The Hammer of Witches
A new day, a new time zone.
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Wow, this may be one of my final battle reports on Dakka. I feel regret and loss.
Or vague indigestion. One or the other.
First off, my apologies for neither pictures, nor my usual report structure. The Witch Hunters I fought were all only basecoated, and I wasn't in the mood for taking my usual thorough notes, train delays due to Earthquake having tripled my travel time to actually get to the place of gaming.
Well, I said I was going to field my Sisters today, along with their shiny new Penitent Engine, but I hadn't done much work on them since my last game on the 1st, and the Soritas were all still bare metal and I didn't want to put them on the table again without any signs of progress. So instead I took my Necrons, and I'm glad I did. On the one hand, three other players there had Witch Hunter armies, and on the other, I got to re- fight the historical battle of Sanctuary 101 (at least, that's what my opponent and I decided at the end of turn 8. [For those of you not intimately familiar with Witch Hunter fluff, Sanctuary 101 was the first confirmed Imperium contact with the Necrons, where they wiped out all the inhabitants of a Soritas fortress-convent. That might give you a hint as to how the game went.]
So, after rolling for mission a couple times and being dissatisfied with the results, we did a strategy rating roll off, and my opponent decided on Seek and Destroy. He wanted to play gamma level, but around here games are always gamma level, so I suggested rolling for it, just for the sake of variety. We ended up with Omega, which was good for me, and terrible for him, because our lists looked like this.
Necrons:
Lord w/Staff, Res Orb, Veil
11 Warriors
10 Warriors
6 Immortals
10 Pariahs
4 Destroyers
3 Hvy Destroyers
Witch Hunters:
Cannoess w Jetpack
Seraphim
10 Sisters in rhino
10 Sisters in rhino
10 Sisters in rhino
Inquisitor
Callidus
2x Exorcists
Omega Escalation meant that as of first turn, I started with everything on the board save my two destroyer squads, whereas he could deploy nothing but his Inquisitor, and no other units could be brought on till turn 2 at the earliest. So I stuck all my units right on the edge of the deployment zone, while his inquisitor hugged the dust behind some area terrain ruins in the NE corner of his deployment zone. Didn't do him much good though, because I won the roll for first turn, and veiled my Lord along with the 11 Warrior squad in right behind him, and gauss flayed the Inquisitor right down to his boot laces, the expected outcome of one model being the focus of 25 shots.
So WH first turn, there was nothing on the board, and my opponent was distinctly nonplussed. Turn 2, my Destroyers came on, and I turbo boosted them towards the area terrain forest in the middle of the board (thank the stargods, because they needed that invulnerable save) and everyone else went forward another 6", my other Warriors taking up position in the aforementioned forest, my Immortals lurking behind the southwest corner of the ruins that the late, not-so-great Inquisitor was gunned down near, Lord and Warriors teleporting to appear by the southeast corner of the ruins and Pariahs heading towards another patch of forest close to the WH deployment zone to set up a fire base.
It was very lucky of me that I was advancing with such a mind on defensive positions, because on turn 2, the WHs made their reserve roll for both Exorcists, the Seraphim, the Cannoness, and two squads of sisters with rhinos. I'm lucky I teleported the Lord and Warriors out, because if I'd walked them into the ruins like I'd previously intended to set up a firing line to greet his arriving forces, they would've borne the brunt of 4/5s of the army's supply of righteous indignation.
Fortunately, with most of my guys within cover and out of sight, the Sisters were not able to unleash the full fury of their firepower upon their living metal keesters. One Exorcist shot at my destroyers, who, with their turbo-boost invulnerable saves, were able to shrug it off, and the other at my warriors in the woods, whose cover save kept them safe. Then it was my turn again.
Turn 3: Lord and warriors walked out from behind the ruins to target the Rhinos near the right edge of the board. Immortals walked in the opposite direction to target the other. Pariahs edged to the side of the small forest to get a side shot on one of the Exorcists, Destroyers drifted to the left to line up a side shot on the other. In shooting, I managed to pop the Rhino facing my lord and company, and stunned the other one. One Exorcists was destroyed outright, and the other was shaken, then had it's pipes blown off.
Boy oh boy were the Soritas pissed. The Callidus came on, popping up behind my Lord and his squad. The sisters from the destroyed rhino came forward, and with melta, heavy flamer, and Divine Guidance, shot down 8 Warriors. The Callidus used her neural shredder to drop one more, then killed the last two in assault, really rubbing it in my face by using her c'tan phase blade, leaving her and the Lord face to face.
Meanwhile, the Seraphim jumped right over the ruins (one managing to splat herself against a pillar as she landed), and between them, the sisters from the Rhino that the Immortals shook, the Cannoness, and some more Divine Guidance, all six of them were gunned down, never to return.
Necron turn 4, the Lord said, 'To hell with this!' and teleported across the board, coming down between the Destroyers and the Warriors in the forest to lend them both the use of his Res Orb. With the vehicles mostly accounted for, the Pariahs cut a hard right, heading to where the Immortals used to be. Warriors and Destroyers killed half of the Seraphim squad, and the Pariahs, with 20 gauss blaster shots, wiped out the second squad of sisters.
On his turn, my opponent realized that even though they had no guns, since they were both still mobile, his remaining Rhino and Exorcist could block LOS and tank shock my units, since almost all my forces were concentrated in the same part of the board as they were. Both the Rhino and the Exorcist moved forward, limiting my LOS into his deployment zone, in preparation of his last squad of sisters finally arriving. The Seraphim shot and assaulted my warriors in the forest, killing 2 with a flamer, and two more in hand to hand. Because of the way I had the Warriors strung out in a firing line through the forest, this cleared all the BtB models, and the Warriors luckily failed their Leadership check then fell back 12" (avoiding my usual fate of the whole unit being run down and slaughtered). Realizing what a threat he could be, the Cannoness jumped into inferno pistol range of my Lord, and managed to ding him for 1 wound, then assaulted, achieving no further wounds, and taking none in return.
Turn 5 started with my Warriors regrouping, two of the four casualties making their WBB rolls, and my Heavy Destroyers finally making it onto the board. I brought them up on the right of where the Warriors had fallen back to. My opponent spent a faith point to give his Seraphim an invulnerable save as the surviving warriors and Hvy Destroyers opened up on them, but when the shooting stopped, only the Sister Superior was still flying. My Lord teleported out of combat with the Cannoness, reappearing 8 inches away, and between his shooting and the Pariahs standing right behind her, she was quickly reduced to a cloud of randomly drifting molecules. My regular Destroyers drifted left a little bit, lining up the side armor of the Exorcist to stop its attempts at tank-shocking shenanigans, succeeding in immobilizing it, although it fell to the Pariahs to explode it. Pariahs meanwhile, had moved right, trying to get the squad of sisters into range as it came around the side of the ruins.
The last squad of sisters finally made it in, the Rhino cruising onto the battlefield in the upper left quarter of the board, and slewing to a stop so that it's riders could pile out in range of my Destroyers. Actually, due to the intervening terrain, only two of the Destroyers could be targeted, but they were both shot down, hard. The other surviving Rhino, with my Pariahs in its sights, attempted a tank shock, and learned the hard way what a very, very bad plan that was. It wasn't hard for the Pariahs to pass their leadership check and get to pull a death or glory, which meant one model got to make an automatic hit against the tank shocking Rhino. Pariahs are s5 to begin with, and their warscythes give them 2d6 to penetrate. It was a very anime-like moment, as the Rhino bore down on the lone Pariah implacably holding his ground, he drew back his warscythe, and in a flash of fractal-edge sliced photons, split the Rhino right down the middle. The Callidus managed to tag one of my Hvy Destroyers with her neural shredder, but was thankfully out of charge distance. The lone Seraphim made it back into assault with my Warriors, but there was a lot of embarrassing whiffing on both sides, and nothing much happened.
Turn 6, both Destroyers made their WBB rolls, and all four lined themselves up to shoot at the fresh squad of sisters, being very careful to stay out of charge range. The Lord teleported himself in that direction as well, scattering just far enough to be at the very limit of his firing range. The Hvy Destroyers (their single casualty also made his WBB roll) drifted to the left to make sure the surviving sisters couldn't hurt them too much, and that the Callidus stayed out of charge range, and then unloaded their shots into her. One wound, on failed Invulnerable save, and one instant kill later, she was no longer a problem. Shooting at the fresh squad produced surprisingly few casualties, and they stood their ground. Assault with the Seraphim again involved much swatting of air, but this time she used her hit and run move to disengage.
The surviving squad of sisters on the far right advanced, but were out of shooting range of the Hvy Destroyers. The Seraphim ran right at my Warriors, not accomplishing much with shooting, and again charging into assault, getting dragged down and messily clobbered by my Warriors before she could bring her eviscerator to bear.
This ended turn 6, and since it was Omega level, the extra turns rule came into effect. I rolled a 4, and thus turn 7 began. Things weren't looking good for the Witch Hunters. The Hvy Destroyers and Pariahs opened up on the sisters by the ruins, wiping the squad out. Shooting from the Destroyers killed most of the sisters on the right side of the board, leaving only the rhino and the sister superior standing. She failed her morale check, and started falling back. The Lord charged the Rhino, but whiffed with his warscythe.
On the WH turn, the Sister Superior fell back to the edge of the board, not quite making it. The Rhino targeted the Destroyers with it's stormbolter, but failed to hurt them.
My opponent rolled for the extra turn this time, and with a 6 on the die, turn 8 started. The Destroyers took care of the last sister on the board, and since the Rhino stayed stationary, the Lord charged it again, and carved it up but good, eliminating the last of the Soritas forces on the battlefield.
It was during the last couple turns, when it seemed highly unlikely that my opponent would be able to score the last seven casualties he needed for Phase Out, and highly likely that I would completly wipe out the WH forces that I said, 'it's just like a replay of Sanctuary 101' and he said, 'no, this _is_ Sanctuary 101. The Inquisitor was messing around with something he shouldn't have and woke up the Necrons. They suddenly appeared, killing him, but not before he could get a warning out. The Soritas responded in force, but were too unprepared for the strength of this unexpected foe, and despite a valiant fight, died to the last." It was really cool, being able to construct such a fluffy narrative to the battle after the fact.
I'm going to say that my Pariahs earned 'most valuable unit' in this game. Just like my Landraider in the last one, one of the reasons why it got my MVP was the fact that it was not shot at even once. My opponent was concentrating solely on killing necron Necrons to try and force the Phase Out, which meant this 10 strong unit was pouring 20 gauss blaster shots a turn into every available target. Every character in the WH army had a Book of Saint Lucius, which nullified the Pariah's fear effect, but it didn't really matter too much, because their shooting left everything too dead for leadership to be an issue.
What do you think, sirs?
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