This Friday Molgrimmarr and I played 40k; 1750 points Necrons vs. Tau Empire.
This is an exciting time, as the majority of our group now plays the most recently updated codices with Tau, Dark Angels, Chaos Marines, and Necrons, leaving Imperial Guard as the only 5th ed codex in the group. Hopefully the guardsmen are coming soon, though I can't really sympathize with them, having been such an incredibly powerful codex in the previous edition.
The lists were (approximately) as follows:
My Necrons:
Overlord on command barge with phase shifter, warscythe
Destroyer lord with mindshackle scarabs
Wraith-wing bodyguard all with whip coils
lord with gauntlet of flame, res orb, MSS
cryptek squad
- 2 voltaic staves
- veil of darkness
- chronometron
~30 necron warriors, a dozen of which had a night scythe transport and were escorting the lord
3 destroyers
5 scarabs
6 immortals
Molgrimmarr's Tau:
crisis commander
Aun' shi
3 crisis suits
1 broadside with 2 missile drones
hammerhead
sky-ray
about 40 firewarriors in squads of 10
2 groups of 4 pathfinders
a big thing of kroot
stealth suits
sunshark bomber
2 piranhas
The mission is the scouring (6 objectives with varying victory point values) and the deployment has us placing our forces on the short table edges.
My necrons win the roll for first turn and deploy. My deployment saw me taking 2 objectives from the beginning, allowing my opponent to have 3 objectives but securing the superior cover. When we uncover the objectives it is revealed that the necron forces are in possession of both the 4 point objective and the 1 point objective. This gives the tau two 3s and a 2, with a 2 point objective in no man's land.
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| Tau deployment. I posted this photo to instagram and it was quite well recieved. |
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Day breaks and the battle begins Tau intelligence has cracked the ancient codes which organize the necron troops and are able to steal the initiative for first turn.
Luckily the board is thick with the cover of an overgrown city. Mine-fields, craters and ruins of a long past battle now crawl with foliage preventing the Tau from establishing proper firing lines.
With the bad luck beginning even before the fighting, the necrons look to score some early victories. The crypteks teleport right on top of the skyray, but the chronometron allows a single die to be re-rolled, to hopefully avoid the mishap. Replacing a 6 with a 2 leaves plenty of room and the crypteks are able to make short work of the tank.
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| "Anything but a 2 makes it" I boasted. Sigh. |
At this stage the necrons are hoping to destroy the tau armour, unloading a hail of guass and tesla fire onto the hammerhead and piranhas. One piranha is destroyed. The other piranha and the hammerhead are reduced to a single hull point (Both these vehicles survive for the rest of the game).
The beginning of the second turn and the Tau reinforcements arrive. The sunshark bomber flies in but leaves little impact. The pathfinders deny a unit of necron warriors their cover, and the hail of ensuing Tau firepower reduces the unit to one or two men. The crisis commander, however, now deep in the Necron line, finishes off the last man, denying the squad its reanimation protocols.
The hammerhead's railgun turns and lands a penetrating hit on the catacomb command barge, but a quick maneuver and the hit barely jinks off the quantum shielding.
On the necron second turn the command barge sweeps through the kroot in the ruin, killing three as the necron overlord heads towards a more valuable target. The destroyer lord turns back to the crisis commander, making short work of the suit. The night scythe arrives to hassle the sunshark, dealing 1 hull point of damage, and shaking the crew, and the leading pathfinder team is gobbled up in a wave of scarabs.
The third turn was the last. Here the entire might of the Tau rifles turn to the necron lord in catacomb command barge. They are able destroy the chariot, but the overlords ability to repair hull points by suffering wounds essentially keeps the pulse fire wounding on 6s instead of 4s. This eventually leaves the overlord with a single wound standing in front of an exhausted Tau gunline. We end the game here; with a final single combat between my necron overlord and Aun'Shi.
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| Aun'Shi's superior reflexes fell the overlord before a blow is struck in response. As Aun'Shi turns from his felled foe the overlord silently returns to life, standing full height as his damaged body repairs itself. The overlord lifts his staff to strike his seemingly unaware foe, but Aun'Shi again is too agile for the ancient warlord and, turning, is able to strike down the lord with ease: this time for good. |
