
Doesn't matter - this was still tremendous fun to use and clearly has some nasty threats it could spring. At this points level, it's very short on utility, so the choice of mission helped me a lot. In a bigger battle, though, you'd have some supremely nasty things to throw at the opponent in turn one, backed up with a bunch of scoring pieces to be a nuisance.
Off the top of my head, how about a Repulsor packed with five Devastators, six Bladeguard Vets and a Judiciar? Sling that into your opponent's lines, shoot something to bits, chop something to bits, scoop the shooters back into the tank for later and possibly consolidate the swordsmen into something else vulnerable. I know I would.
Will this survive the end of 10th? Well, time will tell. It might not even last that long if it proves too poky at tournaments, so I'm very glad I got to have a go with it before it vanishes!
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