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My friend and I decided to do a playtest of the rumoured mission rules for 5th ed. We hadn't had time to learn the full rules yet, so we stuck with 4th ed. for everything else. A bit unbalanced, I know, but this was just to try out the new deployment and mission types. We rolled under the new rules and got Take and Hold (objective placed by each player within their deployment zone) with Dawn of War deployment (max of 1 HQ and 2 Troops, rest comes in on Turn 1 or Reserves). Troops are the only scoring units.

Necrons
This list is derived almost entirely from 40Kenthusiast's list as posted at http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/185367.page. 40kenthusiast predicted less favorable results against mobile shooty armies (like the Eldar), so I wanted to see how the list would hold up. Unfortunately, I don't have any Flayed Ones and we play that you have to have at least 1 real model in order to proxy the rest, so I just beefed up my warrior count instead.

1 Deceiver
11 Warriors
11 Warriors
11 Warriors
11 Warriors
10 Scarabs w/D-fields
10 Scarabs w/D-fields
8 Scarabs
3 Tomb Spyders
3 Tomb Spyders
3 Tomb Spyders
phase out=11

Eldar
1 Autarch
1 Maugan Ra
10 Ranger Pathfinders Alpha
10 Ranger Pathfinders Beta
10 Storm Guardians w/2 flamers
10 Harlequins w/Harlequin's Kiss and Shadowseer Alpha
10 Harlequins w/Harlequin's Kiss and Shadowseer Beta
10 Swooping Hawks w/Exarch
5 Dark Reapers w/Exarch (Tempest launcher) Alpha
5 Dark Reapers w/Exarch (Tempest launcher) Beta

Lacking in mobility, he was obviously hoping to pummel me with fire, punch through with Harlie's and use the Guardians to secure the objective. His Swooping Hawks were to be anti-scarab or monolith. Not quite the force I was expecting.

Table set-up (sorry, no pics). Two sets of opposing building ruins, 1 in each quadrant, with difficult terrain, bunkers, and tank traps filling in the open areas.

Deployment
Eldar win the roll and choose to go first. Deploys Autarch and infiltrates Rangers into both buildings on his table edge, with one babysitting his objective and the other with the Autarch across from where mine would eventually end up. Everything defending his objective will be referred to as X unit Alpha. Everything assaulting my objective will be X unit Beta

Afraid of the snipers, I put my Deceiver out of sight behind the building opposite of his objective, and put one unit of Warriors in the ruins to guard my objective. My thinking is to do a refused flank and push with everything I have on his objective side. I assumed we would just exchange objectives, but secretly hoped my warriors would survive enough to deny him the objective.

Turn 1
Since they deployed first, Eldar get to go first. Brings in everything but Swooping Hawks. Unfortunately, everything has to start on his long table edge, meaning his Reapers don't get to fire this turn. He divides his forces fairly evenly between the two buildings, leaving me unsure what to do. Rangers fire with no effect at the warriors, amazingly.

Necrons come on in force with nothing in reserve. I decide to split my forces as well and send another squad of warriors and 3 Spyders to cover my objective. The remaining 22 warriors and Tomb Spyders come in behind the Deceiver and move forward. Deceiver pops out from behind the building, says "Boo" and makes his defensive Rangers (Alpha) fall back 4 inches. All spyders pump out scarabs, with 1 taking a wound. Scarabs turboboost and are spread out evenly across the board, with the unit of 8 in the middle to support whichever side needs help first.

Turn 2
Swooping Hawks roll a 1 for Reserves. Maybe next turn. Rangers Alpha recover from the fallback and fire at the Deceiver, with only 1/2 being within 6" of the edge of the area terrain. They inflict 1 wound (jerks). Dark Reapers Beta don't have LOS to scarabs, but exarch uses Tempest Launcher to drop 2 blast markers onto my closest unit of scarabs. Due to terrible scatter roll and to wound rolls, I only take 2 wounds. Fortunately, scarabs are too stupid to realize they almost got wiped out (AKA Fearless). Harlies move from far right of the table to try and intercept the scarabs, but a Fleet roll of 2” leaves them high and dry.

Defensive Necrons fire on Rangers Beta, but that 2+ cover save means no wounds taken. Other group of Defensive warriors fire on Harlies Beta, but Shadowseer denies them range. Spyders and warriors move forward, with spyders making more scarabs. Scarabs in the middle move to the right to support the attack on his assault forces. Scarabs on right flank just barely make it to engage Dark Reapers Beta, much to my friend’s dismay, and the fights ensue. Reapers cause 4 or 5 wounds, and then he watches in horror as 3 of his Reapers fall to the bugs. He still wins, we pile in, and here come the Harlies.

Turn 3
With the Autarch on the board, he only needs a 2+ to get the Hawks on and he rolls….another 1. I laugh, he cries, we move on. Harlies Beta engage scarabs, along with the Autarch, take down several more bases, but scarabs still going strong. Guardians come around edge of building with two flamers to roast the supporting squad of 8 scarabs, but only have LOS around edge of building to 2 bases, only 1 goes down. Reapers Alpha and Maugan Ra fire diagonally across the board at the same group of scarabs, dropping several bases and then the Guardians assault with minimal casualties on both sides. Harlies Alpha move in front of Rangers Alpha to protect them from the scarabs coming in next turn. Rangers Beta have started pulling out of their building and moving to reinforce his objective.

It’s about this point that I realize that my spyder wall and warriors will never make it to his objective by Turn 6 (or even 7). I decide to stop waiting for my line and push forward with my Deceiver. Scarabs rush in to engage Harlies Alpha, with only 1 wound being taken due to Dangerous Terrain. Harlies cause a handful of wounds but just can’t handle the overwhelming number of attacks and 5 go down. They pass their morale and we fight on.

Turn 4
Swooping Hawks finally come on the board, dropping their template on my wall of spyders and their pet scarabs, causing negligible wounds to the scarabs and 1 wound to a Spyder. Reapers and Rangers Alpha join in on the fight with the scarabs, hoping to do enough damage to wipe them out, but alas, it was not to be so. Scarabs lose a base or 2, but kill 2 more Harlies. Maugan Ra moves into position to fire at the Deceiver…..and does absolutely nothing. Hawks unload their las rifles at the nearest Tomb Spyder, taking a wound off of the spyder, but not much more.

Deceiver moves forward, forces a Morale check on the Hawks (who pass). He almost has enough to assault the Harlies Alpha, but it’s debatable. Given the debacle with the Reapers, we agree to a roll-off and the charge fails, so the Deceiver just hangs out in the open. Defensive Warriors fire on his Swooping Hawks…and they make all their saves. Harlies and Reapers Beta and Autarch keep fighting the scarabs and get them down to 2 bases, but those 6 attacks are enough to bring down the Reaper Exarch. On the other front, the scarabs are able to reduce Harlies Alpha to just the Shadowseer and take down 2 Rangers, amazingly winning the fight. The Rangers fail their ldshp and fall back, almost off the board. The wall comes closer and keeps pumping out scarabs.

Turn 5
Hawks Sky Leap off the board and Rangers Beta end up near his objective. Rangers Alpha fail their ldshp and are off the board!!! The Lone Reaper, Autarch, and Harlies finally finish off the scarabs, as do the Guardians, who are almost able to consolidate back into a building, but just fall short. Shadowseer and Reapers Alpha finish off their scarabs as well (it was a sad day for scarabs) and scatter like crazy trying to get out of the Deceiver’s way.

Here comes the pain. My Defensive Warriors all fire at the Guardians, obliterating them. Spyders move towards his objective, and the Deceiver barrels into the building, assaulting Maugan Ra for funsies. Before he does, however, he forces Reapers Alpha to take a Morale check and they fail….and fall off the board! He and Maugan Ra exchange blows, each receiving 1 wound. To my surprise, Maugan is immune to Instant Death, so he’s still standing.

Turn 6
Swooping Hawks return, dropping another template on my spyders and taking out several scarabs, but not much more. With their fire, however, they’re finally able to drop a spyder (cursed Majority Toughness). The Lone Reaper fires on my spyders as well, but some poor scarab takes the hit instead. Harlies Beta stay put behind the building while the Autarch zaps over towards his objective. Not wanting to risk my Deceiver taking another wound and giving him 50% VP’s, I disengage and head for the Rangers Beta, knowing my spyders will be in range of Maugan Ra the next turn.

Just for fun, the Deceiver tries to make the Autarch fall off the board, but he passes with flying colors. 3 squads of Warriors fire at 24” on the Swooping hawks, only dropping 3 and then the assault phase begins. Deceiver engages Rangers Beta while 2 spyders and 6 scarabs engage Maugan Ra, who gets crushed beneath the mighty claws of my spyders. The Rangers watch 3 of their companions get slaughtered but decide to stick around anyway.

Turn 7
We roll for turn 7, but the Eldar player finally admits that he got slaughtered and just assumes that his Rangers will be utterly destroyed next turn by the Deceiver and the approaching spyders. We call it a game with the Necrons holding 1 objective and the Eldar 0. A might win for the Necrons!!!


Final casualties:

Necrons
1 Tomb Spyder
33 or so scarabs

Eldar
20 Rangers
9 Dark Reapers
9 Harlequins
10 Guardians
3 Swooping Hawks
Maugan Ra

While we liked the mission and idea behind deployment (I deploy all, you deploy all, I go first), the Dawn of War deployment rules really proved to be a strain for both of us, albeit him more than me as I had scarabs to compensate for the lost ground. The fact that his Reapers were unable to fire turn 1 and very minimally on turn 2 before they were engaged made them all but useless in the game. Hard deployment plus terrible shooting and leadership rolls really proved to be his downfall for this game.

Having 9 s6 MCs plus a Deceiver on the board is a truly intimidating factor for any opponent, I just wish I could have gotten them to his lines around Turn 3 or 4 and actually claimed an objective with my assaulting troops. Also, I wish I really had 9 Tomb Spyders. In the end, this was one big demonstration of how amazing scarabs are and how adaptable they are when your primary plans get messed up by terrain or deployment. I look forward to our next game, when he and I will switch armies. Should be interesting.

Yeah, the 'dawn of war' deployment will hopefully not make it into 5th edition. It's just escalation under a different name, but the studio does believe we're all stupid and won't notice.

It's not that EVERY playtester has complained about this shoddy rule or anything...oh wait...

"Having 9 s6 MCs plus a Deceiver on the board is a truly intimidating factor for any opponent"

Ain't it though? It's actually really dangerous even without the scarabs, they are just icing on the cake. My favorite is when an assault unit wants to get the assault on them, and can only spread out to cover 3 or 4...I've had the Death Co hit the wall at full power after it had spawned 4 scarabs each...and only manage to kill one Tomb Spyder before getting devoured wholesale, and Big D wasn't even in the area.

More warriors is actually probably better than Flayed Ones, I just use them for the fluff and the infiltrate (getting all my Phase Out eggs out of one basket in dangerous games).

You did sort of encounter the dream style of Eldar for this list though, all static shooty. Normally they are all skimmers with s6 guns, zipping around and blowing up scarabs or trying to angle after your phase out troopers.

Anyways, grats on the win, Mechagodzilla forever!

Yeah, I couldn't believe the list he put together. It just made it so much easier for me. I'll have to try this list again sometime when I suspect a fast/shooty army. He generally makes fairly balanced lists, so I'll likely run up against strong supporting fire and nasty CC units.

I've actually had very little experience with the Flayed Ones. Seeing as the person I play most often is Eldar, their Terrifying Visage isn't all that great and if they infiltrate then they're just isolated and get torn to shreds. Maybe I can work them in somehow.

40kenthusiast wrote:It's actually really dangerous even without the scarabs, they are just icing on the cake.

Well, that icing won me the game. All the spyders did was crush Maugan Ra and pump out oodles of scarabs.

So how'd the 5th ed rumors work out? Didn't read too much mention of anything specific. No vehicles and limited fire against the elite eldar squads (so having to roll for the exarch's saves seperate) seems to have limited the impact of the changes.

- Salvage

"Well, that icing won me the game."

My bad, I actually meant the scarabs that are created by the Tomb Spyders...that is, I was saying that the Tomb Spyders are dangerous enough as a flock even without the extra wounds each round, which make them superb.

As you point out, the scarab blitz is positively amazing. A guaranteed turn 2 charge all along the enemy lines after giving them just one round to fire at turbo boosting swarms? Heck yes!

Boss_Salvage wrote:So how'd the 5th ed rumors work out? Didn't read too much mention of anything specific. No vehicles and limited fire against the elite eldar squads (so having to roll for the exarch's saves seperate) seems to have limited the impact of the changes.

- Salvage

As I mentioned in the post, we just used 5th ed. mission rules, not necessarily the whole thing. We both just recently got our hands on a rumor version and hadn't had time to read all the way through it and didn't want to be rule checking every little thing during the game. Slightly unbalanced, I know, but it was still interesting. And, as you pointed out, even if we had used the entire 5th ed rumors, I doubt it would have affected that much. My scarabs did turbo-boost for an invul save, but it would've been a 5+ cover save under the new rules anyway, so no difference there. Can't remember if changes to CC would've affected anything. The only fights I fought were with my scarabs and Deceiver, and they were never outnumbered.

To 40kenthusiast: Yeah, the scarab blitz was truly nasty. Without a Wraithlord or Avatar to help squish those bugs, their survivability was fantastic. Of course, in our next game I'll be facing my own Necrons, so I'll finally get a taste of my own medicine.

Stupid on my part then. Guess 'deploy first = go first' was about the biggest change then?

- Salvage

Yeah, which in its own way is a huge change to gameplay and deployment. Makes so much more sense.