Batrep: Necrons Vs CSM, 1750 pts

It's been a while since I'd last put together a battle report with the Necrons, so here's a quick one against CK's Iron Warriors. I was particularly curious how my Necrons would do against his list, seeing as its clearly made for close-range violence

My List:
Overlord with Mindshackle Scarabs, Warscythe, Sempiternal Weave, Phase Shifter and Resurrection Orb
Destroyer Lord with Sempiternal Weave and Mindshackle Scarabs

20 Warriors and a Ghost Ark with a Harbinger of Eternity, Chronometron
9 Warriors and a Ghost Ark with a Harbinger of Destruction, Solar Pulse
9 Warriors with a Harbinger of Destruction

6 Canoptek Wraiths, 2 with Whip Coils
5 Scarabs
5 Scarabs

Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge

Warlord Trait: Inspiring Presence, which, to Necrons, is about as useful as a box of band-aids...

Instead of the 10 Immortals and their Lord, I opted for a Destroyer Lord and 2 small Scarab swarms. I really wanted to test drive the Destroyer Lord as the numbers just looked really good to me. 160 pts for 3 T6 wounds and a 2+ armour save, zipping about at jump infantry speed, swinging a great, horrible warscythe. That's pretty awesome as it is, and Preferred Enemy and Reanimation Protocols is really just icing on the cake. Oh, and its got mindshackle scarabs, so no matter how mean the opponent, there's at least a 50% chance (even at Ld10) that the poor sucker is going to end up stabbing himself.

CK's Siege Breakers:
CK's list this time was almost identical to his original list; the squad of Cultists was left out in favour of some more bells and whistles for the CSM squads, I think. For this scrap, CK chose to roll for a Personal Trait from the rulebook, getting Master of Offence, which is absolutely useless for a Khornate Chaos Lord walking with Terminators carrying an Icon of Wrath.

Mission: The Emperor's Will
Deployment: Dawn of War. I won the roll off and deployed first. Night fighting was active on the first turn.

I placed my objective in the open, a little in front of my line, where I planned to advance. CK placed his a little behind his lines and used the Warpsmith to lower the cover save on the ruins

Because of the terrain I'd deployed over a wider front than I usually would. The Crimson King and his Warriors and Arks deployed in the usual fashion with the blob in between the 2 arks. The faster elements of the army, i.e. the Scarabs, Wraiths and Destroyer Lord sat on the flanks. At each end of the line, a nice big gun: an Annihilation Barge. The idea was to present a clear and imposing front (the Warriors) that CK would try to hurl the bulk of his forces towards.  This would absorb the abuse, all the while softening CK's army with a deluge of Gauss weapon fire while the flanks close in. The biggest threat I was worried about was the Lord and his retinue of Terminators. It was a reasonably strong close combat Deathstar unit which I think could reliably hit my Warrior blob in close combat hard enough to cause them to break and run, even assuming the Crimson King manages to have the Chaos Lord succumb to Mindshackle Scarabs.

Read on for how it played out...

Batrep: Blood Angels & Guard vs Tyranids, 1750 pts

Right! This weekend, I had a naughty, naughty list I was itching to try...  Why naughty? Well, at my 40k FLGS of choice, flyers and anti-flyer tactics still aren't that common. Having seen the brutality of my Blood Angels FTO list, I figured I'd pair them up with the Crimson Guard to fill in the gaps in the list, i.e.:

1) To have a reasonably costed scoring unit without seriously compromising the killing power and overall strategy of the Blood Angels.

2) To have another Flyer in the skies which was cheapish and could reliably hunt enemy flyers and

3) To have a massively powerful, indiscriminately destructive piece of artillery. Whirlwinds are for pansies - give me my MANTICORE!

The result was a list designed to level massive amounts of firepower in all forms; S10 pie plates, anti-vehicle lascannons and melta weapons, anti-infantry hurricane bolters, assault cannons and frag and flame templates, general purpose shooting with typhoons and the veterans in their chimera. And just in case the need arose, a good solid close-combat punch in the form of the Death Company. All I needed was someone to test it on. Edwin kindly obliged with his Nids...

My List:
The Blood Angels
Reclusiarch with infernus pistol and melta bombs
Furioso Dreadnought with frag cannon and heavy flamer
7 Death Company with 2 infernus pistols and 2 power axes
Death Company Dreadnought with Blood Talons
2 Stormravens with twin-linked multimelta, twin-linked assault cannon and hurricane bolters

Land Speeder Typhoon
Land Speeder Typhoon

The Crimson Guard
Lord Commissar
Sly Marbo
Veteran Squad with 3 Grenade Launchers in a Chimera
Vendetta
Manticore

Warlord Trait: Princeps of Deceit (which I didn't really use)

This is a distillation of the most lethal elements of both my Blood Angels and my Guard. As usual, the Death Company elements will be in DCRaven and the Furioso will be in Furyraven. The mobility of the flyers coupled with the range of the Typhoons and Manticore mean I can focus an insane amount of punishment pretty much anywhere I want, regardless of deployment. I do believe this is the killiest list I've concocted yet. Now to put it to the test... 

Edwin's Nids:
Hive Tyrant with Heavy Venom Cannon, Bonesabre & Lashwhip, Old Adversary, Regeneration and Armoured Shell
Tyranid Prime with 2 Bonesabres, Devourer and Regeneration
3 Tyrant Guard
3 Hive Guard
3 Hive Guard
2 Zoanthropes
Tervigon with Crushing Claws, Toxin Sacs, Regeneration and 2 psychic powers: Onslaught & Catalyst
17 Termagants with Devourers (hereinafter referred to as "Deathgaunts") in a Mycetic Spore with twin-linked deathspitter.
Tyrannofex with Rupture Cannon and Regeneration

Warlord Trait: Tenacity

Phew... 34 T6 wounds to get through... I had encountered this list (or a variant of it using the Doom of Malantai) before and the results were usually pretty dire. This is what usually happens:

1) The Tyrannofex will soak up an obscene amount of firepower. Its monstrously powerful gun demands my attention and I end up having to devote large volumes of firepower to killing it or it'll pick off key elements of my army.

2) The Hive Guard will lay down a punishing barrage of shooty death. 2 S8 shots each, ignoring cover, just really, really hurts.

3) The Tyrantstar will kill anything it touches. Nuff said.

4) The Deathgaunts will drop right in the middle of the opposing army and quite likely wipe out any infantry unit they fire at. Mostly a disrupting tactic to let the Tyrantstar close unhindered.

And against this backdrop, the Tyrant, the Tervigon and the Zoanthropes will be casting their nasty little psychic powers all over the place, buffing themselves and withering any poor sot that comes within range.

In this FLGS, this list has proven brutally effective, and every regular there has suffered at the claws of that wretched Tyrannofex. More often than not, my own encounters with this list resulted in a slow, brutal death as I try and fail to kill the big horrible beasties without getting overrun by wee little beasties....

Mission: The Relic
Deployment: Dawn of War. I won the roll off and deployed first. Night fighting was not active on the first turn.

The lack of night fighting was quite a lucky break for me, short as I was on searchlights. I knew what the Tyrantstar was capable of and I was pretty sure my Death Company wouldn't be enough to break it in one charge. So, the Grande Planne: First, alpha strike the Tyrannofex with every flyer that comes in. 2+ armour had thwarted my previous lists, but this time, I was toting multimeltas, assault cannons, lascannons and Bloodstrike missiles. That Tyrannofex was too powerful to be allowed to live. After the Tyrannofex, my next target would be his other guns - the Hive Guard. If possible, I'd send the DC Dreadnought on a mission to kill at least one squad of them. The Furioso would be sent to erase the Deathgaunts when they turned up. After that, it would simply be a matter of kiting around and overwhelming the Tyrantstar with superior flying firepower.

Sound solid? Well, here's how it played out.

Batrep: CSM & Guard Vs CSM, 1750 pts

I'd finally put enough paint on my Crimson Guard not to be ashamed of putting them on a wargaming table and was itching for a scrap. Fortunately, I found a worthy one in the form of 1750 pts of Iron Warriors. So, straight to business...


My List:
The Black Legion
Chaos Lord on bike, with Mark of Khorne, Sigil of Corruption, Axe of Blind Fury, gift of mutation (Blademaster)
10 Chaos Marines with 2 meltaguns, extra close combat weapons and a lightning claw and meltabombs for the champion, all in a Rhino ("Melta Squad 1")
10 Chaos Marines with 2 meltaguns and a lightning claw and meltabombs for the champion, all in a Rhino ("Melta Squad 2")
7 Bikers with Mark of Khorne, 2 meltaguns, Icon of Wrath and a lightning claw and gift of mutation (fail!) for the champion
Forgefiend with 2 Hades Autocannons
Vindicator with Siege Shield

The Crimson Guard
Lord Commissar
Sly Marbo
Veteran Squad with 2 Grenade Launchers in a Chimera
Vendetta
Manticore

Warlord Trait: Hatred Incarnate

CK's Iron Warriors (the Siege Breakers)
The full list and its intended usage can be found on CK's blog. I have to say, it looks nice and solid, geared to close quickly and deal massive damage around Turns 2 and 3 with assault and medium range gunishment. Those 2 Vindicators and the Maulerfiend could prove to be a problem if left alone, so I'd target them first, hopefully leaving me free to take control of the field with superior firepower. As he mentioned in his write-up of this list, it is susceptible to flyers, having no flyers of any sort or any Skyfire weapons. Good news for my Vendetta, then...

Warlord Trait: Black Crusader (haha!)

Mission: The Relic
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil. I won the roll off and deployed first. Night fighting was active on the first turn.

I suppose you could pretty much guess my plan from my deployment. The Rhinos and Chimera move up 12" on turn 1, lighting up targets of opportunity with their searchlights. My big guns, i.e. the Forgefiend, Vindicator and Manticore will then proceed to nuke anything that gets lit up. The Guard will be lumped with the task of grabbing the relic and making a break for it, after which all other elements are just there to cover their retreat. Here's how it actually went...