[After Action Report] Honour is Satisfied | Tenth Edition | Only War | Incursion | Necrons vs. Ultramarines

"The thing is, when you posted those lists, you might as well have said you were changing blimblom for boobedyboo. Apart from the Warriors it's all Greek to me."

Thus spake the Kraken, and as such the form of the destroyer was chosen in the auld way, by rolling a d3 to see which army list I'd bring along with me to our rematch. Dame Fortune sang her wicked song, and the Hypercrypt Legion "Stupid Plane List" was nominated for hostilities.

Army lists were nevertheless chopped, changed and chuftied twice before play and once during it. Also, this board is the old Combat Patrol kind of scale, the sort last seen at Eign's Gate. Not a great deal of space to teleport around in, or fly a plane through. I had a bad feeling about this 'un...

Army Lists and Deployment

Necrons (First Turn)

Overlord (staff of light, resurrection orb) leading 10 Immortals (gauss blasters)
Technomancer leading 10 Warriors (gauss reapers)
Skorpekh Lord leading 3 Skorpekh Destroyers & Plasmacyte
3 Skorpekh Destroyers & Plasmacyte
5 Flayed Ones
5 Deathmarks (Deep Strike)
Night Scythe (Reserve)

Ultramarines (First Deployment)

Marneus Calgar & bodyguards leading 3 Bladeguard Veterans
5 Intercessors
5 Intercessors
5 Intercessors
Redemptor Dreadnought (macro plasma incinerator, heavy flamer, rocket pod, storm bolter)
Redemptor Dreadnought (heavy gatling cannon, gatling cannon, rocket pod, storm bolter)

The Action

I really, really didn't want to go first, and as such I went first. My Immortals stayed still to cover the middle, everything else advanced (the Skorpekhs spreading out to either side of the landing pad on my left, with an eye to staging a Heroic Intervention should Calgar look at them funny).

Kraken nominated my Skorpekhs with the Lord for the Oath of Moment, declared Assault Doctrine, and promptly bombed Calgar right into them, triggering the promised Heroic Intervention and starting off a scrum that takes two photographs to halfway show off, thus.

The Flayed Ones died like dogs to Intercessor and Redemptor crossfire, although the plasma Redemptor disgraced itself and only lightly scorched one Skorpekh Destroyer. They proved similarly resistant to harm in melee: two from the counter-attacking squad did go crunch and Calgar ripped the Skorpekh Lord into three separate pieces, but the attacks back killed off the Bladeguard.

Passing a Battleshock check, the assorted Skorpekhs fell back, opening up the shooting lanes for my Immortals and the Night Scythe, which would have turned up earlier and had them inside had it not been temporarily out of my list owing to some missing models and a hasty recalculation. It's fine. It's probably fine. It killed Calgar's bodyguards stone dead anyway, while the Deathmarks whipped a couple of wounds off him in my turn.

Not that he gave a toss. He's dead hard, is Calgar. Here he is in Devastator Doctrine, directing the plasma/flamer Redemptor to incinerate one unit of Skorpekh Destroyers and toast a couple of Deathmarks into the bargain - they took a couple more wounds off him in return but couldn't quite seal the deal. On the other side, the gatling/gatling Redemptor and Intercessors nominated my Warriors as their Oath of Moment target two turns running, and still only just managed to take them out. Go To Ground and a Feel No Pain roll go a long way, it turns out; that's about the most survivable my reaper lads have ever been. In return they killed a couple of Intercessors while the surviving Skorpekhs picked up the squad that had been screening for Calgar before the above image was committed to the record.

With two "advance and attack" Doctrines played, Kraken was all over the objectives by the bottom of round three. Although we were technically tied on points at this stage, I had one battle-shocked Skorpekh Destroyer, one slightly misplaced Technomancer in combat with an undamaged Redemptor Dreadnought, and one Night Scythe that had been forced to leave the table, none of which were in any position to contest objectives and all of which would not be seeing another turn (especially not since the Night Scythe had copped a macro-plasma volley and was listing alarmingly on four wounds). 

It's not that I had nothing I could do, more than nothing I could do would matter to the score. As such it was, at this point, best to phase out, acknowledging the Ultramarines' control of the field and the utter unlikelihood of stopping those big walking coffins that were rolling down the flanks like unfettered Double Gloucesters.

Necrons concede! Woe to the Dynasty of Kavadah.

Debrief

Not a lot I can really say to that one - I took an early lead but that first turn of doing nothing but take ground caught up with me. I'd built this list around a plan that I couldn't really implement (board size and the army list reshuffle did a number on me). Not to say I had no game at all - I was pleased that I managed to pull off a Heroic Intervention with my Skorpekhs and satisfied with my Stratagem usage in general. Decisive plays out of sequence, and consistent results from Go To Ground that kept my Warriors alive a lot longer than expected. 

I was quite impressed with the Kraken game plan, too. A more bread and butter approach than our prior encounters, with three budget high-yield tactical combat squads, two linchpin dreadnoughts with some well chosen gear, and a more concentrated Calgar bomb that took its hits but still managed to deliver him and occupy most of my killing power for two turns. Liberated from the abundance of options offered by fiddlier pieces, this was an example of Less (if not the Least) Army allowing for a concentration on core tactics. Can't fault the man - well played and well deserved.

Now, time to start assembling that Void Dragon...