Battle Report - AdMech Skitarii/Officio Assassinorum/Space Marine Scouts vs. Necrons

I played my very first game using the AdMech forces I've been painting over the weekend.  It was a ton of fun, but the army didn't do particularly well.

My army was as such...

Space Marines Combined Arms Detachment (Primary)
Techmarine (Warlord)
Scout Sergeant Telion
10 man Scout Squad w/Sniper Rifles and a Missile Launcher
5 man Scout Squad w/Bolt Pistol and CCW riding in a Land Speeder Storm
1 Drop Pod (for the Arc Rangers below)

Officio Assassinorum Detachment
Vindicare Assassin

Skitarii Battle Maniple Detachment
10 man Rangers Squad w/2 Arquebuses
5 man Rangers Squad w/2 Arc Rifles and an Arc Pistol
6 man Vanguard Squad w/2 Plasma Calivers
5 man Sicarian Infiltrators Squad
5 man Sicarian Ruststalkers Squad
1 Sydonian Dragoon
1 Onager Dunecrawler
1 Plasma Obliterator

The Skitarii elements were actually pretty solid.  The Dragoon and both Sicarian units were rock stars.  The Sicarians held up 6 Wraiths and 10 of the jump Necrons for basically the entire game.  They would have chewed through softer units.  The Wraiths having a 3++ is a killer.

The real issue with my list was that the Space Marines, the Vindicare and the Plasma Obliterator were almost entirely useless.  I don't think any of them made their points back.  As much as I want sniper rifles to be useful, they just aren't.  The Vindicare has less than a 50% chance of doing a wound, assuming you stay away from Hellfire rounds.  That's not very good for a 150 point model.  The Plasma Oblit clocks in at 230 and MAYBE made it's points back.

I need to rethink the Space Marine elements.  I think I might be far better off using Tau Empire as allies until I can invest in a larger AdMech army.  I love the idea of the Conclave formation, but that would entail buying an Imperial Knight as well as about 6 boxes of Cult Mechanicus.  I might end up going that route, but only if I can find a way to save up and afford it.  I have so many unfinished projects, that I've cut my hobby budget back pretty dramatically.

Puretide Bomb Practice Game

I played a game against a new friend met at a Games Workshop tonight.

My new pal Ilir brought his Necron Army to fight my Puretide Bomb.  I don't know that I can replicate his list exactly here, but I'll try.

He had, approximately:

Imhotek the Stormlord
3x Crypteks
3x 10 man Necron Warrior Squads
3x Flying Croissant Dedicated Transports
2x Flying Croissants with Death Rays
1x Monolith

I had my Puretide Bomb:
Farsight, 7 bodyguards with assorted weapons, Shadowsun, 14 Gun Drones
2 Broadsides w/4 Missile Drones
2 Sky Rays
2x 6 man Fire Warrior "Filler" units

I deployed first, but he stole the initiative.

Turn 1.
Imhotek's lightning got lucky and exploded one of my two Skyrays.  Other than that, not much happened.  I think he shot and killed 2 or 3 gun drones.

My go I moved the bomb forward and killed about 20 warriors, 2 crypteks and wounded Imhotek between all my shooting.

Turn 2.
He brought on one death ray croissant and one transport croissant.  I killed the death ray one with interceptor fire from the Broadsides.  He killed another couple of gun drones and scored a glancing hit on the remaining Skyray.

I killed the transport croissant and killed Imhotek, who promptly stood back up.  I also killed more of his warriors.

Turn 3.
Another death ray and transport croissant pair came in.  (I wish I could remember the names of these things.  I feel like I'm being passively insulting to Necron players.)  Interceptor fire glanced the death ray one, but didn't kill it.  He put it to good use and between all his shooting killed some more gun drones and a total of 3 crisis suits.

On my turn I killed the death ray, the rest of the warriors and the crypteks.

We had to call it there as the store was closing.  We got started fairly late and the amazingly accomodating manager let us play through the extra turn so that we had a decent game.  We called it at the end of the 3rd turn with me having 9 victory points and him having 1.  Not bad.

Another victory for the Puretide Bomb.

Puretide Bomb - Game 1 - Battle Report

I played my first game using my new Puretide Bomb list. It was devastatingly one sided. I feel pretty bad. I went to my local GW store and said, "I need a volunteer to help me test my d-bag tournament list." My buddy Gareth was willing to oblige. Afterwards, he said he might quit the hobby.

I brought my list... basically the Puretide Bomb, 2x 6 man Fire Warriors, 2x Broadsides and 2x Skyrays. He brought a bunch of power armored marines. 2x 10 man Tactical Squads, 2x 10 man Jump Assault Squads, 1x 5 man Lascannon Devs, an Assault Captain and an Assault Chapter Master. Typically he just swarms forwards and gets into combat ASAP.

He took the first turn. As to deployment, I infiltrated the bomb to one side, but the Broadsides in the middle and kept the Skyrays one to each corner. He did a more or less front and center deployment. He went first.

Turn 1: He swarmed forward and was within assault range on my Puretide Bomb, so he foolishly declared an assault. The Overwatch killed all 10 of his troops. His other troops all moved forward and his shooting either missed or was covered by the first turn night fighting. On my turn, I moved forward and between the Puretide Bomb shooting, the Broadside shooting and the Skyrays, killed the other 10 man Assault Squad, a 10 man Tactical Squad and wounded the Assault Captain.

Turn 2: Things were looking pretty grim at this point. Gareth moved his troops forward again, and was able to successfully kill 4 drones (or ablative wounds as I like to think of them). On my turn I killed the remaining Tactical Squad, the 5 man Devs and the Assault Captain. I also wounded the Chapter Master.

Turn 3: The only thing Gareth had left was his Chapter Master. He assaulted the Bomb, and survived the Overwatch (do to a spectacularly bad round of rolling). Seriously, I should have statistically killed him 5 times over. Anyways, the combat ended in a draw and we decided to call the game as I would just have used Hit and Run to jump away and shred the Chapter Master.

End Result: A complete tabling in 3 turns is pretty solid. Granted, Gareth wasn't playing a tournament list, but killing 47 power armored Space Marines in 3 turns is pretty solid. I'm really happy with the results. One big lesson learned is to stay out of charge range if there's a remote chance the charger will survive Overwatch. I think this list is going to do just fine in the tournament.

Necrons vs. Imperial Guard

I met my friend Vincent for a quick 500 point game of 40k last night.

He brought Imperial Guard. He had a Demolisher, Chimera, Command Squad and two units of Vets with special weapons.

I brought a basic Overlord, 2x 5 man Warriors, Annihilation Barge, 6 Scarab bases and 2 Spyders.

The Scarabs were brutal. They stripped 11 points of armor from the Demolisher on turn 2. Also, the Spyders just kept making more. I ended the game with 9 bases! I think I gained 8 bases over the course of the game. That's an extra 120 points worth! I might have to get a 3rd Spyder.