Poll lovingly ripped off of the always awesome
jy2
Some friends and I got together for a battle at the nearest
GW the other day. Two of these friends have been out of the
40k loop for a while, having lost their armies long ago and only playing a handful of games with loaned armies since then. My friend, Lord Graveline, and I were willing to lend them our alternate armies to get a team game together. While I hate to fuel the Matt Ward hate, the match-up was reminiscent of his style: Space Wolves allied with Necrons to battle the Tyranids and Imperial Guard.
Our lists were as follows (some guesswork was done here, but I showed as much as I could; also, we allowed some leniency with the
FOC):
ANDILUS GREATSWORD'S GREAT COMPANY
Njal Stormcaller (Terminator Armour) – 270pts
Wolf Lord Andilus Greatsword (Terminator Armour, Frost Blade, Storm Shield, Wolf Tail Talisman, Wolf Tooth Necklace, Saga of the Bear) – 225pts
Rune Priest (Living Lightning/Stormcaller, Chooser of the Slain) – 110pts
Long Fangs (Squad Leader, 2x Lascannon, Missile Launcher) – 120pts
Long Fangs (Squad Leader, 2x Plasmacannon, Missile Launcher, Razorback with Lascannons) – 185pts
9x Grey Hunters Unit Alpha (Meltagun, Wolf Standard, Mark of the Wulfen, Power Weapon, Rhino) – 215pts
Wolf Guard Pack Leader (Power weapon, combi-melta) – 33pts
9x Grey Hunters Unit Beta (Meltagun, Wolf Standard, Mark of the Wulfen, Power Weapon, Rhino) – 215pts
Wolf Guard Pack Leader (Powerfist) – 38pts
9x Grey Hunters Unit Gamma (Meltagun, Wolf Standard, Mark of the Wulfen, Power Weapon) – 180pts
Venerable Dreadnought (Extra Armour, Assault Cannon, Heavy Flamer) – 190pts
3x Thunderwolf Cavalry (2x Bolt Pistol/
CCW/Meltabombs, 1x Wolf Claw/Storm Shield/Meltabombs) – 215pts
TOTAL – 1996pts
NECRONS (Played by Matt)
Necron Lord (Warscythe, Resurrection Orb, Veil of Darkness) – 210pts
The Nightbringer – 360pts
7x Immortals – 196pts
7x Flayed Ones – 132pts
10x Warriors Unit Alpha – 180pts
10x Warriors Unit Beta – 180pts
10x Warriors Unit Gamma – 180pts
3x Destroyers – 150pts
3x Destroyers – 150pts
5x Scarabs – 60pts
3x Scarabs – 36pts
Monolith – 235pts
TOTAL – 2063pts (Either he miscalculated his points or I did, because he said he had 2005pts)
TYRANIDS (Played by Nick)
Hive Tyrant (Bone Sword/Lash Whips/Scything Talons, Old Adversary, Armoured Shell) – 235pts
Tyrant Guard – 60pts
2x Hive Guard – 100pts
Venomthrope – 55pts
2x Zoanthrope – 60pts
Tervigon (Crushing Claws, Catalyst) – 200pts
15x Termagaunts (Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs) – 105pts
3x Tyranid Warriors (2x Devourers/Scything Talons/Adrenal Glands/Toxin Sacs, 1x Venom Cannon/Scything Talons/Adrenal Glands/Toxin Sacs) – 135pts
14x Genestealers (Toxin Sacs) – 238pts
Broodlord (Toxin Sacs, Scything Talons) – 65pts
21x Hormagaunts (Toxin Sacs, Scything Talons) – 210pts
4x Ripper Swarms – 40pts
16x Gargoyles (Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs) – 128pts
8x Spore Mines – 80pts
Biovore – 45pts
TOTAL – 1756pts
IMPERIAL ARMY (Played by Lord Graveline) (The points value of everything here is approximate, I don't have the actual list)
Company Command Squad – (Commander with Power Weapon/Plasma Pistol, Medpack?, Vox-caster, Heavy Flamer, 2x Flamers) – 135pts?
Canoness (Rosarius, Inferno Pistol, Blessed Weapon) – 115pts
Priest – 45pts
3x Ogryns – 130pts
Infantry Platoon
Platoon Command Squad (Vox-caster) – 55pts?
Infantry Squad (Vox-caster, Grenade Launcher, Krak Grenades) – 70pts
Infantry Squad (Vox-caster, Grenade Launcher, Krak Grenades) – 70pts
Heavy Weapons Team (3x Autocannon) – 75pts
Infantry Platoon
Platoon Command Squad (Vox-caster) – 55pts?
Infantry Squad (Vox-caster, Grenade Launcher, Krak Grenades) – 70pts
Infantry Squad (Vox-caster, Grenade Launcher, Krak Grenades) – 70pts
Heavy Weapons Team (2x Lascannon, 1x Missile Launcher) – 100pts
10x Battle Sisters (1 Sister Superior) – 124pts
5x Stormtroopers (1 Veteran, 2x meltaguns?) – 105pts
5x Stormtroopers (1 Veteran, 2x meltaguns?) – 105pts
Leman Russ (Lascannon, Heavy Bolter Sponsons?, Extra Armour) – 200pts
Leman Russ (Lascannon, Heavy Bolter Sponsons?, Extra Armour) – 200pts
Leman Russ Demolisher (Lascannon, Plasma Cannon Sponsons, Extra Armour) – 235pts
TOTAL – 1959pts (I know for a fact that I am missing about 300pts from this list but am not sure where they were placed – this is the basis of the army though)
DEPLOYMENT
We rolled for the mission and got Capture and Control. However, we decided to put 2 objectives in neutral territory to make the game a little more intense and less-likely to end in a draw. The Necrons/Wolves placed their objective on the roof of a building on their left flank, while the Nids/Guard placed theirs on a landing pad. One neutral objective was placed in difficult terrain on the left flank, while the other was placed on top of a Chaos Shrine in the center of the field.
We also decided to make the deployment zones 12” from the team's table edge so that there would be room to deploy our armies, rather than rolling for a deployment type.
With that decided, we rolled to see who would get the first turn – Matt rolled a 2, while Lord Graveline rolled a 3
The Imperials/Tyranids get the first turn. For some reason, Nick places his Ripper Swarms on his team's main objective, Objective D. I think this is because I told him only Troops could capture objectives, and said that Ripper Swarms were terrible so he figured he would put his worst Troops choice here while his better ones were consequential. However, he was obviously not aware that Ripper Swarms can never claim objectives. I asked him to read the Codex before we fought, and he did – the
fluff parts of the Codex anyway.
After our deployment ended, we let the Nids seed our deployment with 3 Spore Mine clusters (I'm not sure if they had to do this before deployment or not, but we allowed it regardless of its legality). 3 Spore Mines hit their targets, but they are largely ineffective – 1 Necron Warrior from Unit Gamma is put down. The other Spore Mines land ahead of the Necron/Wolf lines, making advancing a potentially dangerous affair.
With all this decided, the Necrons/Wolves fail to seize the initiative.
TURN 1 – NIDS/GUARD
As the game began, the Tervigon spawns 13 Termagaunts and charges towards Objective A with it's spawn. The Gaunts manage to reach it after running, quickly capturing the first objective for the Nids/Guard. Meanwhile, the Hive Tyrant, his Tyrant Guard, a Venomthrope and 10 Termagaunts head directly towards a gap between the Chaos Shrine and a cliff side, hoping to cut off any advance. This gap would come to be known, appropriately, as Thermopylae...
Elsewhere, the Gargoyles, Hive Guard and Ogryns advance slowly through the forest on the far right side of the board.
The Imperial Guard's movement was far less eventful. Their infantry had been deployed very conservatively behind Lord Graveline's Leman Russes, which crawled forward to screen them. Lord Graveline's allied Sisters of Battle, led by a Canoness, picked their way through a forest to avoid any gunfire.
With movement completed, the Nids/Guard opened fire. The Hive Guard opened fire on my Long Fangs, killing the Squad Leader*. A Leman Russ Battle Tank also managed to immobilize my Venerable Dreadnought, but I used the Venerable rule and extra armour to reroll it and downgraded to a shaken result. While this was fortunate, my Plasma Cannon Long Fang's squad's Razorback wasn't so lucky – Imperial Guard heavy weapons teams opened fire on it, stunning it and then wrecking it before it could even get a shot off, despite its 4+ cover save.
All other shooting was inconsequential, and no one was able to assault. The battle was far from over...
*I will admit I deployed my Long Fangs stupidly here – I should have put my Lascannons where I put my Plasma Cannons, as both squads were unsuited for the tasks they had to face due to my poor deployment strategy.
TURN 1 – WOLVES/NECRONS
The Wolves were hungry for some retaliation while the Necrons were hungry for -what else?- some souls. I rolled to see how Njal's storm would act this turn and got the Living Hurricane result – all enemies within 24” would now have to move as if they were in difficult terrain. Handy in an objectives game like this.
With that done, our units were able to move ahead. The Venerable Dreadnought moved forwards, stomping on a rogue Spore Mine which was unable to hurt it at all. Unable to fire this turn, the Dreadnought made a beeline for the Russes, followed by a unit of Destroyers.
On the opposite flank, my Thunderwolf Calvary and the Rhino containing Grey Hunter Unit Alpha advanced up the right flank towards the landing pad. Meanwhile, the Necron Lord, Wolf Lord Andilus Greatsword, Grey Hunters Unit Gamma and Necron Warriors Unit Gamma headed to Thermopylae to meet the Hive Tyrant. However, they are all beaten to the punch by a unit of Scarabs which sit in the gap to screen the Tyrant for a turn.
Njal and the Rhino containing Grey Hunter Unit Beta, not wishing to get caught up in the fight, move to circumvent Thermopylae and instead attempt to get onto the Chaos Shrine. Finally, The Nightbringer advances alone up the field, sights set on the Leman Russ Demolisher.
Shooting commenced. Njal completely whiffs his very first psychic test of the game, rolling a 12 on Stormcaller. He then rolls a 1 for his perils save, taking a wound...
Luckily, I successfully cast Living Lighting, which, combined with the Plasma Cannon Long Fangs kills one of the Imperial Guard heavy weapons teams. Meanwhile, the Lascannon Long Fangs instakill the Venomthrope, negating the Tyranids' mobile cover save.
In the final action of the turn, the Thunderwolves charged forwards into the Gargoyles, nearly wiping them out. The Gargoyles manage to cause 1 wound as the fight continues into the next turn.
TURN 2 – NIDS/GUARD
At the beginning of the turn, the Nids roll for their reserves, and successfully allow their Hormagaunts to arrive. 21 Hormagaunts leap onto the table and charge forwards immediately. The Tervigon spawns 6 more Termagaunts and then moves forward to secure Objective A itself. With the objectives in mind, the Sisters and Canoness move from the cover of their treeline to make a run for Objective B. The Imperial Guard continue to slowly advance, as do the Tyranid Warriors and Hive Guard.
The Hive Tyrant, wanting to attack the Necron Lord, makes a risky move – instead of attacking the Scarabs and getting bogged down in them, he attempts to move through the cliffside cover to circumvent them. He successfully does so, and then casts Paroxysm on the Lord, reducing him to
WS/BS1 (Njal fails to nullify the power).
Meanwhile, the Demolisher fires its cannon at the 3 Destroyers tailing the Venerable Dreadnought and causes instant death on the whole squad*. The Necrons take more damage as the Imperial Guard infantry squads all fire their grenade launchers, putting 1 wound on the Nightbringer. The Venerable Dreadnought is also scathed, losing its Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon and Heavy Flamer to heavy weapons fire.
On the opposite flank, the Hive Guard open fire on the Long Fangs again, scoring 3 wounds (all of which I fail...). The Lascannon Long Fangs are shockingly wiped out. The screening Scarabs also come under fire, losing 4 wounds due to their Swarms rules.
In assault, the
TWC mop up the remaining Gargoyles and then consolidate towards the landing pad. Meanwhile, the Hive Tyrant assaults the Necron Lord. Due to Paroxysm, the Lord completely whiffs his attacks, while the Tyrant manages to put 2 Bonesword wounds on him. Luckily the Necron Lord passes his leadership test and survives, praying reinforcements arrive next turn...
*This is because Matt failed to heed my advice. I warned him to stop bunching together his squads because of all the blast weapons on the other team, but he either forgot or didn't care. In this case, it cost him 150pts.
TURN 2 – WOLVES/NECRONS
At the beginning of this turn, the Necrons' Flayed Ones successfully arrive from reserves. They choose to outflank, ending up on the right table edge. They use this opportunity to attack the Tyranid Warriors in the forest, lining up to charge in the assault phase. Njal's storm kicks into higher gear, with this turn's result showing Howling Cyclone – at the end of the assault phase, all unengaged enemy units within 18” need to take a morale check or fall back.
Nice!
With all the preliminary stuff handled, the movement phase begins proper. The Nightbringer charges towards the Demolisher, and comes into range to assault it, while the Venerable Dreadnought does the same for another Leman Russ Battletank. Meanwhile, the Immortals and Warriors Unit Alpha begin to move ahead to capture Objective B.
Meanwhile, at the center of the field, Andilus moved to aid the Necron Lord, preparing to charge the Tyrant. As he did this, the second Scarab Swarm moved to contest Objective A and assault the Termagaunts guarding it.
With movement complete, shooting began. With a lack of suitable targets in range, the Immortals and Warriors shoot at the exposed Sisters – luckily, the Sisters are blessed with their saving throws, as only 1 Sister fails her armour save, despite having to save 10 wounds. Unfortunately, the Long Fangs also choose to shoot them, and they are torn apart with plasma fire. Only the Canoness and the Sister Superior survive the attack. Njal failed another psychic test due to Shadow in the Warp from the Tyrant, but saved the wound this time. At this point, I decided it was too risky for him to even bother trying that again as long as the Tyrant was nearby.
The assault phase was the most eventful yet, making up for the dearth of shooting. The
TWC charge the 10-man squad of Termagaunts, wiping the unit out. The Flayed Ones assault the Tyranid Warriors, but the Warriors have amazing luck with their saves – they amazingly only take 1 wound, and manage to kill 1 Flayed One in retaliation.
On the other side of the field, the Venerable Dreadnought multi-assaults the Leman Russ and a squad of Guardsmen, dragging them into the fight. However, he completely whiffs his attacks, only managing to stun the tank. The Guardsmens' krak grenades are unable to cause any damage. Meanwhile, the Nightbringer assaults the Demolisher and it explodes, killing a few Guardsmen in the process. The second Scarab Squad assaults the Termagaunts on the Chaos Shrine, taking damage but begins to push the Termagaunts back.
Finally, Andilus charges the Hive Tyrant, but is too late to save the Necron Lord – the Tyrant cuts the Lord down, but Andilus is able to parry his strikes away with his storm shield. Unfortunately, Andilus is unable to land any wounds of his own on the behemoth, and the fight continues.
With the assault phase completed, multiple Guard units roll their Howling Cyclone tests. Amazingly, no one fails a single test.
TURN 3 – NIDS/GUARD
At the beginning of the turn, the Tyranids' last reinforcements come in, a 14-man-plus-Broodlord unit of Genestealers. They arrive from the right table edge and prepare to attack the Flayed Ones and help their Warrior brethren. The Tervigon spawns even more Gaunts, which pile onto their objective, creating a sea of bodies and making it almost impossible to reach the objective without a fight.
With few units to move, the shooting phase came quickly. The Hive Guard opened fire on Grey Hunter Unit Alpha's Rhino, wrecking it. The Imperial Guard infantry units then open fire on the screening Scarabs, nearly wiping the unit out. The Grey Hunters disembarked, but were then shot by the Ogryns lurking in the woods nearby, killing a couple of them before they launched their assault. The Grey Hunters, however, were defiant. The Ogryns didn't stand a chance as the Grey Hunters landed so many power weapon wounds that they were wiped out without a single attack (to add insult to injury, the Grey Hunters didn't even get to counter-attack – they failed their leadership test).
Elsewhere, the Hormagaunts assaulted the
TWC and land 43 of their 63 attacks, and cause 27 wounds! The
TWC don't even get a chance to strike back, they are utterly annihilated by the leaping horde. Meanwhile, the Genestealers wipe out the Flayed Ones with ease. In Thermopylae, Andilus finally manages to wound the Hive Tyrant, turning away the monster's attacks with his Storm Shield... before taking a wound from the Tyrant Guard. Never forget the little guy!
TURN 3 – WOLVES/NECRONS
At this point, we only had 10 minutes left to go before the
GW staff would kick us out (it was nearly closing time). As a result, we had to streamline our actions into things that would affect the outcome. Foremost amongst these – the Necron's Monolith successfully arrived from reserves and we attempted to drop it on Objective A to push the Termagaunts off the objective. However, it scattered wide, landing on the Scarab – Termagaunt fight and breaking it up. It looked as if the Termagaunts were going to hold Objective A uncontested... until I realized I could tank shock them with Grey Hunter Unit Beta's Rhino. I passed my dangerous terrain test with the Rhino and blasted over the Chaos Shrine and pushed the Termagaunts out of the way, contesting the objective.
Elsewhere, the Immortals and Necron Warriors moved to Objective B and captured it without issue. Also, the Necron Lord also survived his “We'll Be Back!” roll, but we forgot to continue the fight to see how it would turn out, regrettably.
With time up, we added up the objectives – with Objectives B and C in our possession, the Necrons and Space Wolves were declared the victors!
Grey Hunters Unit B smashes through the pillars to contest the Objective.
The Necrons take Objective B.
“SPACE WOLVES! PREPARE FOR GLORY!”
FINAL THOUGHTS
It was an interesting game, although I'm not sure how fair it was. For one thing, I'm certain that the Necrons/Wolves had more points than the Nids/Guard. The Guard didn't have much luck either – afterwards Lord Graveline admitted that he had deployed very poorly, which bogged him down the entire game, and on top of that his Stormtroopers never arrived (we ran out of time before they could).
On a more positive note, Matt and Nick performed fairly well. They made some smart tactical choices and made the most of their armies despite their inexperience. There were a few gaffes obviously, such as the Rippers sitting on objectives or bunching together Destroyers, but these were in the minority. However, if we do this again, then we are
definitely writing our army lists beforehand. We wasted about an hour and a half writing up lists for Matt and Nick, and they were reading the Codex fluff half the time, rather than the army sections...
As for myself, I have a few things to improve. For one, if I'm running an armoured transport list then I'm going to take smaller Grey Hunter units. For most of the game, I had 400 points running around in 2 Rhinos which I never expected to do anything other than walk up to an objective and sit there. I'm thinking from now on I'll take one 10-man unit, and two 5-man units perhaps. Also, I was impressed by Njal's potency, even if he had awful luck for me in this particular battle. I wanted to fight some Grey Knights with this list, but none showed up so I ended up fighting the worst possible army for a psyker list – Nids. Shadow in the Warp is an amazing ability that I've never really gotten a chance to see in action myself until now.
Anyway, all-in-all it was a fun battle although I'm not sure how evenly matched it was. I wished we had gotten more time to play, but perhaps sometime in the future we will get a proper rematch.
Also, if you enjoyed this, then be sure to check out my other battle reports:
First Battle Report (Apocalypse @ GW)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/341580.page#2361496
Second Battle Report (~30,000pt Apocalypse Battle)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/346424.page#2505713
