The Adeptifaux Malicon Report: Part Two

The second game was another Resurrectionist fight (yaaay), but this time, instead of being overly familiar with various aspects of the opponent’s stuff, this game was very Ten-Thunders, working with a master I’d never come across before and utilising a whole load of Ten Thunders undead types.  I was unprepared for most of what they were doing throughout all the game.  I’m pretty sure I came across as a bit of a numbskull throughout the game, with a slack-jawed vacant-eyed expression on my face while my opponent tried to say what he was doing and the rules were just not sinking into my brain.  I think I ended asking to stop saying words and just do the things.  Eventually I got the hang of what was going on and managed to focus a bit more, levelling a lot of my guys into the offensive and just chipping away at his big guys until they fell down.  There is an advantage to having bad minimum damage sometimes.  I don’t care if you’ve got Armour, Spirit or Object, I’m dealing one damage anyway.  Let ‘er rip!  Here was one of the moments that really started changing my view of the Specialist.  The ability of his Flammenwerfer to ignore armour was immense!  Unfortunately, after one bona fide round of awesome (and literal) firepower, he was pegged as an immediate threat and put down as a priority, but I was really appreciating what that guy could do against the right target.  This was the game when I really started messing around with the speed tricks the Strongarm can play.  That bloke can really get about if you’re willing to put the cards into it!  This game ended in a major win for me, as I was far more focussed on the large plan of the game and managed to rip a hole in his forces (he only had two models left at the end) and accomplish all my objectives.  I was very happy with how that game panned out!

The final round was against a Guild player, with the gang being led by Lukus McCabe (another master of whom I have next to no knowledge).  The rest of his gang I was more aware of though.  A Guardian, an Executioner, Nino Ortega and Lukus’ dog.  The mission for this was to have a bunch of guys in a central area of the board, and the player with the most guys in the middle got a VP at the end of each turn up to 4.  As the Guild was packing a lot of close combat nastiness and my guys weren’t going to go anywhere near that shit.  I just clustered them round out of charge range and tried to put enough lead down field to weaken them.  There was a lot of armour to deal with, but the Specialist was more than up to the task.  It was this situation that really elevated him in my rankings and the armour-denial properties combined with blast damage is truly brutal at times.  The Flammenwerfer is best deployed against big guys, as they tend to have very low defence, making them easy to hit and, more importantly than that, easy to get moderate damage against.  Even moderate damage from the Flammenwerfer nets you a blast of 2, which bring a surprising amount of reach and a lot of damage output to the fore, especially as the specialist is one of the few Freikorps models that don’t have the minimum damage of 1.  They can really spread the damage.  The Strongarm was also of a great help, the speed of the guy using the Leap ability really helping to chase down and then beat down the young Ortega sniper.  Another really useful ability of the Strongarm is the ability to get your guys out of a fight by teleporting them next to him by way of a bodyguarding action, which saved Von Schill at least once during the tournament.  Anyway, I digress.  This battle was another draw for me, with my opponent winning all the Strategy points, but with me grabbing all my Scheme points while denying him his (thanks, Flammenwerfer!).

The end result of the tournament placed me in 12^th out of 33, and I was very pleasantly surprised and satisfied with those results, especially as it was my first Malifaux event.  As a side note, I think I have new favourite model or two!

So long!

The Adeptifaux Malicon Report: Part One

The next big event for me in Adepticon was the Malifaux tournament.  I steered clear of the large ongoing events, like the gaslight and cake matches, but I was curious to play some Malifaux that wasn’t against my usual crowd of 3-4 different guys.

I arranged a fairly all-round and resilient team from my stash of models and here is what I came up with.  There was 25 Soulstone limit on crew, which seems fairly standard (from what I know at least).  I stuck with a Freikorps crew, as the Viktorias and associated mercs can undoubtedly hit very hard, but I have always had a bit of a problem keeping the Viks alive at the best of times and had a brand new Freikorps Strongarm suit I wanted to test out.

My crew was as follows:

Von Schill

Freikorps Librarian

2 x Freikorpsman

Freikorps Strongarm Suit

Friekorps Specialist

I was quite pleased with the setup, even though it included a couple of wild cards as far as I was concerned.  I’d never played the Strongarm before, due to the model release being fairly recent and my Malifaux games intermittent to say the least.  The rules behind it seemed fairly solid, so I was eager to try it out.  The big uncertainty was the Specialist.  I have seriously barely ever used this guy and the only times I have, it’s been against my mate’s Resurrectionists, particularly with Nicodem as his favorite master.  Those familiar with this particular bastard are doubtless aware that he some really boost his creation with a lot of defence and so ranged attacks get harder and hard to land.  He also really likes his Crooked Men as well, so the few times I use the Specialist I got no use out of him, really, as he couldn't inflict any real ranged damage and was just not maneuverable enough to make his presence felt anywhere else on the board.  But I decided now was the time to give him his moment to shine.  It was hard for me not to put some Trappers in the crew, as I have big soft spot for them, but I was paranoid about not having enough models for the limit.  If I wasn't strongarming it, I probably would have put a couple of trappers in there I think.

Anyway, that’s the list sorted.  Next to no magical ability, and a majority of really low minimum damage, what could go wrong?

Unfortunately, due to my own lack of punctuality when it comes to these posts, I have forgotten most of the specifics of the games, so I’ll only be painting in the broadest of brush strokes for these reports.  Just a few brief points about the game roughly what my opponent was bringing and what I took away from the encounter.

My first game was against, surprise, surprise: Nicodem.  He was packing Molly (who I’d never played against), a couple of Crewligans,a rotten belle and I think a Punk Zombie or two.  The Strategies for the tournament were all preset, so only our schemes were of our chosing, and most of mine were identical.  All, I think.  I had Hold Out, which I kept secret, meaning that I got a point if none of the enemy reached my deployment zone, and I had Bodyguard, which I announced.  This meant I got 2 VPs if Von Schill was alive at the end of the game.  The strategy here was to fill up two fountains with water gathered from a specific area in your deployment zone.  My Freikorpsmen were really useful here, because they aren’t slowed down by terrain and they have a good movement speed.  However, the same could definitely be said for the Resurrectionists, as the Crewligan/Molly combo gives them an impressive amount of speed.  This game turned into a bit of a brawl and wound up as a draw, due to a couple of things.  Molly pulled out an ability that I’d never seen before that meant she completely totalled one of my guys at the cost of sacrificing herself, which was a truly nasty thing to deal with out of nowhere!  I also made a major mistake in target priority, honed by many games against Nicodem-led undead gangs, and Von Schill drew a bead on the old guy pretty quickly, not letting up until he was dead.  In terms of the larger game, he would have been much better tasked doing other things, but I had a little bit of a myopic approach to that game!  One of the best moments for me was probably the realisation on my opponent that my Strongarm can’t be moved about the place, unless it’s by me, so that was highly amusing.  I was happy with the draw, all told.  There was a dead Nicodem on the field, so I took it as something of a moral victory!

More battle reports will arrive on the other side of the weekend, finishing off the Adeptifaux Malicon Report.

So long!

40k Battle Report: Khorking It! Phase Two

I went in aggressively during my turn, taking as much advantage of the positional weakness in the Orks as possible.  Both my flamer Raptor squads turned up, and although one misshaped and landed in a distant table-corner, the other landed dead on target near the closely group teleported boys.  My Terminators moved up to the same squad, and together they had an impromptu barbecue.  About 12 Orks died to the incoming fire (it would have been so much more if they weren’t ‘Ard Boyz) and then found themselves on the receiving end of a triple charge with the spawn, the spawn’s squad and the Lord with his terminators all having a go.  The berserkers went first, got hit by the Overwatch but failed to reach the target.  Luckily the other two did.  You can kind of guess how that combat went.  Orks are decent, but caught by a squad full of raging lightning clawed-terminators, their odds of success were low.  They ended with eleven guys still alive in the squad, just enough for Fearless to still apply.  The big moment of the match though was my terminator champion, who called out the Nob leader, summarily dispatched him and then promptly turned into a Daemon.  It was joyous, and also the first time I’ve had both transformations occur in the same match.

A tiny squad of Berzerker remnants went for distraction on the Deff Dread, knocked a point off it with bolt pistols and barrelled into close combat to hold it up.  There were too many units I didn’t want it to assault and the fearless ‘zerkers were my best call at stopping that from happening.  Fortunately, they did and the combat raged on with one guys just refusing to die.  The Land Raider, having somehow failed to remove the final hull point from the battlewagon (despite hitting the thing with both lascannons in the side) disgorged its cargo and the Apostle’s Possessed unit swarmed all over the vehicle, ripping it apart in short order.  Luckily for me, the wagon full-on exploded as a result and the lack of space meant that a few of the Nobs straight died as a result.  It really was the beginning of the end for the Orks.

Ork air co-ordination must be terrible.  Who’s manning the radio?  The Dakkajet stubbornly refused to turn up in turn three, and my opponents options were highly limited.  The Lootas, in a small squad were unable to deal much damage to the oncoming Berzerkers, the Boyz and Dredd were both caught in assaults and the Warboss and his squad did the only thing they could do: charge the Possessed.  Unfortunately for them, Possessed Marines hit like a truck, even without the charge and the lack of decent saves on any of the Orks put them at a bit of a disadvantage.  My Apostle reduced the Warboss down to one wound, but got crushed into the dirt by the return swing.  Luckily the Possessed still benefited from Hatred and were able to hit the Orks hard, taking several of them out and taking relatively little damage in return.

Stuck between a Spawn, my Terminator Lord, his squad of Khornate Termie back-up and a freshly minted Daemon Prince, the ‘Ard Boyz were demolished, losing most of their squad and pegging it, being run down by the Daemon Prince, who they could outrun, even theoretically.  It was at that point that the opponent threw in the towel, and I don't blame him for that at all.  Even if the Warboss and his unit had managed to win their combat in short order next turn, there would be precious little for them to do, the Lootas were going to get Berzerker charged and the Dredd was about to get a Daemon prince rammed up it. 

Personally, I would have played his list a bit differently.  The Warboss and his goons would have stayed near the Boyz mob and I would have swept forward, keeping the Dredd and Warbikers as flank guard, concentrating on killing one unit at a time rather than getting into a multitude of fights.  The bad roll for the Wyrdboy power pretty much killed the ‘Ard Boyz in the end and, whilst you can’t protect against a power like that going off, I would have deep struck somewhere safer, out of multiple charge ranges, certainly.  However, this all armchair generalship.  There’s no way of knowing whether that would have served me any better anyway.

Overall, I really like my little Khorne list, although I think it has some major shortcomings, particularly when it comes to Walkers and Flyers and have yet to play it against a heavily mechanised force, which would be an interesting challenge.  I would like to boost the raptor numbers a bit.  I think a third squad with a lord in it could pay some major dividends.  However, I don’t know what I would sacrifice to make those changes, and it still wouldn’t help with the flyer problem.  Havocs and Fortification just aren’t in the style of the list though, and I don’t think a Heldrake fits either.  I reckon I may just have to weather a flyer-heavy list and hope the Land Raider gets lucky.  So far though, my opinon of this list remains rather… sanguine.

I know, I’m sorry.

40k Battle Report: Khorking It! Phase One

Well, first things first; a little housekeeping is in order on this blog.  As appears to be a regular excuse, work is thoroughly kicking my posterior at the moment and resulting in a poor posting rate.  However, it will be an excuse no more! (Clarification: it could totally continue to be an excuse).

I’ve decided that I’ll starting blogging at home rather than at work, so I should be posting at least once a week, and may finally get round to fully reviewing this year's Adepticon before I go to the next one.  However, I’d like to emphasise the use of the word ‘may’ in that previous sentence.  It’s a slim get-out clause, but I take what I can.  I’ll be writing up my Malifaux tournament experience over the weekend and so should hopefully have some stuff every Monday.

But just to keep my hand in, I have a brief battle report for you fine people.  I had a game with one of the club regulars on Tuesday for 1750 points.  Orks vs Chaos Marines.  Recently I’ve been experimenting with pure Marine lists rather than mixing in my Daemons.  It helps keep things interesting and I don’t want people to be able to easily predict what I’m going to bring in each week.  This time round, it was pure Khorne.  Not one of my usuals, I have to say.  I’m normally a Slaanesh player for my Chaos Marines, with the Warpsmith being to only real Khornate presence in the lot most of the time.  However, this time around, I went for something different: a legitimately small army (by my standards).  I was packing:

Chaos Lord: Mark of Khorne, terminator armour and lightning claws

Dark Apostle: Mark of Khorne

7 Terminators: Lightning claws, a heavy flamer, Mark of Khorne

7 Possessed: Mark of Khorne, Icon of Wrath

3 x 8 Berzerkers: No upgrades

2 x 5 Raptors: 2 x Flamers per squad, all with Mark of Khorne

Land Raider: Dirge Casters, Extra Armour, Havoc Launcher

My opponent brought:

Warboss: squig, power klaw, cybork

10 Nobz: Painboy, 2 x klaws and a lot of big axes

5 Lootas

Dakkajet

30 man squad of ‘Ard Boyz with sluggas

Wyrdboy Warphead

Deathroller Battlewagon

Killkannon Battlewagon

6 Warbikers with squad leader

So, even with my ‘small’ list, I was nearly on par my Ork opponent’s numbers.  The game set up as Relic with diagonal deployment.  I was lucky enough to get a Master of Deception and infiltrated all my berzerkers as far forward as they would go, all in separate sections of the board to put the pressure on the Orks as quickly as possible.  My Raptors languished in reserve and the Possessed with the Apostle in the Landraider and the foot squad of Terminators with my Lord were deployed as aggressively as I could manage.  The Orks were deployed slightly more defensively, given my first turn, with the Wyrdboy and Ard Boyz in cover behind a wall and the killkannon in backfield.  The only aggressive deployment was the warboss and his squad in the Deathroller wagon.

Unluckily for me, my initiative was stole and the Orks advanced first.  Luckily for me, the Warbikers were positioned for the charge on my infiltrating berzerkers… which no-one can do turn one.  That charge positioning just left them open for a juicy counter-assault during my following turn.  The rest of his turn involved a bit of footslogging, advancing the warboss’ wagon and doing whatever shooting could be managed that early on.  My berzerkers took most of the hits and not a single squad escaped casualties, but they were still fairly solid by the end of the turn.  The killkannon aimed at my terminators, but accomplished nothing.

My turn was also fairly uneventful for the most part, with me lacking any significant firepower apart from the landraider, which chose to stand its ground in front of the careening battlewagon and fail to achieve anything with the lascannons.  Everything else was just in an advance.  Thing kicked off a little in the assault phase and two of my berzerkers reached combat: one squad with the Warbikers and one with the battlewagon.  The warbiker combat went soundly, but the bikers managed to take it, rolling the 4 they needed to stand their ground.  The battlewagon got grenaded to within an inch of its life, but aggravatingly limped by with one hull point remaining.

Things were hotting up for turn two, although the Dakkajet didn’t turn up (bullet dodged there…), there were plenty of options for the discerning Ork player to spread some havoc and run amok.  However, here is where things started to go awry for him.  The battlewagon (and the guys inside) ignored the berserker remnants that had assaulted them last turn and decided to pile-drive straight into the landraider, hoping for the Deathroller to inflict some serious damage.  It didn’t, fortunately, and only one hull point was lost.  This move also cost the Boss’s unit any chance to get into assault as they couldn’t leave due to the wagon’s speed.  The Dread decided to aim its rockets at terminators rather than the berzerkers standing close by and that also precluded him a charge opportunity as well.  The big problem was the warphead however.  He power that got used was the teleport, and the entire mob of some 30 boyz suddenly ‘ported about 6” to the left.  I understand why that decision was made, as a form of damage limitation, but given the nature of the game and his playstyle so far, I would definitely have moved them elsewhere.  It would have positioned them further away from the relic, sure, but it would have stopped what happened next as well…  The Berzerkers finished off the warbikers that phase, their victory only marred by the champion mutating into a seething mound of mindless flesh.  I’m sure he was thrilled.

That concludes phase one of this report and I'll be here with phase two fairly shortly (geoligically speaking).

First blood for the Chaos!

Hey guys.  Just a quick one today, as work is being little mental.  IT issues.  Don’t ask.

I played my first game with the new CSM codex last night.  Not really an ideal matchup for the Chaos (that would be Codex Marines, obviously!) as I was pitted against Eldar.  It was a bits and pieces Eldar list with nothing spectacular or new in it, just decent workhorse units.  Squad of Guardians, squad of Rangers, Farseer, Fire Dragons and Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents, War Walkers and a Wraithlord.

Also, some D-cannons.  Alright then, maybe this was a little interesting!  Anyway, I was packing 40 cultists, in two small squads of ranged guys, one big for assaults, led by my Chaos Lord and…  Hang on.  If I continue like this then this post isn’t going to be short at all.

The important thing was that I was playing with some new units.  I got a delivery from the fine folks at Triple Helix on Monday and so I spent  most of that evening assembling the new plastic hotness and came away with a Forgefiend, a Heldrake, 5 Warp Talons and a headache.  The Talons, Drake and Fiend all got a debut performance in that Eldar game.

The Heldrake was vicious, zooming onto the board and Vector striking a squadron of Warwalkers, (killing one) before blitzing a load of guardians with the Baleflamer.  It only got one more shot with the flamer before an Icarus lascannon took the gun away, but it still made its presence felt with the Vector strikes.  Overall, it performed well and I think I rank the Baleflamer higher than the Hades Autocannon and the precision you can get with it is insane and it denies practically all saves.  However, it has no capacity to take down fliers and is only of middling effectiveness concerning vehicle takedown.  So the field is very much open on that score, as vector strike is not an ideal method of flyer killing (although it’s far from useless).

The Forgefiend did well, despite a poor start.  It didn’t manage to damage a single vehicle, but it can annihilation non-MEQ squads with almost insulting ease and it can deal enough raw damage in a round to break through 3+ saves as well.  Daemonforge is only really worth triggering for vehicle shots in my opinion, although the risks are low enough for it to be a valid all-purpose play.  Really, the biggest impact it had on the game was the fact that my opponent was oddly, almost myopically focussed on taking it down, and I just kept it wandering out of range of his tank-killing guns, forcing his troops into crossfires.

The Warp Talons were disappointing, but that wasn’t the fault of the actual unit.  I deep struck them and they didn’t turn up until Turn 4 and couldn’t charge anything until Turn 5, so they didn’t have much of an impact, particularly because their Warpstrike blindy-power is next to useless versus Eldar.  I still think they’re probably overpriced at 30 points apiece and no grenades (seriously, that is a massive black mark against them, although they are manoeuvrable enough to mitigate this somewhat), but they’re very cool models and a bit of fun for the army.  I’ll probably take a couple of small squads, max out on mutations for the Champion.

Speaking of which, the Boon Table.  Quite frankly it didn’t have a great impact on the game.  My Possessed champion got Icy Aura (all enemies in base contact get a S4, AP5 hit at I1 in assault), but never got into a fight with anything that wasn’t a tank.  My Lord earned an Instant Death Melee upgrade, but only ended up against single wound models.  The best result I got on the table was that my Warp talon Champion got Shrouded, but that was squandered by me putting them in reserve.  I should have deployed them on the board in cover and used the cover to advance (they’re certainly fast enough to cover hop) and eat something worthwhile.

Final note: Chaos Artefacts.  I think the go to Chaos Artefact (certainly for me) is the Black Mace.  It is positively brutal.  So many attacks, decent chance of instant death and the 3” wave is horrific (although it won’t affect combat resolution).  It is possibly overpowered.  If you see an opponent equip one of his characters with this, then stay the hell away from that character.  Even models not involved in the same combat (or any combat at all) can get nuked by the range of the Cursed effect.

Anyway that’s all for today folks.  Fingers’ crossed for another blog post tomorrow!

Overthinking the Overload: Part 2

The next game was a bit of a whitewash, unfortunately.

My partner was Powderfan from the forum, playing a Space Wolf Drop-pod army with far too many Rune Priests. Our opponents were my podcasting colleague Dagmire and club regular Kipper (yes I use forum names all the time.  It’s easier for me to remember for some reason), and they were both bringing Guard to the party.  This could be seen as a big advantage for them, but it was not to be.  The mission set up really worked against the vehicle-heavy guard list.

The deployment we rolled up required three units to be deployed at the start of the game and everything else in reserve.  Everything.  This can really screw with a battle plan.  Luckily, both Powerfan and I had a way round the restriction.  My mechanised assault spearhead turns up on turn 1 regardless, and half of the Drop-pods would turn up on turn one as well.  Add that to the three units that I deployed at the start of the game (Spyders and Scarabs, since you ask), and we were fairly well represented turn 1.  The same could not be said of the Guard, who fielded a Basilisk, a Sentinel and a company command squad in defensive positions in the back field.  All their tanks had to roll for reserves and trundle in their short edge.  This lead to a major problem for Tank Brigades in the game.  Logjam.  The game started with both Powerfan and me putting on a lot of pressure in the opponent’s backfield and the Drop Pods deployed very aggressively and the Command Barges (although they rolled the wrong side for outflank) were a clear and present danger.  By doing this, we managed to basically control our side of the board for rearguard troops to advance without any Guard fire being lozzed at us.

When the Guard tanks did turn up, they elected to move slow and let rip with their guns at the melta-toting Wolves that were always too close for comfort.  We responded by fling more drop-pods and jump infantry (wraiths) into their deployment zone and restricting tank manoeuvrability even more.  There was hope for the Guard in the shape of a spearhead of tank-busting Vendettas filled with melta-wielding demolition veterans from Dagmire, but due to unlucky rolling, they didn’t show up until turn 5.  It was too late in the game for them to dig out our entrenched troops.  We had enough firepower secreted about the battlefield to enact very swift and unremitting punishment to the poor humans.

The game was an undisputed win for the Necron-Wolf alliance, although a bit unsatisfying, as whitewashes tend to be.  We just rolled a setup that really punished our opponents and played to our strengths.  We were good enough tactically to take advantage of the situation, but it was really just down to that starting roll and the late arrival of Dagmire’s reinforcements.

The final game was more interesting.  This time, I was playing against two previous allies from my two previous games, and allied with a recent enemy.  I had allied with Kipper’s guard against the Necron player (sorry, no forum name for you!) and Powderfan.  I’ll tell you this; my Initiative two units were not looking forward to tangling with Jaws of the World Wolf coming from multiple sources (and every one of Powerfan’s many Rune Priests was packing that filthy little power).

We rolled the escalation setup again (three units, everything else in reserve) and Kipper deployed his Basilisk and a couple of other vehicles, while I kept everything back.  However, seeing how badly logjam crippled the Guard last game, we played very much with that in mind.  Fortunately, my Necrons don’t take up anywhere near the same amount of  board space as a Guard armoured detachment and most of them are Skimmers, so I could mitigate this to high degree.  Our opponents deploy their heavy support spearhead, but were unable to capitalize on it due to low range on the Annihilation Barges and bad scatters on the Doomsday Ark.  My Overlords outflanked nicely on the correct side of the table (this time) and immediately struck powerful blows against the Necron heavy support, with one Barge blowing up and another losing its gun.  That was basically what my Overlords were doing the entire game.  Turbo-boosting merrily from one place to another and smashing things up with Warscythes.  Brutal.  The Sweep Attack is a very powerful tactic, especially combined with the difficulty of bringing down the Command Barge.  I don’t think it’ll fare so well in 6th edition though.  Just a feeling, I’ve got.

Powderfan tried to put pressure on us early with bold deep-striking on his drop pods, but his Necron ally wasn’t manoeuvrable enough to back up the initial assault and our reserves made a good impression on the isolated Wolf squads.  I had a couple of assault units roll in early and the Wraiths and Spyders did a very good job chewing through some Wolf units, while my Scarabs devoured the pods they rode in on.  The forward assault plan form the Wolves was dropped soon after and they concentrated more on claiming objectives rather than applying direct pressure on our units.  The enemy Necrons boasted an impressive quantity of foot troops (about forty of them!) and they were swamping their end of the board in a slow march.  The objective marker on their side was pretty much lost to us in a sea of Robot Zombies.  So Kipper and I focussed more on the middle objective, which would be the decider.

Unfortunately for our opponents, they lacked the speed to make good on reclaiming the middle ground and after clearing out the deep-striking Wolves, we had a good defensive perimeter going.  If the game had continued another turn, the bulk of the Necron foot troops might have reached it, as they were proving very hard to shoot down (as it is meant to be, really).  The game didn’t continue though, and the middle objective resolutely remained ours.  Our rear objective was under threat from the final Wolf drop pod, but their run move was (thankfully) too low for a contestation result.  It’s odd when a game really can rest on a 50/50 roll of a single die to decide between a victory and a draw.

Luckily for us, it was a victory!  I managed to place joint first in the competition, winning my three games and claiming four objectives throughout the day, but my other podcasting colleague Jason, managed to equally my tally and in the final roll-off, he proved to be luckier and so I didn’t get the big prize.

Well, balls!

Overthinking the Overload!

Well, the Overload event was fun!

It was very interesting not only to have the Spearhead itself as the new ‘n’ shiny, but also random pairings per game.  In fact, the random pairings aspect was so much fun that we are thinking of incorporating it into more regular events.  Having to come up with synergies and tactics on the fly with your (temporary) team mate can be very challenging at times, but is a lot of fun and very rewarding when it actually works.

It also cuts down on the amount of cheese, as you can’t tailor your lists excessively for one particular task.  Your opponent might not be able to capitalise on your list and that could cost you again, because if you don’t support your ally you’ll be outnumbered and outgunned.  That said there is still a ripe harvest of cheese to be gathered.  Can cheese be harvested?  Ah, sod it.  Onwards!

I ran with an odd Necron list for the event, with no Troop choices at all, as Spearhead lets you do stuff like that.  There are no compulsory choices for your force, although you are still limited by the Force Org chart.  So I went a little nuts and mad a force comprised entirely of all of my available HQ, Fast Attack and Heavy Support slots and a stack of AV13.  Two Annihilation Barges, two Spyders, 2 minimum squads of Scarabs, a squad of 5 Wraith and 2 Overlords with Warscythes in Command Barges.  For some odd fluff I made a bit of back-story around those two; the basic idea being that during the biotransference process, an error occurred and this Overlord was accidentally transferred into two bodies sharing one consciousness.  Thus Drathykyr the Twain was born.

This was my first major attempt at running Sweep Attacks (a special move permitted by the Command Barge), and I have to say that they’re lethal.  Basically, sweep attacks allow you to make three attacks at unit you pass over during the movement phase.  These attacks hit on a 4+ (or a 3+ if you’re only moving at combat speed).  Vehicles hit on rear armour, no cover save.  Combo that up with an S7 power weapon and 2D6 armour pen and there is no target it’s not good for.  To make matters even nastier, it you roll a 6 to hit when attack infantry, you get to pick who gets the hit!  Drive-by character sniping.  Be a bastard, it works.

So, my list was based around the Twain, and they were priced to match, costing 360 of my allotted 1,000 points.  In addition, I put them in a Mechanised Assault Spearhead, which basically allows them to outflank on turn 1, guaranteed.  Nothing is safe!  Unless they turn up on the wrong side of the board.

The first game was against a pair of Eldar generals and my ally was another Necron player.  My ally had not really played a great deal with his ‘crons though, which left me feeling like a bit of a dictator as I just kept barking orders at all and sundry whenever he asked for advice.  I wasn’t relishing the Eldar game, as the irritation they’ve inflicted on my Dark Eldar still runs deep.  As you can imagine, there was a fair amount of mech going around, although one of my opponents (occasional compatriot Skew), ran three Wraithlords in something of berserker Spearhead, giving them rage, counter attack, furious charge and all manner of nastiness.  Very nasty to behold.  The setup began with the Necrons basically fielding every damn thing in a tight wedge for a unified sluggish march up the table and the Eldar field as little possible, as is their pointy-eared way, the little cowards.  They deployed two tanks of stuff, safely tucked away behind a building.

It wasn’t enough to save them from the Twain though.  I rolled nicely for the side and the Twain inflicted a nice bit of damage on the pair of them, destroying weapons and immobilising the tanks where they stood.  Well, at least stunning them.  That’s nearly as good, right?  The Eldar countered with a Mechanised Assault of their own, but moved in to reinforce their stricken tanks rather than attack the body of the Necron forces.  This, I feel, was a mistake.  They would have been better laying a heavy strike down on the Necron rearguard and leaving their two starting tanks to be rescued by their regular reserves, including the berserker Wraithlords.  My Overlords hit what they could, as hard as they could and retreated back being sure to stay out of possible Wraithlord reach.  To be fair, those things were a major concern of mine.  The Necrons can do a lot, but I wasn’t confident in their ability to handle three T8 monstrous creatures on the rampage.  The game continued in this vein for a bit, with the footslogging Necron forces making a steady advance, the Eldar forces trying to consolidate in the back field and lacking the concentrated firepower to really dent the Necron forces.

A squadron of Tank-hunting Warwalkers outflanked to one side near the Necron forces, but concentrated their fire on scarab swarms.  I was lucky with my cover saves though, and was left with plenty of bugs on the field.  My Wraiths made good ground, very quickly and threw themselves into the Wraithlords to hold them up or kill them.  Wraiths were pretty much the only thing I had going that could be effective against that threat.  They’ve got a good invulnerable save and plenty of rending attacks, plus Fearless as well.  Unfortunately, they were slacking that game and didn’t quite kill the Wraithlord they charged and two of the Wraiths got doubled out with the return swings.  Then next turn the other two Wraithlords joined in…

The Necron advance was finally reaching its destination, with the Annihilation Barges laying down constant streams of lightning and the Scarabs chowing down on whatever tank they could reach.  Those little buggers can move when they want to!  My ally was laying down the support fire as well, his Doomsday Ark and his two Annihilation Barges hurling firepower downfield wherever they could.  It was a good day to be an unfeeling metal bastard.

The game was called on turn four, as we were timed out.  I blame the relative unfamiliarity with the Spearhead rules for that.  The subsequent games went a lot quicker.  Anyway, the end result was a Necron victory; two objectives to one.  The Eldar had flung a tank next to their home objective and the my team mate had our objective thoroughly swamped with Necron infantry.  The midfield objective was a hard sell though, what with the all the corpses and tank wreckage.  In fact, for some reason, I was convinced the game was a draw and that no-one held the middle, until it was pointed out that my Overlord, fresh from wiping the floor with some Dire Avengers was scoring (part of a Spearhead formation) and actually within 3” of the objective, but only just.

I exhaled.  Phew.  Long game, and were it not for the bad luck on the Eldar side (their reserves were decidedly less than punctual and the outflanking units kept appearing on the wrong board edges), it could easily have been a draw.

Never mind, eh?  On to game two!

Later, though.  Definitely later.