[After Action Report] Grotmas Comes Late This Year | Tenth Edition | Incursion | Only War | Necrons vs. Ultramarines

30th November: schedule a game for the weekend after my birthday, concluding the week-long binge of hobby, naps, and slightly stronger than usual tea.

8th December: game day. Club is cancelled. I couldn't make it anyway: the six miles of trunk road 'twixt here and there are flooded in multiple places. Kraken is holding my Necron terrain and half my boards hostage!

29th December: Kraken and I finally pull our fingers out and establish that yes, we are going to reschedule - just as soon as the man with the real job and small child has an evening free.

10th January: "I know it's a bit short notice, but how about tonight?"

OPEN THE TOMB AND PREPARE MY COMMAND BARGE

An "action shot," featuring dynamic tactical decision making by Kraken,
and also his Christmas jumper. It's so ghastly it loops around to being good.

Now, readers, I must confess I pulled a bit of a fast one on my gracious host here. I'd been intending to bring a sober, restrained, relatively mellow Awakened Dynasty army, but then James Workshop gave all his good little phaerons and phaerekhs a special Grotmas gift: a shiny new detachment that's all about the Vehicle and Mounted units, allowing them all to advance and shoot, and improving everyone's accuracy as long as their targets are in scoring proximity to the crucial game winning divots. I own several such units, and have long been seeking an opportunity to plonk all my Triarch Stalkers down on a table and see if I can make them shine.

It turns out that the sweaties were right to gas it up in their hot take video essays and such. Shatterstar Arsenal is quite good.

The Armies

The Greatest of them all, the Ultra Marines

Marneus Calgar and 2 Victrix Honour Guard
Tigurius, leading 10 Helblasters
5 Intercessors
3 Inceptors with plasma exterminators
3 Bladeguard Veterans
Redemptor Dreadnought with storm bolter, Onslaught gatling cannon and macro plasma incinerator

I feel about thirty years younger just looking at the words "macro plasma incinerator."

Operation Metal Bastard

Catacomb Command Barge with gauss cannon and Demanding Leader enhancement
Overlord with glaive, tachyon arrow and Dread Majesty enhancement, leading 10 Immortals with gauss blasters
3 Tomb Blades with twin gauss blasters, shadowlooms and shieldvanes
3 Ophydian Destroyers with Plasmacyte
3 Canoptek Scarab bases
3 Canoptek Scarab bases
3 Canoptek Scarab bases
Triarch Stalker with heavy gauss cannon
Triarch Stalker with heavy gauss cannon
Triarch Stalker with heat ray

In my defence, I know Kraken loves his plasma, and if anything I underestimated how much of it he was packing (I completely forgot that he owns Inceptors, and had no idea what his Dreadnought was armed with). I also knew that vanilla, caffeine free Codex Space Marines have had some bennies in the surprise Grotmas balance pass, with the new and improved Oaf of Moment giving those plasma weapons a serious fillip - a little +1 to wound rolls goes a long way. I maintain that his army has the right stuff to deal with this nonsense.

The Battlefield

Each of the ruined buildings contains one game-winning divot for miniatures to touch. My Ophidians and Kraken's Inceptors are lurking in Deep Strike reserve. Straight off the bat I can see a mistake I've made here, with the Tomb Blades on touching duty and the Immortals tucked away behind the wall - those two units needed to be the other way around.

I found the jellybean, and promptly sent my Stalkers Scouting forth with ill-deserved confidence - the two gauss cannon packers in the rear moved out to enfilade, the heat ray lad in the front powered forward toward the Redemptor, and then they moved again with the extra handful of inches from the advance bringing heat ray lad to within optimal scorch range of said Redemptor. Didn't quite kill it, not even with a round of gauss cannon fire to back me up, but did leave it on three wounds and feeling less than optimistic about its chances of survival.

It still had an opportunity to shoot, though, and let rip with the macro plasma incinerator, knocking half the wounds off the Stalker on the other side of the table, baiting out my Resurrection Orb so it had a chance of surviving the absolute Helblasting it was about to take. Sadly. the Redemptor did not blow itself up while it was surrounded by Intercessors and Honour Guard. With Devastator doctrine in effect and Oath of Moment in play, damn good thing I did or they'd have put the poor arachnid in the ground. The rest of the Space Marines' fire, being of the "bolter" class, was a bit less impressive, although a couple of wounds did slip through onto various hulls from sheer weight of dakka and twin-linked rerolls.

Mraneus Craglar, King of the Space Marines charged the Stalker. I mean, so did the Redemptor and the Honour Guard, but the Gauntlets of Ultramar did all the work and ripped the Stalker's legs off in no time. Sadly, the Stalker did not blow up and take the Redemptor out with it.

My turn, and first score on the doors for that objective my Tomb Blades were diligently hovering over. Fanning the Scarabs out to screen various melee threats (landing within an inch of Calgar and the Bladeguard so they wouldn't get to lunge forward with their charge rolls), I pushed the Stalker and Command Barge on my left up towards Tigurius and his boys, and brought the Ophydian Destroyers up from behind them, bursting out of the desert sands with their eyes on a long bomb charge.

Now. I have been looking with big, wide, round eyes at the tachyon arrow ever since it arrived on the scene in 2011. It's a gloriously silly bit of kit - a wrist-mounded crossbow that can potentially blow a light vehicle, character, or heavily damaged Dreadnought into the middle of next week with its single shot. I mean, it's just an up-gunned hunter-killer missile, really, and the fact that it's an either/or proposition with the Resurrection Orb means you never see one in the wild. But I'd taken it, on a whim, and here at last was the opportunity, and somehow despite rerolling ones to hit and wound I still needed a Command Re-Roll stratagem to actually land the shot (turns out the Redemptor is tough enough that even S15 only wounds it on threes). Still: kill confirmed. 

Sadly, the Redemptor did not blow up, so I had to kill one of Calgar's bodyguard the old fashioned way, strafing them with gauss fire from the nearby Stalker while everything else shot at the Helblasters and killed another four. Did you know they can shoot back at what shot them when they die? And, because they're going to die, they can supercharge their plasma weapons and not care about Hazardous? And that means they kill a Necron Immortal on twos, and wound Necron light vehicle chassis on threes? That was a few more wounds on the Command Barge and its Stalker pal, anyway.

The Command Barge charged into Tigurius and the Helblasters, doing a cheeky Tank Shock that killed one and killing another the old-fashioned way, for another chip wound off Tigurius in return. I would have liked to charge the Ophydians in, but couldn't show a nine on two dice. I should have charged the Stalker in as well, but I didn't think I'd need to. Foolish. Very foolish.

With the Assault Doctrine entering play, Calgar and the Bladeguard both funnelled in on my Immortals, whose Overwatch removed one of Calgar's Honour Guard, while the Helblasters fell back so the Intercessors could shoot at that Command Barge. A little chip damage went through, and gave me a Reactive Reposition to scoot it into that middle building, claiming an additional divot. The Inceptors came down behind my Tomb Blades, and the subsequent fusillade of plasma did absolutely nothing - blessed are the array of trinkets and doo-dahs these little droideka-looking gits come equipped with.

Strangely enough, Mraneus Craglar, his surviving bodyguard, and three Bladeguard Veterans ripped the Immortals into Broken Mechanical Parts (which create Elixirs of Lightning Resistance, don't you know) without breaking a sweat. It did take all their attacks to do it, but the job was very effectively done. Everyone consolidated back towards the middle divot, but the proximity of the Command Barge meant my Scarabs could actually contest objectives, and thus it remained in Necron hands.

Two doots on the doot counter for me, and an opportunity to unleash hell. The Stalkers advanced and crossfired the Intercessors into next week, the Tomb Blades picked off Calgar's last Honour Guard, the Command Barge removed the Bladeguard from existence and the Ophydians finally got their charge off on Tigurius, who whiffed his saving throws and joined the casualty pile.

Time up - ten p/m, and Kraken had Marneus Calgar and three Intercessors left on the board. We called it there.

Necron Victory

The Debrief

I feel a bit bad about this one. I mean, the man invites me into his home, introduces me to his wife and her book collection (which I covet), makes me coffee and provides me with little strudel-type snacks, and what do I do in return for his hospitality? This gun-to-a-knife-fight nonsense. It was also a bit of a bait-and-switch on my part, too: we'd originally swapped lists before the December date and I'd planned to bring a basic Awakened Dynasty construction, but I got excited and swapped into the new detachment without considering if that would be courteous to my opponent and host.

I do maintain that his army can beat this - those plasma weapons wound my vehicles on threes if they supercharge, twos if one of them is subject to the Oaf of Moment, and each hit that goes through does a goodly amount of damage. Taking such a chunk out of the Redemptor early on - removing it with only one shooting phase to its name - definitely put him on the back foot though, and I don't think he was prepared for the sheer haste with which a Starshatter Arsenal army can get off the starting blocks. 

Neither was I, in all honesty. It's frighteningly fast, especially if it's going first and can double up on movement with the Stalkers. Could have had the Tomb Blades out there too, scoring that middle divot. I didn't get to play with the stratagems much, since most of my command points went on basic stuff - Command Re-rolls into the Redemptor or Overwatch attempts or that Tank Shock - but the "get shot and scoot" Reactive Reposition was very nice to have.

A win, but something of a hollow one. Therefore, I offer my gracious host an apology, and an opportunity to spin the Wheel o' Detachments and choose what I bring to the next engagement in a week's time.

1. Awakened Dynasty. Infantry with character support, mostly ranged: Warrior and Immortal bricks with Crypteks, Skorpekhs and their Lord, and maybe a Command Barge if I can fit one in, or a Hexmark Destroyer to handle objective control.
2. Obeisance Phalanx. Elite infantry with good command point economy: Lychguard and Immortals with Overlords, and a couple of Triarch Stalkers for ranged firepower (maybe not all three though).
3. Hypercrypt Legion. Deep Strike shenanigans - lots of units that relocate at the end of your turn and reappear at the start of mine. Possibly a plane, because it's the only way I've found to make the Night Scythe work.

In accordance with the Narrative paradigm, you may roll a d3, or choose what you feel is most appropriate.

To the rest of you, Dear Readers, thank you both for your time and attention, and remember: the third rule of Fight Club is don't bring an SMG. God. Some people, eh?