2011.11.13 - Necrons & Eldar v. Dark Eldar

This matchup saw myself and the eldar player from the games on the 5th teaming up again to take down 2000 points of dark eldar, but this time I brought my necrons instead of orks. I spent a bit of time after Saturday's write-up analyzing my list and deciding where to go right now with the models I have and can reasonably proxy while actually following the rules this time.

The Challenger:

2x Haemunculus
Duke

5x incubi w/ venom
5x wracks w/ raider
3x trueborn w/ venom

10x wyches w/ 2x hydra gauntlets, agoniser, raider
10x warriors w/ blaster

10x hellions
5-6x reavers
5x scourges

2x ravagers (one lance, one cannon)
1x razorwing fighter w/ 4 necrotoxin missiles

The Defenders:

Eldar

1x farseer w/ doom

6x howling banshees w/ wave serpent

10x dire avengers w/ wave serpent
5x pathfinders

1x wraithlord w/ EML, starcannon
1x wraithlord w/ EML, scatter laser


Necrons

2x overlords w/ res orb

4x crypteks w/ 3 eldritch lances, 1 solar pulse, 1 tremorstave, 1 harp of dissonance
4x crypteks w/ 3 eldritch lances, 1 solar pulse, 1 tremorstave, 1 harp of dissonance

10x immortals w/ tesla carbines
10x immortals w/ tesla carbines

4x scarab swarms


We rolled annihilation for game type, which was exactly what I was hoping against, and dawn of war for deployment, which was what I was exactly hoping against. Our opponent won the roll to go first and chose to, starting both of his raiders on the board, with a haemunculus inside with the wracks. I decided to go balls out and put a unit of crypteks in a piece of area terrain so they could potentially put a hole in the wych raider turn 1, while my partner chose to put on his unit of pathfinders so that they could save themselves a turn of running up the bluff.

For squads of the same type with more than one unit (i.e. immortals) I will number them from left to right. For instance, before the game begins, CS2 is the cryptek squad in the area terrain, because after our first turn, another squad walked on to the left of them.

Deployment looked like this. Our opponent put his razorwing, ravager w/ lances, hellions, scourges and reavers into real reserve while everything else was to walk on. We tried to seize and failed.

TURN 1

Dark Eldar Dude took his turn at being a cheaterbox and rolled 3D6 x 3 for night fighting, when in fact night vision confers the ability to re-roll, not extra range and has done so since 3rd Edition, but I went along with this because I was too lazy to look it up.

Everything walked on in the middle and then shot up my crypteks. The ravager with the disintegrator cannons nicked two wounds while the wych raider put a lance through another, while everything else whiffed against the crypteks, as did the venoms shooting at the pathfinders.

The squad passed morale and one of the crypteks stood up, leaving a lance and the harp.

As the turn passes to us, we walk everything we've got spread across the entire board edge for fear of necrotoxin missiles.

First up I pop a solar pulse. The wave serpent rolls on with the banshees is on the left, while the dire avengers are on the right at the far side of the table in the shot above. The banshee serpent shot at the trueborn's venom and managed a pen and a glance with its twin linked scatter laser, and while the flickerfield stopped the glance, the pen wrecked it.

The remnants of the first cryptek squad whiff against the ravager while the other squad hits with the harp and manages two penetrating hits and a glance, but its flickerfield saved all three, but leaving it at AV10. The wraithlords also shoot at the ravager, one whiffing as horribly as me though the other managed an immobilizing glance with its scatter laser. Both of my immortal squads were too far away to shoot anything, and I forgot to run them.


TURN 2

Our opponent gets his razorwing and hellions in, putting the razoring in the midfield while the hellions went long near the ruins. The hellions scattered into the ruins, and should have gotten a mishap on one of the columns but we let it slide. The warriors move out of their cover, and the wych raider scoots into blocking terrain against the crypteks.

Shooting saw the ravager put two wounds on CS2 in the bush and neither get saved, dropping the squad. The wych raider laid three disintegrator wounds on the farseer who saved them all. The trueborn shot up the banshee's wave serpent to no effect, and the venom shooting at CS1 likewise did nothing.

Then the pain train arrived with four necrotoxin missile strikes against immortal squad 1 right on the hill near the pathfingers. Out of 22 or so hits and a 2+ to wound, the squad saved all but three, though the razorwing also dropped two more from its disintegrator cannons.

With nothing in their range, the hellions run up out of the ruins. My troops finish the round like champs, with three of the five in IS1 standing up and the harper getting up in cryptek squad two.

Our turn starts with the inevitable slogging up, though we did bunch our stuff up since the dark eldar hadn't any pie plates left (save for short range shredders). My partner dumps both of his wave serpents' payloads, the banshees on the edge of terrain and the avengers up on the side of the ruins on the right table edge.

Shooting for us was a barrel full of fucking shenanigans. The banshee wave serpent sets its sights on the incubi venom, nailing it with boxcar starcannon shots, but the flickerfield saves yet again (5 saves so far). Fortunately its shuricat immobilizes it, in a twist of fate. Guess they didn't think peashooters could hurt.

Both of the wraithlords try and take out the wych raider, but both whiff with two missiles, two starcannon shots and four scatter laser pewpews. The harper pens it, but flickerfield stops that as well (6), but is now sitting at AV9. The crypteks in the other squad take aim at the wrack's raider, drilling it with two pens and a glance but flickerfield stops all three (9), and the harp did not hit.

The immortal squad rounds out what was a pathetic phase by lighting up two hellions with tesla shots.

The banshees take their shot at the hellions as well and finish strong, knocking out another two with their pistols.

Assault sees the scarabs swarm the venom and land a bajillion entropic strikes, 13 or 14--it was above average at least. The venom wrecks and the incubi pile out in prime position to tie themselves up with the scarabs.

TURN 3

The ravager comes in but the reavers stay off the table, thankfully. The wracks move up in their adled raider and poop them out onto the ruins, and the warriors move up as well.

The hellions and wyches follow suit, moving in the for the kill.

Shooting starts with the vehicles going all out: the newly arrived ravager lances two wounds off the wraithlord with the scatter laser, while the other fails to scratch it. The wrack's raider similarly whiffs against the avenger's wave serpent, though the wracks themselves kill four of the avengers with their shattershard blast weapon, however their streak ends there as the liquefier gun lands five wounds that get saved and the casket of flensing gets only assault 3 and no wounds at S1 AP5.

The wych raider gets a single wound with its disintegrator cannon on the harper, but he makes his cover save. The razorwing drops the wraithlord with the starcannon by putting four wounds on its head.

Shooting continues with the hellions going wide against the banshees, though the trueborn lurking in the trees explode the wave serpent, laying three wounds on the scarabs and one on the banshees, but everyone made their saves. The warriors with a shredder instagib one base while their splinter cannon and rifles knock out another five wounds.

Assault is grizzly, with the wracks sweeping the dire avengers after winning combat two to one, consolidating backwards. The incubi rout the scarabs with fearless wounds and take no damage in return, while the hellions do the same to the banshees, though the exarch survives and successfully breaks off combat. The hellions consolidate towards the pathfinders.

Wyches win combat four to zero after the overlord sucks it up, and continues sucking wych cock by failing his leadership and rolling a number that didn't matter much, leading to the squad getting swept.

We shuffle around a bit in movement, and the banshee exarch regroups.

Shooting on our turn sees the crypteks drop six wyches with lance and tremorstaff pies, while the immortal squad kills two wracks from tesla fire. The wraithlord takes one more stab at the dark lance ravager, managing a pen but it's stopped by the flickerfield, of course (10). Our pathfinders also miss the wyches, who also pass their pinning test.

Hoping for some luck, my partner assaults the hellions with his exarch, taking one with him but receiving fatal damage in return, The hellions move a bit closer to the pathfinders.


TURN 4

Both reavers and scourges come in, but the reavers mishap on top of the wyches while the scourges mishap 11" across the wraithlord towards the far table edge. The reavers rolled a two on the table and leave play just as they were coming in. The razoring gets in position on top of the grassy knoll in the middle, while everything else shifts up for the final charge. The black ravager below actually moved to be behind the wave serpent.

The scourges and ravager lead in shooting by failing with their lances but just barely taking out the last wraithlord with shard carbine fire. The razorwing then puts two wounds onto the autarch, who is finished off by a lucky hex rifle shot from the wracks. The ravager behind the wave serpent explodes it, and since it had been hit with a harp twice earlier it took a glance and was stunned. (One of the harp hits didn't glance, and I forgot to write it down). Awesome.

The wyches assault into the crypteks, who pass their leadership test after failing combat zero to one. The pathfinders are routed by the hellions.

Since my partner was tabled and this game had been over since turn two, I conceded the game.


RESULTS

We lost marginally 8 to 11 KP. Of course had the game finished, we would've been tabled and had perhaps 9 KP to our opponent's 17.

This game was a blowout in favor of dark eldar. It didn't help that I was fucking up every turn starting with deployment, but 10 flickerfield saves against our anti-tank certainly didn't help. Also, we were playing like AP- counted as -1 to pen, when of course it was -1 on the damage table, for a net wash with open-topped.

So, mistakes that I can remember right now:
1) Deployed crypteks into cover against an enemy they would've been able to hit walking on turn 1 anyway
2) Deployed way too haphazardly for annihiliation
3) Forgot to use that second solar pulse top of turn 2.
4) Totally missed that wych raider encroaching on the immortals
5) Didn't shoot tesla at vehicles because I thought I couldn't pen

After being less disappointed with the crypteks, I think they are way too many points at this level. My new list sports a single court with the same config + res orb lord, but two annihilation barges and three more scarabs. Sadly that means I need to buy some barges and will lose that second solar pulse at 1000 points, but c'est la vie.

I think will try experimenting with command barges as well, I think they will be very valuable for destroying things. The FLGS is running buy two get one free next Friday, so I am going to see if I can't wrangle someone into buying me a big list of stuff while I'm in Omaha.

2011.11.12 - Necrons & Daemons v. Space Wolves & Dark Eldar

This matchup saw a big 2v2 battle, with three xenos (!!!) and only a single spess mehreen player at 1000 points each. I played Necrons, and the Dark Eldar and Space Wolves players are well acquainted with you by now dear reader, but the Daemons player was a fellow I had not played with so far. Mr. Dark Eldar rolled for teams and netted the Space Pups. Their lists were nearly identical to those from the 5th, but I will reiterate here.

For my list, I had to proxy basically everything. I used four old metal immortals as my lance crypteks, four pariahs for my harbingers of transmogrification and my warriors as immortals. Both of my old lords masqueraded as overlords. For my out-of-town readers, I cut my hand pretty bad with a hobby knife while I was constructing some dreadnaughts on Thursday and probably should've gotten some stitches, but instead decided to let it hurt. I blame all my mistakes on this, and the fact that I kept slapping my leg and sending shooting pain up my arm.


Dark Eldar
LOLOLOL PAIN TOKENS.

1x Archon
2x Haemunculi

10x wyches
-- 2x hydra gauntlet, hekatrix
10x warriors
-- splinter cannon, raider
5x wracks
-- liquefier, hex rifle, raider

2x ravagers w/ disintegrator cannons


Space Wolves
I can kill you with my bare hands, but why try when I have all these toys?

Logan

6x wolf guard
-- Arjac, 4 TDA, 2 wolf claws

9x grey hunters
-- Mark of the Wulfen, company standard

6x long fangs
-- 5x missile launchers


Chaos Daemons
Liar, liar squad's on fire.

1x dude on a juggernaut
1x dude in a pink horror group

10x pink horrors
9x bloodletters
10x bloodletters

3x juggernauts

3x flamers of Tzeentch
3x flamers of Tzeentch

Necrons
This hand of mine is burning red, and goddamn it hurts.

1x Overlord
-- phaeron, res orb, warscythe
1x Overlord
-- phaeron, res orb, gauntlet of fire

4x Crypteks
-- 2x eldritch lances, 2x tremorstaves, 1x harp of dissonance

4x Crypteks
-- 2x eldritch lances, 2x tremorstaves, 1x harp of dissonance

10x immortals (w/ 1 tremorstaver)
-- gauss blasters
10x immortals (w/ 1 tremorstaver)
-- gauss blasters
5x immortals
-- tesla carbines


I rolled for game type and got seize ground with three objectives and dawn of war deployment. Yet again I rolled high for first turn, but since my partner was deepstriking everything we opted for second.

Deployment looked like this, with the three objectives being placed on top of the cube, inside the ruins with the necrons and the third inside the bottom-most bushes in the pic.

After our opponents went on with as much as they could, I thought I might try to get some great shooting in by deploying as much as I could as well. There was a game error here that I didn't realize until turn three, but I put on both of my lords, when I should have only been able to deploy one.

My game plan would be to hold on to our objectives with my sloggers while my partner krumped what needed krumping in close combat. Those beasts that made it into my lines would be slowed down by tremorstaves, so I hoped to use those to their maximal effect to keep my gunline intact.

I rolled to seize and failed, though the dark eldar player did get +1 attacks for his combat drugs.


TURN 1

All the skimmers rolled on this turn, and the second haemunculus jumped into the wrack's raider. One ravager came in on the far side while the other came in opposite it on the far right flank. Logan's crew shuffled up and let the rhino block it from a clear shot from my second immortal squad in the ruins. Finally, the archon scooted up into run range of the warriors. The long fangs pile in behind the mesa on the left board edge.

Logan's crew shot at immortal squad 1 on the far left and dropped two, while the rhino took its potshots at squad 2 and pulled one down. The archon ran up from behind to join the warriors, while disintegrator cannons laved squad 2 with 4 more wounds, because I forgot that cover saves existed.

At the end of shooting, 4 of the downed immortals got back up in squad 2 and both from squad one got 4+.

On our turn, my partner dropped in his juggernauts, pink horrors and his smaller squad of nine bloodletters, picking up the slack on the right flank. The pink horrors scatter back 9", but there are no mishaps. My crypteks follow suit and slog up, one squad behind the immortals in the ruins and the other behind the immortals near the left table edge.

My third squad of immortals with tesla carbines also rolls on and finds a special place to set up shop.

Good thing no one has demolisher cannons.

In shooting, I knock out a warrior and give Logan a papercut while the three squads that just rolled on run towards their buddies, while my partner destroys the disintegrator cannon on the wyches' raider.


TURN 2

Logan sprints towards my immortals with a ravager in tow, while the grey hunters disembark their rhino right in front of my gunline. Similarly, the wracks disembark their raider and shoot towards the juggernauts and the wyches do the same towards the pink horrors. Thankfully, this will be another turn without Long Fang missile fire, as they make their way onto the bluff.

Shooting sees the grey hunters pin four wounds onto the big immortal squad in the ruins, though the wracks miss the juggernauts with their own shots. Unfortunately, the warriors do much better and stick four wounds onto the juggernauts, killing one and putting a wound on two others. The wracks' raider shoots at the juggernauts as well, but its single wound is saved by that ubiquitous 4+ invuln. The ravager takes its turn at the juggs,  knocking out another two wounds on the squad, leaving just the HQ. The wyches shoot at the pink horrors and kill two before assaulting.

In assault, the wyches first turn on their cuisinarts and net 41 attacks on the charge with seven extra from the hydra gauntlets, which turn into 17 wounds. Odds predicted a 0.5 wound overage for the horrors, but they manage to save 11 of them, leaving the squad with three models, who turn around and bitch-slap a wych so hard she came unglued from her base and died. The pinkies die to fearless wounds unfortunately, but the wyches consolidate only 1".

The wracks waltz up and sucker-punch the HQ on a juggernaut with a flesh gauntlet, causing instant death. Boo.

We have three units remaining in reserve and need 4+ to come in, but only the big squad of 10 bloodletters makes the cut. My partner plopped them down just to the right of the other bloodletters, which I think was a smart move--you can never have enough shit to kill wyches, in my opinion.

I moved my far immortal squad back just to the edge of rapid fire range on Logan, figuring that the odds of getting 12" for move and assault through difficult terrain would be like 1 in 3. My crypteks I shifted a bit further behind this line, hoping to put them outside of the Long Fangs line of sight, while the other cryptek squad moved up and peered around the edge of the ruins with the other two immortal squads. At this point, I am very scared of the grey hunters charging into the ruins and Logan getting not-shitty difficult terrain tests.

Shooting went somewhat poorly. Logan's squad shrugged off seven wounds from rapid fire gauss blasters while going wide with the tremorstaff, though I can tell I am getting a lot better at judging distances because I was barely 1/4" inside rapid fire range. The crypteks manage to land both an eldritch lance and a wound with the tremorstaff, which killed one terminator and took a wound off of Arjac. The other immortals lambaste the grey hunters, killing one with the gauntlet of fire, one from the tremorstaff and two more from rapid fire blasters. The tesla carbines hit 6 times including my first ever tesla "6-hit", but only manage to eke through a single wound.

The lack of significant wounds on Logan means that whittling him down to a managable size for the Overlord to deal with will be difficult before I hit the table edge. The paring of the grey hunters down to half is very heartening, though I am very familiar with how poorly necrons do in close combat and I am trying to make my Overlord sound very threatening at this point, hoping he will scoot away or just shoot instead.

Assault is pretty brutal, with the wyches scoring a whopping 35 attacks with 11 extra from the gauntlets. He hits with a literal handful--see below--but only manages six wounds on the tough bloodletters who save just two of them, bringing them down to five models. In return, they score three wounds but lose another model to fearless wounds.

TURN 3

After getting their shit cooked, the grey hunters pile back into their rhino without having done anything and drive 6" off into the sunset of the third uncontested and unclaimed objective in the bush. Logan rides a six for his DT test, but he still has a 70% chance of not getting another for assault, though I am sweating it a bit.

Shooting sees the immortal squad in the ruins get hammered by the Long Fangs with 5 frag blasts on their heads, the rhino and the ravager, altogether dropping four immortals, though two get back up at the end of the phase. Logan's group kills two, one with Arjac's stupid hammer, though both get up to complain about it.

In assault, I was pretty excited to see the bloodletters challenge the wyches for domination of the right flank, but they actually lost by two after the wyches rolled 21 attacks. While I was watching this happen, apparently Logan had somehow gotten into assault range of my immortals and the Space Wolf player had already rolled hits and wounds.

After noting that his DT test had been a 5, I contested his ability to close in combat when I know I had been at the edge of 12" for rapid-fire, but I decided that since I had erred in putting an extra HQ unit onto the board--that let me get extra WBB successes in that first round--I would let it slide. Since terminators don't have grenades--things are way too fucking ubiquitous for it mean shit anyway--I struck first but managed only one wound with the warscythe. In return, everything in that squad died and logan consolidated into the other crypteks that had been supporting them.

I then forgot to roll WBB for the Overlord and the cryptek with the staff, seeing as how both had ever-living.

On our turn, my ranks are looking incredibly thinned from concentrated fire and Logan's shenanigans. The Space Wolf player remembers to use The High King and takes fearless. Thankfully, both of our remaining units drop onto the board: the two units of Tzeentch flamers. These guys decide to put the pressure on the firebase on the mesa, with one landing on target and the other about 8" towards the table edge. I have to hand it to my partner on this, too, because his scatters basically do nothing to affect how much pain his units dish out.

I move both my cryptek units back towards the board edge while shifting my tesla immortals to the other side of the ruins. Even though it is only turn three, I am concerned that we might get tabled between disintegrator cannon fire and frag missiles, so I put a priority on destroying the enemy troops, figuring that breaking them will be much easier than vice versa.

Since my partner had just gotten his units in, he went first with the flamers. I am still absolutely blown away by how amazing these units were. First, his left squad sets their sights on the warriors and obliterates every single warrior, though we narrowly miss putting a wound on the archon. Then, the second unit on the right--we'll call them the Champs--lights up the long fangs and kills two. Not keen on splitting his fire, our opponent takes out a missileer and the sergeant.

For my go, the crypteks who would be shitting themselves if they had digestive tracts put a wound on Logan with a lance and get the tremorstaff on target, though it does nothing. Their brethren in the midfield wreck the rhino even though the harp misses, and the grey hunters pile out on the far side, leaving the tesla carbiners just out of range of the wracks, and the other immortals shoot wide as well.

Assault sees the big squad of bloodletters swoop in like banshees on the wyches, who still get 21 attacks and knock the socks off of one of the bloodletters. They return the favor five-fold with a bit of help from the loner bloodletter, killing all but one of the wyches, who breaks and gets caught in a sweep. The two units then consolidate 2" and 4" towards the nearby objective.

TURN 4

Logan takes preferred enemy and rolls a 6 for his DT test, which is ridiculous, and the grey hunters advance on the bloodletters ahead of them rather than the necrons behind. The wracks close in on the nearby flamers, which probably means that both my partner and I are about to suffer some egregious wounds.

Shooting sees our opponents dump everything they have into the daemons. The leftmost ravager lands four wounds on the big squad bloodletters who scrape off two, leaving the squad at six models. In a fit of angst at the dark eldar prowess, the grey hunters shoot at the same bloodletters and match them wound for wound, leaving the squad with two models.

The raider shoots at the leftmost flamer squad and kills one, while the other ravager piles two wounds onto the flamers, one of which is saved, leaving both squads at two. The long fangs vacillate between the immortals in the ruins and the flamers on their doorstep, and opt for the latter. Figuring eight shots with frag will be better than four kraks, he goes on to scatter two of the four shots and wound with only three of those that hit. These daemons save all three, which starts a trend of saves that doesn't end until turn five.

Logan sweeps through the crypteks like a master-crafted power sword through hot butter and consolidates a couple inches back towards his table edge. The wracks then assault into the other flamers and annihilate them, consolidating right on the edge of the mesa.

The crypteks get the last laugh when two stand up, though. Ever-living is a beast. At this point, I put them both back into a single unit but I think by RAW they would be independent units.

On our turn, hoping to exact revenge, the reanimated re-dead crypteks move to the corner of their hill so Logan can't get into base contact but still shoot at his ass. My tesla immortals move to the front of the ruins and what looks like running range of the objective. My partner's surviving flamer runs around the corner to flame the butts of the long fangs, and his bloodletters get into position for an assault.

Shooting for me was mediocre, with the redead crypteks whiffing horribly with damage but landing the quake, and the gauss immortals knocking out a single wrack after being informed that haemunculus made them troop choices. The tesla immortals land another tesla super shot, which is pretty fun, but only inflict a single unsaved wound on the grey hunters, which was weak as hell. The other crypteks nail the ravager with the harp and a pen that immobilizes it.

Meanwhile, the flamers of Tzeentch extinguishes the four long fangs in a double spurt of flame, and the bloodletters steamroll the grey hunters with a furious charge that lets them strike first. They take the opportunity to consolidate back towards the objective, unfortunately still in range of the immobilized ravager.

At this point, I am certain that we can hand out a draw but I have grave misgivings about the bloodletters being able to hold the third objective. Even though I have scraped out a few good hits with them, my crypteks are letting me down just as their heavy destroyer predecessors did in 4th, but the immortals are still ridiculously tough and with a lucky roll I think I can get within 3" of the other objective. If we roll for Turn 7, Logan still won't be able to get into close combat between running and difficult terrain tests, which means that if we can drop the wracks or sit on the other objective we'll win. However, we're currently sitting 5 KP behind our opponents, so if it goes to tiebreaker we will lose.

TURN 5

The few mobile units our opponents have move up towards their objective, while the two raiders come over to block line of sight between the ruins and the wracks. Logan pretends he can be useful again this game and runs around the corner, while the second wrack teams up with the wracks on the objective. The archon hops into a nearby raider.

The ravager tailing the Champs lands four wounds and they save all but one, leaving the squad with a single model--the Champ himself. The immobilized ravager and raider shoot the bloodletters and send them back to the Warp, ending my hopes of not having to leave the ruins to pursue victory.

The wracks shoot at the tesla immortals with their hex rifle but miss.

On our turn, I shuttle the tesla immortals as far towards the objective as I can, and get within 3". The flamer scoots up, and a convocation of gauss blasters, eldritch lances, tremorstave and warp fire settles on the wracks, killing all but one of the wracks and one of the haemunculi, leaving it with one wound.

I roll for game length and we soldier on to turn 6, while I cry a little on the inside.


TURN 6

In order to most efficiently scale the mountain and break the backs of my immortals, Logan breaks coherency with Arjac's team but both close towards the ruins. The raiders both move up to block LOS on my cryptek squad on top of the hill and the immortals in the ruins, and the archon gets out of his raider an inch away from my overlord and his squad. (I forgot to get a picture of this phase, but check the pic below for the idea. The only difference is that my crypteks moved around the side of the raider trying to block them.)

Logan and Arjac both shoot at the immortals and whiff, while the dark eldar bring everything they've got against that lone flamer chilling on top of the Cube of Boxcars. That's right. See, first the haemunculus shoots the flamer, yet it takes no wounds. Then the ravager unloads nine freakin' disintegrator shots into it, but it saves all the wounds with boxcars. Sadly, his reign of terror was ended by the disintegrator cannon on the raider, who put three wounds on it. It did save two of them, though.

The immobilized ravager puts four wounds onto the tesla immortals, none of whom stand up, which really kind of gives name a lie.

The archon assaults into the lord, and after remembering his gauntlet of fire lets him re-roll both to-hit and to-wound, I scrabble for some off-colored die to use, but still lose combat by 1.

On our turn, although my partner has now been tabled, we are assured of victory if only we roll poorly for game length. Although locked in close combat, I had originally positioned my lord on the outside edge of 3", which means that the enemy unit would have to have been behind him to contest and I still had one immortal left in both squads.

I line up my crypteks to shoot between the rhino wreck and raider to get shots off at the wracks, while the other two redead move around the edge of the damaged raider. I'm not sure what my opponent was thinking here, if he hadn't realized they used assault weapons or whathaveyou but he left a 2.5" clearance between the hill edge and the tip of the raider, which in turn left the crypteks in free sight of the wracks. My last tesla immortal runs into the woods, and I forgot to roll difficult terrain, but he was just inside the area terrain so I hope my opponents will forgive me. I only wanted the 3+ cover save in case shit went down badly.

My two crypteks set their sights on the wracks and use their harps, but only manage to kill the haemunculus because all the insta-kill lances whiffed and the harps got FNP'd. The tesla immortal pokes his head out of the bushes and shoots the ravager, needing a 6 for a pen now with the earlier harp hit, but rolls a 1.

In assault, the re-roll turns no hits against WS7 into three hits against WS7 but only manages a single wound, but that still beats the zero the archon had inflicted

Game length is rolled, and comes up 2. I was so happy I farted, literally. My comrades probably smelled it.


RESULTS

Game ended with one wrack sitting on the far objective, and one immortal sitting on each of the close objectives. My partner was tabled, giving up seven or eight KP plus my two versus only grabbing six of our opponent's, so thank the Emperor we didn't tie-break.

I enjoyed the new necrons, but first:

Wow, fuck. I made so many mistakes this game that I was embarassed just writing this report. I'd like to say they started with turn 1, but we all know that is bullshit: just look at my deployment. Not counting the snafu with the overlord, I still can't believe that I put that squad there. I mean, I fucking play Loganwing, I should've known that the best way to deal with this Logan was to kite his ass around, but no, I decided that gauss would take him down. I think that was the big one. Should have left it to the crypteks, who not only would've been out of range but also had AP2.

The second big one was not taking cover saves against disintegrator cannons. I realized this about the end of turn 4, and the dark eldar player was like, "Yeah, I wasn't going to remind you." That made me feel better about conning the Space Wolves player into using frag missiles instead of krak, but still. Dumb.

Hero of the Match was decided before the game ended, and of course goes to the Flamer of Tzeentch formerly known as Champ. This guy sucked down about twice his points in marines and dark eldar, and then absorbed a hail of fire that, had it been turned on my objective controlling troops, flattened them. Awesome. Love these guys.

MVP is harder for me to decide. None of my guys made any outstanding kills like the bloodletters or the flamers, and the juggernauts got annihilated before they did anything--aside from taking valuable heavy fire away from weaker creatures, of course. I think it is a toss-up between the flamers for wrecking the enemy's firebase and my squad of immortals that stalwartly camped on the objective for the entire game. They didn't kill much, but by god damn they sucked down a ton of fire and lived to tell the tale, even without cover saves.


POST MATCH THOUGHTS

Since I have only played this list once, and with the new codex once, my thoughts are based only on this game and whatever theorycrafting I've done before and since. First, I can't help but feel like gauss blasters could be totally eclipsed by tesla carbines. On the other hand, I still think staying with 12" with a tremorstaff is going to be a good tactic, but as can be seen that might fail badly. The synergy between gauss blasters, tremorstaves and phaeron overlords appeals to my sense of elegance, but I could simply take a regu-lord with an orb instead of the tremorstaff and shoot at 24" anyway. In higher point matches, I think this may be the way to go, when you will be taking special characters who can't get phaeron anyway.

To me, there are a few things you want in a squad of immortals: a res orb, a veil of darkness, and a tremorstaff. Oops, hmm, literally just reading the codex again, it looks like tremorstaves only affect the enemy during their movement phase. So, fuck that, and my apologies to my opponents. To me, not having that second and third advantage of shortened assault distance and reduced initiative settles me on tesla carbines, supported by destroyers should the game come down a bad case of marines.

I do like the super cheap lances, and the fact that they mesh with the solar pulse makes them all the more valuable. In the future, I think my royal courts would look like this:

3x Harbingers of Destruction, 1x solar pulse
1x Harbinger of Transmogrification, 1x harp of dissonance
1x Harbinger of Despair, 1x veil of darkness
1x Necron lord, 1x res orb

That is 305 points, but the anti-tank unit would be only 180 pts, equal to the cost of three heavy destroyers. This unit doesn't take up a fast attack slot, gets 3 S8 shots and 1 entropic shot and makes models move in difficult terrain, but then also doesn't get to move 12" and has slightly lower strength shots. I think the solar pulse wins it, though. How to scale it up for more troops? I think just adding more lords with orbs would be where I would go, and suffer the loss of mobility from veil on the others. As an added bonus, two of my troops would get two ever-living models, statistically allowing them to be wiped out twice before they are dead for good. With ten immortals, that is about 200 bolter shots I think. Did I do that right? Wounds / (Chance to hit * chance to wound * chance to fail save * chance of not standing up). Anyway, they are tough.

All that said, I think my first addition at 1250 points, before veils, will be a unit of wraiths with whip coils.

2011.11.05 - Orks & Dark Eldar v. Space Wolves & Eldar

I am writing this report a week after the battle, so details are a bit hazy. The four of us from the other report on the 5th swapped, so I was with the dark eldar player, since we had never played together. I switched to my ork army to keep things interesting. Also, I have only about half as many pictures as I normally take, so this will be a more text-heavy report.

The lists were identical to that of before, namely:



Eldar

Autarch w/ seer council & singing spear

5x wraithguard w/ warlock
5x howling banshees

5x rangers
5x rangers

1x wraithlord w/ 2x TL starcannons
1x wave serpent w/ scatter laser


Dark Eldar

Duke
Haemunculus

5x wracks w/ raider
5x incubi

10x warriors
10x wyches w/ raider

Ravager w/ lances
Talos pain engine w/ meat lance


Space Wolves

Logan Grimnar

5x wolf guard w/ TDA, Arjac

9x grey hunters w/ rhino, wolf guard leader w/ powerfist

6x Long Fangs with meesils


Orks

2x Big Mek

5x Lootas

20x Boyz
20x Boyz
20x Boyz

3x Kanz
-- rokkits
3x Kanz
-- grotzookas


We rolled annihilation for game type and pitched battle for deployment, and ended up going second. Deployment ended like below, with my partner starting all his vehicles off the board in reserve. We took the corner opposite our opponent's.

My partner's warriors and incubi buddied up with my boyz behind the kan wall, of which the grotzooka kans protected our left flank. Our agreed upon plan was to keep everything busy in the midfield, using the cube and mesa as a funnel while the rokkit kans led two squads of boyz to glory on a pincer attack--a submarine move, if you will.

 

Note the camouflaged lootas on top of the tower. Three are on top, while two are on the second level.

TURN 1

The wave serpent moves straight up 12" towards us, and the rest of their army follows suit. Line of sight issues from the long fangs leaves them shooting wide against the kans, and the display leads the rest of the sloggers to run instead of shoot.

Our turn sees everything move up behind the kans, out of sight of the long fangs. This probably took two minutes.

 
In shooting, the pain engine tries to bore a hole through the rhino with its meat lance but misses, while the grotzookas unload a full battery on the metal box, causing it to explode in a fiery shower that takes the life of a grey hunter. The lootas roll average like usual and take out the long fang sergeant. The rest of our stuff runs a bit.

TURN 2

Logan takes tank hunters thinking the pain engine was a vehicle and not a monstrous creature, and everything on their side moves up into the breach between the cube and the hill, a space my partner and I affectionately called the cuisinart.

Shooting is void of actual shooting save for the wave serpent, which gets a pen on a grotzooker but whiffs on the force field. Everything else runs, including the far squad of rangers, leaving the field looking like this.

On our turn, my partner decides that since the enemy is coming to him he'll just roll on from the board edge. Reserve rolls favor us and we get the wych raider and ravager. Realizing that the enemy is on a beeline for the cuisinart, I alter course and send my boyz towards the left and up the hill, while my partner unloads witches ready to tear up Logan and Arjac.

The ravager stuns the wave serpent, saving us from its scatter laser for a turn. The grotzookers rain sugar heaven down on Logan, hitting four times on target I think for a total of 22 hits that ended up with two wounds on the terminators, with Logan and Arjac taking one each. The lootas follow the grots' lead and land five wounds on the squad, but all are saved.


TURN 3

The grey hunters move further up into rapid-fire range, and most else shuffles up. Sitting in a stunned vehicle, the wraithguard decide to try their luck in the open. Everything else moves up, again.

The wraithguard take a shot at the raider, but its flickerfield stops the single pen they land. Snipes also do badly, putting only a single saved wound on the warriors. The wraithlord puts an end to the whiffing though with an immobilized result on the wych raider, and the long fangs devastate the ravager, causing it to explode with two penetrating hits. Logan runs again, and for some reason the grey hunters run, too, leaving the board like this.

Orks all move in like sharks scenting blood, while the pain engine shuffles around to get a shot off on the wraithlord with its meat lance. Incubi rolls up but wyches don't, a decision my partner thinks better of when he runs them in shooting.

In shooting, the incubi and wyches run, and the immobilized raider takes out a wraithguard with its lance. Logan gets smothered by grotzookas, and in the best rolling I've ever seen takes 18 wounds, of which he saves 13, leaving Logan alone with two wounds. The warriors take their turn and manage another 12 wounds, but the bastard saves all but one. Finally, the boyz unleash the dakka and manage to polish off the last wound with their 40 shots.

I declare a Waaagh! and direct the other two boyz up the hill into the grey hunters, with a 4" fleet move by the close one and a 3" by the other, which puts the former into assault range--a fact they take advantage of. The grey hunters pop their banner and use their counter-charge to great effect and kill six boys while the 50 odd attacks from the boyz only kill four hunters. Failing both fearless wounds puts the squad at 12 members, barely enough for fearless.

TURN 4

Eldar again shuffles what they have left--one full ranger squad by the fountain, wraithguard, howling banshees, wraithlord, seer council up into the cuisinart. Long fangs lave the wyches in holy frag shells, dropping 14 wounds on their heads, destroying the squad. The rangers manage to pin a rending wound on the pain engine, and the wraithguard immobilize the ravager twice. Note: we misplayed this, it should have taken a gun off at this point.

No one else assaults, but in the existing one, the wulfen marked marine rends a boy and another is killed by chainswords. The boyz whiff like ninnies, but the nob smokes them out with 4 power klaw wounds, leading the boyz into a 4" consolidate, which they use to move towards the heavy weapon crews just in time for our turn.

The raider with the wracks finally comes in at this point, setting its prow towards the wraithguard. We slog our bros up towards the cuisinart, my partner aiming to take out some of the heavy stuff in rapid-fire range. The below shot is mid-phase.

The Talos finally melts the wave serpent with its meat lance and the raider disintegrates three howling banshees, though the wracks and their raider fail to soften up the wraithguard much, landing only a wound from their hex rifle.

The grotzookas airlift several of tons of shrapnel on top of the rightmost rangers and knock them out of the box with 14 wounds. Even better, one of the blasts scattered onto the long fangs behind them, and they took two wounds as well. A second scatter hit the wraithlord, but he shrugged it off like a champ. The lootas roll for only 5 shots, but manage to drop a wound on the farseer and kill a warlock. The boyz who just got sling-shotted across the mesa kill three of the remaining four long fangs with their shootas, then charge in to finish off the survivor, sling shotting another 4" towards the far table edge and hopefully out of range of that dirty wraithlord.

The wracks also charge in like heroes and wipe away two wraithguard, though the rest of their attacks bounce off wraithbone; the wraithguard dick around and serve up no cold dishes but save their fearless wounds.


TURN 5

Wraithlord moves with the seer council towards the boyz, but instead shoots at the wracks' raider and whiffs. The snipers knock out two of the nearby boyz, putting them down to 10 models.

The wracks' combat goes swimmingly, with them cleaving up two wraithguard, leaving just the warlock. The seer council sweeps in to kill the boyz, killing six but losing two of the warlocks for the trouble. At this point we were getting shooed out of the store, so I opted not to use my bosspole and instead failed morale by a lot, and got swept by the farseer.

The until-now forgotten banshees also assaulted the incubi, who had a hilarious record in the last game, continued their streak by losing two models and killing none, but staying stuck in.


On our turn, my grotzookas put an end to the ranger menace while rokkits and lootas finished off the wraithlord who had taken a wound earlier from the meat lance I believe. The boyz who had just crossed the hill shot up the farseer enough to take him down.

At this point, I convinced our opponent to concede.


RESULTS

My team ended with ten KP, while our opponents had three for a clear victory. Both these players were what we term novices, and thus while familiar with the rules for the most part made several tactical errors, namely going anywhere near the cuisinart. Being an annihilation game, I think bloodlust got the better of them. But for that simple error of moving instead of staying put, I think they might have gotten the better of us.

MVP goes hands down to the grotzookers, who excoriated the hell out of the enemy every turn.

Hero of the Game must needs go to Logan, because only he could survive three turns of concentrated fire and still manage to get into assault range.