My list (I went all White Scars)
Chapter Master w/Bike, artificer armour, shield eternal, thunder hammer, digital weapons (Warlord)*
Khan w/bike
Command Squad w/Bikes, apothecary, 4 garv guns, 4 melta bombs
5 Scouts with sniper rifles and camo cloaks (they actually did stuff this game!)
10 Tactical marines w/Rhino, combi-melta, meltagun
4 Bikes w/2 grav guns, combi grav, melta bombs, attack bike with multi-melta
4 Bikes w/2 grav guns, combi grav, melta bombs, attack bike with multi-melta
Storm Talon with skyhammer missile launcher
Thunderfire Cannon
* I rolled a 1 and then re-rolled for a 6 on the space marine Warlord table, which is Champion of humanity - D3 victory points if you kill your opponent's warlord in a challenge. One of the shitter ones, but at least his warlord didn't have Mindshackle scarabs.
His List:
Imhotek the stormlord
Necron Lord on foot with resurrection orb, mindshackle scarabs, staff
Necron Lord on foot with resurrection orb, mindshackle scarabs, staff
5 Of those guard guys with power weapons and dispersion shields accompanied by a lord
20 Necron Warrior
10 Immortals (accompanied by Imhotek and a Lord)
3 Jetbikes
1 Annihilation Barge (the thing with the big cannon)
1 Small barge with twin-linked tesla thingy
1 Night Scythe with twin linked tesla thingy (carrying the guard)
We rolled Maelstrom mission 2 - cloak and shadows. You can have up to six objective cards at a time, and you draw 1 for each objective under your control at the start of each turn. It uses long table edges. We had six objectives neatly placed in a rectangle on the board. He deployed first and spread his forces out with the necron warriors at one end and the barge at the other. I deployed my Rhino, command squad and thunderfire in the middle, some scouts over in one corner on an objective in a ruin that had been bolstered (and then the objective turned out to be a scatterfield, so they had 2+ cover), and my bikes over on the other flank threatening his necron warriors.
Turn 1 he walked forward and got three of the objectives, I drove forward and got three of the objectives. Turn on he killed a bike with his barge and put a wound on the thunderfire and glance on the Rhino with tesla and arks, everything else was out of range. My turn I drove the command squad forward and did some solid shooting into the immortals. I forgot to fire my orbital bombardment the whole game. My thunderfire put nine wounds onto the immortals and knocked a few more guys over. The lord died and did not get back up. The bikes did some solid shooting into the necron warriors who were making their way to cover in a ruined building. Scouts sniped a jetbike. Imhotek's stormed didn't go off for any of my squads (I had six units). This would happen again on turn 2 and then the storm turned off. A bit lucky for me.
Turn two his scythe came on and deployed the guard in front of my command squad. He did some shooting, killing my thunderfire cannon. Then he did some more shooting with his immortals and mini-barge and this is where the game turned I think. He put maybe 11 wounds total onto the command squad. My rolling went something like this - keep in mind that the Chapter Master has a 2+ and 5+ feel no pain, and everyone else has a 3+, 5+ FNP
1: CM rolls a 1, fails FNP
2: CM saves
3: CM rolls a 1, fails FNP
4: Khan looks out sir, then fails both save and FNP
5: Khan fails to look out sir, CM rolls a 1 and fails FNP
6: Khan looks out sir, passes save
7: Khan looks out sir, fails save and FNP
8: Veteran looks out sir, fails save and FNP
9: Veteran looks out sir, passes save
10: Veteran fails to look out, CM makes save
11: Veteran looks out sir, fails save and FNP
So from 11 wounds I saved only 4! I lost two grav guns and both my chapter master and khan have only 1 wound left. Looking over the match, I can't actually point to any other turning points. The lack of wounds on the big boys meant that the melee in the middle of the board went badly and the chapter master was gunned down as he hit and ran out. I did make one mistake (in a minute), but this was pretty crushing.
My turn two my lads got out of the Rhino to fire at his guard, my command squad drove over to his immortals and Warlord, my other bikes stayed out of rapid fire range of the warriors, my stormtalon came on. The scouts failed to kill another jetbike but held their objective with pride. In hindsight, I think I should have driven the bikes over to the mid-field melee and left the warriors alone. I could have used squad coherency congo line shennanigans to hold the objective over their while bringing some grav-gun fire to bear on the immortals squad. The guard squad was annoying because their dispersion shields meant my grav-guns were likely to end up wounding my own tactical squad who had disembarked.
My command squad put some more wounds on the immortals and then charged. My Warlord issued a challenge to Imhotek, which was accepted. My command squad killed all but one of the immortals. My warlord got Imhotek down to one wound. At this point, I should have cut my losses and run out to avoid getting charged by the guard, but I was greedy for the D3 victory points from the challenge and we forgot that my tactical squad had just disembarked so I both rapid fired AND charged into close combat. Quite the stuff up. My rapid firing did diddle squad to his guard, as did my assault. He attacked back and killed some guys. I hit and ran away with one squad to capture an objective that I need for Maelstrom, and then my plan was to run over and krak grenade his barge (which did work out eventually). Hit and run on tacticals is great for making them mobile. I think it is more useful than the iron hands powers, though IWND on the chapter master is soooooo goooood.
I can't quite remember the exact order of what happened next, but one of my combat squads was destroyed standing on an objective while the other managed to get over to the barge and blow it up over the course of a few turns. My Stormtalon blew the gun off the scythe, but was then wrecked by the mini-barge using a skyfire nexus. His scythe eventually managed to score the tactical objective equivalent of linebreaker, whcih was annoying. My CM killed Imhotek in round two of the challenge, then hit and ran out (the guard had wiped my command squad that round) to charge and kill the mini-barge, then consolidated to grab an objective I needed for a Maelstrom objective - awesome. Imhotek got up, the bastard - if he had died the game would have been a draw because I would have scored 2 victory points thanks to Champion of Humanity. My CM was then threatening to kill the jetbikes, but they put a wound on him with their two shots and he went bye-bye (so many 1s!). My bikes couldn't put enough hurt on the warriors because they had 4+ cover and so I wasn't able to secure more than three objectives. He edged ahead in points thanks to ascendency (d3 points for controlling half the objectives, which is a bit easy IMO) and the game ended turn 5.
So I made a few small mistakes. I didn't use the bombardment. I've never hit with it, so I'm not too fussed about that, but if it had gone off on the warriors in cover it would have been devastating and potentially game changing. That opportunity didn't present itself until turn 3 though, and I might not have waited that long. I think I should have played more conservatively with my tactical squad - maybe tried to block the charge of the guard with my Rhino for a turn while I finished the combat with Imhotek. He had 'silence the guns' or some such, an objective requiring him to kill a tank, so maybe the Rhino bait/block would have worked. The Tactical Squad could potentially have then made its way over to the warriors while my command squad, still alive, could have hit and run and perhaps made it over to the barge for some meltabomb action. They could definitely have managed that if they hadn't taken so many wounds on turn 2, as they would have survived a round with the guard and then hit and run again. With my tactical squad on route to the warriors my bikes could have gone sideways and tried to shoot the guard, who were at least stranded, or if the guard moved towards the barge the bikes could have joined up with the tacticals and triumphed over the warriors with weight of fire. Another thought I had was that I could have charged his barge with my command squad (for meltabomb love) while my commander and Khan charged the immortals. My talon would have survived, and the command squad would have been wiped by the guard, but Khan would have survived and the tactical squad as well. I've got to learn when to split up the command squad and when to keep it together. Overall though I'm not unhappy with my play, and I think some of my hit and runs/consolidates to capture objectives I needed for Maelstrom and krak grenade his barge were inspired. I'm going to have to blame this one in part of my inexperience playing against Necrons and some shocking rolling (my shooting was almost as bad as my armour saves, especially with the grav). Quick note: cover saves really ruin your day with grav.
The scouts weren't bad in this one and my command squad was underwhelming, so I'm undecided on whether to run the set-up above or swap to a grav bike squad with a power fist sergeant instead of the command squad, which would get me enough points to swap the scouts for a tactical squad in a Rhino (or drop pod, but without ultramarines tactical doctrine I don't think two meltas is a reliable kill). Rhino's are great in 7th edition - a fast, tough, cheap scoring unit that can engage in wondrous blocking antics against slow armies and hilarious tank shock antics against orks. The scouts though let you grab distant objectives on turn one if necessary and can usually get an easy 3+ cover. Don't expect them to kill anything though. We'll see how things play out over the next couple of weeks. I want to play more with this command squad.
No comments:
Post a Comment