Demons and Robots

DEMONS AND ROBOTS

The new robotanic metal band is on tour at your local dive bar!

If only...

This Saturday was supposed to be the début of my Cyrxian forces against the Protectorate of Menoth. Alas the Protectorate bailed so the battle never happened. Probably for the best as I still haven't come to an understanding of the rules.

Game 1
Instead there was a 4-way battle of 500 point teams. Demons and Necrons (team democrons) vs. Orc(k)s and eldar (team Eldorcs). At 500 points I have room for my required choices and that's it. 20 Necron warriors, 1 Lord with a rez orb.

Objectives on opposite ends of a square table, lots of random terrain between us.

Turn 1
Eldorcs elected to go second so I deployed behind a bowl of fruit next to our objective. My demon ally does not get his choice of the wave of demons and his khorne bloodletters and whatever that superbloodletter's name is show up and run for cover.

Eldorcs (2 units of jetbikes, a warwalker, a wraithlord) (big orc with lots of CC stuff, 2 trucks full of boys and a nob with a power claw, a can) have the jetbikes and trucks rush forward. The artillery (orc can, warwalker and wraithlord) open fire and wipe out a bunch of bloodletters.

Turn 2
Demon reserves don't enter, bloodletters and superletter run 2" through the cover (1" difficult terrain and 1" run). Necrons position themselves to shoot (did I ever mention how I dislike 'rapid fire'?).

Eldorcs trucks and jetbikes run forward and shoot. Artillery takes out more bloodletters.

Turn 3
Demon reserves don't show up. Bloodletters continue to run 3". Necrons open fire on the trucks but only destroy a weapon.

Eldorcs jetbikes open fire on the Necrons but to no avail. Orcs jump out of the trucks and rush the Necrons. They manage to deal no wounds (half are swinging at the lord anyways) and my Necrons don't hit anything either. Artillery takes out more bloodletters (me demon ally could not roll for crap).

Turn 4
Demon reserves (pink horrors and the Masque) come and land right next the eldar jetbikes. The Masque tries to do that puppet thing where it makes the enemy move. One group of orcs not in the truck but not in combat get moved right into rapid fire range. Pink horrors and Necrons cut them down.

My lord is take out in close combat.

Eldorcs open up into the pink horrors and Masque, wiping them out. More Necrons go down against the orcs. The superletter and remaining bloodletter are charged by the orc boss and can. No one is wounded.

Turn 5
With my demon friends deadlocked with a khan, jetbikes bearing down on my one free unit and my other unit locked into a close combat that they would eventually lose to attrition, things were looking grim for the Democrans. The orc boss went down to the superletter but was then cut down by the can. The remaining bloodletter wouldn't be able to hurt the can because of the armor value.

My Necrons in combat were wiped out by the orcs (lord did not make the WBB roll). The remaining unit of Necrons were hit by the jetbike unit but few loses. I called the game at that point.

Thoughts
I dislike 500 point games. Not because I lost but because Necrons are worthless in such small games.

Game 2
The eldar player had to leave, something about catching a plane to Ohio. So we played one of those 3-way battles where two people fight it out and the last person wipes up whatever is left. This time I got to be that third person, sort of.

1000 points (thank the toaster gods) Demons vs. Chaos vs. Necrons.

Same table with two objectives in one quarter and everyone else in the others.

Turn 1
Necrons go first castling up in one quarter with the monolith out front screening the warriors, a small unit of scarabs screen behind the warriors, immortals and a lord next to the monolith, one unit of warriors in reserve. We run for some cover, awaiting the inevitable badness of demons but safely out of range from the chaos warriors.

Demons go second, the chaos gods disagreeing with the wave choice (this guy has some of the worst rolling, ever he really needs to make his waves even to avoid that). So the superkhorne greater demon (where everyone re-rolls to hit and he can't fly) with 2 units of 6 fiends try to drop on the chaos warriors but scatter off the board and then are destroyed by the deep strike mishap roll. Considering half of his army was wiped out we told him to try that over again. This time he landed pretty close to the chaos warriors and then ran everything forward towards them.

Chaos warriors roll up towards the demons (3 rhinos full of 2 units of guys and then a unit of possessed with a psycher of some kind) and open fire, wiping out a unit of fiends.

Turn 2
Necrons begin to take pot shots at everyone, taking out a weapon on a rhino and killing a fiend. I continue to press close to the objectives. My reserves come in, surprisingly so I let them file out of my monolith.

Demon reserves decide to come in: a soul grinder (fully loaded) and a unit of demonettes. Grinder opens up on my Necrons with phlegm (big template) but misses entirely. The demonettes run forward.
The other half (superkhorne and fiends) rush the chaos marines opening up one rhino and devouring the gooey insides but leaving themselves exposed for the other two.

Chaos marines kill the superkhorne, psycher and possessed rush the fiends and a fierce battle ensues with the possessed coming out on top.

Turn 3

I open fire with everything I've got against the soul grinder and even get my particle whip to land right on the thing's head then fail to roll a penetrating hit (needed a 4+ damn it). My immortals manage to glance off the phlegm cannon while the other unit of warriors wipe out the demonettes until there is only one left.

Demon fiends are finished off by the possessed, the soul grinder rushes my Necrons and tear up 5 of them. Luckily they are close enough to my Lord to get the benefit of the rez orb. The lone demonette rushes the other unit and the Necrons take it down.

The lone chaos rhino still intact rolls up towards the objective and the possessed start to walk down towards it as well.

Turn 4
With the soul grinder breathing down my neck and chaos marines lumbering my way I'm in a tight spot. I luckily make all of my WBB rolls then pull that same unit away from the soul grinder. Then proceed to ram my monolith into the chaos marine rhino but I don't roll high enough to penetrate the armor. I open fire with all of my Necrons into the soul grinder and manage to whittle it down to one close combat weapon. I then rush my scarabs (remember those? They've been hiding this entire time) into the soul grinder to delay it. Meanwhile my immortals and lord teleport within firing range of the possessed and start picking them off at a distance.

The soul grinder wipes out a base. And combat resolution wipes out another base.

Chaos possessed run towards my immortals. The rhino backs up and tries to take out the monolith with a melta weapon but misses.

Turn 5
My monolith particle whips the possessed and takes most of them out. I would have whipped the rhino but I was worried it would scatter right back on my or my other units. My warriors run away from the grinder towards the objectives. My scarabs are wiped out in close combat and the grinder consolidates up.

The grinder then rushes the monolith (surprise there but considering the demon player has just this model left I think he was in the mood to goof off at that point) but he glances it.

Chaos marines again try and take out my monolith but fail.

Turn 6
My immortals take out the rest of the possessed, my monolith closes in on the objective next to the chaos marines, contesting it, fires at the grinder, misses. The rest of my forces close on the remaining objective.

Grinder tries again to take out the monolith and fails.

The chaos marines try again and fail.

Victory Necrons

Thoughts
On the one hand I was lucky that the fiends did not target me. On the other hand I castled up pretty well and defended my quarter pretty well. The mobility provided by the immortals and the lord is always nice but I did miss my destroyers. I don't have a lot of options to open up armor. Sure, ALL of my forces can glance something but that usually does not happen. 20 warriors with rapid fire hit on a 3+ lay down a lot of hits. But then I need 6's to glance and 5-6 to take off weapons or immobilize the target. That doesn't happen as often as you'd think. Additionally it seems like every vehicle now ignores shaken and stunned so glances statistically don't do much for me ever.

Toast for the toaster god!

Giant Necron Centipede Announced

Yay....?

I'll be honest, I really don't care for it. It's a robot bug. Great. Instead of making a unique looking robot monster you made a robot centipede with little guns near its head. It is a pretty model but I feel that with a few adjustments this would have been a better Tyrannid model.

But, thanks, I guess, Forge World for some attention?

On the other hand:

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NECRON TOMB STALKER Points: 195 (experimental rules)
WS BS S T W I A LD SV
4 4 6 7 5 4 4 10 3+

Two Gauss Flayers

Monstrous Creature, Sense Cluster (Night Vision), Brutal Assault (+2 instead of +1 attacks when charging), Fearless, War Construct (Sniper weapons and Poison, etc wound on a 6 instead of their special wound roll), Phase Tunneling (Fleet, Deep Strike, Move Through Cover, Hit and Run)

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A close combat monster for Necrons? I'll take 3, thank you very much. I'll tie up a unit then run off next round just in time to charge something else. Throw in some Destroyer fire support and we'll have ourselves a little party.

Scarabs and Beetles

I finished painting and basing my 10 scarab swarms and I FINALLY and SUCCESSFULLY molded and casted something that didn't end in disaster!

Pictures to follow tonight!

Saturday - Game 1

This Saturday I played two (quasi) back-to-back games of 40K of 1000 points in teams of 2.

The first was Chaos-Chaos vs. Necron-Necron. My Necron forces were composed of lord with orb & veil with 5 immortals, 2x10 warriors, 4 scarabs with disruptor fields, and a monolith. My teammate had essentially the same set up but opted to pick more immortals and scarabs instead of the veil. The Chaos forces consisted of several rhinos full of possessed, plague marines, a few tac squads of chaos marines, a land raider with khorne berzerkers and some terminators who would teleport in.

Set up was opposite table edges with 5 objectives scattered around a large building. Other scenery lined the edges but really did not play a part in the whole game.

Turn 1
Necrons: the monoliths edging up on either side of the board with the scarabs boosting up onto the top of the building. Immortals moved up with my monolith. We each kept a unit of warriors in reserve.

Learning point 1: Necrons in reserve must declare at the beginning of the game how they are going to arrive: monolith or table edge. IF they choose monolith AND the monolith door is blocked or the monolith is destroyed then that reserve unit will NOT arrive and is considered destroyed for phase out and victory point purposes. Table edge choices come in as normal. (source: Necron FAQ)

Shooting: my monolith landed a hit on the land raider, exciting, I rolled a penetrating hit, breath taking, I rolled a god damn 2 for damage, DAMN IT!

Learning point 2: Ordinance weapons require tanks to remain stationary to shoot. Necron monoliths ignore this rule. (source: Necron rulebook)

Learning point 3: Ordinance weapons add +1 to their damage rolls. Which would have meant weapon destroyed, which is important because tanks can only move 6 and fire one weapon or stay stationary and fire everything. (source: main rulebook)
Everything else was out of range.

Chaos: they move up. The land raider moves and takes a shot at my monolith, luckily nothing happens. One group of marines (with flamers?) assault the scarabs and wipe them out with combined flamer and regular beat-down technique.

Turn 2
Necrons: we decide to hold back with our 3 objectives and keep shooting from afar. The land raider is out of range. My teammate opens up on the marines and reduces them to a man. Being marines they don’t run for their lives (even robots take this ‘panic’ test to representing them making a tactical retreat. So does this mean space/chaos marines don’t have the wherewithal to make a tactical retreat?). My teammate pulls my warriors back through his monolith to keep them from being charged next turn.

Chaos: the rhinos move forward and the land raider opens both lascannons into my monolith and immobilize it. This is were learning point #3 would have been important because it was the second roll that the chaos player took me out. Had the weapons destroyed option happened I would have been free to float around. On the other side of the building the empty rhino moved up to essentially blockade the monolith as 6” skimmer movement is not enough to actually clear a rhino. The terminators teleport in a little ways from my monolith and immortals.
Rant point 1: why can’t skimmers end their turn on terrain pieces? It isn’t like they are LANDING on it! They are skimmers, when they end their turn they are still FLYING THROUGH THE AIR. If I want to park right over a damn building or tank or whatever, why the hell not? It would represent the flier flying over the enemy. This should apply to jet bikes too. /shrug

Turn 3
Necrons: my warriors come in and my immortals, monolith and my teammate’s immortals open up into the terminators and kill one of them. 22 BS4 S6 shots with 20 BS4 S4 shots into 6 guys and we kill 1. Sigh. My teammates monolith door is currently blocked by my warriors and he rolls for his own warriors to come in. See learning point 1. This is important because what if you have one monolith and roll for 2 warrior reserves to arrive? That would be lame if your own troops killed themselves so the FAQ states you can choose BUT at the beginning of the game. His troops come in on the table edge. We open into the rhinos with no effect. We pull back from the terminators to avoid being shot at. Remember my scarabs? They attempted to run off and pop one of the rhinos and failed.

Chaos: terminators open fire into my immortals and kill 4/5 (lord has a res orb). The land raider takes out my monolith (now 235 points of road block). By now chaos has the possessed out of the rhino and running at us. Meanwhile, on the other side of the board my warriors consolidate onto an objective while my teammate attempts to destroy things with his particle whip and misses. Scarabs get stomped, there were no survivors, we’ll play a robot dirge for them then recycle their bodies for new scarabs.

Turn 4
Necrons: ALL of my immortals get back up (because you can’t keep a good robot down). We all open fire into the possessed and terminators with a little more success this time. Monolith on the other side continues to be unable to hit anything. That rhino was the BANE of the monolith’s existence. Everything else consolidates their positions and get ready to be charged.

Chaos: terminators shoot and kill three of my immortals. Possessed charge into the warriors and my allies lord. The battle is really lackluster as he kills 2 and we kill 2. The land raider parks on top of an objective.

Turn 5
Necrons: my immortals fail to get back up this time and things look bleak for the robots: land raider on top of one objective, we have another with troops on it. Near the terminators and possessed is contested. Another near the monolith and rhino are contested. Far off on the other table edge is the last objective with that one marine from the squad that got wiped out and a rhino full of normal marines. Having no other choice I teleport my remaining 2 immortals with the lord out of combat and land them near the objective and open fire into the chaos marines and kill off a handful. Combat is lackluster again. If my unit survives we tie the game.

Chaos: combat is lackluster, chaos marines open up into my immortals and lord who miraculously fail all of their saves.

Victory chaos.

Aftermath:
Could the monolith have rammed the rhino? Without looking at the rulebook I recall you get +1 per 2” traveled, +1 for each point of armor. Rhinos are 12 on the side vs. 14 monolith moving 6” so that would be 8+D6. On a 4+ you would be penning… Then again I don’t think skimmers are allowed to ram? Food for thought really. I would have tried to fly over it and just take the damn dangerous terrain test. I mean just don’t roll a 1 and you’re fine.

I should have kept moving up and opening into that land raider with my monolith and the immortals. I have castling up in a corner. I like walking slowly forward and mowing things down with Necrons. If I get caught in combat the monolith is there to teleport me out and allow me to rapid fire right back into you. Combined with my immortals tromping along with me I think I could have glanced/penned the land raider to death and claim that objective.

That would leave the terminators but those are the bane of our existence because we tomb spyders and heavy destroyers to combat those… and nothing else. Since I never take heavies and the tomb spyders only have WS2 S10 A3 I2 I’m not hitting much and the terminators still have a 5+ invulnerable save. What do you do? In a 1000 point army I’m very reluctant to bring any of the C’Tan to the table given that they would take up 1/3 of my points. Also we have been trying to play with adeptacon rules so you get 2 troops and only 1 of everything else. Then again a 300 point C’Tan would be pretty hard to beat, even against greater demons…