New crusade- "I want to go fast"

[Galron]

Playing in a new crusade campaign. Not really taking this one too seriously so I am theming it to the concept of "I want to go fast." The game consists of 3 rounds of three games each of 500, 750 and 1000. I have too many other projects going(like literally I have a howling griffons squad, canoptek spiders, US Marines squad and a Battle tech lance on my desk right now) on that I am painting so I didnt want to be rushed to get stuff completed nor did I want to play my Iron Warriors again thus I am fielding my necrons. 

So my starting list is 

Mephrit

Cryptek with cloak + Veil of Darkness

Immortals x5

Tomb Blades x6 twin Gauss, shadowloom and shield vanes

Tomb Blades x6 Particle Beamers shadowloom and shield vanes

 

I chose one of each flavor so that I can pop the mephrit strat on the particle beamers and the gauss strat on the twin gauss guys. The idea is to speed around with the technomancer healing dudes and popping off shots himself at safe ranges and then moving in for the kill. Within 17" I have 53 str 5 shots which should be able to take down pretty much anyone even if its just forcing saves. Pretty sure my immortals will be ignored as long as I keep them mostly out of sight.

 

At 750 I add

2 Cryptothralls

Annihilation Barge

Tombstalker

 

At 1000 I simply add 6 Locust Destroyers

 

"The Jackal Class Raider quietly passed through the void. It was a small ship, amongst the smallest vessels of the Necron fleet. Its dark jade green hull almost black in the darkness of space. Only the gold of its bridge pyramid and artistic flashes were visible. It emerged above a rocky dead world.

 

No fleet flew alongside him. It was all High Technomancer Karolis could do to commandeer this minor vessel for his personal mission to gather knowledge from before the War of the Heavens and protect it from the vermin races infesting the galaxy. It had taken years of running through old barely functioning data stores and reviving the personality engram of a forgotten Lord who ruled a crown world. But the emgram was so corrupted over many hundreds of millennia that only a basic star chart was possible to scrounge out of the insane rantings. It had taken him over twenty years to piece together the approximate location of the world when accounting for the celestial drift of systems within the galaxy. It had intrigued his curiosity that no one had mentioned this world prior to him discovering the engram and he kept the knowledge hidden from his peers so he could claim the prize and glory for himself. 

 

He assembled his tiny warband in secret even placing a cohort of destroyers in stasis and loading them into the small cargo bay of his Jackal in cargo containers for the trip. He had his own personal thralls and a surprise creation with him and as he slowly left the great hangar of the Jadite Dynasty throne world, Scara, a swarm of tomb blades had quickly boarded without notice. The annihilation barge and the crates took up almost the entire cargo bay on this small ship leaving no space for more troops even if he could assemble them.

 

The orbit of the planet was surprisingly busy. Somehow in a strange twist of divine comedy, the planet was under full scale invasion from many different vermin races with the human upstarts very prominently represented, however they didnt appear to be working together. Weapons fire flashed up from the surface annihilating a human destroyer breaking its keel before blowing up in a spectacular fireball. A vessel belonging to his ancient enemy the eldar  was hit and began to burn into the atmosphere before getting hit again showering an escort vessel which took a hit itself. Relishing the misfortune of his enemies he activated his comm system which easily cracked all of the vermin's primitive encryption so he could hear their panicked cries. 

 

"We are being scanned from the planet," One of the crew said to him. "Detecting energy bloom"

 

Calmly the Cryptek said, "Phase Shift 90 degrees, max distance."

 

The crescent shaped vessel nimbly defied physics and vanished appearing several kilometers off to the side. A blast fired up from the surface where the vessel was at previously. Other former ships were brief flashes of flame and were now floating shattered wrecks. The surviving ships were pulling erratic evasive maneuvers, ignoring each other as they raced for the surface. "Helm, continue with random phase shifts and bring us to the surface. We cannot allow the vermin to uncover the knowledge hidden on this planet."

[Galron]

"We are descending, my lord." The helmsman said flatly. "Opposing firepower from the surface is intensifying and is getting closer despite phase shifting which we will have to end in twelve seconds due to atmospheric interference. End of line."

 

There was a loud explosion off the starboard flank as an imperial frigate attempted to run the gauntlet and failed. The large green blasts from the surface continued unabated but were now joined by smaller and far more numerous shorter ranged beams, one of which struck the small crescent shaped ship midquarters in the cargo deck.

 

The powerful beam rocked the vessel knocking it off course. "Hull integrity at 60%, Loss of primary engines, Phase shifter offline. Weapons offline. Secondary engines operating at normal capacity. End of Line."

 

The smoking vessel burst through the thick cloud layer to see a ruined city interspersed with rocky outcroppings as far as the eye could see. Ruined sky scrapers, some reaching to the clouds even although most buildings were low and the once grand streets below them filled with rubble of a bygone age. On several visible mountains, great cannons loomed over the city and continued to fire great green beams of light into the sky. The smaller weapons turrets were visible now spewing rapid fire beams at the descending ships. 

 

Thankfully the Jackel was well below the angle of attack from most turrets and the pilot even using the secondary engines and skillful use of maneuvering thrusters managed to avoid the worst of what remained. Other ships were not so lucky. Karolis was thankful that the weird unfathomable coincidence of fate brought multiple targets to spread the pain. He was however still wondering in the back of his mind why now and how everyone else knew.

 

"We are going in. Possibility of surviving crash is 78%. End of line."

 

He was as strapped in as well as he was going to be as the vessel sliced through the ruins of a skyscraper on its way to the ground rocking the ship but maintaining hull integrity as it sliced into a lower building before coming to a smoking halt.

 

The vessel was half buried in the ruins of what might have been an ancient arena. Smoke poured out of several gaping holes in the hull and green sparks shot from blown open access panels. Inside, ceiling panels hung down and sparking cables and small fires filled the area. 

 

Karolis's vision cleared of static as he awoke in his chain and his systems self-repaired and came back online. Lifting his head he observed the room. The helmsman was still plugged into his port at his station. Several crew had derezzed and returned to the Tomb world. the helmsman's metal arm was severed as he held it in place to allow the repair nano-scarabs to meld it back together. All around the vessel scarabs began to work to rebuild and repair the ship. 

 

"Helm, status?"

 

"We appear to have landed, lord. Massive damage across the ship. Only passive sensors are operational at this time. Engine is under repair. APUs are functional. Weapons have no power to check their status. Main cargo bay is heavily damaged. The barge is reporting operational status but it currently trapped. Destroyer stasis pods are functioning on their own APU systems and are also similarly trapped. End of line."

 

"Time for repair? What about my stalker?" The Tombstalker was his own personal creation upon obtaining High Technomancer status and he had a lot of pride in the beast.

 

"Estimated time of repair is unknown. Scarab repair systems are working at half rate to rebuild their own numbers and initiating contact with the rest of the ship. 81% of them were destroyed in the crash. Stalker status is unknown. It is either not currently connected to the main ship network or the main ship network is severed in that area. End of li--. Passive sensors detect we are being scanned at this time by a ground force approaching from the east. End of line."

 

"What troops are available to defend?"

 

"Currently both tomb blade squads are at 100%. An immortal squad is currently extricating itself from their bay and will be out barring unforseen circumstances. Their leader indicates they are ready to rock in his words. End of line."

 

The technomancer chuckled. The mortal races think the necrons were emotionless machines mostly due to encounters with the numerous primitive necron warriors or units like his helmsmen who had most of their personalities removed during the conversion. The more advanced a necron's body, the more personality was able to be transferred. As members of the army during the War in Heaven as the Aeldari called it, the Immortals received higher end bodies and much of the soldier aspects of their personalities remained intact. He had known a squad of immortals who literally spent millennia arguing with each other on the merits of Gauss versus Tesla weapons. Last he checked, they still hadnt come to a conclusion. "Signal them to meet me outside the ship. We will destroy these interlopers and figure out the purpose of this planet."

 

"Compliance."

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Played my first game of the league. It was against one of the organizers who was playing Tau. It was a decent list against players not me but apparently this league has many newer players. 

He had Tau, Borkan (so extra range, and weapons under S7 are -1S vs suits and vehicles)

Coldstar with prototype flamer, High output burst cannon, 2 fusion guns, Borkan warlord trait( extra -1 AP and up to 3 or 4 MW on 6s to hit). 2 shield drones.

10 man strike with a marker drone

2 Broadsides with a marker drone

 

Field was small of course, I ended up as the defender so I set up the terrain on my side of the board and near the objectives which were touch and go to hold them. He ser his guys up in a tiny square and I had my immortals behind terrain in the center of my 6" deep deployment zone and my Blades and technomancer in the far left corner. As attacker, he went first. I took Reaper and Annihilation for my agendas.

 

His T1: He advanced everyone except the coldstar who bounced onto a rooftop. He fired his broadsides at the immortals killing 3 of which one got back up. His coldstar was just in range of my tomblades and easy range of the immortals so he fired his fusion guns and burst cannon at the bikes and the flamer on the immortals. He killed three bikes, two of which got back up and one immortal who also got back up. He then bounced back behind the building. My T1: Reanimated a bike. All the bikes pushed forward and took an objective and got everyone in LOS of his commander. The immortals wanting to get outside the line of fire entered a small building at the center of the board out of LOS. I popped the gauss strat on one unit and the mephrit strat on the other and killed both drones and dropped the commander down to two wounds.

 

His T2: For some reason he decided he wanted to charge me so he moved his commander close to my particle beamer bikes. the broadsides took a position in some ruins overlooking the objective. They fired but I dont think they killed anything rolling 2s and 3s. (Blades are -1 to hit). His commander killed one bike from each unit and did a wound on another and then charged. My blades overwatched and popped the mephrit strat and did 3 mortal wounds killing him. My T2: I selected the firewarriors as my annihilation target and zipped up field with both full bike squads after using the strat to do reanimation protocols twice. The particle beamer unit at close range wiped out the firewarriors in a single volley. The other squad used the gauss strat to do 3 damage to the broadsides while the immortals moved onto the other objective.

 

His T3: He moved his broadsides down to close with the immortals and once again wiffed his shooting. Tau dice are cursed, I tell you. He then wiffed his assault on the immortals. My T3: Immortals gained a dude and fell back while remaining on the objective. Everyone else just stood there at point blank and fired at the broadsides killing the marker drone, a broadside and doing a few wounds to the other one. My immortals are objective secure so I held it.

 

His T4: He wiffed his shooting yet again and charged the immortals. Why not at this point? Predictable results. My immortals also failed to wound him in close combat. My T4: step out of combat and lit the last guy up. Immortals were at full power again. Flawless victory. 

 

This is a for fun league game so there is no prize. We knew it was a massive victory for me but it counts simply as a W which reminds me I need to check if  the warlord gains an XP for winning in addition. There really isnt a lot of improvement I can do on my warlord. The crusade rules are old and assume you will bring a noble so the technomancer improvements are kind of meh. Once he gets the bonus reanimation for no cp ability I have no clue where I will go with him. I might change my future list around and throw in a lord or Royal Warden just to take advantage of the improvements.  I gave my technomancer VoD but only because its useful for utility. 

 

I spent my RP to swap my particle beamers for Tesla Carbines and upgraded them to have overcharged Tesla coils which means they get 2 hits on every 5+ and 6+ so in theory I should greatly improve my hit numbers. 24 shots = 8 5 and 6s = 16 additional hits + the 16 averages say I should get. It also improves the range of them to 27" vs the 21" my particle beamers have.

 

On a weird side note, I noticed my anxiety for playing games is ridiculous for some reason. My heart rate during this game was averaging 116. I was in the middle of my hour long leg workout this morning and it was averaging 95 and thats after having a pre-workout. I will have to ask my doc about it but I found it weird. Anyone else ever notice something like this?

Edited December 16, 2022 by Galron

[Galron]

"The closest two energy emitters are nearby to the east. END OF LINE." The enhanced warrior operating the ship's sensors intoned.

 

"Then we shall investigate." The Technomancer said standing.

 

"Urge caution. Sensors report a nearby crash of an human Imperial ship in the vicinity of the emitters."

 

"Then we shall wipe the vermin off the planet if they intervene."

 

+            +              +

The emitters were visible between the ruins of the ancient city. They were metallic obelisks situated near each other emitting an off green light. He and his tomblades sped forward while his immortals plodded inexorably towards a set of ruins to take up overwatch. The glint of out of place gold suddenly alerted the patrol of an enemy approaching as a giant golden dreadnought emerged from a side street. It was covered in intricate carvings and had a large missile rack on its shoulders and each arm ended in a long rotating gun barrel. Behind it in the building the technomancer caught sight of a unit of infantry maneuvering through the rubble."

*************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

 

Game Two was an objective based mission. I went against a custodes player. I wasnt expecting a large enemy force but wow. He had a captain, 5 bare bone sisters and a really big dreadnought with two gatling guns on the arms ad a big missile launcher that fired 12 shots on its back. I played the same force s before but swapped out the particle beamers for teslas on the one squad and upgraded them to the ability that gives two shots on 5s and 6s. There was a twist that non-vehicle units not in buildings were -1 T.

 

T1: I moved the tesla guys forward and the gauss blades on top of a building. The Mancer moved in between them but safely in the building. The tesla guys wiped the sisters of silence. The gauss guys did enough wounds with mephrit and the capacitor strats to downgrade the dread. His T1: He marched forward with the dread and kept his captain in a building. His shooting went after my tesla guys who lost three guys and promptly had two get back up.

 

T2: Third tesla guy gets back up thanks to the technomancer. Units move out and it takes all of them to finish off the dread. His T2: He moves his captain forward behind some cover next to an objective.

 

T3: Both blades the technomancer and the immortals take the other objective and get the captain in sight. Everyone manages to knock him down to 2 wounds thanks to transhuman. His T3: he gets a charge off and kills 5 gauss tombblades, of which, only one gets back up.

 

T4: Tombblades get another guy back thanks to technomancer. Both objectives are taken. I try and kill him with everything else but the tesla blades just barely manage to kill him.

 

He had some crazy survival abilities so it took mass fire to take him down. Now I have the boost for both the tesla bikes and the 6s are autowounds for the gauss.

[Galron]

Yeah I am not even writing game three up. Went against a Voltan army at 500 points. He had 2 infantry squads and two characters. It was not an exciting game.  I was the attacker, went first and wiped a squad with my two TB squads. He countered by killing 3 Tomb Blades of whom I brought one back. My Tesla Tomb blades not only had a decent round of initial hits but also got 18 additional hits from 5-6 explodes due to their battle trait. The immortals did a wound to his terminator analogue. The now 4 remaining gauss blades finished him off and he conceeded.

[Galron]

Another very non-noteworthy game I won. The TO got creative which I appreciate but the mission just didnt work out. This one too place underground and was a data transfer mission. 5 units get a data thing and one unit a turn spends an action and hands it off to the warlord. Problem was the TO decided to make it pretty much a zone mortalis style board with anyone inside a building needing to blast a hole through T8 and 2 wounds. Board was 3/4 covered in terrain. Both deployment zones were mostly covered. He was defender and picked what I thought was the worse side to start, I actually was able to squeeze all but my technomancer into the open area. He had all of his in buildings except those dwarf bikers. Oh and every unit with a data token could not be removed from the board for any reason aside from dying thus he had no teleport shenanigans with his terminator analogs.

 

He did get first turn and drove his bikes forward and split fire to shoot at my two tomb blade squads killed three total. Two came back. They then combined fire and cleared the bikers off. T2 he conceeded. I dont blame him. He knew if he blew a wall open, it would leave him open to my nasty amount of fire. I killed one of his units that still had its token thus denying him that 10 points. I could have brought two squads forward and used one to blast him out of a building and then used the other squad to clear whoever was inside but I was ahead on points and didnt need to since this league is flat win or loss. It was a neat idea but I think he should have play tested it. Table next to us had GK vs custodes. GK simply smited the walls clear and then shot up the units inside on the same turn.

[MithrilForge]

On 12/17/2022 at 2:27 AM, Galron said:

 

On a weird side note, I noticed my anxiety for playing games is ridiculous for some reason. My heart rate during this game was averaging 116. I was in the middle of my hour long leg workout this morning and it was averaging 95 and thats after having a pre-workout. I will have to ask my doc about it but I found it weird. Anyone else ever notice something like this?

 

Nice write ups and glad to see some Crons Kicking Butt 

 

As to the Heart rate issue, when your at the gym your not anxious to win against the squat rack or leg press machine...it's a Physical workout with certain Physical stresses on your body...

The game of 40K is causing emotional stress... which is far more potent and hard to avoid when invested in your game...hence the high heart rate... perhaps try not to be so worried about the game 

 

Cheers M.