5k-a-side Apoc

[Kierdale]

Last Sunday's Apoc at Nakano GW we had five players, 5,000 points to a side. This won't be a particularly detailed battle report due to the size of the game!

Here's what I remember of the forces:

Great Crusade Thousand Sons [me] and Necrons aka `Team Scarab`

Chaplain, combi-melta, jump pack

8 Vanguard, 1 relic blade, 1 thunder hammer, 6 power weapons, all storm shields and jump packs

1 Tactical squad, combi-plasma, plasma gun and missile launcher

1 Scout squad, combi-flamer, heavy bolter, bolters

1 Scout squad, combi-melta, melta bombs, bolt pistols and knives

1 land speeder storm w/ heavy bolter

2 monoliths

2 doomsday arks

1 command barge

1 annihilation barge

1 canoptek spider

a veritable tide of necron infantry with special characters scattered within

hordes of scarabs

3 wraiths

5 deathmarks, these last two units were held in reserve, along with my landspeeder and melta-scouts.

The opposition:

Death Skullz and Chaos Space Marines

1 HUGE Ork tank (skull crusher? It's based on a Baneblade) with a warboss (wearing much of a SM dreadnought) and meganobs (made from terminators) and a mek with a force field thingy

2 looted tanks (Leman Russ)

1 stompa(!)

about 5 killa kans (at least three made from empty paint bottles. See photos below. He did make it so the lids still opened and there were gretchin inside)

Khârn and a squad of berserkers in a rhino

2 squads of CSM in rhinos

1 chaos Dread w/ multi-melta

1 Defiler

1 CSM Lord in TDA with terminators in a land raider

1 vindicator

1 CSM lord w/ jump pack and 5 raptors

1 Greater daemon

3 oblits

Both sides took orbital bombardment(?) as our strategem. Bear with me, this was my first Apoc game ;)

6 objectives and the board was split diagonally for deployment. It was decided that any and all infantry (not only Troops) could claim objectives.

There were two objectives down their end: one glowing holo-flag and the other a crate of Lacrymata

Another two holo-flags around mid-way across the board

One of my remembrancers (Aleister Carter) stood frozen with horror by a crater right under the stompa's nose

And a control center back up in Team Scarab's home corner between the two doomsday arks

Their deployment:

Ours:

The Game

Right off the bat the Chaos dread melta'd the one monolith that was on the table (the 2nd was kept in reserve) and blew it up. What a great start for Team Scarab :)

The stompa advanced and, with some huge flame cannon, crisped a swarm of scarabs, with a blast from the super heavy skull crusher taking out more.

The squadron of three killa kans climbs up the ruins to protect the Lacrymata crate objective. Never knew they could do that.

It was also in either turn one or two that they (via the Defiler) took out one of our two Doomsday arks. Like I say, things started grimly.

On our turn the tide of skeletal robots surged forward, taking out two of the killa kans on our far right flank and the chaos dread', the command barge doing some kinda flyby slash attack on it before others finished it off. Other Necron shooting managed to shake their landraider and take out the defiler's battle cannon.

My chaplain and vanguard ignited their jump packs and leapt over to the CSM vindicator, the chaplain's combi-melta taking out its cannon before the squad's assault blew up the tank itself...leaving the vanguard dangerously close to the ork superheavy tank full of meganobs. Oops.

My tactical missile launcher disabled Khârn's rhino, :):ing him off no doubt. My bolter scouts started legging it backfield to secure the command center objective on our corner.

The meganobs dismount from the superheavy skullcrusher and assault the vanguard. If I remember correctly two of the squad of nine (inc. Chaplain) survived. Storm shields are good, but the sheer volume of attacks they took succeeded. Still, they took down a few of the nobs with them.

The CSM landraider advances.

The nearest killer kan shoots up some Necron infantry...

The two craters in the foreground here are from the monolith and chaos dread :)

The stompa advanced and began bathing a squad of Necron warriors (in a building) with its flame cannon, though thankfully most got back up afterwards.

Pause for a dramatic shot

The meganobs finish off the vanguard and chaplain (that's getting to be a habit with that squad. Dying)

Khârn and his frothing-at-the-mouth kin leg it across the icefield to exact vengeance upon the 1kSons...who pour plasma, bolts and krak missile into them as they come, downing a couple of them.

The opposition then deepstriked a trio of Oblits right in front of our remaining Doomsday ark (and near our corner objective), doing little actual damage that turn, but causing us to redirect a LOT of Necrons (even my scouts paused to lay some bolts downrange at 'em), eventually taking them out...

...and leaving a good lot of Necrons bunched up for the enemy's orbital bombardment!

It was around now that Khârn and his berserkers entered the building my 1kSons tactical squad was in. Let's just say this: it was nasty. I think I took out one of the berzerkers. Khârn alone slew two of his own and three of mine in one round. The amusing (for me) thing is that he and his squad never got out of the building for the rest of the game: I'd put my squad scattered over the 1st to 3rd floors of the building (no one on the ground floor) as I knew I'd probably get assaulted and wanted to delay it as much as possible. Well, the Khorne boys did their killing on the 1st floor...and every terrain roll after that was too little to get them out down to the ground floor!

Still, we deepstruck our second Monolith right in their home turf, near the Lacrymata crate objective, and began redeploying Necrons through it...attracting the ork superheavy's attention and that of the remaining meganobs.

The stompa continues to stomp across the battlefield...even into close combat with a large squad of Necron warriors in a building.

While the CSM landraider disgorged its Lord and terminators, tearing through the Necron infantry. The greater daemon also got summoned to the field, along with the raptors, who together took out the Necron command barge.

The Necrons, getting back to their feet no matter how many times they were put down, managed to drive the Chaos terminators back into their landraider, which withdrew a safe distance.

Meanwhile the killa kans, warboss and meganobs, supported by CSM reserves, managed to secure the Lacrymata crate objective...and the warboss punched the remaining monolith into exploding(!) while his boys finished off all the robots who came out of its portal.

My bolter scouts (who only fired their weapons once - ineffectively - at the oblits) manage to get into cover and protect the command center objective...as the stompa nears the Necron lines (and I pray he doesn't choose to flambe my scouts!).

The wraiths and my own land speeder storm and melta-armed scout squad came on, zipping in for the sarge to lay a melta bomb and the scouts krak grenades on the back of the ork superheavy, steadily disabling various weapon systems over a couple of turns, while the deathmarks and wraiths kept the remaining meganobs busy, whittling down their numbers steadily.

Over on the other side of the table the CSM raptor Lord secured one of the mid-table objectives.

On the opposition's last turn the remaining Chaos terminators got out of their landraider and tried to secure another...only to find themselves less than a centimeter out of range (but had they noticed a different objective [the cowering remembrancer] they probably could have secured that instead!).

The ork superheavy advanced forward toward the smoking crater and debris of the second monolith, the warboss remounting while some of the orks onboard flamed the close combat scouts, cremating three and sending the sergeant and remaining scout fleeing...only for them to rally, get picked by the LSS and be back in the fight for a final assault in the last turn (the shop was closing so we were told turn five would be the last)...

Sergeant Kemnebi and his remaining scout jumped down from landspeeder storm Uraeus once more and, grenades in hand, charged at the ork superheavy, its chassis looming over them (the way it had climbed a hill meant they were rather coolly attacking its underside).

The melta bomb went off...destroyed the last of its weapons.

The scout's krak grenade rolled b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l-l-y and, with the tank having taken so much punishment throughout the game, it blew up spectacularly!!!

About half the orks inside were slain, the warboss fled, his ass on fire, and the two scouts survived the huge explosion!

With no more time it was decided that the two remaining meganobs would not have survived the next turn and so the enemy held two objectives while Team Scarab held...two.

A draw!

A particularly pleasing one for me as it was my scouts who held our two objectives (and dealt that ruddy huge ork tank the deathblow!).

As always I learned a lot...

Firstly the same lesson as usual: have units support each other rather than acting independently. As my army gets bigger I'm sure I'll do this more. At the moment its only about 1,000 points and I get too keen on taking on all of the enemy's units at once. Better keep a cooler head next time.

Secondly, don't let orks charge you. A basic one and one I should have kept in mind.

One other interesting point is that we did not, not even once, fire at the stompa. I had nothing that could scratch it and I left managing the Necron big guns to their owners. Still, it didn't do that much damage, nor did it become a bullet-magnet.

Hopefully next time I'll have more I can take to the table, and better ideas on how to use it all. :)