Apotheosis

Time to update my army's background fluff now that GW has rewritten the Necron fluff as a whole.  With the new Dynasty system for the Necrons, I guess I don't even really need fluff as to why my army is black with gold instead of silver, though I may.  The C'Tan have already been subjugated, that mission is gone from my fluff as well.  But the return to mortal bodies of flesh is a new theme in the codex, so I guess I will not only keep it, but make it my focus.  From the new Necron Codex page 17, "The Blood Vats of Zantragora," apotheosis is their overriding goal.  Apotheosis means to deify, which sounds much more inline with Illuminor Szeras goal for the Necrons, but I will stick with just mortal bodies to give hope of death.  My concern is with the fluff of the C'Tan devouring the souls of the Necron during the biotransference.  Is there a way to get one's soul back?  Hey, Sam Winchester in Supernatrual got his soul back, why can't my 'Crons? In my old story, my Great Lord Nekheny was going to use humans, namely those with the Pariah gene.  No more Pariahs in the new codex, with sucks, because compared to the Lychguard and Triarch Praetorians replacing them, the Pariah was a much better unit.  I guess the Pariah was just to powerful against the proliferation of psykers in the Space Marine armies.  A squad of Pariahs in a Necron army against Grey Knights was an awesome sight.  Oh well, there is another race I have chosen to replace my Pariah gene humans in my story.  Let ones greatest enemy become their greats hope...

So I will keep the black with gold, and the green and silver highlights and details.  But I think I want to add another color.  I am thinking a purple.  I am picturing a purple line (racing strip) on the foreheads of my 'Crons, and maybe the coffin shape on the chest with the raised Ankh gold.  The more gold and purple that higher the status of the unit probably.  I will do this to start to get models on the table will I start work on my conversion army, my "Apotheosis" army.  Yes, my Phaeron, The Great Lord Nekheny, will be reversing the the biotransference.

First Game With New Codex

Met up with a couple guys at GMI in Riverside, CA, who I am trying to start a local gaming club with.  I was originally going to play some Fantasy, but had my 'Crons with me just in case.  We played 1250pts.  My opponent played Chaos Space Marines.  Seize ground with four objectives, dawn of war.  My list was as follows:

Nemesor Zahndrekh  185pts
1x10 Immortals w/gauss blasters  170pts
1x10 Immortals w/tesla carbines  170pts
1x10 Warriors  130pts
1x2 Heavy Destroyers  120pts
2x1 Monoliths  400pts

I was in a hurry and apparently did some bad math, as I only ended up the 1175pts I as added it up here.

The game plan was to get the objects as close as possible to the center of the board and as close to one another so at a minimum the Monoliths can sit on them and contest them.  Three troop choices with the right deployment of objects would give me the possible of controlling all four of the objectives.  I took this selection of troops not some much for tactical ability as to see how each of them would play out on the table.  I took Zahndrekh for his ability to deep strike in my deep striking Monoliths as quickly as possible, coming in on the enemy turn if he is deep striking anything in (in this case he was deep striking in a five man terminator squad.  Also the Monoliths would be the ones laying down a lot of the dakka dakka and drawing the attention of my opponent  The Monoliths were to deep strike in near to the objects, clear any enemy units, and teleport my troops in to claim them.

I got to go second, and screwed up from the start with my deployment.  I ended up deploying Zahndrekh and this squad of telsa carbine Immortals to close to my opponent's Demon Prince. All five of his attacks land and I cannot touch him, fail leadership test, and lose the entire unit in a sweeping advance.  Game does not start off well.  There was a little dakka dakka, nothing to important, as his defiler did not land the template.  I bring my destroyers on to the board , but did not roll high to shoot them at anything. I walk my gauss blaster Immortals onto the board and rapid fire the Demon Prince, scoring two wounds, only two more to go.  The Warriors fire on the Prince and finish him off. Charge the Scarabs into his Rhino, only three hits, but now now Warriors can penetrate the armor. 

Turn two is no prettier.  Terminators deep strike in in front of my Immortals and open fire.  His Berzerker assault my scarabs to protect his terminator's armor save.  His Raptors assault my Warriors add sweep them.  On my turn I land one Monolith in my opponents deployment zone near the one stray objective he placed.  No scatter on the deep strike and I portal the Immortals away from his assault units to face a five man tactical squad instead.  The Immortals and Monolith leave on tact marine alive.  Heavy Destroyers drop one Terminator. 

Turn three, this Raptors assault and out right kill the Heavy Destroyers, and the rest of his units start moving towards my Immortals.  At this point I have one chance to win, hold one object with the Immortals and contest the rest with the Monoliths.  Second Monolith deep strikes in with no scatter. Test out the Portal Exile, roll a six, remove a couple tact marines.  Move the other Monolith towards the center of the board to contest the other objects and try to block his units from my Immortals.

Turn Four, he tries to melta the one of the Monoliths and assaults it, shakes it, but living metals saves it.  He starts taking pot shots at my Immortals, leaving me only three.  I move the last three Immortals into cover and onto the objective. Particle Whip the defiler, but only shake it. At least it can't shoot next turn.  Move my Monoliths to contest the other three objects.

Turn Five, he kills the rest of my Immortals.  Turn five ends with no objects held.  Opponent rolls for turn six, no go, games ends as a tactical draw, but opponent definatily wins with on kill points.

It was a good learning experience, but I didn't even get to use my HQ or tesla carbines.  Can't wait to test them out more. 

Still Missing My Old Rules...

Wishing I could use the old rules with the new points costs on the old units.  But alas, it cannot be.  So today I started looking at what the units can do as individuals, and a little bit at synergy.  I also started reading the fluff.  Time to update my Legions' origin story too.  I think one of the reasons I chose Necrons was the limited choices in the army.  A few units, and only Lords had options really.  I think I am a little over whelmed at the moment with the new Codex.

What I have gleamed so far from the new Codex is this;

With the Reanimation Protocol's, it is more important to have larger units than having a duplicate unit near by, as a unit only affects its self.  And the ResOrb only affects the unit it is in.  But unless an attach has a special rule on removing models from the board like the new Exile Portal, nothing short of the unit fleeing the fallen or entirely wiping the unit out will stop the roll.

The lose of the move like jet bikes rules on the Destroyers, Wraiths, and Scarabs makes sense.  But now Destroyers and Wraiths can Deep Strike, but Scarabs can't.  I see some exploits in this reversal.

Unit team work is going to be much more important.  Scarabs may get a lot of work, but at the moment I see them softening up heavy armor targets like land raiders for big guns like Heavy Destroyers, Monoliths, Doom Arks, and the like. I also see them helping Immortals to make quick work of lighter armored vehicles like Rhinos and such.

I am a student of Fritz 40K's null deployment.  And though I originally centered my null deployment tactics on the old Monolith's Deep Striking special rules that are now gone, I still see a lot of options to still use null deployment as there is now eight Deep Striking units in the army list and two unit transport options.

I have been doing the math hammer, focusing on best troop choice vs. Space Marines.  I have settled on gauss blaster Immortals as my premier troop choice.  That and I have 20 of them.  I have also been figuring the best option unit to kill a Space Marine Tactical Squad.  And the math hammer best shooty point cost to death Space Marine is an Overlord with five Lords and five Crypteks, all with Staff of Light.

This is like starting all over with a new army.  This is going to take a while and a lot of money I am guessing.

The New Codex

The most important new rules I was waiting on was the Monolith rules.  I knew I was losing my old Living Metal special rule. I knew they were nerfing my particle whip to STR 8 from 9, and no AP 1 under the center of the blast any more. The nerfed the gauss flux arc. But they left the particle whip an ordinance weapon so I still can shoot it with the flux arc.  And worse of all, they got rid of my special deep strike rule, where the Monolith pushes all enemy models out of its way when it deep strikes on top of them.  A lot of my tactics were based on that special rule.  Now I don't even know where to start with my new army list.  Guess the sensible thing is to start with the models I have. Let the Legions assemble!

Good bye old Necron Codex...

... But I have not been this excited about something since I found out my wife was pregnant.  My final decision will be when I see the special rules for the Monolith.  The Monolith has been the corner stone of my null deployment army, and loss of its ability to push other models out of its way while deep striking will seriously damper my tactics.  As far as the advancement of my Legions, no change, I am a terrible modeler and never give time to that part of it.  I am still playing with a sticky tack'd together army with rubber bands holding my Monoliths together.  I have not really moved forward on the army partly because I am lazy and do not like doing it, and partly because I am considering a conversion army.  I am envisioning one army to play them all.  Like how a Space Marine player can use his army to play several different codex.  I am considering a conversion army to play several different armies; Necron, Space Marine (Chaos or any codex), Ork, Tau, IG, whatever, using the same converted base models, but with army specific vehicles (like land speeders with SM, or Hammerheads with Tau kind of thing).  Maybe a pipe dream, but I have most of the needed parts collected for the Necron conversion army.  I guess if I hate the modeling side of the hobby, might as well go big or go home.  Until then though, I will be working on my standard Necron army, and can't wait for that new codex.

Slaughter In Space 3

Bottom five.  I was in a close race for last place, but fought to a draw in the fifth round, and the honor went to someone else.  But it was the most fun I have had playing 40K.  The people where great, and made the event.  The scenarios were fun, and challenging, making generals work in several mind sets to win.  I can't wait to do it again next year.

I went with a trailer trash Necron army of the list I posted earlier, with the intent of using null deployment tactics.  The idea was to generally reserve everything, depending on the mission.

Round 1, kill points, versus Grey Knights.  Reserved everything, opponent goes first, moves into my deployment zone, from one end of the board to the other.  Reserve rolls are terrible, and my army piece meals onto the board, and are rightly slaughters.  Didn't realise as I was signing up for the tourney that the Slaughter in Space of the tourney title was going to be about the slaughter of my Necrons.  Though can say I was surprised.  I should have placed at least the destroyers and the VOD Lord and attached Warriors on the board if the entire army.  My opponent scores a massacre, with bonus objective, claiming the maximum 20pts, and I got 1pt for playing.  No love loss though Rick, you were great to play with.

Round 2, basically capture the flag, scoring points at the end of the of every turn for holding objects.  Opponent is playing Tau, lots of Fire Warriors in Devilfish.  I go first, deploy as close to the objects as possible, and bum rush them, using Mono's as mobile terrain and Destroyers trying to pop transports.  Three objectives, to outer objectives worth one point a turn and center objective worth two points a turn.  My opponent deploys ever conservatively.  I capture the center and on end objective by end of second turn.  Opponent captures an other other end object and contests the center object on turn three.  By that time I have a lead of three points he was never able to make up.  I claimed my bonus object and a major victory, giving me 16pts, opponent loses his bonus objective.  Ryan, was a good game.

Round 3, hidden objectivess.  This one was interesting.  No objectives start on the board, any unit with a WS can search any terrain for an objective and find one on 3+.  Each player can only find one per turn, and one per terrain, but any number of units in terrain can search.  I deployed everything but the one Monolith, castled to one corner.  My opponent is Chaos Marines, Plague Marines, two Greater Daemons, a Daemon Prince, and some others.  I should have reserved everything on this one can came on top of the objectives he uncovered.  Instead I never got out of my corner and, he found four objectives and claimed them all.  I tried for three turns to VOD my Lord and Warriors to contest and maybe claim an objective.  Third mishap the unit is lost, along with my only only chance to contest any objectives.  Opponent gets his bonus objective, I do not.  20pts to my opponent, 1pt to me for playing.  Cooper, it was a lesson, thank you, the critique was great.

Round 4, kill points, only 4 org slots count for kill points, on table . Opponent playing Dark Eldar.  I choose his three Ravengers and one of his Warrior units as my kill points (total of 8pts possible).  My opponent chooses my two Warrior units and two of my Destroyer units.  My first failure is my deployment.  I reserved the Lords and Warriors to both portal. I castle everything else in cover in a corner.  Should have reserved everything.  I can never get my Destroyers close to my kill point targets.  My opponent gets three of his kill point targets, and claims a major victory, no bonus objectives.  I at least get my bonus points.  Opponent 14pts, me 6pts.  Danny, well played, and I still hate Dark Eldar.

Round 5, final round, and in the running for last place.  This was a fun scenario.  Four objectives that you secertly assign a value to, between 0 and 3, and that is the points it is worth if you control it.  Up against an Inquisition list.  Lots of model and Chimeras, and Cortes the Monolith killer.  I reserve every think, he deploys every thing.  He stacks his strongest units one objective, wonder what value he assigned to that objective?  He even has a Tech Marine fortify the terrain the objective is.  With everything of my in reserve, my opponent uses his free turn to move onto or towards the other objectives.  My first reserve roll brings in both Monoliths and two Destroyer squads.  I move the Destroyers on behind cover and the assassin hiding in it, and remove him from play immediately.  Mono one DS's on top of Cortes and his squad centered on the objective.  No scatter and the whole squad is forced out of cover and I particle whip his 5man Paladin squad killing to.  The other Mono DS's into the ruin in the center of the board and scatters three inches into some kind of non-Space Marine unit with close combat weapons.  That Mono particle whips a storm trooper, hits seven, and one fails the cover save for the terrain they are in.  They keep that up for the rest of the game.  They kill three Destroyers while withstanding several particle whips, gauss flux arcs, and lots of destroyer fire.  Cortes on turn three explodes a Monolith, and in turn four walks over to the other Mono and wreaks it.  In the end, every objective is contested, and the game is a draw.  Opponent holds his bonus objective, I could not get to mine.  Opponent 11pts, me 9pts, and takes me and my opponent out of the running for last place.  Cris, my favorite game, thank you. 

1-3-1 is my tourney record now.  Can't wait for Slaughter in Space 4.

Castlegate Game Club, Redlands, CA

For everyone in the Inland Empire area of Southern California, I am starting a Warhammer Fantasy and 40K gaming club in Redlands, CA.  If your are interested in joining a local gaming club, please go to:

http://www.meetup.com/CastlegateGamingClub

and join up.  This is the founding of the club and hopefully the start of something great.  More details on the MeetUp page.