[After Action Report] Unreliable Narration | Tenth Edition | Incursion | Only War | Necrons vs. Blood Angels

2024 begins in much the same way as 2023: new scenery, new rules, and Roath's Blood Angels turning up to give them a workout. Events were somewhat delayed by someone not realising there was a new 40K app, or that new rules meant new Battlescribe downloads, and consequently showing up with a ninth edition army list...

 

 

He was somewhat mollified by the discovery that points cuts meant he could slide his new Impulsor into the army, though, so after a crash course in Astartes list building to me, we landed at the following:

 

Detachment: Sons of Sanguinius

Captain (sword, shield, pistol) with Visage of Death
Chaplain (jump pack, plasma pistol) with Icon of the Angel
Bladeguard Ancient with Artisan of War (Warlord)

5 Assault Intercessors [Captain goes here]
5 Assault Intercessors

3 Bladeguard Veterans [Ancient goes here]
5 Death Company with jump packs [Chaplain goes here]
(4 have plasma pistols and power weapons, 1 has a thunder hammer)

5 Incursors in an Impulsor (heavy stubber, storm bolters, missile pod)
3 Aggressors (boltstorm gauntlets)
3 Eliminators (melta rifles)

Detachment: Hypercrypt Legion

Overlord (voidscythe, resurrection orb) with Arisen Tyrant (Warlord)
Royal Warden

10 Immortals (gauss blasters)
20 Warriors (gauss flayers)

3 Tomb Blades (tesla carbines, shadowlooms)
5 Flayed Ones
6 Skorpekh Destroyers (2 Plasmacytes)
3 Canoptek Scarab Swarms
Triarch Stalker (gauss cannon array)

 

Not my best establishing shot, I know.

 

You'll observe, I hope, the approximation of a competitive standard layout here. The Necron cityscape has several advantages - following the recommended "nobody's screwed at the start" placements from da roolz, providing sufficient cover for quite a large vehicle, and butting ruined corners together to make complete buildings. Roath and I were delighted when we realised the big central building fit together in the same way. We're talking a brief moment of magic, like on Christmas morning.

"Brief moment of magic" is about how I'd describe the actual games as well. Because we're both at the working-this-out stage, we're quite prone to stuffing our deployments and early moves, thus creating a foregone conclusion of an engagement. We ended up calling the game a done deal on turn two, then re-racking and playing again and... calling the game a deal on turn two.

 

Y'see, wot 'appened woz, in the first game some aggressive early moves by the Blood Angels and some poor target priority for the Necrons left me boxed in by the Impulsor and Death Company. Having introduced Roath to the concept of "Tank Shock," I was left taking my Overlord and Immortals off and with no space to bring my enormous Skorpekh brick on or have it contributing until turn three... by which point I'd be too far behind on points and models to turn the tide. 1-0 to the Bangels. Take two!

Showing here: the exact moment when I didn't use my Resurrection Orb
because, and I hate to say this, "it seems like a waste of a six if I only get three back."

 

Going into the second round we both made a change to our lists. I broke the Skorpekh brick in half so there'd actually be room to move them onto the battlefield, and Roath swapped the Aggressors for the Incursors in the Impulsor (and the candle with the 'andle on the gateaux from the chateau).

 

This time out I was a bit more decisive, jamming my Tomb Blades across the board and into the Eradicators' grill, forcing one unit of Intercessors to divert and try to deal with them. The other lot got stuck into my Skorpekh Destroyers on the right, but some appalling charge rolls from Roath left them strung out on their own, struggling to get even 25 Attacks with rerolls past the Destroyers' Toughness of 6 and solid saves. As such, the Flayed Ones were able to counter-charge, and after a disastrous round of armour saving, this is all that was left -

This is the most I've ever had a unit of Flayed Ones achieve.
It's like they know I want to swap them out for Deathmarks...

With the centre ground dominated by Warrior and Immortal bricks and most of the Astartes trapped in the corners away from the objectives, and also with it getting dark and the Dreaded Woe Kitty manifesting on the battlefield demanding food right now, we called this one off at 2-0 to me.

 

It felt more useful to review the army lists and contemplate wot it was wot we'd done to resolve these games so quickly. Our post-mortem had Roath's Bladeguard and Ancient facing the chop - all they really do is waddle around in his back line not doing anything - in favour of the Outriders coming back to pressure and contest, and a new squad of regular "tactical" Intercessors becoming available to hold objectives, contributing without charging forward like loonies. For my part, I think the Skorpekhs are a bit much - I don't need six, especially not in reserve; I want to get some Deathmarks in there, and my new Technomancer, and maybe split the Warrior blob down the middle because it just spends most of its time getting in its own way. 

The other thing is the board. I think, with rigorous policing of cat activity and regular warnings to not lean on the edge, we can probably go to the standard 5' x 4' and give ourselves more space for reserves to operate and deployment in depth to occur. I've thus far dug my heels in and said the size of my dining table is more important to my gaming than anything da roolz have to say, but those extra inches add up to quite a few square feet.

More or less the same layout with an extra foot of space for it to breathe in.

Next time, I hope to drop something with a more narrative slant, and show off the less... symmetrical side of the 'hammer...