Had a fantastic game vs. my eldest son (Thing 1) last night. My Adepticon Mantis Warriors (run as Dark Angels) vs. his Necrons. 1000 pts, Adepticon
FOC. Those of you who've been keeping tabs on my
MW's know that I've played around with different codecii in the past. They were originally designed as vanilla marines... and that's really where I'd like to keep them. However in the uber-competitive environment that is the Adepticon team tournament... I've experimented with other options that allow me to run the army I want but due to codex creep it's just frankly better and/or cheaper if I use another dex. Last year I ran
BA (which was fun... nice dex). This year, because it's really the only 6th edition marine dex out (
GKs are really their own thing, thus not standard marine), I'm going to use the
DA dex. My army didn't really change in content from the C:
SM to
DA dexes... it just got better and there's 105 points more of it. Hard to argue with.
The Armies
Thing 1's Steam Crons
HQ: Overlord (war scythe,
MSS, res orb)
EL: 10x Deathmarks + Despairtech in Night Scythe (these are being proxied by warriros)
TP: 10x Warriors
TP: 10x Warriors
TP: 10x tessla Immortals in Night Scythe
Gitsplitta's Mantis Warriors (run as DA)
HQ: Clothis (Ezekiel - mind worm, prescience, scrier's gaze)
TP: 10x
Tac 1 (plasma cannon, flamer, vet srg w/
PS, rhino)
TP: 10x
Tac 1 (plasma cannon, flamer, vet srg w/
PS, rhino)
FA: 2x Land Speeder Tempest
HV: 5x Devastators (2x
ML w/ flak, 2x
LC)
FT: Aegis Defense Line w/ Quad Gun
The Game
Scenario: Crusade (4 objectives)
Deployment: Dawn of War
First turn: Necrons
Clothis stood behind the hastily erected Aegis wall with a line of heavy weapons in front of him. "We're thin." He commented to himself as he looked from left to right. Small pockets of Mantis Warriors were scattered across a rather large battle field. Too large for Clothis' liking... however it couldn't be helped, the objectives they needed to claim necessitated this deployment. A force of Necrons had been harassing a cluster of Imperial worlds in this system for several months when the call was finally sent by the over-matched planetary governors to the Mantis Warriors for aid. Planet-side commandos provided their intelligence support and this abandoned and ruined city was identified as a region of intense Necron activity. To stop the raiding... strike the heart of the beast. Give them reason to think twice about leaving their lair.
Deployment
Thing 1 wins the roll-off and chooses the side where two objectives are fairly close together, certainly close enough for mutual support. I have a choice... try to defend both my disparate objectives or make a play for the cluster of 3 on the right-hand side of the board (from my perspective). The Necrons don't have a lot of long range fire-power and my army is geared toward staying put and pouring out fire... so I opt to try and keep the two objectives on my side of the table. With all the
AA I've got, I have hopes of being able to down the first flyer he brings on the board and capturing first blood... and I plan on being pretty cagey with my Typhoons so I can make a play for line-breaker (though with flyers, he may well do the same). Between night fight on turn 1 and scrier's gaze... there's really no reason to put the Typhoons on the table so I keep them in reserve.
The placement of the objectives are indicated by the blue arrows.
Turn 1
I choose not to try and steal the initiative.
The Necrons shuffle around a bit to get into better cover... that's about it.
The Mantis Warriors move aggressively forward on the right flank to get into position to claim the objective in the ruin and harass the warrior unit across from them.
Turn 2
The streamlined, nearly invisible alien vessel streaked directly towards Clothis. Devastator Sergeant Deylos was ready for it. On the quad gun... with a precision few in the chapter could match, he tracked the deadly Night Scythe until it had cleared the ruins. The gun roared as it ejected a hail of shells. The plane rocked as multiple impacts scored on critical systems. Unfortunately it had already delivered it's deadly payload, but its guns had been silenced for now and it was clearly in distress. A silent prayer of thanks to the Emperor was about to leave Clothis' lips when his world erupted in metal shards, heat and the screams of his men. The Aegis wall in front of him now looked more like a fish-net stocking than a viable fortification. Save for Sergeant Daylos, who was protected by the mass of the quad gun... the entire heavy weapons team lay in bloody tatters at his feet. Only their sacrifice had kept the librarian from harm.
It took only moments for the enormity of what just happened to process, then well trained marine discipline took over. Clothis keyed his coms. "To me brothers, the time to strike is now!"
The Night Scythe carrying the Deathmarks and despair tech flies onto the table 24" and teleports it's cargo in front of Clothis' unit. The quad gun's interceptor fire delivers 2 pens to the Night Scythe, immobilizing and stunning it. The
Dev's eat Deathmark death and when the smoke clears, only Clothis and the sergeant remain. The rest of the Necron force stands pat. The two survivors make their morale roll (though their armors' waste processors are working overtime).
In return, the Mantis Warriors reinforce the center with a
tac squad in a rhino and (thanks to Scrier's Gaze) call in the Typhoons. Everything that can, opens up on the Necron elites, wiping them out. The devastators are avenged.
Now you see them...
Now you don't...
Turn 3
The damaged Necron flyer exits stage left and the warrior squads move to threaten my right flank. Shooting from the closest squad kills two marines in the ruins.
The Mantis Warriors hold fast as the hated Necrons advance past a chapter relic.
The Typhoons swing around the left flank where there range still allows them to support the center but where they can make a break for the Necron back-field later on. Clothis joins a tactical squad near an objective and the other combat squad gets back into their rhino. Shooting from the
tac squad in the ruins and the quad gun kills one Necron. Meanwhile a giant beast spends the next 20 minutes marauding around the table, knocking things over and causing chaos until it is finally banished to the warp.
Typhoons heading out on a clever outflanking maneuver.
Turn 4
Clothis watched as a second alien transport screeched forward directly at the two outflanking Typhoons. Ten hulking brutes of metal and stone materialized below it. The sensors in his suit noted an increase in ionic energy seconds before bolts from their alien weapons danced around the speeders. Instantly a damage report was broadcast. No serious damage, temporary malfunction in one of the targeting arrays. As he was listening, his suit once again noted an ionic build up... this one much larger than the first. When it came, the energy discharge was so powerful that Clothis' sensors were overwhelmed. The suit's sensory system shut down in order to protect it's occupant. In a moment the armor's systems had rebooted and were back on line. Clothis looked to see how the Typhoons had fared and found... nothing. No Typhoons, no craters, no wreckage. Just an oxidized brown haze with small electrical charges dancing across it like tiny lightening bolts. It was as if the force of the energy weapon had broken each and every ionic bond in the molecules that made up the Typhoons and their crews. They just... ceased to exist.
The second Necron scythe flew in directly at the outflanking land speeders. I must admit I had thought about this possibility and dismissed it thinking that my son would prefer to support his center than challenge the flank. Oh was I wrong. Shooting from the Immortals only shook one of the speeders, but the tesla cannon fire from the Night Scythe had a very different result. 3 sixes resulted in 10 hits, 5 of which were penetrating with a further 3 glancing. To make matters worse, I didn't make a single jink save. In our excitement over the massive amount of damage the Scythe had done to the speeders, we didn't roll for the pen damage... we just pulled the speeders. A clear error but not intentional. Unfortunately it did give me clear lanes of fire to shoot back. Had the speeders been simply wrecked, the squad would have had good cover and could have posed a serious threat to that objective. I did make up for it later by reminding him to cover his objectives and bring a plane that had gone off the table that he'd forgotten about. Unfortunately, neither of us realized the speeder error until the game was already over.
Now you see them... now you don't!
Meanwhile the warriors continued to plink away at the
tac squad on my right flank, killing 2 more. The plasma cannoneer makes his morale test and swears vengeance for his fallen brothers-in-arms.
In response, Clothis rallies all the remaining brothers within range and pours fire into the immortals. Five of the metal demons are gunned down & none arise. There will be no Alien Resurrections today! (see what I did there?) On the right flank the lone plasma cannoneer accounts for himself well by dropping two warriors. Neither rises again.
(sorry, no pic)
Turn 5
In the first of the "end game" turns, the Immortal's scythe cuts left and finishes off the
Dev sergeant on the quad gun. The surviving immortals gun down 2 tactical marines in Clothis' unit. The damaged scythe screams in from the right and attempts to take out the rhino who's squad is in position to hold the center objective. Amazingly... it fails to either hit or pen. On the right, the warrior squad falls back a bit to regain control of their objective, but still has enough juice in the tank to kill the plasma cannon along with supporting fire from the middle warrior squad. (the green arrows in the photo show the
MW movement back in turn 4)
The Mantis Warriors shift left and once again pour fire into the surviving Immortals. While Clothis is willing to charge single-handedly into the xenos scum, it is unnecessary as plasma and bolters lay them low. The
tac squad holding the center objective strings itself out so it can re-arm the quad gun. Unfortunately shots at the damaged scythe bear no fruit.
Now you see them... now you don't!
The Necrons are in excellent position for a strong turn 6. They'll easily cover their second objective and drop a flyer into my rear for linebreaker, and they still have far more firepower than I do... the tide is turning.
The Necron commander rolls to see if the game continues...
The Talley:
Mantis Warriors: 2 objectives + first blood = 7
VPs
Necrons: 1 objective = 3
VPs
Mantis Warriors Win!!
The Necron Overlord... he who was once known as Palos Kah... assessed the situation from his vantage in the rear. Necron ownership of nearest two of the four critical points had not really been challenged by these new players, but in his attempts to rebuff the marine's incursion the Overlord had lost two full squads of specialists and one of his Scythes had been badly damaged. It was the damage to the Scythe that worried him far more than the loss of the troops. Troops, even elite troops... could easily be replaced as the secret catacombs of this system were laden with Necrons to be reawakened. Scythes however, were few and far between. Their ability to raid and evade direct conflict, at least until enough of their kind had been risen... was critical. Far more critical than anything to be found at this location.
"Fall back." Went the order throughout the electronic horde. "We are Necrons... and tomorrow is another day." Yes, they were Necrons. Immortal. Undying. There will *always* be another day.
Epilogue
"Better lucky than good, eh Sir?" Said brother Bennett said to Clothis with a grin that could not be hidden, even by his helmet.
"By the Golden Throne Bennett, I'm beginning to think you're right." Replied Clothes. Shaking his head... he sheathed his sword and mouthed a silent prayer of thanks.
-Finis-
Extremely fun game. Probably the best and most competitive my son and I have had in months. Too bad about pulling the speeders, but we both got so excited about the destruction we just treated them like infantry. Next turn he would have tied it up for sure. Turn 7 would be a bit tricky... not sure which (if either) of us would emerge victorious... but you'd have to imagine the advantage was with the 'Crons.
I really like this (
DA) build. It's fun and flexible... and very versatile. Should be a good part of a team.
If you've enjoyed this battle report, please leave a comment. Something like this takes about 6 hours of work so it's nice when folks comment. Makes the time feel well spent. Thanks!
Thanks for the comment though. I do appreciate it.
