Battle Report - The Fight for IV-85 - Necrons vs Black Scorpions + Necron Codex Review!

The strike cruiser slid through the void silently. A stalking leviathan ready to devour. Deep in the bowels of the ship Arch Deacon Evodius, High chaplain of the Black Scorpions listened carefully to the pict feed from the surface of IV-85. In the outskirts of a ruined city there was a holy sepulchre. An ancient site of holyness which attracted pilgrims from all over the sector. In recent weeks disturbing tales of daemons, ghosts and strange creatures have been circulating. The local PDF went to investigate and quickly found themselves under attack from the ancient undead. Evodius grimaced as he recognised the foul shapes of Necrons striding through broken city. The PDF had been all but decimated, a brave few remained pinned behind fortifications in the forest. They wouldn't last long without help
 'Gaius!' Evodius bellowed. 'Marshall our forces, we make for the surface!'

The Armies - 2000 pts - maelstrom of war

Necrons - 60 warriors, 10 immortals, 3 wraiths, scarabs, a spyder, lychguard and an overlord, a monolith, tombblades and finally a nightscythe. Rik used the Decurion formation along with the canoptek harvest formation. The standard 'new necrons' style.

Black Scorpions - 15 PDF guards men with an aegis and an icarus lascannon, a manticore, tactical squad, scout squad, 5 man assault squad, 2 devastator squads (heavy bolters and lascannons), a whirlwind, 10 death company with Astorath (evodius), 10 sternguard in a rhino, 5 sanguinary guard along with a sanguinary priest.

The Battlefield

Rik won the roll and chose to go first. We set up diagonally and placed our objectives. 3 in each of our deployments. The table was set up with a town to the north and a forested shrine area to the south. Rik chose to deploy in the city, taking advantage of cover and concealment. I deployed in the south, making a formidable battleline with my aegis and two artillery pieces. My scout squad sneakily deployed in the ruins, out of sight of the implacable robots.

Turn 1

Rik started off moving his forces towards mine. Moving forwards with warriors and wraiths. Nothing was in range except my heavy bolter devastators in the tower. Some gauss shots downed a marine.

In order to have any chance of winning I'd have to play tactically and carefully. Necrons in 7th are insanely good and resilient. With a huge precinct building blocking my line of sight I couldn't do much. I moved my death company up the eastern flank and pushed out with my tactical squad. My lascannons scored a wound of the wraiths near the precinct. My heavy bolters gunned down a couple of warriors. My whirlwind and manticore both scored hits, as did my Master of Ordnance in the PDF squad. In total I killed roughly ten warriors. About 3-4 in each of the 20 man squads. A few scarbs were killed too from the fearsome blasts. The manticore killed two lychguard forcing a moral check on the lord, which he failed! He ran, but not off the table. Turn 1 was over. Rik suffered a few casualties but nothing to worry him. At this point we both picked 3 tactical objectives all of which were useless. No victory points.

The Overlord retreats!

 Turn 2 - Rik 0 - Rottimus - 0

Rik moved his wraiths up to the scouts in the precinct. He brought in his nightscythe and monolith right in front of my aegis fortified line. The monolith teleported a warrior unit in front of it and the nightscythe emptied 10 immortals. A bold move by Rik. He smashed straight into my lines blowing up a rhino, which spilled out my sternguard. They then took casualties from the Monolith and the tesla immortals. Rik scored First Blood and a victory point for destroying a vehicle (tactical objective card)

The wraiths charged into my scouts on the precinct causing 4 wounds. My scouts in return did wounds but they saved by reanimation protocols. They fled, and managed to escape the devilish wraiths.

 My 2nd turn saw the entry of my sanguinary guard and warlord priest. They entered the table edge near the precinct and joined in my push up the western flank. My death company and rallied scouts also pressed onward toward the square in front of the precinct. A whole pile of warriors awaited. MY artillery again did a fair amount of damage but reanimation proctocols mitigated most of the damage. A few warriors were downed permanently. My lascannons and manticores took two structure points off the monolith and destroyed a gauss array.

My death company and scouts charged into the warriors! 10 death company with 5 attacks each, rerolls to hit and to wound along with 6 scouts managed to only kill 9 warriors. Boo. The warriors broke and ran but i rolled a 1 and rik rolled a 6 so they escaped! Unlucky. The Death company now in front of the full force of necron weaponry!

 My tactical squad also charged into the newly arrived necron squad by my aegis. They scored a decent amout of wounds but the 4+ armour save followed by a 4+ reanimation meant I killed 1. A full 10 man, furious charging squad... killed 1 warrior. I won the combat by 1 but they passed their leadership and were locked!

The wraith combat was a stalemate. my 2+ armour held strong against the wraiths and the two rending hits were saved with two 6's feel no pain. The wraiths took a few wounds but reanimation protocols saved them. 

My sternguard in the corner charged into the immortals. They killed one immortal but lost 2 of their own. They stayed in the fight but were now heavily outnumbered. The Necrons were proving annoyingly hard to shift...

 Turn 3 Rik - 2 Rottimus 0

Rik moved his scarabs and spyder closer to the death company along withi his tomb blades and remaining warriors that survied the first melee. The wraiths moved close to my sanguinary guard. I was being overwhelmed and surrounded in my flank attack. Lots of shooting killed 5 death company as shitty armour saves and feel no pain failed me.

Rik charged his Scarabs into the scouts by the precinct. They actually failed to kill anything and my scouts in turn killed a base of scarabs. The scouts were holding their own. Rik Scored another victory point. I can't remember what it was now. Also, my tacticals lost a man and ran away from their combat. They'd now be free to move in my own turn.

My turn 3 was slightly more productive this time. I moved my reserve assault squad out towards the immortals to try and save my sternguard who were floundering against the immortals.  My shooting downed more warriors but again, frustratingly, not enough to do any real damage. My lascannon icarus took careful aim and blasted a hole right thru the monolith vapourising the ominous pyramid in a shower of flame and debris! This was a great victory, my back line would now be safer. I won a victory point here for ''completely destroyed a vehicle or a monstrous creature''

My tactical squad raced towards the sanguinary guard to try and help out against the wraiths but failed to roll high enough to assault them

My death company and Evodius (Astorath) killed the Spyder in brutal charge, Evodius' scythe slicing it's head clean off. Another victory point for killing a unit in an assault.The scouts took out another scarab base without losing a man.

The sternguard held on despite losing a men. There was now only 2 remaining.

My sanguinary guard managed to finally down a wraith in close combat but lost a sanguinary guard unit in return

 Turn 4 Rik - 3 Rottimus - 2

Rik's back line was still in danger as Evodius (astorath) and some death company were still alive. They'd killed the spyder and were again subjected to a fierce amount of gauss fire. 3 more death company died and Evodius took 2 wounds. The scouts and scarabs held firm taking 1 wound each. 1 more sternguard died against the immortals taking 1 with him to the grave.

It was now time to seize the day. With the monolith gone I initiated a counter attack! My 5 man assault squad moved toward the immortals trying to kill my sternguard. My tacticals got close to the wraiths, determined to help the sanguinary guard. I burst forward with the PDF forces and my devastaors. I figured, 6 marines + 15 guardsmen should be able to take down 6 warriors right?

Private Jaysen watched in awe as the towering space marine lept over the aegis line. The monolith had just been vapourised and a cheer rang out across the line. The sergeant of the black armoured marines bellowed 'Men! The Emperor watches us! With me! Let us send these foul creatures back to hell!' Jaysen felt somthing stir deep within him, it was more than pride... it was glory. He charged forward along with the space marines hungry for vengeance!'

My assault phase ensued....9 tacticals charging into the wraiths did exactly ZERO damage either failing to hit, wound or being saved by the wraiths 3+ invul and reanimation protocols. The wraiths did take a wound from my sanguinary guard.

My epic charged forward with the PDF and the devastators resulted in.... nothing. Complete failure. A turdy mixture of bad hits, bad wounds and the few wounds that made it past being saved by reanimation.

The way is clear! Attack!

My assault squad leapt bravely into battle against the necron immortals, FAILING. Zero casualties caused. I lost the sternguard sergeant. My assault then squad failed their leadership and ran off the board. What should have been a rousing reversal was nothing short of an epic failure.

The failure of Squad 17

 I did however score a victory point for having Objective nr 2 in my control. A paltry consolation.

Turn 5 - Rik 3 Rottimus 3

Turn five was short. My death company got shot to bits along with Evodius and the now free immortals took a hull point off my whirlwind. The Night scythe had been skipping about these last few turns but I barely mention it seeing as it did little but take pot shots here and there.

The wraiths were finally brought down by the combined hacking of my sanguinary guard and the tactical squad. My scout squad raced toward objective nr 3 where, If they had been but 2 inches closer I would have had 3 victory points. 1 for a 'control nr 3', 1 for a special one were Rik had nominated 2 objectives that he had to keep from me, and 1 for linebreaker.

Alas, it was not to be, We rolled a 1 and the game ended. Rik scored 1 victory point for linebreaker (his immortals) and 1 more for his HQ still being alive (tactical objective)

RESULT?

Rik - 5 victory points vs Rottimus 3 victory points


Conclusion

Well, that was fun. Truly. A real nailbiting game. I'd read lots about Necrons 7th edition and heard mostly bad things. e.g boring, OP, silly, frustration, insane, too good, beardy etc etc.

It wasn't boring. It did feel like I was playing against Necrons. They just will not go away. Rik and I both played well I think, decent tactics but war is unpredictable. My artillery did OK at whittling his forces down and my flank attack went relatively well but I kept breaking or defeating units in my own turn, leaving my forces ripe for getting shot in Rik's following turn. I was disappointed that my counter attack failed. To have 3 units of charging space marines ALL fail to do anything is a rare occurence and quite saddening. That being said, my scouts performed very well, surviving until the end, trying up wraits for a turn and then killing lots of scarbs and then being 2 inches away from a stunning victory. They'll be be getting promoted to full space marines no doubt. All in all a great, fun game. A good start to the narrative campaign.

Review of the Necrons?

The new codex is disheartening I have to say. I did enjoy the game but there are things that are simply stupid in the codex:

Wraiths - Wraiths are simply too good. They are, by a mile, the very best unit the game has ever seen. They have 2 wounds, toughness 5, strength 6, a 3+ invulnerable save, have a 12 inch move, are beasts, have hammer of wrath, they ignore cover, they have initiative 5, lots of attacks, fearless and when taken in a canoptek harvest, have reanimation protocols at 4+. Here's the kicker, as if the list I just wrote wasn't enough,.... they cost 40 points each! In this game, a 120 point unit held up 260+ pts of sanguinary guard and a 170 pts of tactical marines. To give you just a rough idea of how utterly silly these units are, a terminator costs 40 pts, a sanguinary guard is 33 pts, an ogryn is 40 pts. All vastly inferior to a wraith in every way.

The thing that makes wraiths so game-breaking is simply how versatile and cheap they are. They can do ANYTHING. Vehicles? check. You've got high strength and rending + you are fast. Hordes and big units? Sure! plenty of attacks, high strength and that high toughness means even space marines are wounding on a 5+. Elite units? Hellz Yeah! You've got a 3+ invul, high toughness and reanimation protocols. You're good to go!

It's a debate that's been raging since the codex dropped and it's not hard to find smart-arses going on about how you 'should just tarpit them', 'bolter them to death', 'ignore them' or 'strength 10 them'

All these points are valid until you look at the points cost. it's a 120 points for 3 wraiths. Take 3 units and you've got 3, 120 point units that can bog down even the toughest most determined units.You're going to need a big tarpit to keep these at bay, 30 guardsmen and a priest come out at 25 points more expensive.

The only valid way to handle them that I can see is to tarpit them in order to mitigate their danger. Space marines don't have tarpits. it's 140 pts for a basic basic tactical squad and in any event, is that really what 40k is supposed to be about? Charging a unit into another and going 'Right, they're stuck there for the rest of the game... moving on'. I feel like it's a sad direction to go in. I don't understand the thinking behind it. Wraiths were already a hard as nails, VERY popular unit in 6th Necrons. They went ahead and gave it reanimation, higher toughness and made them cheaper. It boggles the mind when you take into account that all other codexes have generally been toned down.

Warriors that never die

I actually like the new reanimation protocols. They are more fluffy and really give you that feeling that you're fighting implacable, ever-living, self-repairing robots. They just won't die. The fact that you now roll reanimation as a sort of 'feel no pain' is great. It was too easy to wipe out units before.

That being said, the game designers went ahead and took it too far.... so far in fact that it gets silly. Reanimation in the decurion is at 4+ instead of 5+. Ok... but you also re-roll 1's if you are close to the overlord. So only 2's and 3's cause permanent death. With toughness 4, and a 4+ save along with this, it is nigh-on impossible to get rid of warriors in any decent amounts. Massed ordnance, death company charges etc all cause minor losses as they just get back up again. They're still 13 pts each. Less than a space marine even tho they have the same stats apart from initiative. That 4+ / 4+ and re roll 1's means 10 wounds turns into 5, then into 2-3 and then into 1 or 2 as the wounds are progressively saved or mitigated. That's statistically better than having a 2+ save.

In addition to this you can have crypteks and lords with res-orbs. Once per game you can re-roll failed reanimation meaning when that nasty unit strikes or that ordnance blast hits finally you can further mitigate it. I feel they've gone too far. 

General strength and power and annoyingness

Other units in the codex seem woefully undercosted. Destroyers and tombblades etc all outperform their contemparies in other codexes before you even factor in reanimation. It's like they've gone, ''hmm necron units need more punch, they need to be better and more versatile'' then someone else has gone 'ooh lets make reanimation much better and do formations that boost it!' but these two groups haven't spoken to each other, so you get this double whammy of improved punch along with improved toughness with no drawbacks. 

The Future?

I'm disheartened by this development in 40k. I'll continue to paint and convert which is my true passion for 40k. Gaming is great fun and the casual scene has always been my favoured venue. Tournaments are rules-lawyering, bitchy events that aren't really all that fun. Playing with friends has always been the fun aspect of this game. Now however, I feel like a big stink has been thrust into the casual scene.

Go online and look at 40k comments on dakka dakka or reddit. I found numerous instances of Necron players saying they were going to self-limit their lists, tone it down or avoid the decurion because it's results in one-sided games and tournament level power gaming despite the necron player not trying to do that. When 40k players are self-limiting you know something has gone terribly wrong.

I'll reserve judgement until I play a few more games. So far though, things aren't looking bright. I do apologise for the rant and negativity but sometimes you just gotta get it off your chest.

Despite my negativity the game I just played was in fact great fun and I was very close to pulling off a victory. I also did a fair amount of damage and it wasn't, by any stretch, an easy victory but I did feel like I got a glimpse into future necron and it looks painfully frustrating. As I mentioned to Rik, the only tournaments I every bothered with were 500 pts doubles. They were already dominated by wraith spam from before :-)


Until next time! Thanks for stopping in.