Escalation League 500pt Games

Seems like I’ll be combining games in posts because life is busy eh?

GAME 1

ARMY LISTS:

NECRONS

Patrol Detachment [26 PL, 3CP, 494pts]

Dynasty Choice: Dynasty: Szarekhan

[HQ]

Overlord [6 PL, 90pts]: Relic: Voidreaper, Warlord, Warlord Trait (Codex 1): Enduring Will, Warscythe

[Troops]

Immortals [8 PL, 144pts]:

9x Immortal [144pts], Tesla Carbine

Necron Warriors [6 PL, 130pts]

10x Necron Warrior (Gauss Reaper) [130pts]: 10x Gauss Reaper

Necron Warriors [6 PL, 130pts]

10x Necron Warrior (Gauss Flayer) [130pts]: 10x Gauss Flayer

CHAOS SPACE MARINES

Patrol Detachment [28 PL, 1CP, 500pts]

Legion Choice: Alpha Legion

[HQ]

Master of Possession [6 PL, -1CP, 105pts]: 4. Master of Diversion, Aspiring Lord, Chaos Undivided, Mutated Invigoration, Pact of Flesh

[Troops]

Legionaries [7 PL, -1CP, 135pts]: Chaos Icon, Mark of Tzeentch

Aspiring Champion: Astartes chainsword, Black Rune of Damnation, Boltgun, Trophies of the Long War

Marine w/ balefire tome: Prescience

2x Marine w/ boltgun: 2x Bolt pistol, 2x Boltgun, 2x Frag & Krak grenades

Marine w/ special weapon:** Flamer

[Elites]

Master of Executions [4 PL, 65pts]: 1. Flames of Spite, Chaos Undivided, Ul'o'cca, the Black, Warlord

[Fast Attack]

Venomcrawler [6 PL, 105pts]

[Heavy Support]

Obliterator [5 PL, 90pts] Fleshmetal Guns

Game 1: Alpha Legion versus Szarekhan Dynasty

Gametype: Tempest of War

Deployment: Sweeping Engagement

Primary Mission: Claim the Battlefield

Mission Rule: Scrambler Fields

Deployment

My opponent chose defender.

The Necron deployment is pretty standard, models on objectives or preparing to move to up to objectives while getting cover to minimize possible incoming shots.

I placed my units pretty aggressive specifically to try and push him back and away or bait him into placing units to try and focus a firing line then redeploy away from it. It seemed like he was aware and trying to minimize where I could shoot from.

My opponent rolled first turn.

I redeploy to hide out of line of sight with Master of Diversion then the game begins.

Redeploy is a massively powerful tool when used correctly. It allows you to deploy aggressively up front, occasionally set up a bait or two, and then respond to your opponents choices. In this game it made for only a few shots able to go into tanky targets which was not ideal for mass guns.

The game plan going into this was to hide from his guns, soften him up on turn 2, then engage hard on turn 3 with my combat units while staying in favorable positions to score secondaries. Now I got EXTREMELY lucky in my secondary pulls then had 2 turns of essentially free use of the New Orders stratagem so I consider this to have gone off without a hitch. Usually I will also have my Obliterator in Blasphemous Reserves so it can teleport in somewhere inconvenient on turn 2 or 3, if I need it to put shots into something or help me score an easy [Behind Enemy Lines]. This game I opted to start it on the table because of the Scrambler Fields mission rule, that would have prevented it dropping in on any objectives, and to maybe help soften up Warriors which I was expecting to be a problem removing.

Turn 1 Necrons

Secondaries: [Behind Enemy Lines]; [Battlefield Supremacy]; [Storm hostile Objectives] [Overwhelming Firepower]

With the redeploy all the Necrons could really do was move up towards objectives and try to get a couple shots onto the Venomcrawler and the Obliterator all of which bounced did no damage.

Turn 1 Alpha Legion

Secondaries: [Behind Enemy Lines]; [Battlefield Supremacy]; [No Retreat, No Surrender]

Vemoncrawlers are such fast models. Twelve inches of movement is often enough to get onto midfield objectives and threaten units turn 2 or even turn 1 if deployment zones are one of the long board edges, which this mission is. So it was a bit surprising that he placed his warriors up far enough that I could get an easy charge in turn 1. I don’t think he was expecting the spider to be as fast as it is.

My Master of Executions needs to stay safe early as he’s quite vulnerable to quality shooting, seeing as he lacks an invulnerable save like many (I’d go as far as to say most) characters in 40k. So I advanced him up onto the midfield objective in cover which would keep him safe and make him have at WORST a 3+ armor save against my opponents scariest guns.

Legionnaires hopped onto the top of the building so they can get line of sight for shooting and spells.

My Master of Possession moved into line of sight for spells

The Obliterator moved towards his backfield Gauss Flayer Warriors to get some shots back.

The Legionaries cast Smite on the Warriors which was denied by the Empyric Dampening stratagem and the Master of Possession cast Mutated Invigoration to give the Legionaries plus 1 toughness and cast Smite, also on the Warriors, which did 3 mortal wounds, 2 of which were saved by their 5 up feel no pain (5+++).

The Venomcrawler and Legionaries then shot at the Immortals, killing just over half but one reanimated.

The Obliterator shot his Warp Hail Fleshmetal Gun profile into the group of Gauss Flayer Warriors and they came through it just fine having gotten cover from the containers. Could have been better but was really the only action he had available to him. Probably going for the mid-strength profile would have been better and yielded any kills.

The Venomcrawler then charged into the middle group of Gauss Reaper Warriors which overwatched and did 2 wounds. Several Warriors died in the combat but still stripped a few wounds off in return.

Generally alright though not as effective as I’d have liked. Denying one of my early powers was great and rolling hot on 5+++ is fine mitigation against the psychic phase and mortal wounds in general but not something that should be relied on. The problem is that Necrons don’t really have any other answers outside of The Silent King, which doesn’t get to come in 500pt games or stacking gloom prisms on Canoptek Spyders. Here my opponent was relying on it to continue working, which as the game progressed, we saw how it began to falter.

Turn 2 Necrons

Secondaries: [Overwhelming Firepower]; [Grind them Down]; [Bring it Down]

Now the Necrons had targets, but their guns were either falling back or shooting at things in cover. My opponent did opt to fire his guns while he still had them to try and get progress on his secondaries.

The squad of Gauss Flayer Warriors put everything onto the Obliterator again and managed 1 wound this round. The wounded group of Gauss Reaper Warriors fell back into cover in the center ruin and his Immortals and Overlord shifted around onto the second no man's land objective.

He did manage to put some interesting damage by using Malevolent Arcing and Solar Pulse together, to turn off my cover bonuses, as he fired the remaining Tesla Carbines into my Legionaries, killing one and splashing a wound to the Master of Possession and the Venomcrawler. While I’m sure it’s common knowledge to diehard Necron players, I hadn’t seen that combination before. Here it was probably a waste to splash 2 mortal wounds out but I can see rolling up and popping that into the center of a gunline and putting out 6+ mortal wounds easily. Will look forward to maybe seeing him do that in the larger games once we all have more points to play with.

Turn 2 Alpha Legion

Secondaries: [Deploy Teleport Homers]; [Overwhelming Firepower]; [A Tempting Target]

Falling his Warriors away from my Venomcrawler let it walk directly up to his lines and really threaten his Warlord. I was hoping to really kill his immortals here with shooting then get my angry spider into his warlord and do some damage (secretly I always hope he gets to eat all the models he touches).

The Obliterator moved to a window to fire at the reaper Warriors in the center ruin, and the Legionaries and Master of Executions shifted a bit then began the Claim Objective action.

Shooting was pretty lackluster across the board. The Obliterator killed 2 Warriors and one got back up in the middle. I spent 2CP on Unending Destruction so my Legionaries could still shoot and they killed a whole 1 Immortal, which got back up. Whoohoo.

The Venomcrawler then managed to whiff its shooting entirely, charge the Immortals, and then whiff its combat entirely while managing to get punched for a few more wounds. Yay.

As far a psychic went, he'd been making an incredible amount of his 5+++ so far this game and was essentially a bust though I did manage to heal my Legionaries back to full with Pact of Flesh.

Turn 3 Necrons

Secondaries: [Bring it Down]; [No Prisoners]; [Assassinate]

A simple turn.

Both Warrior squads did the Claim Objective action on his home and the midfield objectives, thus "stealing" the midfield from me.

Which was great for him until it was clear that by getting close enough to touch the objective meant my Master of Executions was in heroic intervention range. This let him do his thing, having reached combat in turn 3 and easily wiped out the remaining Warriors in the middle, now holding the objective but leaving it "unclaimed". So fewer bonus points for me.

His Immortals stayed in combat with my Venomcrawler, presumably to prevent the possible overwatch from my spider but I think he would have probably been better falling them out of combat to screen my Legionaries a bit and keep his Overlord slightly out of reach. I believe he said that he had placed his Protocol of the Conquering Tyrant on turn 4 which he didn’t make it to and would have helped a bit here in turn 2 or 3. His Overlord charged in and killed my Angry Exploding Spider, which exploded killing that pesky Immortal that lived, 1.5 Legionaries and dealing 3 wounds to his Overlord.

Turn 3 Alpha Legion

Secondaries: [Secure Hostile Objective]; [Defend Stronghold]; [Raise Banners] [Area Denial]

The killing blow.

The Master of Executions skipped his merry way into the Necrons deployment zone, eyeing up his remaining Warrior squad.

The Legionaries moved to surround his Overlord.

The Master of Possession and Obliterator shifted onto objectives.

The Obliterator, giving up his shooting and performing the Claim Objective action, was just as efficient as he'd been all game.

My Master of Possession cast Pact of Flesh on the Legionaries, healing the squad to full and letting them get securely onto the objective, and Mutated Invigoration, giving them strength 5 for the upcoming fight.

Legionaries cast Smite, dropping the Overlord to 1 wound remaining, then shot him to death with everything they had. This left them free to charge the Immortals and handily clear them away.

The Master of Executions lived up to his name, hitting and wounding with everything and rolling two 6s to hit and wound, resulting in 6 dead Warriors immediately and another 12 mortal wounds to be saved. A valiant 5+++ roll attempt but not enough to save the remaining few Warriors.

At this point I had tabled my opponent had enough units to hold all 4 remaining objectives

Turn 4

Secondaries: [Assassinate]; [Blood and Guts]; [Bring it Down] [Secure No Man's Land]

Turn 5

Secondaries: [Hold the Line]; [Extend Battle Lines]; [Grind Them Down] [Capture Enemy Outpost]

Final score: 90-31 Alpha Legion Victory

The Master of Executions was most assuredly the MVP this game. A Flames of Spite + Ul'o'cca the Black Master of Executions should average 7 mortal wounds in a fight phase but to do 12 is just an immense amount of overkill into MOST targets, not just Warriors. I went into his expected output in more detail in the list write up, Here.

My opponent tried to run a silver tide list that, at 500 points, really didn't have either the model count or buffs to really support Necrons’ longevity on the table. Nor did it have the killing power, outside of the Overlord, to really do enough damage to hinder my gameplan. Just a tough matchup for his list. Essentially my whole army had 2+ saves the whole game and there wasn't enough firepower to overwhelm it. Coupled with the redeploy removing his ability to hurt anything I had he really ended up with only 1 turn to hit me with guns but still didn't have anything good to shoot at.

Now we both forgot the claim objective action on turn one which was big usually because that's easy four points you get on turn 2 but in this game it ended up kind of being a blowout so it didn't really matter in the end. Still a silly oversight even more so when you consider that we both had some shooting that didn't do anything and wouldn't have been missed. Warriors shooting into 2+ armor saves just isn’t worth shooting in my opinion and the Obliterator whiffed shooting back all game. While much of the upfront list-building of this game is about finding ways to manipulate and mitigate the effects of rolling dice there’s really no accounting for picking up a handful of dice and all 2s.

GAME 2 ARMY LISTS:

ORKS

Patrol Detachment [26 PL, 3CP, 494pts]

Klan Culture Goffs

[HQ]

Warboss [5 PL, 105pts]: 4. Brutal but Kunnin, Attack Squig [5pts], Kombi-rokkit, Power Klaw [10pts], Super Cybork Body, Warlord

[Troops]

Boyz [15 PL, 255pts]

Boss Nob : Big Choppa , Slugga

Ork Boy w/ 'Eavy Weapon: Rokkit Launcha

8x Ork Boy W/ Shoota: 8x Shoota, 8x Stikkbombs

20x Ork Boy w/ Slugga & Choppa: 20x Choppa, 20x Slugga, 20x Stikkbombs

[Elites]

Nobz [12 PL, 140pts]

Boss Nob: Big Choppa , Slugga

6x Nob: 6x Big Choppa , Slugga

CHAOS SPACE MARINES

Patrol Detachment [28 PL, 1CP, 500pts]

Legion Choice: Alpha Legion

Gametype: Tempest of War

[HQ]

Master of Possession [6 PL, -1CP, 105pts]: 4. Master of Diversion, Aspiring Lord, Chaos Undivided, Mutated Invigoration, Pact of Flesh

[Troops]

Legionaries [7 PL, -1CP, 135pts]: Chaos Icon, Mark of Tzeentch

Aspiring Champion: Astartes chainsword, Black Rune of Damnation, Boltgun, Trophies of the Long War

Marine w/ balefire tome: Prescience

2x Marine w/ boltgun: 2x Bolt pistol, 2x Boltgun, 2x Frag & Krak grenades

Marine w/ special weapon:** Flamer

[Elites]

Master of Executions [4 PL, 65pts]: 1. Flames of Spite, Chaos Undivided, Ul'o'cca, the Black, Warlord

[Fast Attack]

Venomcrawler [6 PL, 105pts]

[Heavy Support]

Obliterator [5 PL, 90pts] Fleshmetal Guns

Game 1: Alpha Legion versus Goff Orks

Gametype: Tempest of War

Deployment: Spearhead Assault

Primary Mission: Burn and Raze

Mission Rule: Tactical Reserves

Deployment

I chose defender.

My opponent rolled first turn

I had my Obliterator in reserves and redeployed to negate/minimize any turn 1 charges.

Final score: 77-20 Alpha Legion Victory

So. I don’t really have many interesting things to say about how this game went. It played almost exactly the same as the previous game but even more one sided so I will try and be brief.

I killed his Nobz in turn 1 with a cheeky 8” charge from the Master of Executions, my Venomcrawler got stuck in with Boyz in turn 1 and locked them up, which in turn made his Warlord get stuck holding his home objective and thus not krumpin.

In my turn 2 and 4 secondaries were quite bad. First got Defend stronghold, Grind them down and Deploy teleport homers, then failed to kill a unit that turn, 30 Boyz is a lot to chew through with 6 attacks a turn, so only got points for sitting my Master of Possession on my home objective. Then I pulled 4, after discarding one with a CP, impossible secondaries in turn 4 (Bring it Down, Blood and Guts, Battlefield Supremacy and A Tempting target) since I had already tabled him AND we had blown up both no man’s land objectives. We had a good laugh about how I had too efficiently killed his units and cost myself a turn of points. He also didn’t WAAAGH! On turn 1, which I believed was a mistake with such short distances between our armies. Even though I had redeployed my I was still within a very chargeable(by Ork standards at least) range of his 30 Boyz but instead he opted to move out onto the no man’s land objectives getting ready for turn 2. This unfortunately ended up putting him in a position where I could easily lock him up and wipe out his heavy hitters. I had asked if he was sure he didn’t want to WAAAGH! even for the defensive buff but was assured he wanted to save it. Ah well, this is how we learn.

This game could have easily gone differently if my opponent had split his Boyz into 3 separate MSU squads. This would have let him very easily leave his shoota Boyz on his home objective then move out with his Warboss and Nobz and let them each have a screen/bodyguard of Boyz. This would have easily made his game more lucrative for him as I wouldn’t have been able to off his Nobz in turn 1, he could have played more aggressively in turn 1 without fear of leaving his deployment zone undefended, and his Warlord would have been able to get into the fight. This list highlights why it’s important to have enough units, even at small point games, to actually be able to move out and secure the board. Having a large deathball unit can be fun but in small games leaves you vulnerable as you can only reasonably be in one place at a time.

Overall this could have been a much more interesting game, even with the same models, if it had been organized just a bit differently.

So these Games went well! I'll have the games for weeks 3 and 4 up soon so check back later!