Narrative Battle Report: Raven Guard vs Necrons 1250 points

[thewarriorhunter]

The world was arid, a barren wasteland with little vegetation or water to speak of. The sun burned brightly in the sky as it’s radiant heat blasted the cracked and dried surface of the forsaken ground where blood was soon to be spilled. The remnants of an abandoned Imperial outpost sat quietly as it waited for the next piece of history to be written within its boundaries.

The Necrons had been here for some time searching for relics of their past. They had already laid waste to the small contingent of guardsman that had occupied the outpost with systemic precision. The fight had been brutal and short lived. The Necron army had deployed with a swiftness that caught the Tallarn forces by surprise and left them flatfooted. They fought for as hard and as long as they could but it was to no avail. Their corpses were left to rot in the sun as the Necron forces began scouring the base, unaware that the communications center had managed to issue a distress call in the final moments of the fighting.



“The enemy forces are dug in deep,” said a spotter for the Sagitta Squad of the 10th company, “they have heavily fortified their positions and appear to be excavating near that central bunker.”

The sergeant pointed his viewfinder to the coordinates relayed from the spotter’s optics. He saw large squads of Necron warriors and immortals on station and patrolling the area. A ghost arc transport ship rested on top of the bunker. Troops and support mechanicae were bustling back and forth between it and the excavation site.



Worse though was the ominous unit of destroyers that sat in silence on the far side of the outpost. They were still and unmoving but he was able to detect the faintest of glows from the wash of the hover jets that kept them afloat. He was sure that at a moment’s notice they would come alive and become a major threat to the Raven Guard forces that were moving into positions to initiate their assault.



Without warning the sounds of chaos erupted upon the battlefield. Boots slammed into twisted floor plates as assault units dropped from orbit and into positions. Tactical squads on each flank of the outpost appeared from their positions of concealment and their bolters roared as round after round was sent with pinpoint accuracy into enemy positions. Heavy plasma cannons sang alongside the sound of the Kherris pattern assault cannon of the Chapter Contemptor Dreadnought. He along with Chapter Master Shrike had joined the forces in order to assess the severity of the Necron threat firsthand.



Veterans of the 1st company clad in their ancient Cataphractii armor saw a vulnerability in the Necrons forces and emerged from their concealed positions. The Overlord had been at the rear of the forces and was exposed to a surgical strike. Their combi-bolters spat dozens of rounds at the Overlord as they advanced and closed the distance hoping to deal the deathblow before the Necrons even knew what was upon them.



Members of Squad Venandi, 5th squad of the 10th company, looked on from their positions within a bombed-out warehouse. They had succeeded in securing their primary objective and were now in position to provide battlefield updates to their brothers in arms.

In the opening moments of the battle their weapons of war erupted with fury in unison with tactical and inceptor squads to vaporize a sentry unit or immortals before they were able to react. While reposition themselves within the ruins they witness the overlord falling back and fleeing from combat from their veteran brothers in the ancient terminator armor.



The flanking tactical squads used this opportunity to move up and attempt to close distance with the destroyers before they were fully active and responding to the conflict. Their massed bolter and plasma fire did little to stop them however. Necron armor was dented and scarred as superheated plasma and explosive ordinance impacted against it. The destroyers quickly turned their backs to the tactical squad as they raced to defend their overlord from the veteran terminators.



Explosions erupted around the destroyers as they transition to the central bunker. Elements of the Raven Guard devastator squad poured molten plasma and rocket propelled heavy bolt rounds at them. Two destroyers fell under the onslaught but the destroyers were undeterred in their advance to the bunker. As the Raven Guard initiated reloads they stared in disbelief as the downed destroyers’ hover technology reactivated and they continued to catch up with their unit, all the while small nanobots continued to initiate repairs upon their damaged chasis.



On the opposite flank a tactical squad of the third company took cover behind a barricade as a unit of immortals opened fire on them. The cover held but one member was caught in the open. His body and armor were vaporized and what little atomic matter remained blew off in the wisps of air that was violently moving from all of the explosions. The sergeant looked up to the bunker to see the Ghost Arc was unmoved and delivering it’s payload into the terminators. The destroyers arrived and opened fire, sending wave after wave of energy into the veterans. Realizing they were poorly positioned and had no hope of success they activated their teleport homers and were returned to the command ship teleportarium, forced to watch on for the remainder of the battle.



A blast rocked the ruins that Squad Sagitta were firing from. The rocket ripped through the second floor and up through the roof. Members dove for cover to avoid falling debris or the new craters in the floor. Several were not able as the rocket vaporized them before they were even able to react.

The coms crackled to live as Squad Venandi called through to Sagitta.

“We must pull back! The enemy is too deeply entrenched and their repair technology is making our weapons appear to be useless!”

“Agreed,” replied the Sagitta sergeant as he bandaged a wounded member of his unit, “I will relay the situation to our Chapter Master as he is in command of this assault. I have suffered casualties and have witnessed the many suffered by our brothers.”



A moment later the tactical situation was relayed and Shrike gave the command to pull back. His Chapter had suffered enough and there was no point in throwing away lives to gain nothing.

As quickly as the Raven Guard had deployed and initiated the assault they began a controlled retreat out of the compound for exfiltration. Inceptor squads blasted down and provided thunderous cover for Squad Venandi as they made their way out the back of the warehouse. They continued to provide fire support as the inceptors and scouts redeployed over each other to ensure that all made it safely from the field of battle.





As Chapter Master Shrike quickly traversed across the field of battle with his jump pack he saw the Necron forces buried behind lines of trenches, their volume of fire decreasing as their targets became fewer. He grimaced as he saw black power armored bodes scattered across the outpost. Brethren of his that he would no longer see, friends that he would no longer train with, or share a meal with. He grieved for their loss and vowed to exact vengeance upon the Necron forces. They had lost the battle but they would not relent in determining what the Necrons were searching for. As they continued to investigate he knew they would have opportunity to exercise their favored type of warfare and bring the enemy to account for the losses they had caused.

 

Here's the shortened and more to the point report:

 

We played with my Open War deck, of which I'm a huge fan. Unfortunately for me the mission and deployment strongly favored my opponent and I was on the back foot from the start.

 

 

The fact that one of the objectives was right in the middle and we got to deploy right on it was not good for me. I won the roll-off to start and chose the side of the table without the bunker. I'm not sure if taking that side would have made a difference. He had more firepower than me and I think he would have shot me off the bunker if I'd taken that.

 

Turn one I go first and bring in everything but one assault squad. I didn't realize how scary his destroyers were, and he had six, so I ignored them first round and instead shot up an immortal squad. I should have done the destroyers. After that he went and his destroyers obliterated my cataphractii (question about them at then end) and took out a marine, but that was it.

 

Turn two I realize I have to start closing in to get him off the central objective because he is way ahead in VPs. I start advancing and dink a couple models but he made all but one reanimation roll. At one point I had his destroyers down to two models and then he brought them back to 5 on his next turn.

 

His turn he deepstrikes in his deathmarks right behind my devastator squad and Shrike (Shrike was a reroll bubble). I pulled out the Auspex Scan stratagem with the devastators and thankfully was able to eliminate the deathmarks. It was pretty cool but sadly it was the last cool thing to happen for me. He does a lot more shooting and his destroyers wipe my devastators in one go as well.

 

Turn three it's getting late and I know I've lost every way I can. I got off a lot of charges just to make myself feel better but we didn't resolve combat because of time and 'what's the point?' His destroyers were still around they were going to continue being a problem that I couldn't deal with.

 

My thoughts/takeaways:

 

I probably need to add the aggressors in. If I'd had their dakka (and understood how dangerous destroyers are) I may have fared better if I could have taken them out.

 

I'm not sure what to do with my cataphractii. I want to love them. They're cool models and I worked hard on them. But... every time I play with them they go in, maybe kill something, and then die. So how should they be played? I'm thinking maybe they're good to stick in cover on an objective because they're slow? That seems like a lot of points to babysit something. I could get two loaded out scout squads for that... I just don't know so if you have advice please let me hear it.

 

I left Shrike in the open, gotta remember to protect him more next time.

 

And I still need to find the balance between tactics and aggression.