We arrived at Piscea Prime via a small webway gate. After a small amount of recon, we encountered a small group of our ancient enemies, the Necrons. We struck hard and fast, easily out maneuvering their clumsy warriors while picking them off one by one. None of our number were killed, though I was wounded by their leader's staff. In short order we were able to locate their teleporter and destroy it, securing the area surrounding our gate, and we have begun to push further out into the wilderness. I will update you as to our progress soon.
--- Psyhic message from Warlock Ylrad to Farseer Aldean of Alaitoc ---
This was the first battle in our new Kill Team campaign. I played my Alaitoc strikeforce against Ben's Necrons. The mission was a custom scenario created by the league organizer called Gain Ground
This mission uses the diagonal deployment from the original missions 3 and 4 in the Kill Team rules.
Each player places an objective in his/her deployment zone. This must be at least 6" from the table edge.
When the game ends, a player wins if he/she is controlling the opponents objective while the opponent does not control his objective. If both controls each others' objective or no objective is controlled, the game is a draw.
At all cost - Any model within 3" of an objective is fearless.
Alaitoc Strikeforce
Team Leader:
Warlock Ylrad - Warlock on a Jetbike with the Spirit Stone of Windfall - 65
Core:
Jetbike - 17
Jetbike - 17
Jetbike with Shuriken Cannon - 27
Ranger - 12
Special:
Warp Spider - 19
Warp Spider - 19
Fire Dragon - 22
Total: 198
As I said in my last post, this list gives me tons of mobility with a good amount of high strength firepower. The main downside is that virtually all of my units need to get within 12" to do any damage. This shouldn't be too much of a problem, as even footslogging Eldar are pretty fast, particularly in Kill Team. I also have quite the advantage in this mission, as I can easily jump a jetbike or tow to go claim his objective whilst leaving the rest of my force behind to secure my own, while he'll have to footslog across the whole board to get to mine.
Necrons (Aproximation)
Team Leader:
Noble (maybe with some upgrades. It never came up) - ~45
Core:
Necron Warrior - 13
Necron Warrior - 13
Necron Warrior - 13
Necron Warrior - 13
Necron Warrior - 13
Necron Warrior - 13
Necron Warrior - 13
Necron Warrior - 13
Necron Warrior - 13
Necron Warrior - 13
Necron Warrior - 13
Necron Warrior - 13
While this list is very basic, it is actually very intimidating on the table. Firstly, he greatly outnumbers me, plus Warriors can be very tough, due to their Reanimation protocols. This is made even worse by the fact that I have no real AP on my weapons, barring lucky 6's on my guns, other than the single Fire Dragon, so he'll usually be getting his 4+ as well. It also leaves him with the option of leaving a couple guys to secure his objective and then just bum rushing me with the rest of his force, penning me in and letting his volume of dice take its toll. On top of that, the Staff of Light that the noble gets is a pretty scary weapon that could easily punk a model every turn if I'm not careful. Finally, with such a large model count, and Ld 10 all around, he's basically immune to being routed, so no early victory there.
I decided to take Protect/Jinx as my Psychic power for this battle, as having essentially an army-wide 2+ save is very appealing, plus, I could always use it to reduce the save of some warriors to make them more vulnerable to my Shuriken weaponry, if I was having a hard time with killing them. Ben won the roll to deploy/ go first, and elected to do so, deploying his Noble in the middle, leaving 2 warriors back near his objective and then splitting his remaining force in half to try a pincer attack.
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| The Necron Phalanx |
I countered by setting up pretty much my entire force behind a central building, trying to stay more or less out of sight to limit his targets, and allowing me to spring forward on either flank as he advanced. The Ranger stayed back on my objective, peeking around a corner to take some pot shots at the warriors on the left flank.
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| The Ranger Hangs Back |
Turn 1
The Necrons launched their attack by advancing their larger force toward the Eldar huddled behind the building, while a single warrior broke off from the second group, running far along the flank. The others from that group moved around the flank before running forward behind some barrels. The Noble boldly advanced up the center of the battlefield. The two Warriors by the objective held their place, waiting to see if they would be needed. Shots from the Necrons' Gauss Flayers lanced towards one of the Windriders, but either missed, or fizzled harmlessly against the jetbike's wraithbone plating.
With their prey closing in, Ylrad ordered the attack, the entirety of the Eldar force springing out towards the right flank, and the largest concentration of Necrons. Casting his runes to show him of the enemie's comming attacks, Ylrad is able to shield his force. The The combined fire of the Jetbikes, Warp Spiders, and Ylrad himself is enough to knock down a Warrior, and destroy another two. The Fire Dragon leveled his Fusion Gun, but his shot went wide. The Ranger attempted to pick off one of the advancing group behind the barrels, but was unable to find his target. Activating their Warp Jump Generators, the Warp Spiders phased back towards their objective, joined shortly afterwards by the Jetbikes and Ylrad, with the Fire Dragon remaining relatively concealed behind the building.
Turn 2
With heir forces encountering stiff resistance, the Warriors guarding their teleporter began to advance in support of their main assault team. The lone flanker continued his run, finding an excellent vantage point with which to see the ranger. The rest of the force advanced towards the Eldar. Once again Gauss Flayers blast into the Eldar, trying to destroy a pair of jetbikes and the Fire Dragon. Ylrad's psychic might is able to mitigate the damage however, and not a single Eldar warrior falls. Deciding to take matters into its own hands, the Noble lets loose a trio of dazzling bolts from its Staff of Light, which manage to injure one of the Warp Spiders. The Noble atempts ot charge in and finish the helpless aspect warrior off, but is driven back into cover from a hail of razor-sharp shuriken from Ylrad.
His main foe now revealed, the Fire Dragon moves towards the Noble, hoping to reduce the elite warrior to molten slag. The rest of the force again moves towards the Warriors on their right flank, though Ylrad is careful to remain near the outliers of his force. Once again the Warlock attempts to cast his runes, but this time his attempts are blocked, perhaps by some machinations of the Necrons.
Once again, the Fire Dragon's shot goes wide of his target, forcing the aspect warrior to run back into cover behind the building. A withering hail of shuriken fire, as well as a web of monofilament fibers slashes into the advancing warriors dropping a couple more. On his flank, the Ranger takes careful aim on the approaching warrior, and sends a round straight through its metal skull, dropping it to the ground in a heap of metal. Once again, the Eldar disengage from the firefight.
Turn 3
Having identified Ylrad as the main threat, the Warriors, along with the Noble move towards him, tightening the noose. The rearguard of the Necron force continues to advance on the Eldar in support. The Necrons on the left flank shoot their weapons at Ylrad, wounding him, only for the Noble to fifnish him off with its staff of light. The warriors on the right are less disciplined in their fire and don't manage to get a shot through the Eldar's armour.
With their leader having fallen, the Windrider with the Shuriken Cannon is badly shaken up, refusing to move from his leader's side.The injured Warp Spider manages to shake off the worst of his injuries for the time being and gets back in the fight. One of the Jetbikes peels off from the group and boosts over to the Necron portal generator, hiding being the building there. Without the guidance of their leader, shooting is scattered and relatively ineffective, only managing to destroy one more Necron Warrior.
Turn 4
With their ancient enemies seemingly in disarray, the Necorns continue to advance. Realizing their mistake, the pair of Warriors in charge of their objective turn around and begin to run back towards it. Once again the Necrons fire their weapons at the Eldar, but aspect armour and jetbike proves more durable than it first appeared and the Alaitoc warriors go unharmed. Even a charge from the Noble is repelled by a hail of shuriken fire.
Realizing that the Necrons have gotten perilously close to their webway gate, the Eldar redouble their attack. The Shuriken Cannon-toting jetbike peels off to support his comrad attempting to secure the Necron objective, while the rest form up a firing line to take down some more Warriors. Shooting from the two Jetbikes by the objective is enought o destroy one of the warriors, while combined shooting of just about everything else finally kills the Noble.
Turn 5
Things are looking more desperate for the Necrons with the loss of their leader. unsure of what else to do, the Warriors each advance to launch an assault on a different target. Each warrior charges towards one of the remaining Eldar. The Warrior charging the Fire Dragon is vaporized by the Aspect Warrior's Fusion Gun, while the Necron trying to reclaim his portal is badly damaged and goes down as well. Finally, one of the Warp Spiders is able to critically injure his assailant. Of the six charging Warriors, only half manage to make it into combat with the Eldar. In their respective melees, no combatants are wounded, and the Warp Spider activates its jump generator to hit and run out of the combat.
Only a trio of Necrons remain, and the Eldar begin to consolidate what now appears to be a resounding victory. The unengaged members of the strikeforce shoot into the Necron Warrior who was left in the lurch by the warp spider, injuring it, before the Fire Dragon, a Warp Spider, and the Jetbike launch assaults to finish off some of the badly damaged warriors strewn about from their disastrous charge. Badly outnumbered, the Necrons phase out, leaving the battlefield to the Eldar.
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| The Eldar Stand Victorious |
Post Game Thoughts
That was a really fun game, and though it seemed a little one-sided at the end, it actually felt much closer than it appeared. Ben was a very gracious opponent, as he always is, and I feel that he played a tactically sound game. The dice really weren't with him for much of the game, and he just couldn't seem to force many wounds on me. I think his main tactical error in this game was moving both his warriors so far from his Objective. I was sort of hoping I could draw him out, but if I had been him, I would have left at least one to guard it, and make my later turn gambit a little more risky. That being said, Ben hasn't played a whole lot of 40k, and so his unfamiliarity with what exactly my units could do may have been a part of it. In retrospect, I should have warned him of just how fast my units really are, but at the time I honestly just didn't even think about it, as I'm just so used to playing against people that know exactly how dirty Eldar can be.
At the end of the game, we rolled for our injuries on our removed models, and both our leaders escaped none the worse for wear, but Ben ended up losing 4 of his warriors, which will likely eat up most of the RP he gained from this mission As for me, I ended up with 22 RP to spend as I please (10 for participating, 5 for a victory, 3 for killing his leader, 2 for removing the first model, and 2 for losing fewer than 25% of my models), so I will likely group up the 3 Jetbikes and upgrade the BS of as many of my models as possible.
My MVP this game would probably have to be my Jetbikes. Most of the wounds I did were through them, even getting a few bladestorms in on Warriors who had broken cover. My Fire Dragon on the other hand sucked HARD. out of the 6 shots he took in this game, he only hit 1, and of course it was the overwatch shot, which incidentally I even predicted to Ben when he declared the assault. He is definitely top on my list to get an increased BS so that maybe next game he can actually hit something!
Also, I would like to apologize for the lack of pictures in this report. I got caught up in the action and just forgot to take more pictures. As for the lack of content on the blog, that's more simply because I haven't been playing a whole lot recently. I was very busy over the Holidays and just really haven't had time for a lot of games, and those I have had have been generally not really worth reporting, usually being pretty clearly resolved by turn 3 or 4. That all being said, I do hope to thoroughly document this campaign, and the Alaitoc Eldar's progress, and hopefully eventual purging of all these barbaric upstarts on their planet!
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