Hey everyone, long time reader first time poster. Here is a game I played with my buddy Steph. I am new to Necrons and Steph’s Eldar have just been revamped so we might have made some minor ruling errors, though hopefully not.
We took notes as we played and so the re-write is in present tense. We tried to give an insight into our decision making processes but we might have made a bit too much out of it, just feel free to skip over our random musings if it stops being interesting.
We hope you enjoy!
Alex’s Army list
For this game I decided to try the same
list Josh Roberts ran at Adepticon. This list placed third overall and was the highest ranking list with Necrons as the main detachment. Over half the finalists used this list with fairly minor variations. Bottom line, its a good list
Steph’s Army List
HQ
1x Farseer w/ Eldar jetbike
Troops
6x Windrider Jetbikes w/ 2x shuriken cannons
6x Windrider Jetbikes w/ 2x shuriken cannons
6x Windrider Jetbikes w/ 2x shuriken cannons
Fast Attack
7x Warp Spiders
Heavy Support
2x War Walkers w/ 4x bright lances
3x War Walkers w/ 6x scatter lasers
3x War Walkers w/ 6x scatter lasers
Allied detachment
HQ
1x Ethereal
Troops
12x Fire Warriors
12x Fire Warriors
Elites
1x Riptide Battlesuit w/ ion accelerator and velocity tracker
Heavy Support
2x Broadside Battlesuits w/ 2x heavy rail rifles, smart missile systems, velocity trackers and missile drones
Pregame
Some of the girls from our local shop (yes, you read that correctly), were inspired by the last Eldar-Necrons White Dwarf (June 13) battle rep and decided to create a replica of the terrain. Since we were playing the two factions anyway we just took the table as our set-up. The table is split into six 24x24 sections, we will refer to these by number, with top left being section 1, and then going clockwise around the table so that section 6 is bottom left. Alex’s table edge consist of sections 1-3 and Steph’s table edge consists of sections 4-6. For the sake of simplicity we will keep one perspective with Steph’s table edge being the ‘bottom’, and Alex’s table being the ‘top’, this makes sections 3 and 4 the ‘right’ of the table and sections 1 and 6, the ‘left’
(You can skip the rest of this section if you just want to read about stuff getting shot).
The terrain is heavy with craters. There are tall
LoS blocking landing pads in section 3 and on the border between sections 5 and 6, both are topped by a flat platform which can comfortably fit 3-4 tanks. The top left corner of section 1 is dominated by a giant Necron structure protruding from the ground, surrounded by steps and platforms of different height levels. Finally, there are a handful of tall but narrow
LoS blocking pillars on the top right corner of section 4 and the middle of section 2.
The mission is Crusade with Dawn of War deployment, so no crazy Monolith that switches on half way through the game to worry about. We rolled 4 objectives. Steph places both his objectives in section 4. Alex, places both objectives in section 2.
We both roll some useless Warlord Trait which we then proceeded to forget about for the duration of the game. We also generate our psychic powers but neither of us is impressed with the result so we end up taking our respective Primaris powers. Night fighting rules come into play. Alex wins the choice for first or second deployment.
Alex: Steph's whole army is extremely shooty and he will easily outgun me unless I can tie him up in assault. His Windrider Jetbikes and Warp Spiders are too fast, to try and catch, it would be better to go for his less mobile gun-line, specifically the war walkers and broadsides. My Canoptek Wraiths are the only units that will realistically stand a chance of closing the distance, he will want to put as much distance between them and the non-mobile guns as he can.
I could make Steph deploy first, and then just position my wraiths closest to wherever his guns deploy, but I don’t think that will work. The shortest possible distance between my Canoptek Wraiths and his guns will be the 36” between the front of my deployment zone and his table edge, so If I make him deploy first, he will be 36” away from me when his first volley hits me. By contrast, the longest possible distance between my Canoptek Wraiths and his guns is the 50” between the front of my deployment zone and either corner of his deployment zone. If I start here, my Canoptek Wraiths will move 12” and run around 3”, for a total of 15”, meaning I will be 35” away when the first volley hit, and of course, he can’t cram his whole army into a single point on the corner of his deployment zone so this distance will likely be less. So going first it is.
I don’t want to split my assault units, that will give him the opportunity to deploy all his immobile guns in one location and focus on the nearest assault squad, each squad he finishes in this way will create more distance between the immobile guns and the next nearest squad. So I want to deploy all my Canoptek Wraiths in one place. But where…
I end up deploying them in the middle of my deployment zone front line, this minimizes the distance to his objectives and makes it impossible for him to deploy there unless he wants to get charged turn 2. The distance to both corners is also equal so there is no distance advantage of one corner over the other, and by locking himself in either corner, he can’t escape and he clumps himself up for my Heldrake.
I also deploy my Annihilation Barges near the middle of the table since they too need to close distance to fire and this is the next most premium spot for closing distance. I deploy my Cultists directly opposite Steph’s objectives, if I am right and Steph deploys in the corner, they can advance, hold my objective and threaten both my second objective and Steph’s.
Ok… I am a bit embarrassed by how much I just wrote on deployment... Let’s kick some Space-Elf butt.
Steph: After seeing Alex’s essay on deployment decision making I decided to uh… trim down my section a bit. Suffice it to say that his strategy more or less worked and I aimed to end up in the bottom right corner. I tucked my XV88s right in the back but kept my Riptide, Walkers, Fire Warriors and Accompanying Ethereal slightly further forward so that I could shoot around the
LoS Blocking terrain on the edge of section 4 and 5. Jetbikes and Spiders deploy hidden behind the section 4 landing platform.
“Hurry up maggots, we have precious little time!”. Balleryth felt the hairs on his neck stand up. Extended exposure to the sorcerer Amarant had not rendered him immune his terrorizing presence. He stood more than a head taller than the assembled ten men and was clad from head to toe in ceramite platings bearing the mark of the Thousand Sons of the Traitor Legions. Balleryth and his companions whisked up their cloaks and followed the giant down the corridor, their footsteps echoing against the iron hallway. Some distance in the darkness, another artificial human, as tall and as intimidating was holding an ornate lantern to the wall, his attention on some minute detail.
“Master, I think we found it”, whispered the traitor marine without breaking his gaze.
“Good, move aside, keep the flame close”, ordered Amarant as he began tracing his fingers over the wall, Balleryth could hear him muttering over the vox, some dark forgotten language. Letters began to appear on the walls around them, Balleryth leaned in to get a closer view. A face, if it could be called that, emerged from the solid metal to stare him right in the eye, a series of lenses focusing on his features. Two hands sprouting blade like fingers followed, then a torso, and finally a long and twisting metal tail. The creature materialized as it came out of the wall, floating right past Balleryth. The men began to shift nervously as more creatures came out of their surroundings, eighteen of them in total, they were outnumbered. Balleryth reached for his weapon but his hand was stopped by a giant gauntlet clasping his hand.
“If you value your life, you will keep that to yourself” warned the sorcerer. Amarant turned to one of the flying machines and clasped his palms together, his head leaned back resting in the socket of his power armor and he inhaled heavily. Slowly he parted his hands, a string of pink flames forming between them. The flames floated into the air to form strange glyphs, not unlike those on the surrounding walls. The flying machines gathered around the sorcerer like moths drawn to a flame.
“That’s right” said Amarant, “You understand don’t you… call him”.
Turn 1
Alex: Yay Night Fighting! Wouldn’t it be cool to wait out of visual range for all my flyers to show up and then go have some fun? A useful approach when you are outranged and outgunned right? Well as it turns out… no… not really. The Broadside and Riptide Battlesuits ignore Night Fighting, so they could be using this turn to shoot up to 60” with impunity, inflicting instant death on Canoptek Wraiths, blowing up Annihilation Barges, you know, the usual.
I move and run forward with my Canoptek Wraiths and Destroyer Lord (although running with units that have no legs feels wrong). I try to think of some clever way to reduce incoming fire but nothing springs to mind, no
LoS blocking terrain barring the platforms will hide 18 models on 40mm base, and the platforms are not really on my route. Cover, including the cover of night won’t help much, anything firing on my Canoptek Wraiths will be met with a better save cover would confer anyway.
My Annihilation Barges follow behind. I am trying to spread them out a bit so it’s harder for Steph to hit more than one at a time with that nasty Ion Accelerator. My cultists and Sorcerer run to claim one of my objectives. Everything in my army is out of range (at least Night Fighting isn’t giving Steph cover saves he wouldn’t normally get). A bit anti climactic but that was my first turn.
Steph: Looking at the board I have surprisingly few decisions to make. The cultists are not really a threat, they probably won’t get to assault range until turn 4, if they even decide to take the trudge to my corner. The big scary flyers haven’t arrived yet, there are really only two targets, Wraiths and Barges.
With their AV13, there are only three units in my army that can harm them, my bright lance Walkers, my XV88s and my Riptide so despite the tempting possibility of inflicting instant death on the Wraiths, I reserve these two units for thinning down the Barges.
My Farseer casts Guide on one unit scatter laser Walkers, and Prescience on the other. The Ethereal invokes Sense of Stone. The Jetbikes move out from behind the platform to get
LoS on the advancing Wraiths. Despite their assault jump, I don’t want to risk assault so I only bring their shuriken cannons into range. In hindsight, I probably could have been a lot ballsier here because for the Wraiths to assault me they would have had to change direction and put more distance between them and my main gun-line. I am a bit braver with my Spiders as they have Hit and Run to fall back on, they teleport in using their warp generators to get within 12”.
The Fire Warriors form a concave about 23” out from the Wraiths (that accounts for a 12” move and up to a 10” charge, It’s unlikely that he will make a bigger distance than that), my scatter laser Walkers positioning themselves behind that concave while trying to find good
LoS through the pillars that are between them and the Wraiths. I have two turns to go all ghost busters on these Wraiths before they start wrecking havoc. Ok… Let’s make some scrap metal.
All aforementioned units combine their fire for a total of 24 S5 shots at BS3 and 78 S6 shots at BS4, always focusing on whatever squad contains the leading Wraith so as to create another few inches distance between us (every inch counts). No less than 10 wraiths bite the dust earning me first blood - who you gonna call!
The bright lance Walkers score a stun on one of the Barges but living metal removes the result. Still, the quantum shield is down making them an easier target for my XV88s who destroy the Barge. A nova charged shot from the Riptide immobilizes another Barge.
All the Walkers use Battle Focus post shooting to move into the back right corner (yes Alex, you are so smart, I am right where you want me). I consider charging the Spiders into the three man Wraith squad, I won’t win the assault but I can paralyze them for a turn, meaning less Wraiths advancing towards my front lines. I can withdraw from combat using Hit and Run during Alex’s turn, leaving the Wraiths stuck in the open, still two turn away from assault. I decide against it, thinking that I have enough firepower to kill the Wraiths without sacrificing my Spiders. Instead I use a combination of Fleet, Battle Focus and their assault jump to move back away from the Wraiths.
I end my turn and pray that the Heldrake won’t come from reserves. I am an atheist so naturally my prayers go unanswered and indeed it does arrive.
Destroyer Lord, Anak’Teruth surveyed the desert, the grey of twilight was intermittently disrupted by soft flashes in the distance. The Tau they had been fighting for weeks now, were emerging from invisible portals on the battlefield. Anak’Teruth was familiar with this phenomenon and he knew that this was not Tau technology, for he had witnessed it many millennia ago, before the Long Sleep, in the days when the C’tan fought the Old Ones for supremacy of the universe. The Tau had indeed recruited allies to fight their war. He buried the blade of his Warscythe in the sand and turned to address Amarant.
“It appears you were telling the truth”, the sorcerer nodded to gesture his agreement.
“Then you understand, time is of the essence” Amarant replied. Anak’Teruth paused to assess the situation, calculating all the variables of the scenario at hand. They had deployed to the battlefield hastily, having time to add only a handful of Necron war machines to their ranks. The 18 Wraiths maintaining the Tomb World subsector had been recruited for the task, as had three Annihilation Barges, large weapon platforms propped up by anti gravity fields which allowed them to keep pace. The sorcerer would die of course, but all in good time, so far his information had proved useful, and his strength may still prove necessary.
“I will lead the attack, more will come”, said Anak’Teruth. With that he turned his back on the sorcerer and accelerated to meet the enemy, pulling his weapon from the ground as his destroyer body thrust him forward at incredible speed. The Wraiths followed behind, making no sound save for a hiss of wind left by their wake.
Almost immediately the Necrons came under fire, blue plasma projectiles fired by the Tau infantry burst harmlessly against the Destroyer Lords body. Then he saw them, the children of the Old Ones, eight Eldar War Walkers emerged from their cover behind three large pillars. A white hot beam of energy streaked past Anak’Teruth, striking an invisible shield surrounding one of the Annihilation Barges behind him, the beam scattered momentarily then refocused, boring a whole right through the shield and the floating weapon platform alike. Almost immediately, the metal on the surface of the machine began to shift, sealing the hole and repairing the damage, but before the hole could fully close, the machine was splintered into a thousand smoking pieces which scattered all over the dessert floor. A whip-crack sound followed. The Necrons ongoing attempts to purge the Tau from their Tomb World had familiarized them with the sounds of heavy rail rifles.
Anak’Teruth knew he would have to close the distance as fast as possible to eliminate the Broadside Battlesuits mounting these weapons, but further incoming fire made the approach perilous. Large laser weapons mounted on the war walkers shot Wraiths out of the sky, their fused remains crashing into the ground and kicking up clouds of dust. The Eldar walkers and Tau infantry retreated from behind taking position behind a giant battlesuit, twice the size of a Broadside. Anak’Teruth energy sensors flared into life as the monstrosity drew incredible amounts of power from a pack on its back. In an instant, the energy was discharged through a massive barrel mounted on the warriors arm. The shot struck near an Annihilation Barge, lighting up the darkness for an instant, scorching the earth and sending shock-waves in every direction. The Annihilation Barge came flying out of the smoking crater and crash-landed, amazingly, still in one piece.
Glyphs layered over Anak’Teruth vision, signaled the arrival of reinforcements, he allowed himself a momentary glance sideways to see the silhouette of a Night Scythe against the rising sun. Behind the Night Scythe something caught his eye, a distortion in the air. Time slowed down as the hellish dimension of the warp spilled into the material universe, twisting and bending the laws of reality. Beneath the distortion Anak’Teruth could see Amarant’s cultists, chanting and performing a ritual of sorts. Pink flames emerged from the distortion, extending outwards like tendrils seeking to pull pray into a giant maw. For a moment it seemed as if all of reality would be sucked inwards through the portal, then it convulsed violently, vomiting out a meteor of smoldering metal. The warp-spawned terror unraveled as it descended upon the battlefield, unfurling limbs in every direction. Angular wings caught the air to guide its path, a long neck stretched out and let out a scream the likes of which Anak’Teruth had not heard in 60 million years. Anak’Teruth could see past the gruesome shell of the Heldrake and into the true terror of what lay within. For in the prison of twisted steel, lay a Daemon of the warp, the poison which had driven the Necrons underground all those years ago. In his numbed down shadow of a soul, Anak’Teruth felt tinge of what he might have once called fear. He had calculated incorrectly, the sorcerer could not be trusted. Probability of betrayal was high.
Turn 2
Alex: These first turn bum rushes are always painful, but then, what is the alternative, stay put while he shoots me? I move the wraiths forward again, my remaining mobile Annihilation Barge moves into range of his front line, my Heldrake and one Night Scythe arrive from reserves. Last turn none of my guns were in range, I only have very few guns in range now but I want to lay out a strategy for where to focus my firepower.
I am looking really nervously at Steph’s denial units, specifically his Windrider Jetbikes and Warp Spider. There are 25 of them in total and if I don’t take them down, they will surely contest all my objectives near the end of the game. With the exception of my Heldrake, nothing in my army is particularly efficient at killing them. If I set my Heldrake on them, he can probably take out around four per turn, but I need to get my Heldrake in real close to use his baleflamer, it will always be possible for Steph to move his Windrider Jetbikes/Warp Spiders behind my Heldrake so as to avoid the next round of fire. This means that if my Heldrake is set to exclusive denial unit killing duty, he can only realistically shoot them every two turns. That means that in a six turn game, he will net himself around 12 kills, that’s almost half of them. Ok, not too bad. Who will kill the rest? The cultists will never catch them. The Night Scythes and Annihilation Barges could shoot them but they actually suck at shooting down infantry. Assuming Steph is smart and keeps them out of Arc range (which given their extreme mobility of his denial units is not a problem), a Night Scyth can only take out about one Windrider Jetbike/Warp Spider per turn. Like the Heldrake they can probably shoot at the denial units on alternating turns, with their flight path being evaded every other turn. So in a six round game, the Night Scythe on the table could probably add another three to the tally, for a total of 15 while the other two, arriving a bit later will probably add another two each to the tally between, for a total of 19, ok, now we are getting somewhere. The denial units could stay out of Annihilation Barge range, but they probably can’t do that every turn while also staying out of the flight path of my flyers, so let’s give the Annihilation Barges another four or five kills. Conclusion: If I focus all my firepower from my Heldrake, Night Scythes, and Annihilation Barges, I can eliminate almost all of Steph’s denial units by turn six.
There are three big problems with this approach. Firstly, I am ignoring the riptide, it Steph needs it to become a denial unit it can, using its nova generator to move
4d6 in the assault phase. Secondly, if everything I have is shooting his denial units, all the time, nothing is shooting his big guns, which as the Canoptek Wraiths splattered over the desert floor will testify, is not a good idea. Thirdly and most importantly, I can’t expect my firepower to remain constant throughout the game, it will taper off as my army takes damage. This effect will be especially pronounced if Steph makes me chase his denial units into my half of the map, all my flyers have very short range so in order to shoot into my half of the map I either need to give Steph’s
AA my rear armor, or come in at an angle which gives him my side armor but which will take me multiple turns to get there (by which point he probably turbo boosts to be behind my flyers again).
What else can I do… I can try deploying all my Necron Warriors somewhere central, use them like Annihilation Barges, so that it is hard for Steph to move out of the flight paths of my flyers without flying into the range of my ground troops. That would probably add another six or seven kills to the pool, give me a bit of a buffer, but I still think that the tapering off effect of my Firepower will be bigger than the buffer, especially if he focuses down the Heldrake which is doing between a third and half the damage… It’s annoying but I don’t think this is going to work. I think my objectives are going to get contested no matter what I do.
I need a different strategy, I’m going to try and take out Steph’s big guns, this will increase my chance of making it into assault (though I am skeptical), and perhaps make it possible for my troops to survive long enough to contest an objective or two. So instead of shooting troops, I decide to let my Tesla weapons do what they were meant to do, shoot
AV.
My Night Scythe moves from my table edge (top edge) onto the borders between section 3 and 4, and Invasion Beams some Necron Warriors into a crater. My Night Scythe then combines its firepower with my mobile Annihilation Barge and shoot a squad of scatter laser War Walkers, scoring six glancing hits, two of which are blocked by their power fields, but its still enough to wreck two War Walkers. That’s 16 S6 BS4 shots I won’t have to deal with next turn. The Necron Warriors can barely reach the Fire Warriors, they shoot and kill one.
I can’t decide what to do with my Heldrake, half of Steph’s army is crammed into one corner of the map, so on the one hand it seems like the perfect place to strike, I could decimate some Fire Warriors but the baleflamer won’t do much to the War Walkers, even with Daemonforge. If I hit the corner first, the following turn I will have two options, fly off the board, or fly towards the Windrider Jetbikes and Warp Spiders and give the Heldrake’s rear
AV to Steph’s
AA. I also give Windrider Jetbikes and Warp Spiders the chance to get out of my flight path. On the other hand I could attack the Windrider Jetbikes in section 4, the following turn I can still attack the corner as they are not mobile enough to get out of my flight path, and I can do all this without giving Steph my rear armor. Also, this way I get a chance to Vector Strike War Walkers instead of Windrider Jetbikes. This seems like a better option. The Heldrakes moves full distance and fries 4 Windrider Jetbikes.
As the Windrider Jetbikes moved forward last turn to shoot my Wraiths, they are now in range of my immobilized Annihilation Barge which fires on them, taking out another model. I lean back and scan the table, I feel like I have done a lot of thinking and very little damage…
Steph: The wraiths are not in combat so my plan is working so far. The Ethereal invokes Storm of Fire and leads the Riptide and Fire Warriors out of the corner to meet the Wraiths. The Walkers and Farseer Follow closely behind, giving the XV88s some elbow room. The Spiders and Jetbikes move to within 12” from the remaining Wraiths. The Farseer casts Guide on the bright lance Walkers and Prescience on the Riptide. The guided bright lance Walkers repeat their trick of scoring a stun on the remaining mobile Barge though this time, living metal is not successful in regenerating the machine.
The XV88s activate their velocity trackers and shoot at the Heldrake, one of the missile drones scores a stun which is removed by Daemonic Poesssion. The Riptide engages its nova shield and also targets the Heldrake, managing a hull point which is removed by It Will Not Die… damn, that thing is a big problem.
Everything else fires on the Wraiths. The Fire Warriors, with Storm of Fire and rapid Fire spit out almost 70 S5 shots, the remaining four scatter laser Walkers weigh in with an additional 32 S6 shots. Six wraiths find their death at the end of their combined barrels. The Farseer expends his third and final warp charge to take out a wounded Wraith with a Psychic Shriek.
The Bikers and Spiders come in from a different angle which makes the Lord the closest model. Alex forgoes his Lookout Sir attempts, obviously preferring to keep the Wraith for close combat and so the Lord suffers two wounds.
Finally, the Riptide charges into combat, Mindshackle Scarabs fail to stop the assault and the last Wraith falls to Smash attacks with re-rolled hits thanks to Prescience. The Lord attempts to hit back but the Nova Shield holds strong.
Since I failed to kill the Heldrake, my Bikers and Spiders are once again in danger, I assault jump them back to within 6” of the Heldrake. This ensures that the Heldrake’s 18” minimum move will take it out of baleflamer range. I have a Destroyer Lord rampaging through my ranks but otherwise things look good. I end my turn.
Triana felt her senses sharpen to meet the needs of battle, the Necrons had somehow discovered their plan. Distant weapon platform mounted on anit-gravity platforms fired upon their position. Lightning shaped bolts of green energy zigzagged their way into their formation finding their mark on the retreating War Walkers. Raw energy arced between there of War Walkers, battling their energy fields to reach the pilots inside. The strength of the weapon proved too much for two of the Walkers, windows shattered and the cockpits fell limp as the pilots finally embraced death, their souls slipping into their waystones.
Triana had to do something to alter the balance. Reaching into small pouch she took a handful wraith bone runes and cast them into the air. To Traina’s trained eyes, the position of the runes relative to each other were like an open book offering a glimpse into countless events yet to come. One omen in particular caught her attention, the runes of the crimson sun and blooded scythe hinted that danger would come from the eastern sky. With a swift sideways motion she clasped the airborne runes in one hand, her mind meanwhile was already elsewhere. Her thoughts pierced through the thick armor of the Riptide Battlesuit at her side and seeded themselves with the pilot within, sharing the myriad possible warnings and instilling a prescient-like situational awareness. She was gentle with her intrusion, for the Tau had no concept of the gift of sight, and they did not quite understand how the Eldar performed their miracles. After letting the Shas’vre know that she was a friend, she pulled out again. She opened her eyes, the Battlesuit was on the move firing at some distant sky borne threat only he could see thanks to specialized night fighting equipment the Tau employed. Up ahead, three squadrons of Windrider Jetbikes were in hot pursuit of the fast advancing Necron charge. Spinning disks of razor sharp wraithbone, fired from under-slung weapons rained down upon the Necrons, severing tails, and arms. One of the Necrons crashed to the ground, two dozen disks lodged into the side of its abdomen.
The Windrider Jetbikes turned hard midair to evade a flying metal monster cutting their flight path. The monster opened its mouth and belched out a torrent of pink flames into the retreating Jetbikes. Skin and wraithbone alike were incinerated by the hell-spawned fire. Losing control, the riders plummeted to the ground, their Jetbikes exploding like missiles upon impact. Triana watched helplessly as the Heldrake chased her kin through the sky, its presence betrayed the nature of this battle, the Chaos God Tzeench, had sent his minions to thwart the Eldar, their sorcery must have foreseen their plans.
She turned to the Broadside Battlesuits behind and pointed her sword at the flying menace. The simple gesture was enough, they swung their weapons upwards and fired. The projectiles were too fast for Triana to see, but she could hear their impact. The high velocity slugs punctured holes in the Heldrakes wings. It spiraled out of the sky, the engines embedded in its chest cavity spewing toxic sulfurous smoke in its descent. Flames burned at the Heldrake’s wings as it fell, warping the surrounding metal to cover the damage. The menace let out a raw and stretched its wings once more, swooping upwards and missing the ground by mere feet.
A green flash to her right caught Triana's eye. A flying scythe shaped aerial fighter was fast approaching, discharging a green ray into crater ahead of its flight path. The shape of the threat was not lost on Triana, It seemed the runes had conveyed a more literal meaning than usual. From the lip of the Crater emerged the upper bodies of six Necron Warriors their weapons firing on the Fire Warriors guarding their leader. One Fire Warrior was hit and vaporized by the sophisticated disassembly beams before his body could hit the ground. The Ethereal rallied his forces and the Fire Warriors held strong, they ignored the danger of the Necrons firing on them and instead focused their efforts on thinning out the flying body guard of the advancing Necron leader, for therein lay the greater threat. Changing stance, the Fire Warriors began to advance behind on the Ethereal’s commands. Triana could not understand what he was saying but the effect on the troops was palpable. The Tau entered a sort of focused battle trance that reminded Triana of the Dire Avengers of Khaine. Their weapons no longer seemed to require aiming, instead they just steadily marched on, sending volley after volley into the enemy ranks until a veritable wall of plasma preceded their smoking barrels. But the Destroyer Lord seemed impervious to damage. His floating form came flying at the Fire Warriors, his elusive guardians passing right through the solid pillars on either side of him.
Help came from warp. A squad of Warp Spiders materialized out of nothing, their weapons spun out a nigh invisible web of monofilament wire. The Destroyer Lord’s leading bodyguard flew through the mesh, the wires cut their way through the thin connections between its vertebrae and in less than a second, it was in hundreds of pieces. But the Necron Lord would not be duped, he effortlessly swung the enormous Warscythe around his shoulder slicing through the mesh and clearing the path ahead. Two flying Necrons remained and they followed right behind.
Triana closed her eyes and drank deep from the reservoirs of psychic power of the warp. She sent her spirit out of her body to meet the upcoming Necrons, they could not hope to see her, indeed the Eldar were created to take advantage of Necrons inability to utilize the Warp. The Necrons epitomized all the Eldar feared and hated in themselves, for like the Eldar before the fall, they had allowed their souls to be strip-mined. What was left was all but immortal, for their bodies could always be repaired. They believed they had nothing to fear, but today she would show them the error of their arrogance. She let out shriek of psychic energy, the shockwave went completely unnoticed in the material universe, save for the effect it had on the Necrons. They writhed and squirmed in the air at the sound of Triana’s screams. She dug her claws deep into the Necrodermis of one of the attackers and whispered into whatever remained of its soul.
“You might not suffer age or bodily harm. But you will know death”, with that she ripped the soul out of its container, and let it dissolve into oblivion. The Necron’s body fell completely lifeless to the ground. In her minds eye, Triana saw the Destroyer Lord and the remaining flying Necrons closing in on her physical body. She would not regain consciousness in time to defend herself. But Triana had foreseen this future, and she had shared it with her warrior who would save her.
The Riptide Battlesuit came hurling out of the sky with an accuracy that defied reason, the pilot knew very well where the Necrons would arrive, and he pulverized the last of the Destroyer Lord’s bodyguard beneath his hoof. The Destroyer Lord rolled sideways at the last moment to avoid the same fate. Power flooded into the blade of his Warscythe as he charged the battlesuit. The Riptide pilot activated the reactor on his back, surrounding himself with an effervescent blue shield, and ran to meet the Lord’s charge.
Turn 3
Alex: My last remaining flyers arrive from reserve, I consider whether to deploy my troops or not. Many people like to keep their troops in the transport and use them late game to contest objectives, the problem is that if I lose my transports, my troops will have to arrive from reserves and won’t be able to reach Steph’s objectives. Also, I have no answer to Steph’s
AA, his 2+ save, multi-wound Riptide and Broadside Battlesuits will eat tesla shots all day, so its probably only a matter of time before my flyers get shot down. Deploying my Necron Warriors may be a suicide mission for my troops but it’s the only mission in which I stand a chance of contesting his objectives.
My newly arrived Night Scythes move into section 3 and drop more Necron Warriors into the crater, it’s getting crowded in there but Steph’s only template weapon is tied up in combat with my Destroyer Lord. My Heldrake rotates and moves into Steph’s corner flying over all his stuff and Vector Striking a scatter laser War Walker to death. Everything is still nice and packed closely together, I should have taken a picture, what a target! Also, the Ethereal invoked storm of Fire so the Fire Warriors lost their annoying little Feel no Pain. Bonus!
The Heldrake activates Daemonforge and lands the mother of all templates on a combination of Fire Warriors and War Walkers. Ten Fire Warriors die, and one scatter laser War Walker suffers an immobilized hit, the Ethereal and Farseer are lucky enough to make their Look Out Sir attempts. My 18 assembled Necron Warriors open on the Fire Warriors killing three more leaving ten alive. The three Night Scythes kill a scatter laser War Walkers each, they are all gone now, good job boys… I mean bots. One of my Annihilation Barges is stunned, the other is immobilized and only has Windrider Jetbikes in range, it kills the last remaining survivor from the Heldrake attack leaving 12 in total. So much damage!
My brilliant shooting phase is slightly marred by the death of my Destroyer Lord at the hands of the Riptide Battlesuit, he had been weakened on approach, he does take two wounds for his efforts though. This is problem though because now that the Riptide is free from combat, it can take a shot at the Heldrakes rear
AV. Can’t have it all I guess. The Heldrake definitely takes MVP but its part is over for now, it has to fly off the board next turn or spend the rest of the game re-positioning itself. Your move Steph.
Steph: Wow… just wow… that stupid flying lizard is ruining my day. I can see I made a big mistake when I moved out of the corner. I moved the Fire Walkers forward but I didn’t really spread them out, also I kept my War walkers very close to them which was really unnecessary, they were already in range of everything. This may seem a bit silly but I also could have charged the Destroyer Lord with my Fire Warriors, they wouldn’t have caused any damage but they would have been in combat and therefore an invalid target for the Heldrake. Oh well, we live and learn.
My Ethereal invokes Sense of Stone once more, my Farseer casts Guide and Prescience on the Riptide and the bright lance War Walkers respectively. The riptide positions itself behind the Heldrake, The Fire Warriors advance on the Necron Warriors in order to try and bring them into rapid fire range but fall just short.
The 12 remaining Jetbikes and six Spiders move up to the Necron Warriors and together with the Fire Warriors kill 13 Warriors! Yes! After shooting 2W, 3++ Wraiths all day you forget how good Bladestorm and Monofilament are. The squads that wiped cant reanimate but the surviving squad regains its fallen member.
The guided bright lance Walkers destroy the stunned Barge, leaving only the immobilized one in the middle on the edge of sections 2 and 5. The Riptide tries to use its nova reactor but wounds itself in the process. It fires its guided ion accelerator and smart missile system at the rear armor of the Heldrake, but only manages a glancing hit. Just when I start to think to myself that my
AA teams were recruited from alcoholics anonymous, the XV88s score a penetrating hit on the Heldrake’s front armor, destroying it. I do a Nadal inspired fist-pump. Words can’t describe how much satisfaction that brought me.
La’Shi felt his blood boil. He marched forward, firing his pulse rifle from the hip, executing a perfect Kauyon counter attack, as he had been drilled to do in the training domes of Fi’Rios. From across the dunes, the Necrons fired back. They proved nigh impossible to kill, their wounded did not stay down for long, repairing themselves through some unknown means.
Two crescent shaped flyers approached fast from behind the enemy ground troops. They shot beams of green light into the ground, Necrons reinforcements arose from these points of impact, sand falling through their skeletal frames. On the front lines, the enemy’s leader was doing battle with the towering Riptide Battlesuit, though the Destroyer Lord seemed unfazed by the size of his opponents. Attempting to swat his opponent, the Riptide pilot swung its ion accelerator like bat, but the Necron easily ducked the blow and counter attacked with his long Scythe, a burst of light from the battlesuits nova shield system deflected the hit.
As if trying to fend of ghosts the Riptide pilot began flailing its arms, something was amiss. La’Shi manipulated his helmet mounted control to open a data link to the Riptide Battlesuit’s vitals monitor; the pilot’s cerebral functions were being disrupted. A live image of the pilot’s brain showed tiny scarab shaped objects coating the occupants skull. The Necron must have deployed these in the midst of the duel. The Destroyer Lord seized the opportunity, finding an opening in the Riptides uncoordinated defenses, he carved his Scythe deep into the chest cavity of the battlesuit, bringing it to one knee. That seemed to jog the Riptide’s pilot back into consciousness. He activated his jetpack and launched himself knee first into the Necron’s torso, knocking him backwards. The Destroyer Lord plunged his Scythe into the ground to stop its momentum, swung around the pole of his weapon, pulled it out of the ground, and rushed to close the distance. With a back handed cutting motion, the Riptide Battlesuit smashed the shield generator on its arm through the Destroyer Lords upper body, scattering the Necron all over the desert. The Destroyer Lord’s head landed by La’Shi’s hooves. As it came to a rolling stop, the head laid eyes on the Fire Warrior.
“Mark my words, I will get off this planet, and I will come for your people”, with that, the head of the Necron and all of it’s bodies constituents disappeared in a green flash, leaving only imprints in the sand. The Riptide pilot raised its shield in victory and the assembled Tau cheered. La’Shi drowned in exhilaration, he felt not the heat of the rising sun, nor the wind on his skin, but he did hear the screams, and just in time. An otherworldly cocktail of agony and ecstasy caught his attention, heralding the arrival of a flying metal behemoth. It swooped out of the sky, landing claws first on top of an Eldar War Walker, its occupant was crushed instantly. Not a second later the beast was in the air again and heading for La’Shi’s unit. The Broadside and Riptide Battlesuit Shas’vre pummeled it with fire, finally, a critical blew it out of the sky. As it fell, the beast opened its maw and hurled out a sea of unnatural fire at La’Shi’s unit. La’Shi’s instincts took over him; he leapt sideways knocking Ethreal Aun’Ti to the ground and covered him like a blanket. A wave of heat overloaded every nerve in La’Shi’s body, leaving him only enough consciousness to hear his fellow Fire Warriors dying screams.
“Shas’La Fi’Rios Shi, back on your feet, your duty demands it”, a blurry image of Aun’Ti offering his hand came into focus. Behind the Ethereal, La'Shi saw a warrior drop to his knees and look directly him, his eyes and mouth were pools of pink light that burned bright as the sun. La’Shi grabbed hold of Aun’Ti’s outstretched hand and pulled him down to the ground, using the leverage to pull himself up and position his huge shoulder pad between the Ethreal and the burning Tau. A second later the downed Fire Warrior exploded in a ball of flame and gore. La’Shi reached down into the smoke and pulled the noble Ethereal to his feet. Aun’Ti picked up his symbol of office from the rubble, “that is twice you have saved me now.”
“My part for Tau’va” La’Shi replied. Aun’Ti nodded lightly in approval as he looked around.
“It would appear we are all playing our part.” All around lay dead Fire Warriors. La’Shi could smell the burnt flesh on his back and the blood of his comrade on his armor, yet he knew that rest was not a luxury he could afford.
“We must get the Flayer Virus to the interface nodes” said Aun’Ti. La’Shi knew he was right. The Eldar had explained that if they could infect the Tomb World’s main control systems, the Necrons would become incapacitated, and the Tau would win the war. Aun’Ti raised his symbol of office above his head and the assembled Fire Warriors fell back in line.
“We must harden our resolve” preached Aun’Ti, Tau’va demands of us that we be solid as stone, let not pain distract us from our destiny”, the Tau yelled out a battle cry as they resumed a fighting stance and advanced on the Necrons ahead.
Turn 4
Alex: One of my Night Scythes enters ongoing reserves, the other two move forward and shoot down both bright lance War Walkers. My Necron warriors move back, not wanting to give the Fire Warriors the chance to close into rapid fire range but now they are stuck against the platform in section 3. They shoot and wound two Fire warriors but one makes its feel no pain roll and gets back up. Necron wannabe!! Finally, my immobilized Annihilation Barge shoots another bike out of the Sky. At this point I am certain the game is lost, I have a squad of Cultists a squad of Necron Warriors, an immobilized Annihilation Barge and three Night Scythes, one of which is off the board. As has been the case all game, I have no way to neutralize Steph’s
AA. Yes, they have performed badly but my luck won’t last forever, and I don’t think my fliers will survive much longer. Let’s see what Steph does.
Steph: The Riptide and Fire Warriors receive a Guide and Prescience respectively. The Fire Warriors maintain their advance and shoot down two Necron Warriors. The Bikes and Spiders turn around and pour 26 S6 shots into the immobilized Barge, with its quantum shield down it can’t hold and is wrecked. The Riptide uses its nova reactor to ripple fire its smart missile system into a Night Scythe, which when combined with shots from the ion accelerator and re-rolls from Guide prove enough to destroy it. It crashes just short of the Cultists. The XV88s try their luck at a Night Scythe but fail to do anything to it.
Alex concedes.
Amarant ducked as a swarm of Eldar Jetbikes flew overhead, their bladed projectiles shrieked as they launched, and did devastating damage where they met with the Necrons. Eye sockets shattered and metal skulls cracked open. A Necron flyers came crashing to the ground, blocking his view to the carnage. Amarant turned his back on the battlefield and spoke to his acolytes.
“Come, it is for weak hearted fools to die in vain”, with a gesture a portal opened in the air before them. “Those with true strength must know how to survive”.
Afterthoughts
Alex: There are a couple of things that bother me about this game. As you can see from my notes, I conclude on my second turn that I don’t have enough firepower to reliably kill all of Steph's denial units. From here on out I am basically aiming for a draw. There is something wrong with that, this is a very competitive list and it should be able to win. It also annoys me that I couldn’t make assault; it seems to be relatively easy for him to destroy my Canoptek Wraiths in two turns of shooting. This means that I either need to get a turn two charge or lose them. Maybe I could have done something different with my deployment. Once Steph destroys my Canoptek Wraiths it becomes very hard for me to win. In a pure fire fight his army comes out on top, it out ranges me and puts out a lot more shots. The only thing I have going for me really is that my firepower comes from flyers and AV13 platforms which are hard to damage. Relying on fliers seems like a losing battle, as I don’t really have anything that can kill his Riptide and Broadside Battlesuits which were comfortably sitting there with range to the whole table shooting at the sky. These same two units threaten my
AV 13 platforms, and again, my weapons can’t harm them. Perhaps what I could have done is to use my turn two shooting to focus on his bright lance instead of his scatter laser War Walkers. Yes, the Wraiths would have died for sure but they died anyway. With the bright lances out of the way, the only two units which can shoot my AV13 are also the only two units which can reliably harm air, and he would have been forced to chose… then again his Windrider Jetbikes and Warp Spiders could probably make their way to the rear armor of an Annihilation Barge if he really had to get around the Quantum Shielding. Sigh… #NewIdeasNeeded.
Steph: I’m left with the feeling that my list lacks
AA, though it’s probably more accurate to say that Alex’s list is uncharacteristically heavy on fliers. I think I will tweak my list slightly, perhaps dropping a squad of Fire Warriors in favor of a third XV88 and switching the smart missile system on the Riptide for either plasma rifles or fusion blasters. I have about 10 spare points in my list, so adding some early warning systems on my broadsides would help a bit with the
AA. I also think I made some wrong targeting priorities, on the first turn, I used my riptide to immobilize an Annhilation barge. Cool I broke down the Quantum Shield but the firepower would have probably been better spent dropping a S8 pie plate on the Wraiths. Sure, they have invulnerable saves but any failed save would have caused instant death. In the end things turned out ok because the assault from the Wraiths and Warlord didn’t lock me up for long but it could have, it would have been better if they hadn’t made it into combat at all. This would have also freed up my nova generator for a Ripple Fire rather than the Nova Shield I used it for, which with plasma rifles rather than an
SMS might have brought the Heldrake down earlier. But all this is speculation, only the Farseers know the future with any degree of certainty.
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Both Steph and I would love any feedback you have on our game and on our writing. Where making reference to our army lists we would like to make one point. We both try to make our lists as competitive as possible for a tournament environment, where we would be playing different armies, using different missions every turn. We did not make our lists with the intention of countering each other. Please keep this in mind where making suggestions for our lists. Please do not make a suggestion which would have given one of us an advantage that would only apply in this battle report.
Looking forward to reading your comments.
Narrative is perfect
