The Dark Ages Vampire game continues its triumphant lurch back into life, with our three unfortunate protagonists travelling to Alexandria in hot pursuit of Mary the Black. One’s developing a worrying taste for diablerie and a worrying burden of ancient secrets; one’s skirting closer and closer to the Beast even as he’s enthralled by the Followers of Set; and one’s bound and called by the very Methuselah they’re supposedly hunting. There are Assamites and Hierophants to either side of Alexandria’s Prince, and the Muslim mortals rally round a man who may well have that most elusive of qualities in the World of Darkness; True Faith. It’s good times.

There’s some Magic being Gathered. While I was away playing the 40K game detailed in the previous post, I played a few games against Simon’s Gatecrash decks, and developed something of a taste for the expansion; it has mechanics which dovetail beautifully with cards I own and decks I’ve run in M13, and it’s lured me into acquiring first a new deck (the Orzhov pre-made) and then a fat-pack to build up two or three others out of the spares box. It helps that Gatecrash’s lands are beautiful and that I want to own many of them; it also helps that the fat pack dropped a Deathpact Angel, two more Treasury Thrulls, two Orzhov Keyrunes, two Orzhov Gates, and a whole mess of creatures with Extort. Guess I’m playing black/white for a while, then?

The 40K continues nicely – details are being detailed over at the House of Paincakes, and are likely to remain so until I run out of 40K to play. Unlikely, given that Necron progress has halted at a comfortable 4000 points, and there’s the first 600 of Iron Warriors allies sitting next to my laptop, awaiting the final glues and primer before they begin their deadly work.

I’m sniffing around Warmahordes again, too. I had the itch to return to Cryx for a while, maybe get my old stuff back, but Ben (fount of much wisdom that he is) pointed out that I’d just be burdening myself with all the poor decisions and legacy choices that made me drop them in the first place, and that if I’m going to go back to the game, I might as well go back with something where I’m free and easy. For the moment, that means keeping a weather eye on the Mercenaries, considering the addition of Ashlynn and a batch of Highborne-friendly solos to the ranks; I’m more into ‘jacks and character solos or two-man units anyway and Mercs offer me the opportunity to do that. In the longer run, I’m cautiously sniffing around the Retribution; they’re unlike anything I’ve played before, I think they’d look good in the turquoise paint I’ve had sitting around for a while, and I’ll be honest and admit that I have a bit of a thing for angry elves at the moment.

It’s the World of Warcraft, you see. The roleplay in my roleplay guild has gone from strength to strength; my main character’s tried and failed to be a big damn hero, gotten burned and battered for her trouble, and now she’s setting out from scratch, learning what she can from the Pandaren while she’s there, working her way back up to being something useful again. Also, she’s in love, or at least deeply fascinated by another PC who hasn’t immediately wished she was a man or nearly had a heart attack at the thought that someone might find them attractive. That’s a first, for Nivi. Her track record is not spectacular.

Each of these things could be a blog post in its own right, and in another time and place it would have been. Thing is, I started this blog when I was underemployed, and it took off when I was unemployed, and then self-employed. I am currently fully employed (well, four days a week and earning five days’ salary, goddess bless that Master’s degree which is finally paying for itself) and I’d rather spend what time I have…

… not blogging about games. At least, not exclusively. . I started out commenting on other people’s thoughts, making conversation, and I think I’d rather be spending my time doing that, reconnecting with other people’s comment threads (to which I haven’t paid anything like as much attention as I used to or as I’d like to).

Also, I do have thoughts on other topics, sometimes. The state of socialism in England. Union politics and professional identities. Experiments in poetry and charcoal sketches. The sci-fi genre, and how China Mieville is winning Hugo Awards by following some of the most basic advice a writer is ever given. Social justice bingo and arguments in the echo chamber. Rejected PhD topics that are unlikely to see the light of day. It’s all Big Stuff, bigger than a blog about games is supposed to be, probably more worth doing than obliging myself to talk about games the whole damn time. So I’m not going to. This is it. 301 posts, plus a few by guest authors; four and a half years of blogging. That’s enough, I think.

Transmissions will continue over at the House of Paincakes, of course. I want to be paying attention to that, actually involved in the network, with the time I have available to spend on the Interwebs. I still have odds and sods I’d like to say and I think that’s a better platform for saying them than this. I may also have some thoughts on other topics and it may behove me, in time, to find some means of transmitting them to your quivering and anticipatory eye-holes.

As for all this, it’s been fun, but now it’s…

I’ll see you around.

THANKS FOR READING ALL THESE POSTS! YOUR REASONS FOR DOING SO BAFFLE ME, BUT IT IS NONETHELESS AN HONOUR FOR ME TO GIBBER AND CAPER FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT. AS A REWARD FOR YOUR LOYALTY, HAVE THIS FIVE AND A HALF THOUSAND WORD BATTLE REPORT, AND DON’T SAY I NEVER GIVE YOU ANYTHING.

The Black Planet, 4182013.M41
External Planetary Monitor Derv was concerned – not a state of mind to which he was accustomed, in all honesty. The job of External Planetary Monitor was not, in general, one that required a great deal of concern, or indeed concentration; by and large, the job did itself, the ancient computers ticking off incoming and outgoing vessels against flight plans and manifests, and displaying alerts on the Monitors’ monitors on the rare occasions when something didn’t tally. Derv would dutifully forward these alerts to the Navy Yeomanry Planetary Defenders, the Black Planet League of Merchant Venturers, and His Imperial Majesty’s Galactic Internal Taxation Subdivision – unread, of course, since the penalty for tampering with taxation records was too fearsome to contemplate – and then go back to occupying his time in some other fashion.

Nevertheless, he was concerned, and said so.

“Moon’s gone a funny colour.”

Derv’s immediate colleague, Torq, emitted a vaguely interested, vaguely dismissive, vaguely responsive grunt, and returned his attention to the screen in front of him.

“You’re not going to look, then?”

Another grunt. This one managed to convey irritation, a mild personal contempt for Derv himself, and a deep-seated wish that Derv would clear off and leave him, Torq, to his vitally important duties.

“Stop playing Dark Millennium and look, you slag.”

Having exhausted the possibilities of grunting, or expended his expressive capabilities in the medium too soon – a peril confronting all early-blooming geniuses – Torq thumped the monitor, called it a brainless son of a fragbunny, did the same to his controls, and then finally turned to look at Derv.

“Well, I’m dead now, and we’ve lost Armageddon. I hope you’re happy. That’s three weeks of dedicated grinding down the tube, thanks to you.”

“Shut up and look at the moon, Torq.”

“Which one? Coalfield?”

“No, the little one.”

“What, Solidhull?”

“No, the really little one.”

“That’s not a moon, is it? That’s spacejunk. Has to be.”

“Torq, spacejunk is small. Wulfruna is far away. We’ve been through this.”

“Why’s it green?”

Derv sighed, and gently laid his face in his palm. “It isn’t. Usually.”

“Think we should report it?”

“That’s what I was asking!”

“Well, take some initiative and do it and don’t bother me when I’m in the middle of a twenty thousand player kill-fest again, all right? You’ve got no sense of what’s important, that’s your trouble.”

Derv reflected on this as he typed up a brief report, enclosed a series of grainy, poor-quality images, and punched in the commands that would send his message not down the usual sub-aether channels, but directly to Naval Astrotelepathic Regional Command. Torq had said the same thing when they’d been raided by eldar pirates the year before, of course. Not that he’d noticed. He’d been too busy fighting the Battle of Ichar IV on his monitor to notice the war going on outside his window. Not for the first time, Derv contemplated an intervention, before deciding – as usual – that it probably wasn’t worth the months of complaining that were bound to result.

Over the next six months, Derv’s barely-literate description of events, along with some of the worst examples of stellar photography the Imperium had ever seen, was passed like an unwanted takeway through NARC, back to NYPD as a strictly internal matter of no interplanetary interest, briefly through the dark and foetid halls of GITS where it had been sequestered as a cover for tax evasion, back to NYPD to be stamped as clean, back to NARC for transmission as a matter for the Explorator fleets rather than planetary defence, and finally, reluctantly, hurled into the galaxy at large for any passing explorer to wrap their grubby mitts around it.

The Explorator vessel which did eventually pick up the message and make a brief stop above Wulfruna spent a grand total of thirty-two seconds in low orbit before being struck by what its final transmission described as a hissing column of pure black oblivion, attended by an all-frequencies broadcast of indecipherable machine code which the Explorators had initially mistaken for the latest release by the ‘popular’ ‘experimental’ ‘technical noise producers’ Standard Template Deconstruction, and naturally switched off.

A further three months passed as the transmission was assessed, examined, standardised, verified, appended to a heavily-annotated copy of Derv’s report, and finally released to the galactic aether at large as the most bureaucratically correct distress call in recent history. It was at that point that the Hawk Lords Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes got hold of it, and decided to do something useful.

Another college holiday means another chance to troop up to the West Midlands with my Necrons in tow, and another chance to line them up in front of Ben’s assorted armies and see how much damage we can do before the game inevitably times out on the fifth turn. The slightly ad hoc nature of this trip meant I’d just grabbed absolutely everything and lugged it onto the coach; this turned out to be all right, as Ben had both a Night Scythe to surrender as belated Christmas tribute, and a 2000 point Hawk Lords (purple-coloured vanilla-flavoured Space Marines (TM)) list he wanted to try out. Apparently he’s bored with keeping track of pain tokens and never getting to roll any armour saves, and so has dug his formerly all-conquering Space Marines (TM), which have the added bonus of being closer to fully painted than his Dark Eldar.

Since we have the luxury of time on our sides for these games, they tend to be quite leisurely affairs, in which rules are checked, discussed and followed fairly accurately, and in which various aspects of the game are singled out as Learning Experiences. In this case, there were three things we wanted to learn about. First was, of course, the Flyer rules, since Ben’s Razorwing hasn’t come out to play since fifth edition and the only flying I’ve ever done involves Fell Bats and Winged Nightmares rather than anything with an engine. Second was the Psychic Powers. I play Necrons, Ben plays Dark Eldar, neither of us ordinarily get to lay hands on any whizzes, pops or bangs from the fevered brains of witches, mutants and other neurologically-advanced folks. I still wouldn’t, but Ben resolved to bung a Librarian into his list and see what all the fuss was about. Thirdly and finally, there was the small matter of the Relic mission, which I usually re-roll if it comes up of a Thursday night because, frankly, after my hardest working day, what I want is a nice quick quiet game and not a fartaround. Nevertheless, I figure it can’t be that hard; once I’ve played it once I’ll get it.

Anyway. Those armies.

Von’s Crons

HQ – Nemesor Tekeshi – Necron Overlord with warscythe and phase shifter
Catacomb Command Barge – Tesla cannon
Royal Court – Necron Lord with warscythe and sempiternal weave, 3 Harbingers of Destruction

HQ – Vargard Koschei – Necron Overlord with warscythe, sempiternal weave and resurrection orb
Royal Court – Necron Lord with warscythe and sempiternal weave, Harbinger of the Storm

Troops – 12 Necron Warriors (both Lords go in here)
Night Scythe

Troops – 10 Necron Warriors (1 Harbinger of Destruction goes in here)

Troops – 10 Necron Warriors (1 Harbinger of Destruction goes in here)

Troops – 10 Necron Warriors (1 Harbinger of Destruction goes in here)

Elites – 5 Lychguard with hyperphase sword and dispersion shield (Koschei and the Harbinger of the Storm go in here)

Fast Attack – 5 Destroyers

Fast Attack – 5 Tomb Blades with Tesla carbines

Fast Attack – 3 Canoptek Wraiths

Heavy Support – Annihilation Barge with tesla cannon

The plan is a simple plan. As usual, the footslogging Warriors cower on the edge of midfield in whatever cover presents itself; if required to advance and deploy further Gauss shots in the general direction of the enemy, they do so behind a wall of Lychguard (plus Resurrection Orb and models who can actually hurt things) and Wraiths. That first wave will also be going for the Relic in this scenario, though I didn’t plan the list especially for the mission or anything rude like that. Anyway, the Destroyers are there to point, click and delete small Space Marine (TM) squads, especially small Space Marine (TM) squads with AP4 or better weaponry in abundance, the Tomb Blades to strafe and finish off odd survivors, the Barge to target flyers as a priority (okay, so it needs sixes to hit, but each six is three hits, and it’s twin-linked to boot) and the Night Scythe to drop its cargo of Warriors and angry Lords off somewhere where they’ll be useful and then go dogfighting.

Ben’s Purple-Painted Poultry-Paragon Pigeon Punishers

HQ – Captain Talassar Kaine – Pedro Kantor counts-as

HQ – Cathartes Aura – Librarian with Terminator Armour (force axe)

Troops – Tactical Squad – 10 Marines, 1 meltagun, Sergeant with power sword

Troops – Tactical Squad – 10 Marines, 1 meltagun, Sergeant with power sword

Troops – Tactical Squad – 10 Marines, 1 meltagun, Sergeant with power sword (Kaine goes here)

Elites – 5 Terminators – assault cannon (Aura goes here)

Elites – Chapter Master Tobias Lombardi – Ironclad Dreadnought with assault launchers 

Elites – 5 Sternguard

Fast Attack - Stormtalon (escorting Mortis Pullum)

Heavy Support - Mortis Pullum - Stormraven (Kaine’s squad goes in here, as does Lombardi)

Heavy Support – Devastator Squad – 10 Marines in 2 combat squads. 1 squad has the Sergeant and 2 heavy bolters; 1 squad has 2 plasma cannons.

Ben’s devilish cunning has tied a moderately fearsome counter-assault element, a heavy flier, a light flier, a scoring unit and a walking buff character to a single reserve roll, which slingshots in where the Victory Points are, picks up the two Tactical Squads on the ground, and sort of… grinds forward, rolling lots of attacks and firing lots of bolters. The list is not what I’d call strictly optimal, what with the passing up on free heavy weapons and the interesting choice of Sternguard, but Ben’s an old hand at this Space Marine (TM) business and I’ve seen him spin straw into gold before now. The sheer number of 3+ saves he has wandering around made me a bit leery about getting the objective off them if he managed to bury it in the heart of that Tactical brick, so seizing the Relic early on and getting it away from his footsloggers became something of a priority.

Mission – The Relic
Deployment – Vanguard Strike
Warlords and Traits - Tekeshi (Tenacity) and Talassar Kaine (The Dust of a Thousand Worlds)
Psychic Powers - Cathartes Aura – Biomancy – Life Leech, Enfeeble

Ben deployed first and retained the Initiative. I was slightly perplexed to see his plasma cannon Devastators up front, though perhaps he wanted to avoid handing out cover saves for shooting through his own men; I was slightly relieved, meanwhile, to see the Terminators off on a flank where I could stay out of their way, or at least feed them something designed to be sacrificial and stodgy, like the Wraiths. The Sternguard might be a bit of a worry too, after Ben revealed just how flexible those naughty bolters of theirs can be. In fact, I was seeing a lot of AP4 on the board already, and the knowledge that a Stormtalon was waiting in reserve did not comfort me.

I set up the traditional Warrior phalanx – a very slight crescent which focuses its fire onto anything that ends up in the middle, and lurks in cover unless the opponent refuses to oblige me by moving to within 12″ of my guns. In such cases, the Lychguard and Wraiths spearhead an advance, offering their Invulnerable Saves to absorb fire and their mere presence to provide Cover Saves to the Warriors behind. I set up the various Tesla units on my right flank, theorising that the plasma cannon Devastators wouldn’t be terribly hard pickings, and I slapped Tekeshi down with them, with the intention of chewing through the outermost Tactical squad and making a run for the objective later in the game. The Annihilation Barge would similarly divert its attentions once I knew where Ben’s flyers would end up, while having the length of a long board edge to play with meant I was quietly confident of lining the Scythe up against something useful. The Destroyers, meanwhile, lurked behind the Warrior crescent – they would be pointing themselves at some Devastators as soon as possible, but I wanted a turn of cover saves for them before I put their metal lives on the line.

Naturally, I failed to Seize the Initiative.

Round One

The Space Marines (TM) fanned out ever-so-slightly, with the Terminators, Sternguard and outflung Tactical Squad all making cautious advance-like motions. Ben informed me that I would hate him for what he was about to do, and he wasn’t wrong; an Orbital Strike was called down. Now, I’m not complaining here or anything, since my HQs are good, but they’re not so good that they can drop a S10 AP1 Ordnance Large Blast anywhere they can see.

Quite rightly, Ben views this as an early-game ‘get the opponent on the back foot first thing’ option, and while he was tempted to land it squarely in the middle of the Warrior phalanx, the knowledge that my Barge was the only ground unit which could realistically touch his flyers won him over and he plonked it on the vehicles instead. When the dust had settled, the Annihilation Barge was miraculously unscathed (double ones on the Penetration roll, ho hee) and Tekeshi had sacrificed a Wound to keep her Command Barge mobile, although two Tomb Blades and two Warriors lay dead. A corresponding round of stern plasma and heavy bolter fire dropped two more Warriors, two Lychguard, and put a Wound on Koschei. Aura cast Enfeeble on the Wraiths, and the Sternguard and Terminators ganged up to blow a hole in one and reduce another to crater status. Alas for Ben, the Resurrection Orb proved its worth and both the Lychguard lurched to their feet, although nothing else seemed inclined to join them.

The surviving Wraiths hovered forward and laid hands on the Relic, while the Lychguard moved and then ran into midfield, establishing the kill zone betwixt themselves and the Necron Warriors. The Destroyers moved forward and strafed the Devastators nearest them, joined by the Annihilation Barge, which killed a Tactical Marine with its lightning arc, and the Tomb Blades; between all that Gauss and Tesla, the Devastators lay dead, and I was one point up with my claws into the Relic. Good start, I think!

Round Two – Necrons 1, Space Marines (TM) 0
Relic Possession – Necrons

The Reserves un-Reserved and tore onto the middle of the board, with the Stormraven in the lead and the Stormtalon bobbing after it. A mass disembarkation followed, with Captain Kaine and his Tactical chums landing in the centre and forming the brick I’d been so dreading, and Lombardi being flung from his Dreadnought clamp to land squarely in front of the Wraiths and, more troublingly, the Destroyers. Aura, meanwhile, frustrated by the Lychguards’ refusal to stay down, cast Enfeeble on those this turn.

The Sternguard and Devastators ripped through what was left of the Wraiths, and the hail of shots from the Space Marine (TM) fliers dropped three Warriors and Exploded Tekeshi’s Command Barge, to little other effect. The rest of the Space Marines (TM) sunk every shot they had into the Lychguard, knocking them all down and slapping a wound on Koschei into the bargain. Fortunately, they were one wound short of wiping out the whole squad (I love Crypteks) and two Lychguard Reanimated themselves back into the fray. Alas, that wasn’t enough to protect my poor Destroyers from wandering Dreadnoughts – Lombardi angled his descent, skidded straight through the wreckage of the Wraiths, grabbed the Relic, and smacked a Destroyer with his hammer for good measure.

That… wasn’t good. Though Our Weapons Are Useless (there’s Mat Ward’s love of Dark Omen again, you notice) was always an option, I wasn’t banking on the Destroyers’ ability to outrun an Initiative 4 Dreadnought when they fled, and if I lost them, I’d lose my only AP3 weaponry. Instead, I elected to leave them where they were and forfeit a turn of shooting in the hope of freeing them up on my turn and having them around for the rest of the game.

Fortunately, my Night Scythe turned up, and – after some minor brouhaha involving the difference between a long board edge and a deployment zone – was deemed able to arrive behind the Space Marines (TM), lining up its guns on the Stormtalon (I wanted the other one, but there was no way I’d be able to line up the shot and still have anywhere safe to put my Scythe’s giant base). The various Tesla units advanced to bring the Stormraven into their range, while Koschei ploughed on, rearranging his unit so he’d be able to charge Lombardi and retrieve the Relic.

My Annihilation Barge landed three hits on the Stormraven (told you Tesla was good), which Ben elected to Jink against; probably a good call too, as two penetrated its armour. One was Jink-saved, and the other came up… Crew Shaken. Can only fire Snap Shots. Whoop-de-doo, that’s all it was going to do anyway. Still a Hull Point though. The Night Scythe similarly landed three hits on the Stormtalon – one was Jinked, but the two glancing hits were enough to strip away its scanty Hull Points and send it crashing to the ground behind the Devastators. The rest of my shooting was less effective; a lone Tactical Marine who’d been enjoying the view from the mysterious dolmen arches, nothing at all on the Sternguard despite half my army shooting at them, and everything the airdropped Warriors managed to do to the Stormraven was cheerfully Jinked away. In retrospect, shooting the Devastators or even the Terminators might have been a better plan, but you live and learn…

In the Assault Phase, meanwhile, the Lychguard ploughed into Lombardi, who failed to hit with a single attack and got carved into tiny bits by Koschei, freeing the Destroyers up to consolidate away from the Space Marine (TM) lines and the Lychguard to move onto and secure the Relic.

Round Three – Necrons 1, Space Marines (TM) 0
Relic Possession – Necrons

Various Space Marines (TM) shuffled to improve their fire lanes, while Aura Enfeebled the Warriors behind the Space Marine (TM) lines and led his Terminators in a waddle toward the offending mechanoids. The Stormraven turned hard right and dove for the board edge, intending (so Ben claims) on a tight square which would enable it to stay on the board for two more turns and snipe at the Night Scythe with its turrets.

Unfortunately, the Machine Spirit proved a less than capable shot, landing only one lascannon hit, which I successfully Jinked away. The Space Marines (TM) were more successful on the ground, sinking a hail of bolts in various sizes into the Warriors and stripping them off the board, with the final kills on Necron Lords being claimed by Kaine and the Terminators’ assault cannon.

The one Tactical Squad that couldn’t see the Warriors shot at the Lychguard instead, downing two and causing them to drop the Relic – and one, true to form, stood up.

Without the luxury of turret weapons, there wasn’t really anything the Night Scythe could contribute to my turn, so I sent it off the board at Cruising Speed with orders to return next turn from a more sensible position. The Lychguard and Annihilation Barge gave chase to the Stormraven, which had helpfully pointed its rear armour at them (not that it matters for AV12 all round fliers, but the prospect of shooting a death chicken up the bum is never to be turned down), while the Necron Warriors decided that it was time to approach the possibility of maybe getting to Rapid Fire something at some stage and lumbered out of cover. The central unit was joined by Tekeshi – with the Relic unclaimed, it was time to get some mileage out of that Warlord Trait.

The Necron shooting phases were becoming more and more cautious, with orders of fire being preserved so’s to minimise the chance of either lightning arcing my own models or waste the Destroyers’ capacity to bust Space Marines (TM) open like soggy cantaloupes. The Tomb Blades opened up by killing a lone Tactical Squaddie, while the Annihilation Barge secured one (and thus three) hits on the Stormraven. Ben chose not to Jink – a fatal mistake, since two more hits glanced, stripping the vehicle down to little more than a flying anvil, which crashed to no effect. This freed the Lychguard’s Cryptek up to shoot the closest Tactical Squad and nail one Tactical Squaddie, who was joined by his Sergeant and six of his mates as the Warrior crescent focused its fire on them, which meant the Destroyers were able to devote their attentions to the Sternguard and scoop them off the board. The Lychguard, whose continued survival had begun to impress and surprise me, went into the survivors of the foremost Tactical Squad, butchered them, and consolidated at full pelt toward the heavy bolter Devastators. They were almost certainly going to die next turn, but pushing toward that vulnerable and important unit would surely mean that Ben had to focus fire on something within his battle-line rather than outside it, just like last turn… and that would leave Tekeshi free to grab the Relic.

Interesting Rules Interlude – The thing about those Lychguard is that they become perversely more survivable when there’s only one of them left. With hits being resolved against the majority Toughness (5, from the Overlord and Lychguard) and the best available save (either the Overlord’s 2+ or the Lychguard’s 4+) it’s surprisingly hard to shift them, even with Enfeeble to tweak the odds in your favour somewhat. Ben and I had some discussions about this, as it seems – in its own way – as open to exploitation as the old Wound Allocation system was, especially for Necrons with their capacity to take casualties up to this magic p0int, then Reanimate those casualties and do it all again.

Round Four – Necrons 1, Space Marines (TM) 0
Relic Possession – None

Aura cast Enfeeble on the Lychguard again, and led his Terminators back toward the front line and the Destroyers, while the Tactical Squads broke cover and brought the Annihilation Barge within meltagun range. Alas, the Shooting phase was not kind to Ben; the meltagun nearest the Barge missed it, and he decided to hold on to Kaine’s squad until last, just in case he needed them to finish the Lychguard. As it happens, he did – a turn of stupendous Armour Saves from my apparently magical hands meant the Lychguard weathered every single bolt of every size that came their way, although the Rending hits from the Terminators’ assault cannon and Kaine’s super-bolter were too much for them in the end.

The Night Scythe returned from my corner of the long board edge and flew over the battle-line, landing in front of the Relic, which Tekeshi advanced into and scooped up. The Annihilation Barge turned on the spot, while the Destroyers moved up to screen Tekeshi – important as they were, the Relic was more important with Random Game Length looming on the horizon. The Tomb Blades, meanwhile, enfiladed into Ben’s deployment zone, with their eye on either shooting up the Devastators or turbo-boosting to secure a decent save and the Linebreaker point. After the Scythe successfully dropped three Devastators, the Tomb Blades tried to finish them off, but couldn’t quite manage it – the last one fled toward the Tomb Blades (counter-intuitive, but whatever), Knew No Fear, and promptly hid behind a wall. The rest of the army threw everything it had at Kaine’s Tactical squad, killing everyone but the Captain himself, the Sergeant and the lone melta-gunner.

Round Five – Necrons 1, Space Marines (TM) 0
Relic Possession – Necrons

Tekeshi’s fiddling with the Relic had obviously done something, at least, as a bolt of black light shot into the heavens and seemingly turned out the sun! Night had fallen, rather earlier than anticipated, and what remained of the Space Marines (TM) closed ranks and range to pursue the Destroyers and the Warriors behind them. The surviving Devastator nailed one Destroyer, the Tactical Squad nearest the Barge another, but Kaine and his battle brothers flubbed spectacularly, leaving the last one intact and well. Aura reached out to Life Leech Tekeshi, but her sheer Tenacity allowed her to shrug off both the wounds. The Terminators likewise failed to excel themselves, with a combination of Feel No Pain and Reanimation Protocols keeping all but one of Tekeshi’s Warriors in the fight. In fact, the only real disappointment for me was the Destroyers’ failure to Reanimate after the lone survivor broke and fled.

The Night Scythe and Tomb Blades criss-crossed elegantly, the one flying over the others in order to finish the last Devastator while the others swept under the one to zap Kaine and his squad from the safety of the Space Marines’ (TM) deployment zone. Tekeshi, somewhat surprised at the effectiveness of the device she’d picked up, led her Warriors back into formation, and the collected firepower atomised the Space Marine (TM) officer and his associates, with a Cryptek claiming the final kill and the point for Slaying the Warlord. In a final insult to Ben’s dignity, the Annihilation Barge spat electric death into the Terminators, and Ben failed two of the only 2+ saves he’d been called upon to make. Lady Luck had stuck up two fingers for long enough, and the Random Game Length – as predicted – kicked in.

GAME OVER – Necrons 6, Space Marines (TM) 0
Glory to the Dynasty of Kadavah!

Post-Mortem

Well. That was… fortunate.

I’m not going to attribute my victory entirely to luck, as I do think I played a solid game without any of the usual “oh sod that’s blown this one” moments which are the default state for my wargaming career. I do think that Ben had a pretty poor streak, though, from the Barrage flubbing so spectacularly, through the deeply inefficient turn where those Lychguard just wouldn’t die and those meltaguns just wouldn’t hit, to the final kick in the teeth of losing two Terminators. Even his finest moments – landing the Dreadnought right in my army’s face and wiping out the airdropped Warriors in one turn – ultimately came out bad for him, as it meant a turn in which his army turned around and shot things behind them instead of paying attention to the Relic in front of them. That the Lychguard induced a second turn of that was just insult to injury, really. All things being equal, though, I feel he did make three significant mistakes, any two of which might have ended up costing him the game.

In deployment, the Terminators being on a flank meant I could more or less avoid them and focus on things I could actually kill. The Terminators being in the centre would have both supported his Dreadnought strike and allowed him to advance his 2+ saves onto the Relic, secure it, and then bunker up the Tactical Marines around it. It’s not like they didn’t contribute, but they didn’t make themselves a priority target, and if I don’t need to sink torrents of fire into Terminators, I won’t bother.

In movement, I think that it was unnecessary to move the Terminators back toward the airdropped Warriors – that vacillation meant they spent another turn moving back to where they were instead of making a nuisance of themselves. Enfeeble happens before movement, so they could feasibly have done that and then kept driving forward, hooking up with Kaine’s buffing auras, and become a truly frightful proposition for a below-strength Lychguard squad to handle, never mind anything else in my army. To be honest, I don’t feel like enough was made of Kaine; Ben used Dust of a Thousand Worlds to reposition but never actually ended up assaulting anything bar that one drop with the Dreadnought, which ended up out of Kaine’s inspiring range anyway. Personally, I’d attach Kaine to a combat squad and have that unit dart back and forth to place his aura most effectively, catch bullets for him, and chuck out some plasma gun shots to help with high-save infantry and light vehicles.

In list building, upon which we’re in agreement, Ben’s passing up some free heavy weapons, yet he’s paying for the same guns elsewhere in the list, and with no Victory Points for any dead units past the first, the lack of Combat Squads to allow more efficient fire control is inexcusable. His special weapon loadout also leaves him a bit devoid of mid-range or long-range armour-cracking, and the Stormraven has more guns than it can actually fire with any effectiveness. There’ll be a follow-up post to this one at some point in which that matter of list building is discussed in more detail, as I feel it might be educational to go through that process in its own right.

As for the learning objectives; the Relic doesn’t seem that hard now that I’ve played it and feel I have a working grasp on it, although I have no idea what I’d do with the mission in a 900 point Escalation League game – dragging the Relic onto the Ghost Ark and hope for the best seems like it might be worth a shot, but apart from that I’ve no idea. I do feel quite comfortable with the flyers now; this deployment type is tailor-made for them, with a whole long board edge to work with, and lacking any turret guns, I think the standard approach for my Scythes (oh yes, I want another one) will be to fly them on, do the business, and then take them off for a turn to set up a decent vector for next turn. For Ben’s flyers, the temptation is to stay on the board, use a tighter flight pattern, and drop two turns of firepower – but with only one turret mounted gun, I think he’s still better off entering, shooting, and departing to set up a missile vector for the turn afterwards, though I’m willing to give the Stormtalon the benefit of the doubt since it handily turns into a Skimmer after it’s arrived. In terms of Psychic Powers, we’re both quite taken with Biomancy, and I think we’ll both be using it again…

Xiberia, in the Second Year of the Reign of the Tekeshi Conglomerate

With every flash of the dolmen gate, with every movement of her forces through the ether, with every expenditure of energy, Xiberia grew more unstable. Deep in her logic cores, phaeron-Tekeshi knew this, and though the deployment of military capability was necessary, the parameters for failure verged further on the unacceptable with every exertion of the tomb world’s systems. Xiberia’s reigning overlord no longer had the capacity to worry – it had been pruned out of her when she ascended to her current position – but the raw probabilities were not in her favour.

Even now, as the gate flashed, the tomb structure lurched. Stone ground on stone; the ice cage which her planet had become shifted as its latent energies wer harnessed to draw her forces back. Her senses reached out around the world – or did data from around the world flow in? Some outlying chambers had been crushed, some corridors collapsed, some parts of her domain filled with gelatinous irradiated filth. Steam rose through this harness or that, as the constant shifting of material to and from the planet’s core was interfered with for the sake of conquest. Xiberia shuddered – but she endured.

Tekeshi detected her nemesor-self advancing from the gateway, and transmitted to the chamber; for form’s sake as much as anything, the techu displayed a hovering image of her face opposite the gateway, a greenish blur in the vast darkness.

“Hail. Nemesor.”

The smaller, more slender iteration that commanded their armies in the field halted, and bowed demurely, lowering her warscythe in deference. Was that a hint of theatricality in the gesture? A suggestion of whimsy? Perhaps – and yet it was that ingenious quality, that flair, which justified the maintenance of this altered iteration.

“Hail, Phaeron,” she buzzed, in what she doubtless fancied to be a purr. Sometimes, when her selves were sufficiently close for such reflection, Tekeshi wondered if the nemesor had truly grasped that she was no longer flesh and blood.

“Do you. Have it?” Like worry, impatience was no longer a quality possessed by phaeron-Tekeshi; nevertheless, nemesor-Tekeshi had been sent through the gateway for a purpose, and the achievement of that purpose had taken longer than anticipated, and upon that achievement rested the stability and sustainability of Xiberia.

The nemesor took a delicate, mincing step to one side, and another. A catafalque drifted after her, attended by the cadaverous crypteks, hands darting over its contents with what could, perhaps, be imagined as love – for inside the catafalque there rested a construction of cable and crystal, dark as uttermost night even in the deep corpse-light of the tomb.

“We brought back the khepera, as commanded.” Tekeshi’s nemesor-self struck a pose of triumph, then crooked an elbow, rested the forehead of her skull in a palm, tapped long fingers one by one upon the metal in a pastiche of regret. “Koschei has been… inconvenienced.”

“Re-iteration. Acceptable.” Phaeron-Tekeshi paused, savouring the flow of data. “Xiberia. First.”

Nemesor-Tekeshi straightened, capered aside, would almost have clapped her hands had she not been armed. “Then take it. Harness the sun. Regenerate our world.”

The image winked out. The crypteks moved, bearing the khepera further in. Xiberia would rise again.

Let’s say, for instance, that you’re a Chaos player, but more than just a Chaos player; you’re a Chaos player interested in representing the gradual rise of a planet from the drudgesome mundanity of the everyday Imperium to the glorious heights only offered by the very Darkest of Gods. Yours is not the Traitor Legion or even Renegade Chapter army embodied by the conventional Chaos book, though those Legionnaires are involved for sure. However, they’re involved as instigators, as advisors, as demagogues and as living icons to the lesser worshippers of the Great Powers. Your army needs to look like an Imperial army with a few Chaos Space Marine ‘advisors’; primarily, this will be an Imperial Guard army, albeit one with limited elements of the command structure maintained. As I mentioned long ago when blathering on about how counts-as was the best way to do Chaos under a boring, limited Chaos book, the Traitor Guard army is probably going to be light on Commissars, perhaps quite heavy on Priests (of Chaos, yo) and Psykers, and could legitimately squish in a few Ogryns as big spitty mutants if you were that way inclined. The posh stuff like Storm Troopers and Deathstrike Missiles would probably have remained loyal, but that leaves plenty of room for Veterans and Hydras and other, well, more orthodox Guard stuff.  The Chaos allies for such a Traitor Guard force would probably comprise a couple of small Marine squads, or even Cultists (civilian members of the Chaos conspiracy, distinguished from the Guard by their poorer equipment), with maybe some Chosen or Cult Marines in Elites as the Traitor Legion masterminds of the affair. The Allied HQ seems to cry out for a Dark Apostle – the conspiracy’s demagogue and grand architect – and it’d be tempting to take Chaos Spawn and a low-key Heavy Support like a Vindicator or something. Possibly a Defiler, depending on how far gone the conspiracy is.

OR there’s always the player who regularly faces off against Grey Knights – perhaps they’re a garage gamer who mainly plays with one or two close pals – and wants to justify the Grey Knights’ presence against any of their varied armies. Daemon allies are tailor-made for these people. A Greater Daemon, the terrible power possessing a member of their army or being summoned into play by its loyal associates – let’s say they’re Orks, actually, Orks who’ve gone a bit Khorney round the edges as was always a risk in the Rogue Trader days. That means a Bloodthirster, and correspondingly Khornate choices from all the other slots offered by Daemon allies; there’d have to be a great many Daemons to justify deploying more than a squad of Grey Knights, wouldn’t there? The Ork force, meanwhile, probably comprises Stormboyz of Khorne (yep, they’re a thing), and… actually, could probably get away with more or less anything provided it looked right.

OR how about the Tau player whose Ethereal harbours ambitions of bringing major alien races into the fold? Aliens like, say, Eldar Exodites, whose throwbacky ways lead to lots of dragon-riding folk (smaller ones as Jetbikes, larger ones based on the High Elf kits as the various grav-tanks – not sure how a Falcon would work, maybe people riding on a harness or howdah or something) – or Corsairs, maybe, a force without much in the way of heavy equipment but big on Harlequins, Storm Guardians and the like – or even a full Craftworld, ravaged by war, whose few survivors have accepted the Tau’s offer because it’s better than diminishing into ineffective nothingness.

Of these three I think I like the Tau and Eldar idea the best, and not just because it’d give a creative modeller the excuse to produce squads of dragonhawk-riders. I think I like it because it has an implicit narrative, a grabbing question – how did these guys get together? – that can be answered on an aesthetic level without necessarily offering every opponent a copy of your fifty-page justificatory fan-fiction. If you saw a whole bunch of Eldar Exodites whose support weapons had a hint of Tau technology about them, with a few Battlesuits and Fire Warriors and an Ethereal lurking around the edges, that says something quite different to a well-equipped and substantial Tau army lacking Kroot or Vespid but sporting instead small, ragged units of Guardians and Aspect Warriors, maybe with a few well-modelled injuries and a ghost-warrior unit or two.

It’s that sense of immediately, visually, viscerally making sense that’s guided my own approach to Allies. Though I have several favourite Chaoses – the Fallen Angels, the Night Lords, the Word Bearers, the Red Corsairs, and that renegade Chapter the Lightbringers with whom I shall one day see fit to do something even if it’s just build an Epic army for them – the Chaos which makes the most immediate and obvious sense as allies to Necrons is distinctly more ferrous in flavour.

Iron Warriors don’t just share a quick-and-easy colour-scheme with Necrons, which creates an immediate visual tie, although they do and it does help. They’re obsessed with impenetrable fortresses (“a challenge!” they might well say) and ancient, eldritch technologies of personal transformation, things which a Necron Tomb World offers in earnest. It’s not implausible that a force of Iron Warriors might come into possession of some Necron technology – powerful tools represented perhaps by a well-chosen Chaos Artefact or two – and, being curious as to its origins, seek out the manufacturers in search of more.

Now, the average Necron Overlord could and presumably would obliterate members of the lesser races for even trying to appropriate their technology – unless of course there’s something stopping them, something preventing them from deploying their full might and majesty. Something, perhaps, like a Tomb World that’s only just woken up; a Tomb World orbiting a dying sun, short of power; a Tomb World frozen in its long journey through the void and now thawing out, with ice and flood and all that sort of thing doing what they do to machinery and leaving major systems less than entirely operational.

Such a Tomb World might see reason in forming an alliance of convenience with one set of interlopers against the prospect or immediate threat of others, particularly if those interlopers can be fobbed off with damaged or dangerous equipment and especially if said interlopers have some thoughts of their own on the fusion of meat and metal. It’s not inconceivable, I feel, that some Necrons are interested in the possibility of reclaiming their flesh, or at least with experiments and modifications to the process of biotransference. It’s also not inconceivable that members of the Iron Warriors Legion, witnessing the warping effect that Chaos has had on them, might adopt bionic replacements for mutated parts, might think Ahriman was on to something with his desire to rid his Legion of mutation, might in point of fact be interested in the technology of biotransference for its own sake.

Ah, but I’m getting into fan-fiction again, aren’t I? And this is about making the alliance plausible and palatable on an immediate and shallow level, smoothing the ruffled feathers of the suspicious opponent who is ever on the watch and has an armoury of slurs for those who Do 40K Wrong in some way, creating something to which more reasoned colleagues in play might say:

So, let’s talk about unit selections. Its being an Iron Warriors army mean that the more daemonic aspects of the Chaos forces should be less in evidence; Daemon Princes are a bit too powerful to waste their time on being Allies, while Spawn, Possessed and Warp Talons feel a bit too daemon-ish. Cult troops are (to my regret) probably ruled out too; while they could be acceptable in a pure Chaos force, in which our Iron Warriors have collaborated with members of another Legion, they dilute the theme of a contingent allied to some other army. Everything needs to pull together and look, well, Iron-Warrior-ish, and while I’d love to do some Berzerkers or Plague Marines in rusty iron or some siegey Noise Marines in the Legion’s colours, I don’t know how well that might go down. To be on the safe side, let’s leave the Cult Marines out for now.

Marked Troops are probably okay though, and I’m not just saying that because I want them. The Mark of Nurgle, affording a Toughness boost, is easily justifiable; bionic parts! The Marks of Khorne and Slaanesh correspond partially to known combat drugs of the forty-first millennium; Frenzon and Slaught respectively. As for their standards, well, combat drugs need a dispensing apothecary or chirurgeon, possibly with that nifty backpack (though goodness knows what I’d do with the Fallen ones). The Nurgle one is a bit more awkward, so let’s not go there and save the banners for the drug-addled units, eh what? Undivided units packing an Icon of Vengeance could likewise have a backpack ornament, a comms. array or something; it’s no more ridiculous than the spike with the impaled heads on it, which was the norm the last time I was building Chaos Space Marines (2004-2008, if you’re keeping up).

What else? The Iron Warriors are not known for their bevy of Fast Attack forces, although how much of that is owed to pernicious influences from That One Codex Which No Chaos Player Can Get Over I’m not sure. Even Raptors feel like pushing my luck a bit; I think either a Heldrake (Daemon Engines being the only Daemonry I’m willing to countenance in an Iron Warriors army) or Chaos Bikers equipped as wall-breaking meltagun platforms would do the trick. In Elites we have Terminators, Mutilators and Chosen making their appearances; Chosen are especially appealing as I’m of the opinion that Traitor Legionnaires should all be elite hard cases, and I’m strongly considering a build in which all the actual Iron Warriors are from outside a Troops section filled with the Cultist slaves who dig trenches and charge enemy gun-lines to test their fields of fire. In Heavy Support, I would suggest that pretty much anything goes; Forgefiends and Maulerfiends fit the army well but are a bit big for Allies, and so I’d be more likely to go for the old standby of the Obliterators or possibly a Predator or Vindicator. For HQ, of course, it pretty much has to be the Warpsmith, doesn’t it? Well, maybe not; a powerful central figure is certainly called for, but given the pursuit of biotransference I’m wondering if I couldn’t shift a Biomancy-focused Sorcerer or even a Dark Apostle?

As I’ve said a few times now, I don’t tend to take Stelek’s suggestions wholly on trust for actual gameplay, not least because he plays for big e-cred stakes while I play for peanuts and bellybutton fluff. That said, the way he thinks about army lists and the advice he gives on what’s needed at different points levels can be good for blowing away the cobwebs and thinking about things differently, like it was for my Cryx way back when. It’s certainly helpful for collection planning, as you start to ask yourself “right, so how many dudes who can shrug off autocannons and heavy bolters do I have? how many cheap dudes who I don’t really care about? how much mobile cover can I throw out? how far can I get up the board in one turn?” I also think I agree with his assertion that Allies are for 1750 points and up, unless you have a very cheap, very focused Allied contingent that’s just there to plug a hole in your army’s tactical capabilities and cost not lots.

As for what actual stuff to take in those slots, Mr. Stelek’s general approach would seem to be ‘stuff you couldn’t normally get, in sufficient quantities to force choices‘. The list he’s showcasing uses its Allies to provide cheap and flexible long ranged firepower, with the Tau capacity to point, click and delete a couple of vehicles per turn supplementing the antipersonnel firepower and melee threats of the Chaos force. Like the man says, the list in itself probably isn’t viable, but the idea is that you look for something that your Allies do better and then take enough stuff to do that well. That’s why I look at the Necrons and think “cheap blobby Troops that can sit at the back and not waste perfectly good gauss shots”, “guns with decent ranges”, “stuff with decent Initiative and Attacks scores” and “psychic powers”.Maybe Skyfire too, since Night Scythes are indeed the bomb but I don’t own any yet and £70 for two is a bit steep for the pocket at present.

Perhaps some inexpensive proxies…

Another approach that I’m quite interested in is the idea of the strike package, as mooted by Tallarn over at still practicing; the Allied contingent as a self-contained force that’s tough, mobile, dangerous and adaptable to whatever target you need dealt with. I say ‘mobile’ as opposed to ‘fast’ because it needs to be able to bypass enemy blob squads, awkward terrain and so on and so forth – getting to where you need to be isn’t just about speed, it’s about actually being able to reliably project force onto the target regardless of what defences have been erected. This is totally how I’d use Grey Knights if I were the sort of person who used Grey Knights; an airborne strike force with a psychic character, a unit that can beat face in melee and project something worthwhile at range, probably a Dreadnought of some sort, all strapped into a Stormraven. Fly in, engage and destroy key target, then attack targets of opportunity. Very thematic, and very effective. I’m not quite sure how I could do this with Chaos allies, since mobility really doesn’t seem to be the Chaos Marines’ thing. Ironically, it would work very well the other way around, with a couple of Night Scythes allied into anything that can have them like everyone and their dog seems to be going for. Perhaps it might end up being the role of the primary Necron detachment, with the Chaos allies (who, in this scenario, would most likely end up costing more than the primary detachment) being relegated to the groundwork?

This idea of an Allied contingent which outweighs the primary detachment (either in points or numbers) essentially exaggerates the previous two approaches. I imagine it to be worth a go if the primary detachment was mostly comprised of poor stuff, but had something in its non-Troops slots which had great appeal when fielded in multiples. These might be pieces which don’t come in convenient “1-3 separate models as one choice” list slots, and/or which become redundant and awkward if fielded as one big squad (like how I’d always choose two separate Obliterators over one unit of two, just because that means they can engage two separate targets if that becomes necessary). It might also be worth doing if there’s some rule in the primary army that only kicks in if they are the primary army – a warlord trait, FoC swap or army-wide special rule that’s too good to miss out on but involves you attaching yourself to a poor choice of primary detachment. In this scenario your ‘primary’ army is top-heavy; two minimalist Troops  and a whole lot of niche and specialist stuff, the stuff which makes you want to keep playing them even though you know the army as a whole is a bit crap. Meanwhile, you use your Allies to provide the bread and butter of a sixth edition list – the force-multiplier HQs, resilient scoring Troops, flyers and things that kill fliers &c. &c.

The scoring Troops choices of a modern, successful Eldar army.

Obviously this sort of thing is most useful to people whose Allies are of an Imperial persuasion, Imperial books being to date the only ones where two Troops slots yield between four and twelve scoring units with dedicated transport options for each one. For me, on the determinedly Xenochaotic axis of the forty-first millennium, there’s less of an immediate lure. However, if I had taken to heart the recent pissing and moaning about how Chaos Space Marines have the Worst Troops Choices Ever because Dark Angels still have ‘And They Shall Know No Fear’ and combat squads, and never mind that they have done since combat squads were actually a way of mitigating quite serious disadvantages, back in second edition, most Xenos armies were better at what we now call Multiple Small Unit builds and the Codex Astartes was actually an inflexible and aggravating document which demonstrated the faults of the Imperium’s steadfast adherence to strategic dogma… sorry, I’m rambling. The point is that since third edition loyalist Marines have had two things which Chaos haven’t and we’ve put up with it since 1998, so we might as well shut up about it now. No, that’s not the point!

The point is that if I thought Chaos Troops were irredeemable rubbish I might see fit to field a list which had, say, two units of Khorne Berzerkers, a Chaos Lord to make them Troops, and Huron Blackheart to guarantee them some Infiltration capacity and get them closer to the enemy objectives it was their desire to take by force. Look, this is the strategic post, all right? That means rules first background second. We’ll do the other way around next time. Anyway, I might then field some of the desirable stuff from the Chaos book (three solo Obliterators from Heavy Support and, err, for the sake of argument let’s say three solo Mutilators in case I have some cunning plan like having a fast Chaos HQ with the Dimensional Key try to kill something on turn one or two and help the buggers Deep Strike in). Anyway, that’s eight single models and two decent-sized Troop blobs; my Necron Allies would then come in packing two big Troops units in Night Scythes, a third fast HQ option, and maybe Tomb Blades or Destroyers for a third mobile firepower squad. We’d be talking forty-plus Necrons Allied to maybe just over half that number of Chaos Marines. It’s not as apt a demonstration of the principle as eight Battlesuits, twelve Fire Warriors and a hundred Guardsmen would be, but I hope it shows how the numerically smaller ‘primary’ detachment is making use of the extended Force Organisation chart while the ‘boys before toys’ approach is taken with the Allies, who’ll do the Mission heavy lifting.

They’re Chaos Androids at heart anyway.

So, bottom lining it all; what Chaos stuff would I be adding to my collection if I took the purely strategic approach?

If I were looking to supplement tactical capabilities by adding unit types which are flat-out absent from my collection, I’d be after a Sorcerer in HQ (no psychic powers at present), and Cultists in Troops (there’s nothing quite so cheap and forgettable and unlikely to achieve anything but score in the Necron book). The other slots would be given over to scary melee stuff and long ranged shooty stuff. In Fast Attack, Warp Talons with the Mark of Slaanesh seem expensive but plausible, or Raptors with the Mark of Khorne if I wanted something a bit cheaper and a bit more dual-purpose with the two special weapons. Or there’s always a Heldrake. In Elites I’d probably be looking at Khorne Berzerkers or maybe Chosen; again, it’s the choice between melee specialism or broader special weapon options – plus Chosen could shoot things on the way in, and they have that nifty quirk of being able to take good melee weapons on someone who isn’t obliged to challenge things that can rip him to shreds, so their lightning claws can rip squads apart instead. In Heavy Support, the legitimate choices are Havocs (I’m torn between flakk missiles because I currently lack any Skyfire or Flyers whatsoever, and lascannons/plasma guns because that’s what I could build with the bitz packs), Obliterators (although I’m not the world’s biggest fan of three-man units, they’d certainly add a variety of firepower), or either of the Fiend variants (my gut instinct is saying ‘Maulerfiend’ but I can’t quite say no to two souped-up autocannons and a plasma blasting belch). It would also be tempting to take a defence line with that Skyfire autocannon – some Cultists could lurk in that and fire the autocannon instead of messing around with their own puny guns.

If I were looking for a strike force, I’d probably be inverting the armies’ roles since the Necrons have access to a greater range of mobility tricks. My Chaos ‘primary detachment’ would probably have a Sorcerer again, a Dark Apostle and two big Cultist blobs – one to be Fearless and Hateful thanks to the Apostle, one to sit back and camp objectives. Heavy Support would be the solo Obliterators of yore, and I’d stick small melee squads in the other slots if I could afford them. That leaves the Necrons to supply mobility; bit awkward since I own no Scythes, but there’s a gimmick with the Skyshield Defence Pad, a Deep Striking Monolith and some Necrons left in Reserve that I want to try out at some stage. You’ll notice that both these plans involve Fortifications. They’re another part of sixth edition with which I have yet to come to grips, and another thing that benefits from my choice of Chaos Allies. The reason they benefit, however, is tied up with narrative and aesthetics and things which are not strictly stratological, so they’ll have to be the province of a later post.

He hasn’t played any sixth edition 40K yet, having been distracted by Bretonnians, and since I was at his end of the country for the New Year festivities I thought it might be high time to rectify the situation. It was going to be a spot of WFB, but play was rained off due to my lack of time or, to be honest, enthusiasm for repainting and restoring a Vampire Counts army I’m not even sure I want to play games with.

We settled on 1200 points – this would give us a game which even we could finish in a few hours, despite the inevitable banter, confusion, rule-checking and general shenanigans. This would also give us a game in which every model was fully painted, and you can’t say fairer than that of a Sunday afternoon. It helps, of course, that we were throwing down in the cavernous and well-equipped gaming paradise of The Giant’s Lair in Plymouth, a superlative venue with a decent shop, quality boards, lots of space and a neat line in fried foodstuffs courtesy of host and legend Swabs. Photographic services were provided by Hark’s shiny new phone, hence the marked improvement in the image quality and the capacity of the photographer to surprise Shiny and actually get him in shot for once.

I didn’t think this was cool when White Dwarf did it. I don’t think it’s cool when we do it. Nevertheless, it is done.

Von’s Crons

HQ – Tekeshi the Decapitator – Destroyer Lord – sempiternal weave, resurrection orb, tachyon arrow

Troops – 10 Necron Warriors

Troops – 10 Necron Warriors

Troops – 10 Necron Warriors

Elites – 5 Flayed Ones

Fast Attack – 5 Necron Destroyers

Fast Attack – 3 Canoptek Wraiths – particle casters

Fast Attack – 5 Canoptek Scarab Swarms

Heavy Support – Canoptek Spyder – twin-linked particle beamer

Heavy Support – Canoptek Spyder – twin-linked particle beamer

In a game of this size I find it difficult to justify spending the usual 400+ points on an Overlord and Royal Court, and so Tekeshi’s fly-around-hitting-things body comes out to play. The upgrades on the Destroyer chassis were mostly there for the sake of trying things out, and sneaking at least one decent-Strength shot into the list somewhere; the same logic applies to giving all my Wraiths and Spyders the gun upgrades to weaken my dependence on Gauss shots and free the infantry up for destroying other infantry. There’s a lot of melee chaff in there – too much if I’m honest, and the Flayed Ones were only there because they were painted and I didn’t have anything else on me to fill the points – but I’ve tried to make it chaff that does something interesting.

Shiny’s Tau

HQ – Shas’el Aloh’ka – missile pod, plasma rifle, 4+ Invulnerable Save

Bodyguard – 2 Crisis suits with missile pods and plasma rifles, Drone with markerlight

Troops – 6 Fire Warriors – pulse carbines

Devilfish – stabilising fires-like-a- Fast-vehicle thingie

Troops – 6 Fire Warriors – pulse rifles, markerlight

Troops – 10 Kroot Warriors and 10 Kroot Hounds

Elites – 3 Stealth Suits

Fast Attack – 5 Gun Drones

Fast Attack – Piranha with fusion blaster

Fast Attack – Piranha with fusion blaster

Heavy Support – Hammerhead – railgun, stabilising fires-like-a-Fast-vehicle thingie

Herr Doktor has in many respects resurrected his old Eldar tactics with this one – much of the army moves around at a credible 12” per turn, zapping away from a safe distance, and where possible things duck back out of threat range in a fashion that second-edition old hands like what we are insist on calling ‘pop-up attacks’. I counselled that he consider Kroot as bubblewrap for a firebase, but his general use for them seems to be a little more aggressive than that – I think it’s partly because he hasn’t been able to source any Broadside suits to constitute a static firebase, and he’s reluctant to not move his vehicles around.

Mission – Purge the Alien

Deployment – Vanguard Strike

Warlords – Tekeshi the Decapitator (Legendary Fighter… again); Shas’el Aloh’ka (Conqueror of Cities)

Preamble – Shiny picked the deployment zone that had the tower in it, which left me with a distinct lack of hard cover on my side of the board. This, in turn, encouraged me to let him be the First Player – once I’d seen where his scary guns were, it shouldn’t be too hard to face them down with stuff that either had a save against them or was capable of matching their firepower, or both in the case of the Destroyers.

Shiny kept a lot of stuff off the board – the Kroot outflanked, the Stealth Team infiltrated, and the Drones deep struck – but everything I was actually worried about went down. After considering my side of the board, I decided to leave the majority of my Troops in reserve; their Scoring duties wouldn’t be required for this mission and if I set them up at the start they’d probably be too far back to achieve anything and just get blown away by the longer-ranged Tau guns without contributing squit. If they were in reserve, they’d have to endure fewer turns of being shot at, and maybe the action would come sufficiently close to my board edge for them to actually do something when they turned up. I always leave the Flayed Ones in reserve too – again, the idea was to target something that would benefit from their tender ministrations rather than set them up and walk forward trying not to get killed. The Destroyers and Wraiths represented my best shot at dealing with that Hammerhead and Command Squad, so they were set up to plough forward and do just that, while the Scarabs and Spyders were placed fairly centrally so they could either close the trap or chase any Tau that tried anything clever.

Vimto is a vitally important component in the reanimation process. True science fact.

Good job most of the squashier Necrons were off the board, too, as I failed to Seize the Initiative…

Round One – Tau 0, Necrons 0

Tau

Without Jet Packs, this army will cease to function.

Fortunately, Jet Infantry are actually better than Herr Doktor remembered them being, and consequently the Tau were able to fan out in quite a dramatic fashion, with the Piranhas moving up to block me in and the Devilish drifting out to join up with the Stealth teams and enfilade me. I was somewhat confused at the choice of moving both Devilfish and Hammerhead the full 12”, and looked up the effect this would have upon their accuracy, and when I’d finished, Herr Doktor pointed out that it didn’t matter – they counted as Fast for shooting purposes anyway.

Not that it mattered much; the Stealth team killed a couple of Warriors, the Hammerhead missed a clear shot at a Canoptek Spyder, and the Command team managed to take down a Destroyer with their missile pods. This was not the spectacular punishment I’d been expecting from the prophets of the Greater Good.

Necrons

Let’s see if I can poop out any Scarabs.

I did, although it cost me a Wound in the doing, and I began to move the Necrons forward with the mandatory “wwwooooooom” noises. The Warriors who’d been shot at last turn couldn’t see their assailants to return the favour – stupid Stealth suits and their stupid non-universal special rules – and the Wraiths only managed to strip a Hull Point and a fusion blaster off the nearest Piranha. Tekeshi lined up her tachyon arrow on the Hammerhead and, of course, rolled a 1 to hit… and it’s just occurred to me that she has Preferred Enemy, so I should have re-rolled that. Probably would have missed anyway, but still. It might have stopped Shiny drawing little fireworks around the 1 in his notes for this report, anyway.

Anyway, the Wraiths charged the Piranha and did what they do best to it and when the smoke cleared I was two Victory Points up – one for First Blood, and one for eliminating the one-model squadron.

Aloha, Aloh’ka!

Round Two – Tau 0, Necrons 2

Tau

“THAT is where the Kroot will go!”

Shiny’s Kroot put in an appearance, Outflanking from the table edge nearest the Wraiths and clacking their beaks with ominous glee. I did point out that they wouldn’t be charging, but apparently he had no intention of charging with them. The Command team joined them, lining up for shots on the Wraiths, while the Hammerhead advanced more cautiously and the Devilfish dropped off its cargo before flying away from the Scarabs a bit. Meanwhile, the surviving Piranha flew into a very narrow gap between a big rock and the Spyder – I wasn’t entirely sure why until the shooting phase, when it transpired that Shiny thought the Spyder was a vehicle.

Needless to say, it didn’t die from the single wound the Piranha managed, although several Scarabs did; the Fire Warriors and Devilfish scraped several wounds off them. Then there was the matter of the Hammerhead…

I’ve never used the large pie. Let’s use the large pie.

We had a quick chat about suitable targets for the Hammerhead, in the absence of any vehicles in my army or line of sight to the Scarabs, and concluded that a gun which gibs Necron Warriors on twos might be worth firing at Necron Warriors. In retrospect this may be considered slightly dubious advice, as it’s only in the report-writing calm that I’ve remembered how much Scarabs dislike blast weapons… mind you, it did earn Shiny a Victory Point as the Hammerhead did indeed gib the five Warriors it hit, while the Stealth suits capped the last two.

“Let’s have the HMS Murderfuck Buffet fire now.”

The Wraiths, leering ominously, shrugged off everything the Kroot had to throw at them but did manage to take three wounds from the hail of dakka that the Command Team threw their way before flying off like the cowards they are. The Stealth Suits, lacking anything better to do now that there were no Warriors to shoot, ducked behind some nearby trees and hoped the Spyder wouldn’t notice them.

Necrons

Both of my Warrior units turned up, waddling onto the bottom right corner and cracking their knuckles at the prospect of Kroot Fried Material in their immediate future. I ummed and ahhed a bit about what to do with the Destroyers this turn – whether it was worth peeling Tekeshi off and going for the Hammerhead, or keeping her in the Destroyer squad so she was safely insulated until it was time to go after Aloh’ka. In the end I decided that sending her out on her own would be tantamount to suicide while the Hammerhead and plasma rifles were still a factor, and had the Destroyers shoot up Aloh’ka’s Command team instead, killing one and wounding another. The Wraiths pulled the last wound off that one with their happy little particle guns, and the two Warrior squads killed seventeen Kroot – the last three were evidently out of range, and didn’t care much that their comrades in arms had been turned into unpleasant, garish strings of reformed meat product.

“I have, in fact, killed them so effectively that I cannot actually kill them all.
There’s a thing.”

Why not multi-charge? It’s sixth edition, after all!

One Spyder charged and splatted the Stealth team – how I love my Monstrous Creatures and their capacity to Move Through Cover – while the other charged and immobilised the Piranha. The Scarabs did less well, whiffing on both the Devilfish and all but one of the Fire Warriors, and actually losing the combat by two! At least they outclassed the surviving Wraith, which dismally failed to reach Aloh’ka and resigned itself to hot plasma death.

Round Three – Tau 1, Necrons 3

Tau

Shiny’s Gun Drones turned up and deep struck with clinical accuracy, landing between a Necron Warrior squad and the downed Piranha, while the Devilish, rejoicing in its lucky escape, dodged away from the Scarabs… but toward the Tomb Spyder, which I thought was rather odd. Shiny also neatly overlapped his Kroot and Hammerhead, with the one closing the distance on some Necron Warriors – I really don’t know why, unless he was wanting to fire burst cannons at them, since the tank’s main gun totally outranged them and could have blown whole squads off the board from the other side of the table with equal ease – and the other moving up to protect its squashy back armour from the marauding Wraith. Needless to say, Aloh’ka back-pedalled away from the Wraith and Destroyers, no doubt filling his waste chute in nervous terror.

Right, now, before you start shooting… look for the Victory Points!

The Piranha, being a vehicle, couldn’t be locked in combat even while immobilised; the Spyder, being in base contact with a vehicle, couldn’t be locked in combat and therefore could be shot at, even by the immobilised vehicle in base contact with it. WHOOSH went the fusion blaster and BANG went a Sypder and DING went Shiny’s second Victory Point. The Drones and Hammerhead concentrated all available fire on one Warrior squad and downed seven, although two passed their Reanimation Protocol rolls. The Devilfish, lacking the range to join in (I might have flown it over the Scarabs and into the middle of the board to go Warrior-hunting, now that I think about it) went for the remaining Spyder and took a wound off it.

Despite receiving Markerlight assistance, Aloh’ka couldn’t quite manage to finish off the Wraith – in fact he missed with all but one shot, and the Wraith shrugged that one off, as it did the assembled efforts of the Fire Warriors. The Kroot declined to open fire, going for the charge and drawing a combat instead while Aloh’ka snuck off around the back of the tower and the Drones just didn’t move very far.

Necrons

Moving the Hammerhead may have scored a few kills for Shiny, but it left the unfortunate tank within Rapid Fire range of ten Necron Warriors, which stripped its Hull Points off in a flurry of sixes; the five survivors from the other squad took down three Gun Drones. My Spyder did an ineffective job of shooting up the Devilfish, and the Destroyers gave chase to Aloh’ka as best they could, dealing a wound and taking out his Marker Drone.

During the Insult Phase, the Spyder ripped two Hull Points out of the Devilfish and Shook the crew to boot, the Wraith messily eviscerated the last two Kroot, and Tekeshi decided that bringing her warscythe to the enemy’s face was not actually what she wanted to do and what she actually wanted to do was just hover there and enjoy the sound-and-light show from her fellow Destroyers. It’s not her most effective incarnation, that’s for sure…

Round Four – Necrons 5, Tau 2

Tau

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. I also hate Wraiths, and wish them nothing but pain. Your Destroyers can have their stupid ‘lives’ and their stupid ‘victory’ and their stupid ‘flying around unmolested while the Tau flee in their path’. I want that Wraith dead!

Although neither the Fire Warriors nor the Drones could put a dent in it, Aloh’ka’s plasma rifle finally did what it had been built to do, and evaporated the offending Wraith. The rest of the Tau turn was uneventful, with the Fire Warriors yet again outmatching the Scarabs and the Scarabs yet again failing to be bothered by this, but I don’t think Shiny cared all that much.

Go back to your pyramid-shaped broom cupboard and languish there in misery!
– attributed to Shas’el Aloh’ka, this Tau insult has probably lost something in the translation.

Necrons

My Flayed Ones have arrived!

Your Flayed Ones are irrelevant.

When pressed, Shiny explained this hurtful remark by explaining that I’d already won by a comfortable margin – I did point out to him that Tekeshi was worth two Victory Points if he could get to her, and that there was another up for grabs from Linebreaker as well. Mathematically, he could totally still get this.

Not, admittedly, after the half-strength Warrior squad had finished off the second Piranha, the full-strength Warrior squad had shot up the last three Drones, and the Destroyers had killed all but one Fire Warrior with shooting, but it’s the thought that counts. I’d also decided to be sporting (and lunge greedily for three Victory Points) by splitting Tekeshi off from the Destroyers so she could charge and challenge Aloh’ka, but her chassis engines were obviously having a spot of bother, and she stalled in mid-air yet again. Incidentally, the word FAIL is written in large, shaky capitals in Shiny’s notes. He was obviously bitter about the Tomb Spyder immobilising and then destroying his Devilfish.

Round 5 – Tau 3, Necrons 7

Tau

Aloh’ka was not accustomed to feeling alone. He was accustomed to being accompanied by his brothers of the Fire Caste, accustomed to the comforting presence of the Ethereals, and accustomed above all to hearing more than two other voices through his in-line communicator. The absence of these things did not please him, and did not appear to serve the Greater Good.

Still! Team Leader Kai’vess was still alive, and that was something. The hovering necron brandishing the horrible, heavy blade seemed to be having some mobility issues, and that was something else. Aloh’ka’s rifle was charged and ready, and that was most definitely something.

“Kai’vess! Mark target!”

A bright spot of light descended from the tower roof, pinpointing the necron leader, and Aloh’ka let his suit lock onto that brilliant point and focus its lenses and fire everything it had. Missiles corkscrewed through the air and cracked harmlessly off the thing’s grimy carcass, but the rifle, ah, the rifle – the rifle spat pure white light, and the necron hissed and shrieked and fumed as steam rose and components evaporated.

At least Aloh’ka would have sold his life dearly – or so he thought, until the steam parted, and the necron drifted forward. Its hull was scored, its right arm hung sparking at its side, but it was still very much operational, and its golden mask turned to face him in silent, mocking triumph.

Also, the Scarabs finally killed that ruddy Fire Warrior.

Necrons

The Destroyers shot down the last Fire Warrior, which wasn’t terribly interesting even if it did mean another Victory Point. All eyes, ultimately, were on the assault phase…

Hark’s allegedly ‘smart’ phone is not very good at close-ups.

Aloh’ka fired his jets again, determined to keep some distance, to live as long as possible in the face of this indefatigable terror – but as he lurched backward, his suit’s alarms flared and groaned. The ground was moving beneath him! Even as the jets flared and roared to compensate, he heard something scrape across the suit’s armoured legs, saw the flash of blue that indicated superficial damage.

They were beneath him. Little more than a mass of knives and skins still wet with cobalt blood. They were beneath him. He couldn’t see how many, but it didn’t matter. Aloh’ka levelled his rifle down as his suit bobbed him upwards, and despite his conditioning a snarl of rage escaped him.

“For the Greater Good!” he cried – and then the suit’s alarms flashed another warning and he raised his arm just in time to deflect the sweeping scythe of the necron leader, ascending with a whine of tortured systems to meet him in the air.

His communicator stuttered and crackled, and a voice spoke to Aloh’ka as he desperately kicked sideways to avoid the blast of his exploding missile pod.

“Y-y-your evil is-is-is my good,” it purred. It was a cold, alien and self-satisfied voice, a voice that brought with it an eldritch green glare from his suit’s systems. Strange characters danced across Aloh’ka’s visual field, flickering back and forth into the blues and oranges of Tau’va as his onboard software fought back against the intrusion. He brought up his rifle and fired point-blank – it would have been a killing shot had the necron not jerked its chassis and knocked him off-balance with the force of whatever field kept it aloft. The voice intruded on his consciousness again, and again his vision turned green, and this time it took all his strength to move the suit’s arms himself, and catch the necron’s weapon by the hilt. “Y-y-your only greater purpose is ex-tinction, your only hope oblivion,” and on that word its voice fell deeper than the deepest darkest oceans of the home-world, and then rose again as if offering an afterthought, with the cold slickness of spilled oil. “Oblivion… or servitude.”

“I serve the vision of my leaders, and the Greater Good!” Aloh’ka howled, swinging his rifle around in anger. Static filled his ears, and the scythe swung up to shear the barrel from his weapon, coating his visual field in blissful white heat.

“You think y-y-you have a choice,” the voice hissed. “How… endearing.”

Round Six – Necrons 9, Tau 3

Fortunately, unlike many of my games, the Random Game Length didn’t kick in, and the challenge went on long enough to be resolved. In both turns of fighting Aloh’ka managed to put a wound on Tekeshi and on both occasions it was only the sempiternal weave that saved her, but at the end of Tau turn six she managed to sneak a wound past the Shas’el’s Invulnerable save and that was that. Slay the Warlord, Legendary Fighter, Linebreaker and a Victory Point just for killing him.

Final Score – Necrons 13, Tau 3

Victory to the Necrons – or, as Shiny put it:

Congratulations, you’ve tabled me.

Naturally, the winner buys the cheeseburgers. It’s only fair.

Post Mortem

It’s quite difficult for me to analyse this one, since virtually everything I tried to do worked, and the things that didn’t work mostly made the Narrative more worthy of Forging. You can’t beat a climactic duel to the death between commanders, especially not when there’s a very real chance of the alleged victor actually going down and awarding a moral victory to the other chap.

I do think that holding the two Warrior squads in reserve was the right thing to do, certainly with this deployment type. “If you don’t know where to put it, put it in reserve” seems to be a decent approach, certainly better than putting things on the board and then shuffling them around in unwise fashions, blocking your own shots and getting your troops killed to no particular end. I also feel that Shiny made some rather unwise choices – closing in with the Hammerhead seemed spectacularly dim given that its main gun outranged everything in my army several times over, and that Devilfish could have spent its last turns in midfield, potentially finishing off another Warrior squad instead of running toward Canoptek Spyders that it didn’’t really have the capacity to take down.

For his part, the good Doktor has been asking about list changes – what does his Tau army need? I was tempted – irresistibly so – to suggest ‘allies’, or rather a tougher primary detachment into which he can ally his Devilfish and Hammerhead and Crisis suits and Piranhas. Those Tau bits can address the targets to which their firepower is suited, and the ‘primary’ detachment, on which he’d probably be spending fewer actual points, can do the holding of ground and the torrenting of fire and the being resilient. The problem is he has this fixed aversion to Space Marines, but it’s that magical 3+ save that makes their Troops different from and arguably superior to his Troops. Maybe Guard would be worth a go – it’s less that they’re resilient and more that their sheer numbers and cheapness allow them to hold ground and soak up shots. It’s not like they couldn’t be justified as Gue’la auxiliaries or something.

What do you think, folks?