Thursday 14 November 2013

Battle Report - Necrons v Grey Knights

Today my mate Ben came over for a quick 750 point game of 40k. He was bringing his Grey Knights, and was trying out the list he's going to use in a doubles game tomorrow. Since I'm currently trying to finish all the painting on my Necron army I thought I'd give them a go.

We set up a 4'x4' board in the Warrior Lodge and rolled the Crusade mission and the Vanguard Strike deployment type. After the five objectives were placed we rolled off and I got to deploy first.

The Armies
My Necrons were led by an Overlord with warscythe and resurrection orb. He was put in with a large squad of 20 Warriors. My other troops choice was a nine man unit of Immortals with Gauss Blasters.
The fun stuff was one Canoptek Spyder with five Scarab bases, and 2 wraiths, one with whip coils.

Ben took a Librarian, two 5 man Strike Squads, each armed with 2 force Halberds and a Psycannon. A unit of 5 terminators all armed with halberds and psybolt ammo. To round it off the was a Dreadknight carrying a Nemesis Force Sword.

Turn One
Starting off, my Spyder rolled well and out popped another Scarab base and they moved over the difficult terrain towards one of the objectives to contest it if needs be. The Immortals also advanced and fired at one of the Strike Squads, taking one of them out in the process.
The Strike Squad then returned fire and knocked one of mine down in return. The other Strike Squad took aim at the Wraiths but they passed all their saves which was a relief. Next it was the turn of the Terminators to fire at the Immortals, they had better luck and two more fell to the floor. They took their morale check and passed, but only a single Necron was reanimated.

Turn Two
Like clockwork the Spyder had another Canoptek baby, and carried on advancing. The Wraiths leapt forward, skirting around the board to try and meet a squad of marines. The Warriors who were camping on an objective opened fire at the terminators, but the Librarian was at the front of the unit and passed all of his saves. The Immortals, wanting revenge shot at the Strike Squad again, and once again blew one up. They failed their morale check and were about an inch from leaving the board completely.
The Strike Squad rallies and all units move forward towards me. The Dreadknight moves frighteningly fast towards the Immortals while the Terminators finally take out one of the Wraiths. One Strike Squad fails to destroy any more Immortals and the other one starts running around the bastion to redeploy and to move away from the remaining whip coil Wraith. The Dreadknight charges into the Immortals, none of their overwatch shots find their mark. He takes out five of them, they fail to wound him back so fail their morale check and get caught in a sweeping advance, bummer!

Turn Three
22 shots from the Warriors fail to wound the Dreadknight and this is the beginning of the end. The Wraith chases the Strike Squad but can't catch them up in time. The Spyder made another Scarab then they scuttled off to engage the Terminators in close combat. No overwatch wounds were dealt, but they activated force weapons and hammerhanded the whole unit to death, that didn't go to plan!
The Librarian and his unit moved up onto an objective, and he attempts to smite the Spyder, but his high toughness saves him. The Strike Squad stop moving long enough to blast the final Wraith off the table, and the Dreadknight crashes into the Warriors and the Overlord. He takes 4 down straight away, and I was building up for three strikes with the warscythe, except I rolled three 1's! The Warriors did manage to take one wound off the Knight before he once again swept the whole squad off the board in it's advance.

Thoughts and shit
So, it sounds like a total wipeout, and it was! But it was a hell of a lot of fun to play, short but sweet (short for me, sweet for Ben) and I learnt quite a bit from it. Things like I should've taken Tesla on the Immortals instead of the Gauss. The other major mistake I made was shooting the Warriors at the Dreadknight and using the Scarabs to assault the Terminators. I should've done that the other way round really, things might've lasted a bit longer.

Cheers for reading, I know it's not the usual narrative battle rep but thought I'd get it written up promptly as it was a great game. Let me know if you've got any more thoughts on where I went so very wrong!

Tuesday 12 November 2013

Farsight Enclave Supplement for the Tau Empire Codex

Following hot on the heels of the Iyanden review I took a look at the far more recent Farsight supplement. I'd been waiting for this book for what felt like months, I'm still not prepared to splash out on a digital book when a physical copy could be in my librarium instead!

Just like the Eldar one it's a great read, a lot of fun, and adds a nice twist to the Tau army. The use of XV8 Crisis suits as troops is something us Tau players have been wanting for ages, and it's finally here. Just a shame Farsight doesn't have access the the Puretide Engram Neurochip without allies!

So here's the video, let me know if you've had any experience playing an Enclave list, I'm going to be putting up a couple of test lists shortly. Cheers!


ps sorry if the thumbnail looks like i'm flipping you the bird, i'm not!

Monday 11 November 2013

Iyanden Supplement for the Eldar 5th ed codex

I've had this supplement floating around for a while now, and occasionally dip into it for a quick read, but hadn't really read it, so thought I'd better get on the case and put together a brief overview of it.

It's a great book, and does exactly what it says on the tin, it supplements the main codex with a huge amount of great background and a load of new missions to play.

Let me know what you think of the supplements if you've picked one up, either the digital or hardback ones, cheers!