Necrons vs Eagle Knights 1500pts

This was the final game in the run of games I has a while back, by while back, read, last September. This is the last batrep I have in the draft folder and decided it was about time it saw the light of day. There should have been another game, Hjaltland LI vs Necrons, but blogger decided to delete all of the pictures and text! I still have the pictures but o idea what happened in the game. I may try and get the pictures and post again but not sure yet

I was playing necrons again, but again it wasnt a typical list, with a FW skimmer thing, a C'tan shard, two large squads of warriors and some deathmarks. But what also made it different was the opposition, as the Hjaltland LI were having some down time, the Eagle Knights stepped up to wreck some metal.

We played maelstrom mission 5; cloaks and shadows. So no stealing this time, not even peaking! I ended up going first again, not sure why I seem to end up going first all the time! At least its not eternal war missions were playing.

I can't remember what his warlord trait was, it was fixed by his character, one of the necron lords. I got Descent of Angles! Was very happy with that one, as most of my army was in reserve with jump packs! It meant I had a good chance of getting them in when and where I wanted, however it did make the Hjaltland LI allies with command squad and Officer of the Fleet slightly redundant! Still 2+ rerollable reserves isn't bad.

Deployment

The board, a few ruins and some scattered scenery. Lots of little things to hide behind but not much LoS blocking terrain.

My deployment. The guard are hiding behind the right hand building, claiming an objective just round the corner and the marines are set up towards the front on the center and left. 2x 5 man squads with flames and hand flames, for some template goodness.

The necron deployment, prior to the redeployment allowed by the deceiver bloke he had as warlord. The unit of deathmarks on the center left went in to reserves and marked the vets. The skimmer on the left also moved a bit but the C'tan (blending in on top of the left half of the building) and the warriors reminded where they were.

My reserves, 2 assault squads, and the Eagle Knights Brotherhoods, on the left Eagles Talons (death company with lemartes) and on the right Hawk Brethren (vanguard vets with priest)

turn 1

Turn one was a quite affair for both sides, with most of the units out of range or out of sight. With cards 14, 25 and 45 (obj 4, obj 5 and supremacy) and having objectives 4 and 5 just in front of me, I run up my marines to capture them. I also thought I had supremacy at the time, but there was an objective hiding down in the necron deployment that I hadn't spotted. So at the end of turn one I had 2 points.

Marines move forward, guardsmen hide at the back!

The necron did very little as well, the C'tan moved forward abut and the skimmer moved to get a better shooting position.

Turn 2

After a successful turn 1 things were looking good. My mistake with supremacy meant that I lost a card that I should still have had in my hand, but seeing as I can't change it now, ill just pretend I discarded it! 

So, withbthat issue tidied up, I drew 3 new cards, 22, 32 and 42, (2x objective 2 and behind enemy lines). This was not a good draw as I could not realistically get any of these. 

Discarded 42

No score

The reserves arrive

My reserves turned up as expected, even though I failed with the OotF! Dam Ld7. I went very aggressive with the marines, perhaps too aggressive, as I placed them all within a small area, right on top of the necrons.this action caused the Death Marks to come in and target my vanguard vets, taking down two of there number. I was plesently surprised how few died, although it did impact on their combat abilities somewhat. Other than the reserves, not much happened, as most shots bounced or the metal monstrosities stood back up again.

The big squad at the  is holding objective 2 - the brown barrel things.

My opponent also went aggressive, shooting and charging one of the assault , taking the squad down to just 2 marines by the end! Luckily for me I actually won combat but unluckily necrons are fearless, so we stayed where we were. 

At the end of the turn, I had failed to  add to my point total and discarded 42 - behind enemy lines.

turn 3

This was my turn to strike back, and i planned too. But first i needed a new card and what do you know, but 12 popped out! So I was sitting  12, 22 and 32 (all objective 2). This was potentially going to be tricky to get any points again, but I needed something, as I hadn't scored last round and not knowing what my opposition had scored, meant I really needed as many points as I could get. I only had one plan and assaulted! I shot what I could but did little damage, the  main damage was done in assault, with the vanguards charging in to the continuing combat and the second assault squad and DC charging the other squad of warriors. During the combats the 2 remaining assault marines were killed, giving up first blood in the process, but not before a number of necrons were turned In to scrap metal. In the other assault, the marines were chopping  through the warriors, but  the dam reanimation protocols kept them coming.

During my assault phase I spotted a mistake, one that potentially could have changed the game. I had placed my priest and Lemartes the wrong way around, the priest was leading the DC and Lemartes the vets! Now the priest had the angels wings relic jump pack, meaning snap fired interceptor shots only. I don't know if this would of affected the Death Marks shooting or not, I don't know if it counts as interceptor shots or another special shot? Luckily it was spotted before it could make much difference in the assault.

Assault marines  and DC attack

The combats

While the combats were happening the C'tan was busy turning the marine squads in to mince meat. The lone survivor can just be seen  the picture above, top left of the picture.

At the end of my turn I  claimed objective 2, as only my guys were within 3 inches, but I'm wondering  now if I could have claimed it, as Was locked in combat with only a single marine inside the 3 inch bubble. As it stands, I claimed the 3 points, taking my total to 5.

turn 4

With claiming all three cards last turn, I had to draw some more and ended with a mixed bunch, namely 43, 52 and 61 (hold the line, blood and guts and king slayer). I was confident of hold the line, and hopeful for a good D3 score, blood and guts was also achievable, as only a hand full of necrons were left in one of the combats. King slayer on the otherhand looked a lot less likely.

I managed to kill off the last warriors to gain blood and guts, and moved to secure hold the line for D3 points, managing to only gain 1! I set everything up ready to assault the warriors and warlord but was interrupted by  C'tan, who had other ideas and assaulted the assault marines. It was at this point that my opponent remembered his reserection orb and i failed to kill any warriors at all.

At this point I decided  that slay the warlord was not happening, so discarded it. At the end of turn 4, I gained 2 points to bring my running total to 7

Turn 5

I still wasn't sure of victory at this point, and my cards didn't help me either, being 23, 55 and 44 (objective 3, objective 5 and ascendancy. Now objective 5 was possible with a good run roll for my marines, who had just run the other way for hold the line! Ascendancy was achievable as well, if the run move went well but objective 3 was a pain. I had hoped to get my DC in to assault to help my warlord priest, but in order to get objective 3 they would have to bypass the assault.

23 (obj 3) 35(obj 5) 44 (ascendancy)
Scored 23, 35, 44(1)

Take the objective or combat?

In the end I  the points, as I figured my priest was probably dead anyway. As it turned out , he managed to survive the turn! The C'tan was a pain, taking out several marines but loosing wounds in return.

The battlefield

At the end of turn 5 I was surprised to score all my cards, although I again rolled a 1 for my D3 on ascendancy. At this point I was on 10 points.

Turn 6

We decided to continue  on to turn 6, something that we rarely get time forto had to draw new cards this turn, drawing 13, 31 and 53 (objective 3, objective 1 and no prisoners). Again I had tomake the choice between combat and trying to save my warlord and getting objective 3. With the assault marines still tied up with the C'tan and loosing numbers, I decided to  take the objective. This pretty  guaranteed my warlord would die, but with out the number to throw in   to assault, I doubt it would have made any differance. The assault marines managed  to kill of the C'tan but it cost  them, as only 3 marines survived. My warlord survived until the  enemy assault phase, he only survived as long due to  some very unlucky rolling.

13 (obj 3) 31 (obj 1) 53 (no prisoners)
SCORED 13, 31
warlord

Just before my warlord died, the C'tan is already dead.

As a result of turn 6 I had scored an extra 2 points, for objective 3 aand 1, as theC'Tan lasted until my opponents phase, denying me no prisoners. With no time left we  called it there, with my final score at 12.

When the dust settled, my opponent had scored 8 points, 6 objectives and 2 for first blood and slay the warlord. So it went down as a 12 - 8 win. The main reason for this was due to tying up the two main warrior units, stopping them being able  to score and having just  realised that the death marks had some fun during the game. After following in the vets, they tried to jump/deep strike across the board, can't remember whose ability it was that let them do this, but they mishapped, and I  got to place them. They ended up in the  far corner, as  far as I could away from my forces. Being unable  to run, they failed to have any further impact on the game.

All in  all, another fun and entertaining Game

Final score 12 /// 8

8th edition rumours

So, I've just started a small series of pat about my thoughts and hopes for 8th edition, the main rule bookend also the various codices that I is or base my forces off of. Only, GW have gone and thrown a spanner in the works some what by releasing information about 8th. Now this is great, tjeres now other way to look at the fact that GW are really engaging with the community, even if I'm not to sure on the parts of the community there conversing with. Don't get me wrong, there great organizations but they seem to be fairly limited in scope, LVO, Nova and Adepticon all being from the otherside of the pond and two are major tournaments.

Anyway, lets look at what has been said.

3 Ways to Play
The General’s Handbook has been one of the most popular rules supplements we’ve ever released. Who’d have thought letting people choose how they wanted to play their games and giving them a clear way to do that would be so popular…? It’s pretty clear from talking to a number of event organisers, that Warhammer 40,000 would benefit from the same approach. So we’ll soon be introducing the same 3 ways to play – open, narrative and matched play – to the 41st Millennium.

So really, not much will change. We currently have unbound (open) and bound (matched) but narrative is still not 'new', as the maelstrom missions have elements of this and there have been numerous book in the past that have had similar things in, alter of war missions and planet strike are two that spring to mind. All in all, I don't think this will effect me much, although I can see me playing narrative games more than most.

Army Selection
One of the things that comes up a lot is the idea that people should be rewarded for taking thematic armies. It’s a sentiment we agree with and so we’re looking at introducing Command points. A mechanism to reward players who structure their army like their in-world counterparts, with rerolls and cool army specific rules throughout the game.

Great! Really like this, it finally does away with the silly allies shenanigans. A 'pure' army usually finds itself at a disadvantage, but hopefully this will change all that and reward proper armies. I don't want this to do away with allies all together, as running a guard and marine army is still sensible and true to fluff, the same can be said for things like tyranid and gene cult or chaos and daemons, but elder, Tau and marines or Tau and necrons? No, not fluffy and as such should be penalized. How this works in detail is going to be the real issue, to powerful and it will be silly, not powerful enough and its pointless.

Movement
We think the Move value should come back. No more default unit types. Every model should have cool bespoke rules. Not only would that be more fun, but it’ll mean you will only need to learn the rules for your models.

I remember this for when I first played WH40k way back in the old days. It makes sense, eldar and DE are faster than a man but probably not as fast as many nids. It will mean that the movement phase becomes another very tactical phase, as both your movement and enemy movement need to be accounted for but it will also make things more difficult, as everything will have a different movement stat. Now for guard and probably most of the imperial stuff, it went make much difference, but for the likes of nids and possibly ork's and the various eldar lots, it could make things quite complicated. After all I genestealer is going to move a lot quicker than a warrior or a tervigon.

Shooting
Armour save modifiers. This topic comes up almost as often as Sisters of Battle… so we’re going to bring them back. Every weapon will have its place in your army and better represent how you imagine them working in your head.

No this is also interesting, as I have often thought that the ap system, why good, lacks something. I like the more stepped nature of modifiers, but it all depends upon how its implemented. An ork and a guardsman have the same save in many respects, but getting hit by a bolster round should have different consequences. An ork will or should be able to shrug it off a lot better than guardsman, who will probably be spread all over the floor. At the moment it is the toughness value used to wound that keeps these things in check, but with a modified armour save system, will this still work as well or will it dissapear and we'll loose a step to the shooting? It will be interesting to see how this works, but it has been done in past editions, so its not a step in to the unknown as such.

Combat Phase
Charging units should fight first. It’s just more thematic. So we’re hoping to work this out as well. It will reward tactically outmaneuvering your opponent. You can dictate the combats rather than being entirely Initiative based. You control who swings first.

Now this is also interesting, but for a very different reason. I'm less sure about, as there are so many unanswered questions. Yes, the charging units should get a boost in combat, you charge a unit in to an unsuspecting enemy you get an advantage, but some armies are quicker than others. Eldar and DE are quick lithe warriors, but orks and to some extent guardsmen are not, so just because you charge an ork in to a unit of howling banshees doesn't mean you should automatically get to strike first, in to a group of guard, yes, but banshees or wyches, no. So finding a happy medium will be difficult I think. Nick over on the burning eye has suggested a +3I, which could work well and would in many respects solve many of the issues above.

Morale
Its no longer all or nothing, and it affects everyone. We’re thinking of replacing break tests with a simple mechanic. Roll a D6, add that to the number of models your unit has lost this turn, subtract your Leadership and take that many additional casualties.

The final point and the only one that is slightly worrying for me. Now, I know this is a carry over from AoS and that it works quite well there, but I can't help but feel slightly worried by the change. Its irrational I know and is based purely in the fact that's its a unknown element to me. I suppose that with a low leadership value, usually 7 or 8, I've only to take 1 or 2 wounds in combat and I'm loosing more models. That's go g to whittle down my blob squads quickly, a lot quicker than normal. Then there is fearless (priests) and stubborn (commissars) to think about. How will they work? Stubborn will have to change, as it would currently have no effect under the new system, but what will it change to? If it changes thinks to a fixed higher ld value, how would this work with blob squads? If it changes the roll some how, how would that work? The questions are similar with fearless, or will that stay the same and you just pass and don't take any additional wounds? Also how would ATSKNF work? Reroll maybe? As I said, I think it is all the unknowns that are causing me to worry, so it will be good to get answers for this when the time comes (along with a new starter box!).

I'm going to continue with the series, mostly as I've written them all already! (I got on a role one night and just kept going!) Hopefully they will still make sense and won't be invalidated by the time they get published. Which reminds me, there is a copy of Codex: Imperial Agents sitting in a cupboard, waiting for my birthday to come around, I just hope its still valid by then!

8Th edition thoughts.

Edit: I'll start by saying that this post was queued up a week or so ago and now GW have just released, as in yesterday, some info in 8th. How much does this impact on my post? Not masses, but there will be a few bit that now don't make as much sense as they did before!



Ok, so there are many many rumours flying around about 8th edition. There have also been various posts that have been written over the last few months, such as the Burning Eye and Cadia's Creed. So why write another post? Well, I thought that I would join the club and put some of my own thoughts down on paper.

6th and 7th edition rule books

Now, while there are a lot of rumours flying around, I think its safe to say one thing, there will be a dumbing down or simplification of the rules set. How much simpler things are going to get is another question, but probably the most eagerly anticipated answer. Now don't get me wrong, thus won't we an end times job, I think we can all acknowledge that. AoS/WHFB is not WH40K, and hasn't been for years. Points rant going anywhere and neither are formations and detachments. If anything we'll see more. But, and it is a big but, things really have got a bit out of hand.

 Personally I don't see the main rules being slimmed down all that much, by main rules I mean things like movement, shooting and assault. The main phases of the game. I don't see the psychic phase being slimmed down all that much either. What I do see is a major slimming down of the special rules, both the universal ones (USR)  in the BRB and also the ones in the codex (CSR).

Why do i say this? Well in my opinion this is the area that is most bloated and also the aspect of the rules that has the most impact and time spent in game. Every unit seems to have a special rule and now with detachments and formations having yet more special rules, there are hundreds of the things, yet many of them are very similar. One I can think of from the top of my head is the Eldar blade storm (think that's what it is) which is really just rending by another name. There are several other variations as well, I'm sure that Nids have a similar CSR as well. So, if you just changed them all to rending, you would loose several rules in one strike. Ok, you'd loose a little of the flavour as you'd loose the names but that's a minor thing really and easy to fix (bladestorm = rending).

Going through and changing all the CSR's to there closest USR would take time, but would cut a lot of bloat. In line with this I also expect to see a lot of the USR's removed from the BRB and placed in to the codices, meaning that all the rules for an army, outside of the core rules which apply to every army, will be found in the relevant codex, much in the way that all the weapons profiles were dropped from the back of the main rule book.

I mentioned the psychic phase above, and will single this phase out. The other phases work and I don't think they need much tweaking, only a little here and there. The psychic phase does work but again is becoming bloated with so many codex specific powers as well as the BRB ones. I think that some of these will be replaced so that some of the powers will be exactly the same across different faction. It'll take a little of the flavour out but would reduce down the number of powers. Other than that, maybe we'll see access reduced, limiting you to only your factions powers? I'm not sure what's best here but can see something happening.

One thing I hope will also happen is the dropping of Death from the Skies. now I know some people like it, but its a massive rules bloat if you ask me, completely unnecessary and pointless in the main game. Yes it tries to add some flavour to flyers but I think it fails in so many areas its a waste of time. As a sort of flyer mini game it works but not as part of the main game.

As I mentioned above, I can see codices changing, but they will remain an important part of the game. So I'll follow this post up with a couple of others detailing my thoughts on the main codices I play, guard/tempestus and BA/DA and a general overview of the others.

A blog milestone

Ok, so its time for another random post. This time its going to be a short one, as its really about just one post. A week and a bit ago (11 days) I posted about painting and the discussion of pre or post construction painting. Much to my surprise, this post seems to have been very popular, more popular in fact then any post I've every written.

The weeks overview

I have been watching a few posts clocking up views over months and months, namely the Cadian Formation post from December 15 and Sternhammer from May 16. Both of these posts have reached viewing figures in to tube 90's (91 to be precise). The Christmas posts, from both 15 and 16, have proved popular for some reason, with views of 77 and 76 respectively.  However, the post on painting had shot up, with 116 views in just a few days and is currently sat on 176 views. I know that for a few people, 116 (or 176) views is small change, but for me its a minor milestone. None of My posts have ever passed 100 views before, and the speed at which this post achieved it has taken me by surprise. I thought I was doing well with the two Valkyries posts, both of which pulled in over 40 views apiece over the first week they were published.

Overall post views

Granted, the Ukraine seems to have a very particular interest in the page, with 76 views on the blog in the space of 2 days last week, but even taking out their contribution and that of Russia, only 7 over the same period, it still takes the post to over 'proper' 100 views.

The weekly viewing figures

So what make people read the page? Not a clue, I wish I did know, as I'd try and replicate it on other posts! Hopefully it might herald in a new chapter for the blog as it continues to grow.