Blog Wars 8 1850pt battle report game 1 - nids vs Necrons

First up was Josh with a C'Tan shard, Overlord in a command barge, Necron Scarab Swarm and allied Helbrute formation! Josh intoduced himself as only recently returned to the hobby so still very much a 40k newb which boded well for me considering I seem to be regularly beaten by those either new to the game or new to their army. In particular Tyranid noobies seem to beat me without fail!

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant  Tervigon Plain Tr Tervigon Miasma The Horror Warp Blast Catalyst Onslaught Dominion Dominion Dominion

The low down:

• Game 1 - Cleanse the Xenos with Hammer & Anvil deployment
• I won deployment and went first
• Warlord Trait - Deathleaper has Mindeater - +2VP for every IC slain in a challeneg
• Night fighting turn 1.

Having found enough Genestealers to replace those I'd left G.O.D. knows where I  deployed 15 in the ruin in Josh's DZ. The remaining Manufactorum Genestealers occupied the middle ground alongside Deathleaper.

The remaining force spread out in my back field to keep them away from weapons and hopefully prevent the Helbrutes materialising.

And let battle commence.

Hive Tyrant swoops forwards, Genestealers stay put, they can't assault anyway so may as well keep them there. Carnifex advances alongside the Hive Guard.

With so many Scarabs heading my way I repositioned the Tervigons to potentially pump out some bubble wrap.

I unleashed the Flyrant on the C'tan and Brainleech Worms took 2 wounds off it.

Josh spawned more Scarabs, a risky tactic in Purge the Alien as you're just adding more VPs to the table, but he seemed unperturbed.

They skittered forwards and assaulted Deathleaper

He killed a couple but was swarmed asunder giving Josh First Blood and a healthy dose of VPS. Meanwhile the Command Barge assaulted the Genestealers in the centre ruin, killing a couple and the C'tan headed for the Stealers in the DZ ruin and may have killed the brood [or was this Josh's First Blood?]. A unit of Scarabs also assaulted the Stealers, only killing a couple due to the difference in Weapon Skill and strength/toughness.

With the Scarabs exposed the Carnifex peppered them with Brainleech worms, double strength insta-killing 9 bases!

The Flyrant also made use of Brainleech living ammo to shoot the C'tan.

Who promptly exploded, somehow it must have been ground as it only took one wound. Not sure how that happened.

With no other targets the remaining Genestealer assaulted the already engaged Scarabs and wiped them out. Meanwhile some of the Spyders took wounds.

The unengaged Stealers in the centre ruin joined their brood siblings and attacked the barge.

With some heavy duty Rending hits

The Command Barge was gone and thankfully didn't reanimate. A healthy crop of VPs for me.

Some strange smoke erupted from the wrecked vehicle! What? I'm forging a narrative here!

I think that Obyron joining the Warriors there, hoping to take out the wounded Flyrant.

Yet more Scarabs, and they're hungrily looking at all that Bastion to eat because I bubble wrapped the Carnifex.

    

Half the Scarabs assaulted the Hive Guard I think I came out better only losing one Hive Guard but we're all Fearless so we remain locked.

The Scarabs get they're nibblers on the Bastion

 

And reduce it to a sloppy mess, taking the Quad Gun and the Venomthrope with it.

With the Flyrant on the ground everyone assaults and Obyron accepts the Flyrants challenge and gets eaten.

As the ground up pieces of living metal fall to the ground they coalesce back into the Necron hero and his learning protocols remove all challenge acceptance confirmations for a Tyranid bioform of this scale.

Spyders eat through a brood of Genestealers.

Carnifex assaults the other Spyders, does some damage but comes off just as bad with MC Vs MC.

The Flyrant bashes Warriors but still can't get to Obyron, the Spyders head to break the stalemate.

More spawned gaunts join the Hive Guard but they begin to take casualties and the melee remains locked.

Helbrutes finally materialise, they put some damge on a Tervigon but mostly it remains unharmed.

Eventually time is called and we tot up the results 793 +2VP [Line Breaker and Slay the Warlord] to Josh's 919 +3VP. I was actually quite surprised I didn't do more damage and had been lucky as a lot of  my units were not passed the half strength mark so hadn't scored. I know I killed a lot of scarabs, which aren't much points but the Command Barge wasn't cheap. Perhaps the relief I felt not having to tackle the Helbrutes backfired in that essentially those points never got a chance to be secured by me, although I'm not so sure what could have taken them, probably the Carnifex...

Anyway, aside from the super quick deployment [all things considered] this was another typical first game loss but a fun game. Josh was quite apologetic about his list but although Scarab swarms aren't a fun concept I never once felt I wasn't enjoying the game and as I said at the beginning experience is no guarantee for success. Anyway, on to game two.

Josh and I mid game from From the Fang