Then the flight from Mer'thyr'od brought our people to the Ebb that Veils, a Still space where our enemies could not follow by measures extramundane. And it came to pass that on the fourth cycle in the first count our flight took us to the world called Rhisga, that was a forge and foundry and fortress of our people in the times of War in Heaven. And in that time the servants of the formless horror clad in rotting flesh and rusting iron were at war on Rhisga, against the scourge of meat and hunger that came from stars beyond. And in the wrathful rising of their flux the Supreme Overlord bade our clave fall upon Rhisga and make war upon all enemies.
A new home means a new club and a new club means new opponents. With a new edition of Da Roolz on the horizon, I'm in the silly season and playing Cursed Legion, trying to make Multiple Small Units of extremely choppy Destroyers happen. As I said to the joint servants of Nurgle across the board from me, it's a tournament list in the sense that it's a list I intend to play at a tournament, and that's about it. This suited them down to the ground, as they had a doubles event coming up and wanted to see what their Death Guard / Chaos Knights combo could wombo.
Before this I'd only played Cursed Legion against the Young Master, in a brace of trial games so short I didn't bother documenting them. (I set up: there was a Heroic Intervention by the Leagues of Votann: I didn't have enough stuff by round two to make a go of it. It's a very different kind of army to my usual Hypercrypt - not just in the stratagem suite but in the sheer amount of aggression it favours.
Normally I'm a Fixed Objectives kind of guy, but I don't know Cursed Legion well enough to make confident choices, and I have enough small units that can hold fire for a turn to do "war chores on divots" or move into the required area of the battlefield that I think I can roll with the random Tactical draw.)
As such, I'll be documenting scores, secondaries and stratagems a little more closely than is my wont in reports, reflecting on what could have been done other than the way what I done it.
Servants of the Formless Horror (smelly, crude, decrepit)
Death Lord's Chosen detachment:
- Typhus
- Malignant Plaguecaster and Noxious Blightbringer leading 5 Plague Marines (each with their own distinct weaponry...) in a Rhino
- 2 x 10 Poxwalkers
- Lord of Contagion leading six Deathshroud Terminators
Infernal Lance detachment
- Knight Desecrator
- Knight Rampager
- War Dog Stalker (Havoc launcher, Slaughterclaw, big melta)
- War Dog Stalker (Havoc launcher, Slaughterclaw, chaincannon)
Those Who Cleanse the Universe of their Filth
Cursed Legion detachment:
- Overlord (Voidscythe, Resurrection Orb, Destroyer Ankh) leading 10 Lychguard (sword and board)
- Skorpekh Lord (Cursed Circlet) leading 3 Skorpekh Destroyers
- Technomancer (Murdermind) leading 6 Canoptek Wraiths (particle casters)
- 2 x Hexmark Destroyers
- 2 x 3 Skorpekh Destroyers
- 2 x 3 Ophydian Destroyers
- 2 Lokhust Heavy Destroyers (Gauss extradestructinator)
- 10 Flayed Ones
- 5 Deathmarks
- 2 x 3 Canoptek Scarab Swarms
- Doomsday Ark
- Night Scythe
Mission
Primary Objective: Terraform | Secondary Objectives: Tactical | Deployment: Sweeping Engagement | Layout: some UKTC thing. I just put buildings where I was told to.
Deployment
Two main staging areas for the Necrons, keeping most of my assets out of sight behind terrain: I don't know how likely I was to take out even one Big Knight and there were two Big Knights staring down at me grinding their gears. My Flayed Ones were infiltrated onto the central objective, ready to Terraform early and pick me up a few extra points; the Scarabs were in the corners to close off spaces those Deathshrouds might teleport into. I kept my Lychguard in the Night Scythe, and the Night Scythe in reserve, along with the Deathmarks and Hexmark Destroyers who could Deep Strike in response to randomly drawn Tactical objectives.
Round 1: I'm going second.
A quiet first turn for the forces of Chaos, who made an effort to kill off my Flayed Ones but struggled to get past some roasty toasty saving throws. Typhus did an Establish Locus secondary and that was them done.
I pulled my Ophydian Destroyers out and relocated one unit to the very back corner of the Chaos deployment zone, speeding my Night Scythe onto the board and dropping the Lychguard out to menace their home objective. My Flayed Ones did a Terraform on the central objective, the Ophydians did an Establish Locus, and my Wraiths drifted up to Sabotage the building overlooking that central point and be ready to take back the central objective when my Flayed Ones got their comeuppance.
Round 2: Chaos 2, Necrons 7
The Big Knights continued staging, although the Desecrator peeped around its lair to point, click and delete three Skorpekh Destroyers that were trying to cross the ground in front of it. An assortment of plague weaponry didn't quite kill all my Flayed Ones, and when the wielders of said weaponry charged to finish the job, my Wraiths did a Heroic Intervention and began the long, slow process of chopping bits off T6 Marine bodies with a -1 to hit malus.
It wasn't a great time for the Plague Marines either, who never managed to kill more than two Wraiths before they blipped back up, and these two units would be going at it for three rounds.
Due to the weight of Wraith in the middle of the table, my learned foes couldn't score Area Denial, although they did score Display of Might thanks to killing off the Ophydians in their deployment zone (the Desecrator again). I had Overwhelming Force and picked that up by blasting the Chaos Rhino with my Doomsday Ark; I'd have rather scored it from the War Dog Stalker on the other flank, but my Lokhusts weren't co-operating and refused to finish what the Night Scythe started. My other secondary was Storm Hostile Objective, which I hung onto on the grounds that I was very likely to get it at some point if I could just kill enough Plague Marines.
Sadly, come the charge phase neither my Skorpekhs nor my Lychguard were able to close the distance, although the Lychguard's charge was extremely optimistic. I had the command points for either a Re-Roll or Spreading Madness (adding +2" to the Skorpekhs' charge because their targets were already fighting my Wraiths) and decided to burn the Re-Roll on my Lychguard instead, because I'm an idiot (and because Stratagems that aren't in the core rulebook don't entirely exist to me). That meant I didn't have enough killing power to finish the Plague Marines, and they retained control of the middle objective for another round.
I did get to do something fun at the end of the Fight phase, though: my Night Scythe scooped up the Skorpekh Lord and his associates, ready to get around the Desecrator's field of fire and close the distance from a different direction.
Round Three: Chaos 15, Necrons 19
Although I'd screened off most of the board, this was do or die time for the Deathshroud Terminators: if they didn't show up now they wouldn't at all. The only spot they could Deep Strike into was the back right corner where my Ophydians had been and where my Lychguard had failed to be; they killed a couple of Lychguard with shooting, as did the War Dog Stalker, then both units charged in. The Stalker did a Tank Shock, the Deathshroud did a Sickening Impact, and my Lychguard ate nine mortal wounds before any attack dice were rolled in anger.
(This was user error, and quite frustrating. Not so much the Lychguard being punked by mortal wounds, which are their great weakness - that's a legitimately clever bit of business on the Chaos lads' part, even if it made me a sad panda at the time. More the Lychguard being where they were and dying like chumps a whole foot away from any objectives.)
Elsewhere, the Desecrator sidestepped to get a line of sight onto my Doomsday Ark, landed four hits with three shots thanks to Malefic Surge, and blew it to kingdom come, along with any hope I had of damaging the Big Knights. Typhus peeked out to charge the Skorpekh Destroyers and almost killed them... but not quite.
Coming into my turn, the Skorpekhs and Wraiths reanimated whole extra bodies at exactly the right time, and my other Skorpekhs - the ones with the Lord - disembarked from the Night Scythe and looked menacingly at the Stalker in front of them. This is where I made a booby doo-doo; the Stalker Overwatched, which meant I could Surge the Skorpekhs into combat, so I did. Of course, a Surge is not a Charge, and so they wouldn't be striking first. In fact, the Stalker would proceed to flatten all three of the regulars before the Skorpekh Lord - feeling a bit embarrassed about the whole affair - ripped its giblets out.
An easy Defend Stronghold for the Chaos lads, and they burned off Area Denial to recover some command points. Having failed once again to kill sufficient Plague Marines, I dropped Storm Hostile (which turned out to be a mistake, as I'd have been able to score it next round). I did bag Assassinate though, as my Skorpekhs tore Typhus in half.
Round Four: Chaos 35, Necrons 43
With the threat of the Doomsday Ark neutralised the Big Knights came out to play, Desecrating and Rampaging all over the place, shooting down my Night Scythe and absolutely cleaning up the Destroyers bunched up around Typhus, which also put the Rampager onto an objective I'd been holding. Storm Hostile and No Prisoners achieved.
There wasn't a great deal of killing left to do on my side, at this point: draw an easy Defend Stronghold secondary (my Deathmarks had been cowering at the back for two rounds waiting for this) and an impossible Cleanse. Requesting New Orders, I picked up Engage On All Fronts instead - a nice easy one, all I had to do was shunt some Scarabs forward.
That was "time on the round" as it were, with the club closing up: we had enough time to tot up the last round's primary objective count and call it there. Which meant... despite several misplays...
Round Five: Chaos 55, Necrons 60
On the night, I called this the other way - 65-60 in their favour, as I wasn't Battle Ready. It was only as I came to type up this report, the report you are reading right now, that I realised: a Death Guard Rhino with no guns or top hatch, only primed, is not any more Battle Ready than my Wraiths were. And that's why you write after-action reports, kids! If you don't think about what you've learned you haven't learned it, and sometimes you don't even remember what it was.
Good game, either way. Good bunch of lads. I'll be going back.
Debrief
On the whole, a narrow win suggests this swarm of murderous abominations and distortions of the Necron form has legs (some might say it has too many, except where it has not enough). There were moments when I could have picked up more points had I been a bit more sensible about resourcing - Storm Hostile should have been a shoo-in if I'd looked at my stratagems twice, and while most of the Skorpekhs are here to go, I'd still have preferred to get a round of attacks in from them all. This goes double for the "surge into combat, actively screw myself" play with the Cursed Circlet, which is clearly a toy for the other fella's turn.
I don't think there's much dead weight in the army - in fact there's only one unit that I don't think quite has a place here. I was umming and ahhing about whether the Lychguard and Overlord were the best use of the Destroyer Ankh, and now I'm increasingly convinced they're not. See, the Ankh can go on a Catacomb Command Barge, and when you give that +2 to its Move, Strength and Attacks, it becomes a much more frightening prospect. It's another way to try and get Cold Fervour off and support the non-Destroyer units in the shooting phase... and I could take a Doomstalker to give me another big shooting threat with a decent saving throw...
I think I'll give that a try.
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