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What follows is a battle I had with my son over the weekend. It's me trying to navigate us both through 6th with only a couple of games under my belt... so don't put too much stock in our rules interpretations. I'm pretty shaky. I'm also re-writing this as the first attempt for some reason didn't post so I lost it. Problem is I don't have access to things like the army lists on codecii from here... so some details might be a bit sketchy. In spite of that... lots of good pics so hopefully it'll make a good read.

Not that long ago I finished fixing/painting his new Tomb Stalker, so we thought we'd try it out with it's real rules. I thought this would be a good time to experiment with the IA character for the Mantis Warriors. We included mysterious terrain (woods and water) with the set up.


The Armies

Mantis Warriors (vanilla dex): 1500
HQ: IA MW Librarian A. Redth
EL: 10 sternguard (HF, MG, 4x CM, srg w/ PF & CM) in pod
TP: 6 scouts (HB, 5x sniper rifles) + Telion
TP: 6 scouts (HB, 5x sniper rifles) + Srg w/ sniper rifle
TP: 5 tac marines in las/plas razorback w/dozer blade
FA: 5 assault marines (flamer, srg w/ PW & MB)
FA: 5 assault marines (flamer, srg w/ PW & MB)
Hvy: vindicator w/ dozer blade
Hvy: 5 devastators (4x ML)



(pod is missing from photo)


Necrons
HQ: Imotekh
HQ: Destroyer Lord w/ WS & MSS
Royal Court: 1 Lord w/ WS & res orb, 1 Cryptek (harbinger of destruction)
TP: 10 Warriors
TP: 10 Warriors
FA: 5 Wraiths
FA: 4 Destroyers
Hvy: IA Tomb Stalker
Hvy: Annihilation Barge
Hvy: Annihilation Barge




The Game

Mission:
The Scourge, 6 mysterious objectives, diagonal deployment

Deployment
Most of my army infiltrates thanks to Redth so deploys last. Thing 1 spreads out with his assault troops on the right and the shooters on the left. I take the high ground with my scouts and devs while the other squad of scouts braves the water to claim the objective. Assault marines deploy far enough forward to get a first turn assault if Imotekh's unit stays put.




Turn 1

Necrons
Their right flank moves out while Imotekh rains down lightening and hits nearly half of my units, killing a couple of guys and doing two penetrating hits to the razorback.



Mantis Warriors
Vindi moves out to support the left flank while one assault squad moves forward to help the descending sternguard squad to take out Imotekh and his warrior unit. Easier said than done. The sternguard take out two of their own with special bolter ammo, though they do a number of permanent wounds to the warriors. Shooting and charging from the assault squad kills more warriors and puts some wounds on Imotekh. They do lose a man to overwatch.




Turn 2

Necrons
Lightening comes down and hits two of the same squads it hit last time AGAIN and wrecks the razorback. The Necron assault troops continue to move around the left flank and the troops on the right (bottom) wipe all the sternguard save 1. Two more necron warriors die in assault as does one marine.



Mantis Warriors
Concentrated fire kills one wraith and wounds another, The lone sternguard advances and shoots a barge, but to no avail. Assault stalemates



By the prickling of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes!



Turn 3

Necrons
The left flank is getting awfully cozy. On my right one of the barges takes out the last sternguard and feeds back 6 shots on itself! Alas, no damage results. The Destroyers decide they can move into the ruins and take over the objective, which allows them to re-rol. 1s to hit.



The wraiths can't charge, but the Tomb Stalker does. Unfortunately the objective halves it's charging distance... so all it does is eat a little scout/overwatch fire.



Mantis Warriors
The scouts in the pond fall back while the unengaged assault marines make a dash for an objective. My left flank opens up on the wraiths, wiping them. The Tomb Stalker is wounded by the Vindi.




Turn 4

Necrons
The Tomb Stalker moves up as do the barges who now have shots at my vindi and scouts. The vindi is wrecked and I lose a scout.



The assault involving Imotekh grinds on at the bottom edge of the board. Unfortunately for me... Mr. Tomb Stalker is able to reach my scouts.



And eats 4, including Telion.


Mantis Warriors
As I add up points in my head, my only hope is to re-capture the objective lost by the retreating scouts & take out Imotekh's squad holding the other objective. My assault squad moves into the Mysterious Woods by there objective and has a member decapitated by razor wings as a result. My disembarked tactical squad moves around to the left of the Tomb Stalker and the surviving scout squad comes down out of their tower and moves to the right of it. My hope is that one will survive to reach the objective while the other draws the monstrosity away. Unfortunately, Imotekh and his sole surviving warrior kill the last of my assault squad. Now the best I can hope for is a draw. (and that's if I manage to take out Imotekh with long range missile fire... and I may be out of range for that).



As you would expect... the Tomb Stalker finishes off my scouts, save one... who flees. I was forced to stage this photo of the TS eating Telion by my son. I hope you enjoy it.


Here's a better shot of what's happening on my left flank.




Turn 5

Necrons
The Tomb Stalker continues to advance on my left... while the Anni Barges re-position themselves on the right and take out the pod (for the sake of neatness).



The Tomb Stalker charges my tactical squad...



... and eats them. (once again, this "staged" photo at the insistence of my son)


Mantis Warriors
Not much to do... the surviving scouts make for the objective while the Devs open up on the Tomb Stalker, giving it another wound.



We roll and the game continues.


Turn 6

Necrons
In short... all but one devastator is slaughtered by combined fire from the two Barges. The Tomb Stalker and Warriors wipe my scout unit, removing the possibility of a draw. The surviving devastator marine legs it.



Mantis Warriors
The remnants of my assault squad hold the one objective while my Dev keeps running (IA Libby makes them give up the auto-rally ability).

Game Ends!


Mantis Warriors: 3 pt obj = 3 points
SteamCrons: 2 & 3 pt obj, 1st kill, head hunter, killed one FA unit = 8 pts

Victory to the SteamCrons!!



Fun game, even though I got my *ss handed to me. Love the Tomb Stalker & Barges (our first time with those). Fun to play with the MW character though it was a very fluffy list rather than competitive. Still... something I'd like to experiment with further.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Love the bat rep Git's it was really good especially for a second attempt. The Crons were all over you from the start the lightning attacks can be lethal.

Really appreciated the pics of the Tomb Stalker eating the Mantis Warriors, I think Thing is onto something there

No invasion of the greater daemon of felines this time?

Great batrep, interesting to see how the IA stuff matches up. Also, I prefer Tomb-punk to Steam-crons, personally

Nice Bat Rep!

Congrats to Thing 1 and his NewCrons! That Tomb Stalker really gobbled some marines, i feel an IA grudge match brewing

Both armies look fantastic on the TT as well. gorgeous models, gorgeous terrain, you lucky man you...

Yep, I think we're going to be adding IA regularly into our home games. I didn't use Redth much... he was kind of stuck in the back with the dev squad (by design). However a lot of his initial advantages occur at the very beginning of the game, and those worked fine. I didn't like rolling on the table for the psychic power and am unlikely to do that much. Rather the devil I know (and can incorporate into my strategy) that the devil I don't. The Tomb Stalker was great though and we were both rooting for it to have a big day. I think it costs about 40 pts more than it should for what it does... but in a friendly game it's a fun add... and the Anni Barges make up for it by being very cheap for what they do.

Actually, thats the first time you've used Redth isnt it? Now, correct me if im wrong, but can you not opt to take the basic power when rolling for them? Fantasy-style. So you can pick a school, roll and then decide if you want the basic power instead of what you get? Would allow you some consistency of psyker powers, while having the option of something better/different...Otherwise, i totally get where you are coming from.

This doesnt surprise me (i was too), new model syndrome and all that ill have to look up the rules for it, but it did seem to roll up that left flank pretty much unopposed, no matter what you did to it.

Annihilation Barges are stupidly effective from what ive seen!

Good game guys, its still really cool you guys enjoy the hobby together.
I've never actually seen a tomb stalker in play before, guess now I can say i have!

Revenent Reiko wrote:Actually, thats the first time you've used Redth isnt it? Now, correct me if im wrong, but can you not opt to take the basic power when rolling for them? Fantasy-style. So you can pick a school, roll and then decide if you want the basic power instead of what you get? Would allow you some consistency of psyker powers, while having the option of something better/different...Otherwise, i totally get where you are coming from.

Yep. This was actually the first time we've used any IA rules. I only used Redth because Thing 1 had an IA unit so I thought I'd balance the tables. I didn't use him very well mind you... but I was just "tinkering" and this was a good game to get comfortable with him. You may be right about rolling up the psychics... I'm not very conversant with 6th Ed rules yet... kind of the blind leading the blind I'm afraid. I'd assumed that if you made the choice to roll on the table you could no longer take one of the standard psychic powers. That may be wrong though... hope it is.

This doesnt surprise me (i was too), new model syndrome and all that ill have to look up the rules for it, but it did seem to roll up that left flank pretty much unopposed, no matter what you did to it.

Playing newly painted models is a moral imperative at our house! Yes, it can eat scouts and unimproved marines fine... but at 200 pts, I'm not quite sure it carries the kind of punch it should. Yes, it has a toughness of 7 and 4 wounds, but with WS 4 & 3+ armor save... it's much more fragile than you might think.

Annihilation Barges are stupidly effective from what ive seen!

This was my first experience with them...

iGuy91 wrote:Good game guys, its still really cool you guys enjoy the hobby together.
I've never actually seen a tomb stalker in play before, guess now I can say i have!

You know... it's just such a cool model. (This is where I fail epically (sp?) at 40k... coolness trumps functionality every time!) I was very happy that it did well though.

Nice batrep, Gits. I like the photos of the Stalker eating Telion and the tac marines! Looks like it was a very fun game. Also, I love that your son has a Thing 1 t-shirt!

So, I've heard some comments that close combat isn't very good in 6th. What's your take? How do you think your ASM did?

Well... once you're IN close combat it's all the same, save for the "challenge" crap which I can't stand.

In general, CC is less effective than it was for all the reasons that have been discussed ad-nauseum...
- random charge range (even though the average is 1" higher) means you don't know for sure IF you'll get into cc
- overwatch killing your nearest figures, reducing the chances that you will make a successful charge
- furious charge nerf (for those troops who had it)
- fleet nerf (for those troops who had it)
- challenges

Some people like challenges, I don't. For me a "cenematic" game is one that plays cleanly and well that develops it's own narrative around the varying skills of the two players and characteristics of their armies. NOT by having a bunch of artificial rules crammed down your throat to "invent" cinema. I think challenges could have been OK if the rules about accepting/denying them were better designed, but they aren't, so there you have it.

Gitsplitta wrote:Yep. This was actually the first time we've used any IA rules. I only used Redth because Thing 1 had an IA unit so I thought I'd balance the tables. I didn't use him very well mind you... but I was just "tinkering" and this was a good game to get comfortable with him. You may be right about rolling up the psychics... I'm not very conversant with 6th Ed rules yet... kind of the blind leading the blind I'm afraid. I'd assumed that if you made the choice to roll on the table you could no longer take one of the standard psychic powers. That may be wrong though... hope it is.

Didnt think you had used them before (i would have read about it otherwise ) Nothing wrong with tinkering, especially not in a friendly game with the little un.

I...dont have the rulebook im afraid so i may also be completely wrong...just going on the assumption that they have done psyker powers like magic in Fantasy. So even if you roll a spell (or power in this case), you can switch it out for the standard option.

Playing newly painted models is a moral imperative at our house! Yes, it can eat scouts and unimproved marines fine... but at 200 pts, I'm not quite sure it carries the kind of punch it should. Yes, it has a toughness of 7 and 4 wounds, but with WS 4 & 3+ armor save... it's much more fragile than you might think.

Thats the way it should be! It looks ace too, good job!
Ouch, didnt know it was that expensive (or that small, weirdly, i imagined it being a lotbigger than it actually is), or that fragile...Perfect Trapit unit though, albeit an expensive one, that T7 would hold up most things in CC just by virtue of them being practically unable to wound the blasted thing.

This was my first experience with them...

Yes, this is much the reaction i had when i first read a Bat Rep with them in....pure pain *shudders*

Oh my god those armies are beautiful!

I also love the way you have labeled your pics.

Thank you sir on both accounts! We aim to please!

Nice report.

That orky building in the bottom left of the first pic is great as well.