[After Action Report] A Dream of Twisted Sisters | Eleventh Edition | Incursion | Necrons vs. Daemons

 Gobannium. Always damned Gobannium. Always when the fire-times come, when the malignant orb crosses the heavens. Lesser beings die. Flesh dessicates. Metal, even living metal, grows soft. Changeable. Only the flame is constant. Only the flicker. Only the flux. Only the formless horror can endure here.

An outing for the classic L-shapes today and another engagement in the Market Hall: a new clubmate and her kitbash-crazy Daemons of (mostly) Tzeentch.

Chaos Daemons: Scintillating Legion + Warptide detachments | Priority Assets disposition | Sabotage primary objective | Hammer and Anvil deployment

Pink Horrors, Blue Horrors, Screamers with a chariot character, another free-roaming chariot, Flamers with an Exalted flamer, Bloodletters with a character (ably proxied by some gorgeously old-school styled Chaos Sororitas), Plaguebearers, a Daemon Prince and both the little Tzeentch special characters - Blue Scribes and the Changeling. A lot of tricks and a lot of Battleline, with 4+ Invulnerable saves, advancing and shooting and charging, and not caring about modifiers to Hit 'cause it's all psychic.

Necrons: Cryptek Conclave + Hand of the Dynasty detachments | Priority Assets disposition | Sabotage primary objective | Hammer and Anvil deployment

Warriors (Scouting) with a Royal Warden, Geomancer and Tomb Crawlers, Immortals (Gauss, Rapid Fire) with a Plasmancer and Immortals (Tesla, Rapid Fire) with a Chronomancer, Wraiths with a Technomancer, and the Canoptek support package of Scarabs, Wraiths, Reanimator and Doomstalker. Oh, and five Deathmarks. A lot of tricks and a lot of Battleline, with advancing and shooting, Ignores Cover or Devastating Wounds on cue, Invulnerable saves and Secured objectives via stratagems.

We'd had very similar ideas here. Such symmetry, and such a learning experience (we were on our second and first games of eleventh edition respectively) that we did away with secondary objectives and focused on the mirror match.

Into the Action

The Daemons went first, but limited range on most of their weapons meant not a lot happened. Only the infiltrating Blue Horrors had an arc on anything and, despite Infernal Puppeteer trickery attempting a Precision kill on the Geomancer, not a lot happened that wasn't Reanimated away. A Sabotage was carried out by the lurking Fateskimmer chariot and that was that.

The Necron counter-attack was A Lot. Thirty shots off the Immortal units are as good as I thought they would be, blasting Blue Horrors into Yellow Brimstone Horrors with startling aplomb. A few dents in the Daemon Prince and the Fateskimmer chariot, and the Deathmarks and Doomstalker left twiddling their thumbs due to tight sightlines on a narrow table. The Wraiths bullied forward, charged the Brimstone Horrors, killed half of them and claimed the central ominous glowing column of green light.

Enter the Blue Scribes. Alas, without any Psychic models in my army, all they really accomplished was giving my Deathmarks something to shoot at with their Datasheet ability for the first time ever. Doomstalker couldn't see them to confirm the kill: damn Lone Operatives.

This conga line of Horrors attempted to keep my Immortals out of the centre while the Daemon Prince, Bloodletters and Burning Chariot cleaned my Wraiths off the objective. Initially confident, I was thwarted when the Prince got involved and Precisioned my Technomancer out of existence. That and failing five out of six Invulnerable saves against the Bloodmaster's charge put a stop to any Wraith-related dreams I might have had... but did leave the Bloodletters and Prince on an objective in a world where Immortals exist.

Some of the Immortals were a bit preoccupied with the Fateskimmer charging into them, followed up by the Horrors. Although they didn't kill many, they did force my Gauss lads to fall back and denied me a shot at killing the Daemon Prince.

Everyone else got their shots, though. The Tesla Immortals cleared out most of the Bloodletters, while the Royal Warden and Tomb Crawlers picked up their Herald and the Warriors finished off that Burning Chariot. Only the Geomancer let the side down, scorching two out of five Brimstone Horrors - serves me right for trying to fight fire with fire.

Best of all, though, the Deathmarks killed off the Blue Scribes!

They did the thing! The thing they're supposed to do, not the thing they end up doing! But they also did the thing they end up doing! A cheeky Sabotage from the Reanimator and, at the bottom of round two, perfectly even scoring with only the Battle Ready bonus separating me from the Daemons' devilment.

An hour's setup and three hours' play only got us two rounds deep, which is... problematic. Even taking into account that we're all new at this, I haven't seen an eleventh edition game through. Or a game at all for a while. While it's good to work on the early game - deployment and first turn moves being the point of failure the Internet doesn't do well at discussing - I'm conscious that I'm not seeing the full picture, not learning how to sustain a game down to the proverbial wire.

It's also concerning from a more fundamental "it takes HOW long to play?" position, but a lot of that is down to yakkin', ambient temperatures and a leisurely attitude. Two of those things can be controlled. The other we simply have to live with, at least until the Malignant Orb is removed from the heavens.

Imperceptible, save by the impact of their presence, by the flux and flicker and flame, they came. Then they were gone. Perhaps they were never there. A vision. A chronomantic incident. A tremor in the substance of the universe. A never-was or ever-will-be. Perhaps not.

Damn that formless horror. And damn Gobannium, too.