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!