After much nagging, Mike finally agreed to start using the newer Ork codex, but not without one last game with the old one. Turns out, he just wanted to play one last game using looted Imperial Armour, the Basilisk in particular.
Necrons
1 Deceiver
8 Immortals
6 Flayed Ones
6 Flayed Ones
11 Warriors
10 Warriors
5 Destroyers
4 Destroyers
2 H. Destroyers
1 H. Destroyer
1 Monolith
Wasn't sure what to expect from him, so I catered to my strengths and made a fairly strong shooty army with enough CC clout in the Deceiver to hold off the Nobs he was sure to throw my way. I've had little experience with Flayed Ones (seeing how I don't actually have the model) but I was hoping to use them to keep the Orks from doing too much damage once they got close or as a counter charge.
Orks-DethSkulls
(I don't know Ork units all that well, correct me if I'm wrong, Mike. There were a couple of s8 rokkits scattered throughout.)
6 or so Nobs with a Warboss in mekarmor
20 Vulcha Boyz w/Zagstruk
4 or 5 Burna boyz
1 Mortar w/5-6 gunners
Some unit with lascannon(s) and rokkits
1 Trukk with 10 Trukkboyz
1 Trukk with 10 Trukkboyz
1 Trukk with 10 Trukkboyz
1 Battlewagon (with Nobs on top)
1 Leman Russ
1 Basilisk
Table had pretty light terrain: 1 large pile of LOS blocking rocks in the middle and basically 1 piece of area terrain per quarter. We end up rolling for a Cleanse mission and he gets to pick quarters, chooses the side with the least amount of cover....no idea why.
Deployment
Orks set up behind a wall of vehicles. The trukks, Leman Russ, and battlewagon all form a line, effectively blocking any LOS to his troops in back. Basilisk hides in the far corner.
I set my Necrons up far forward in my quadrant, eager to get into 24" range. Destroyers and H. Dests. are set up to go around the right side of the rocks and light up the vehicles while my footsloggers and monolith move around the left of the rocks. Flayed Ones infiltrate into woods in the adjacent quarter to the left in preparation for the charge likely to come to my warriors and Immortals. No redeployment necessary with Grand Illusion.
I win the roll and opt to go first.
The first two turns were fairly uneventful, with Mike’s orks staying put (amazingly) and me steadily moving my phalanx forward. My destroyers managed to take out his Leman Russ' main gun in Turn 1, but only managed to immobilize the Battlewagon in turn 2, which he quickly repaired. His Zzap gun dropped a Destroyer, and the Basilisk and mortar scattered horrifically both turns, killing only 1 or 2 warriors. In turn 2 one of his rokkits managed to hit my Monolith, stunning it. So began the barrage of rokkits that was to ensue. My Particle Whip hits at least 2 trukks but was unable to cause any damage. Stupid 1/2 strength rule!
Turn 3 finally saw some carnage as my Destroyers are able to cause 1 of the 3 trukks to explode, with the Immortals getting a 6 to penetrate and explode another! He had forgotten that my Immortals had LOS under my monolith, otherwise he would've targeted them with...something. I felt kind of bad for not reminding him about skimmers early on, but it's just something that is assumed on my part, I suppose. The Zzap gun and Basilisk both fired at my Monolith to no effect; the Basilisk scattered into my Immortals, killing 1. So sad. He then fires more rokkits and, yet again, stuns my monolith! The Nobs disembark from the Battlewagon and start making for the Monolith.
Turn 4 sees the explosion of the 3rd truck and the destruction of Battlewagon, leaving a nice big firing lane into his back line of troops. My Heavy Destroyers can't hit the broad side of a barn (AKA a pack of Nobs) and the Nobs take 1 or 2 wounds from the 11 shots coming from my warriors and 14 shots from my Immortals, not to mention shrugging off the Deceive from my Deceiver. Sturdy buggers. I drop my Particle Whip into the mass of Trukkboyz that are still scurrying about and it scatters into his mortar crew....killing all 5! Deceiver falls 1/2" short of being able to engage the Nobs and just sits there and grins like an idiot. He pulls his Vulcha Boyz down the left flank, hoping to get to my closest group of warriors next turn w/out having to engage the Flayed Ones. He shoots and his freakin' rokkits hit again! This time, my monolith is immobilized and settles down all cozy-like where it's been stunned for the last two turns.
Turn 5 comes and he knows the game is over. He thought he had his Vulcha Boyz hidden behind the slope of a hill, but my Immortals get pulled through the monolith, walk around the side behind some Flayed Ones and waste at least 8 of them. 1 Group of Destroyers fires on the Basilisk, knocking out its main cannon. The other destroyers, warriors, and H. Dests. fire on the Nobs, dropping 3 or so of them. Deceiver uses Deceive again and the Nobs take off running to the backfield. His Stormboyz come swooping in and have just enough space to get around my flayed ones and to my Immortals. Amazingly, they only drop 2 of my Immortals. I only drop 1 Vulcha Boy but pass my ldshp test and stand fast.
As turn 6 comes around, we decide to call it game as he knew he didn't have a chance. Most of his forces were still in prime firing range for Necrons and I was likely to have both adjacent quarters uncontested once I wiped out his Vulcha Boyz (all but inevitable!). His hope was that I would have to come to him and that, even if destroyed, his vehicles would block LOS and then he would spring out with his Vulcha Boyz and tie me up long enough for the Nobs and Burna Boys and Trukkas to finish me off. Unfortunately, half of his vehicles exploded outright, leaving him wide open. I was kind of nervous of the templates he was laying down at first, since I wasn't running the Res Lord, but his basilisk was doing so poorly that by turn 3 I wasn't worried one bit about the way this game would go. Still, those rokkits were really pissing me off.
In my opinion, playing a static Ork armored list is just handing a free victory to Necrons due to gauss weaponry and number of shots. I'm curious how Mike’s orks will transition to the new codex. Thankfully, this time I didn’t cheer loud enough to frighten the children when I won (Sandra kindly reminded me of my over exuberance last time). A fun game.
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8 comments:
Who were the named characters in play? C'mon, where's the characteristic Necron personality?!? They just seem like this collective machine the way this is written. Oh, wait, they are....
necrons vrs bugs would be a fun mess....
Heath
Ryan's description of my setup pretty close. One trukk actually had a Big Mek with custom FF. Another custom FF in the Boss's mob.
The idea of this army was to pummel whomever with indirect fire blasts while he can't shoot through the vehicles once he wrecked them--since most of his hits would be glancing. I also didn't have to depend on the rotten Ork BS. He'd have to assault -- very difficult against Orks in cover.
I was supposed to integrate cover in my line, but at the last second decided to integrate the hill. It turned out to be a bad decision, b/c I didn't realize the extent to which Ryan could leave NO wreckage and b/c there was an area of rough terrain on the edge of my quadrant, forcing me not to use the hill as much as I would have liked. This would leave the Necrons threading through the terrain into my guns.
I actually won the first move toss and elected to go second, figuring my Stormboyz could swipe a quadrant in the last inning. My setup was designed to take punishment anyway...
I made another error when Ryan set up by the center of the table after he saw the Basilisk ready to be placed. I should have gone into standard assault mode, but was really focused on trying out a new strategy.
So what went wrong?
First, the Basilisk never hit more than a handful of troops in four turns. Considering it had the strength to overcome "We'll be back" and could wipe out an entire Necron company with a single shot, this was extraordinarily bad luck.
Secondly, I've played many games with masses of vehicles. This was the first in which more than one was exploded. In this case, Ryan followed EVERY penetrating hit with a six to explode the vehicle, leaving the boyz to crawl through aforementioned difficult terrain under fire with NO cover. In contrast, I scored several hits on his monolith, and only at the very end rolled above a two on the damage table.
My megamob was done in when Ryan informed me that wounds had to be taken against already wounded. I was going by previous editions where just the opposite was the case, so I had taken my first wounds on the heavy armor. So I lost a heavy armor guy, so when Ryan hits with his warriors, my save is 6 and not 2 (b/c now the light armor outnumbers the heavy armor). 500 points of megarmor goes "whoosh" and what's left fail leadership and run.
Speaking of leadership, my mobs consistently failed the roll, meaning they had to fire on the monolith in front. Fortunately, I had a rokkit in every mob. Too bad the new codex all but eliminates this most useful piece of ork weaponry. So his warriors threaded the terrain unmolested.
Then there was the ill-fated Vulcha charge. Out of more than fifty dice, I score ONE, yes ONE wound. The immortals with one fifth the rolls manage two, against which I roll two sixes to save.
In all this massive bad luck, I did make more errors. I should have put the Zzap gun on the monolith first turn. It scored a 10 strength, and would have penetrated. Of course, if the Basilisk had only managed to drop a shell on it, I would have been rolling Ordinance damage (not to mention the lost Leman Russ battlecannon).
But overall, I think I overestimated the ork's ability to "create" their own battlefield cover and exploit it. With the new codex, this won't even be an option, as the orks lose almost all ability for indirect fire and weapons above S8 (and those are now limited!).
Mike -- perhaps I'm misreading, but I saw this:
Speaking of leadership, my mobs consistently failed the roll, meaning they had to fire on the monolith in front.
Vehicles and non-vehicles operate on different "channels." In other words, if you want to fire at a bunch of necron warriors stationed behind a skimmer monolith, you do NOT have to Ld test to do so (assuming those warriors are the nearest non-vehicle unit). If you wanted to fire at another VEHICLE laying further away than the monolith, you'd have to Ld test. But the two do not intermix.
Yeah, with Ryan's monolith, I'm also disturbed at a lack of >S8 weaponry. My bright lances are meant to counteract heavy armor, but his strange organic surface negates lance effects, so I need a 6 to glance with my most powerful bulk ranged weapon. I have Prism cannons, but I cannot field these in bulk -- 1 per tank. If you're losing your powerful weaponry, I feel for you.
"You must pass a leadership test if you want a unit to target any enemy unit other than the closest." p. 19
"Any of your units can choose the closest vehicle as a target." p. 65
Ergo, you still can't fire at an infantry unit that is not the closest unity without a LD test.
Even orks should be able to target units other than the closest 50% of the time. I was just rolling extremely poorly -- didn't make ONE of those.
Re: Banys
You can ignore infantry to shoot at vehicles, but I don't think it works the other way around.
Re: Richter
It really was a night of terrible rolls for the Orks, with me getting ridiculous vehicle damage rolls and you getting terrible scatter and damage rolls. The multi-wound issue was rough, admittedly, and looking back I think it might have been more sportsmanlike of me to let you re-allocate those wounds since you didn't know so you wouldn't have to pull your higher armored guys out. My bad.
Re: Heath
Let's do it! I have a funny feeling Necrons will easily fold to a sea of tyranids, but still, it'd be fun!
Well, new Ork codex fixed mixed armor by not allowing creation of mixed armor. It was really a gameplay idea that didn't really work...
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