Apocalypse! Memories from a day of carnage.

I’m quite select about my gaming group. Put bluntly, I prefer to game with friends. Lee has been my longest standing opponent, we have been waging war across the tabletop (or a floor with books covered by a blanket) for over twenty years now and he is as integral a part of my hobby as I can imagine as things have evolved around us. I also game with some other splendid chaps in a group we call ‘Team Handsome’ (a mostly ironic name) and have been doing so for a number of years. With these guys, like with Lee, I know what I am going to get and I know the game will be fun.

And the more models the more fun right? Neil has been pushing for an Apocalypse game for some time (ironic as he easily has the least painted models of all of us) and my Necrons of Abydos have been terrorising the group for a while now with a 100% 20 wins record (some would say a Handsome tally) therefore it made sense that they would feature. They would team up with Mike’s Necrons for a 10k Megaforce. Necrons are expensive so it wouldn’t be a massive army.

Up against this Malevolent Mechanical Menace would be:

‘Khorne Farmer’ Neil: -Eldar’
‘Gribbly’ Dave – For this game Shas’O Dave - Tau
‘Magos’ Matt – Knights and Mechanicus

‘Orky’ Stu – Imperial Guard
And Jon ‘The Usurper’ with his shiny Custodes.

We managed to find a weekend day we were all free (no mean feat when everyone except me is married with kids - I’m not meant to breed) and nailed the end of June as the date. I would have liked for Lee to join us as he has played with the Team Handsome lads in the past but honestly, we couldn’t accommodate anymore points.

Needless to say this kind of put a halt on my Genestealer Cult progress and the last event in the ‘Cultwar’ was Lee giving me a bit of a kicking as I found out just how much the Cult need a codex. In the weeks leading up to the big bash I started feverishly getting the remaining unpainted Necrons battle ready. I was determined that I would field no grey plastic! The Monolith, another Doom Scythe more Wraiths, Immortals, Lychguard, a bit of a queue developed as silver spray oil washes and pledge floor polish were applied furiously.

Final preparations...

With two weeks to go I had an idea. At the UKGamesExpo at the beginning of June I had seen some of TT Combat’s superb MDF scenery including a cheeky recreation of a couple of pieces very similar to that sold by Forge World yet different enough to escape litigation (I presume).  It was 8 quid, I took a punt and ordered one off ebay. It said it would arrive after the game (their stock was ravaged at the Expo) but you never know. Besides, Neil had decided to use Matt’s Warhound Titan instead of fielding Eldar (giving Matt more points to spend on Knights) so a superheavy would be welcomed.

A lot cheaper than the Resin version, and not bad looking. 

In any event it turned up the week before the game and sprayed silver and oil washed (though I had to spray varnish it to seal it first as the paint started coming off in my hands) it was game ready. Just in time. I kept this new addition secret from everyone but Mike, more fun that way right? ;)

Ignore that space top left. I just forgot to put the Pylon in, honest. 

The evening before:

We assembled at Wayland Games, our chosen venue, the evening before the bout to set up. As the armies were set up it became clear that there was no messing about. The Imperial guard had bought ten tanks, including a Shadowsword. Thankfully they almost entirely deployed on one side so I informed Mike that we would be refusing that flank entirely, putting some nice big buildings between us and those nasty guns. The other side was dominated by ruins and the Warhound. It was also where all the cover was so we deployed the bulk of our army there and centrally. In the centre was Dave's Tau, including a horrific amount of markerlights. Dave is a seasoned Tau player and would know how to use those to their maximum potential. Jon would deploy his Custodes the next day, it seemed a touch unreasonable to expect him to journey to Hockley from Kent just to deploy. The Alliance was going to get the first turn. They had less units than us. By far. We deployed with that in mind, keeping a substantial second wave under the table to strike at an opportune moment.

Stu's Guard 

The only place we could put our flyers they were safe from the AA. Turns out they can't come on from reserve. 

Dave's Tau

House Tenebrae walks. All Matt's models 

Deployment

The refused flank

Our second wave

Deployment

Deployment

On the way home, with our armies fully deployed, Mike and I discussed tactics and I explained exactly how we would use the refused flank tactic and a few other nasty strategies I had in mind. Mike had highlighted a few abilities from his crowd of Special Characters (he took them ALL) and I could only imagine the look on our opponents faces should we get one particular one to work .

The Battle:

The day of the battle dawned and with twenty command points each we went at it, 5 objectives, other than that standard rules. I took notes but gave up on that by the second turn so a lot of this is just from memory. But here is a ROUGH summary of the game. 

Turn One:

The alliance tore into the Necrons at full force. The refused flank had spared us a little of the wrath of the might of Stu’s guard but other than that there was a lot of firepower levelled at us. Dave's Tau lit up my Necron stalker and Anhilation Barge and heavily damaged them with his exotic weaponry. Stu’s Basilisks finished off the Stalker while his hydra destroyed the Barge taking advantage of it’s FLY keyword. Both machines went under the table. Our Wraith units also suffered greatly and if it were not for their 3++ save they would have been wiped out. It was almost as if the guys had met them before and were terrified of them. (mwahahah) Still, they had performed admirably as bullet sponges and I had a plan. Matt’s Knights also opened up with Helvigers and Paladins levelling volley after volley at the Necrons, only our quantum shielding saved us from further damage.

Mike's army moves forward

Other than that the destruction wasn’t too bad. We’d set up cannily, refused the majority of Stu’s firepower (He’d only had Scythes to shoot at and had damaged but not destroyed them) and were ready to respond in kind.

We started with resurrections and I used a total of four command points to ensure the Wraiths got back up, utilising two stratagems. Sveras buffed one unit of Immortals. Toughness 5, very nice and I used my normal trick of ‘my will be done’ on all the Immortal squads though I suspected they were out of range. Moving the Scythes, I moved mine over to try to take out the Basilisk in the corner and Mike shot his down nearly full length of the table showing just how fast they are. The Wraiths stormed forward and advanced, I had another nasty stratagem in mind to make things hard for the alliance.

That second wave, See that Knight at the bottom? It's dead 5 minutes later. 

First it was the shooting phase. We worked logically and methodically from left to right, Sadly a lot of our shooting was very ineffective and we didn’t really achieve a lot, although the Monoliths and massed Necron warriors (aided by their dynasty trait) managed to drop a few Custodes and strip a wound here and there from other targets. That all changed once the pylon opened up. Even though only two shots got by the rotated void shields (Matt utilising stratagem efficiently) and I rolled low for damage, the MACRO effect meant the Knight was taken out in one hit as 28 wounds were caused. Matt flat out refused to believe it but the Knight was removed and I asked if Matt wanted to roll to see if it exploded. He numbly said that it didn’t matter and I promptly rolled a six causing greater devastation to the center of the alliance line as the knights reactor went critical and exploded.

Mike's flyers storm down the board. 

As I suspected all the Immortals were out of range and our Deathmark assassin squad was pathetically useless (really need a buff those guys) failing to do a damn thing.

Looks awesome but they are out of range.

Time for Assaults. To my joy the vast majority of them came off! With high rolls all round. All my stuff made it in, the Wraiths weathering a storm of overwatch fire. The Flayed Ones charged into the Custodes while the Necron Lord and his Lychguard went into the Custodes Dreadnought. Only the Sentinel failed to make it to it’s target, taking some damage from overwatch to add insult to injury. The assaults results were mixed. The lord and his retinue managed to damage the dread, which was saved largely by it’s invulnerable saves. Then Jon interrupted using a couple of command points and his Custodes wiped the Flayed ones out in one round. Ooops. Custodes are NASTY. The Wraiths found damaging the tough Armiger difficult but stripped a few wounds.

Wraithswarm

Flayed Ones vs Custodes. 

Turn two.

'That thing has to die', said Jon, looking aghast at the Pylon. And die it did as EVERYTHING targeted it. Well over half the army blasting away at it until it was no more than a mangled pile of metal. Thankfully it didn't explode, (I used a command point to make sure) a shame, but well worth the 8 quid to one shot a Knight! You would think that with so much of the army firing at the Pylon that we would have escaped largely unscathed elsewhere but that was not to be as the Allies wreaked a heavy toll. When the shooting stopped a lot of Necrons lay fallen and even worse, full squads had been obliterated, the guys learning over the last few months to focus their fire. Mike's Praetorians, my unit of Warriors, Mikes Immortals. the Deathmarks, two Flyers, all wiped out. Our second wave had been heavily blunted. At least a third of our army had been taken out.

Things were to get worse as the Custodes charged into the Wraiths, wrecking two of them.  Elsewhere the assaults ground on, my overlord almost being destroyed by the Custodes dreadnought. (I totally forgot to use the Lychguard Guardian skill to defend him.) the only real solace was at least they had no psykers, I was surprised and VERY relieved to see that the guys had not taken advantage of the Necron's lack of anti psychic potential. I have to say at this stage I had to stop taking any notes as five lots of people asking me to roll saves and remove models comprehensively blew my mind and I struggled to function. It didn’t help that it was roasting hot in the Wayland building, I was waiting for the finecast models to melt

Mike was pretty downcast at this stage, we sure had taken a pummelling and he couldn’t see a way out. Thankfully I employed that line from Galaxy Quest. 'Never give up, Never Surrender', we could STILL win this, I wasn’t prepared to let my unbeaten record go without a fight! Besides we still had our trump card to play.

And After lunch….it was time to play that card. There wasn’t much movement, there wasn’t much left to move! My last remaining Doomsycthe zoomed across nearly the entire board desperately seeking a Spyder to repair it and keep it flying at least a little longer. We moved the Immortals forward, after buffing another unit with Sveras. Time to get them in range and start thinking about objectives, especially as we were losing Warriors so quick.

Arkhan? Oh, don't worry about him. Nice Titan btw....

Mike's pair of Annihilation Barges moved up opposite the titan, we had been peppering away at it and stripped about ten wounds, but we didn’t want it too damaged. Yet. We had a plan for that Titan. I bought another unit of Warriors in through the Monolith's portal.

And it was time to put that plan into action, with a flourish of a stratagem card we teleported Arkahn the Traveller and bodyguard to the building the Titan had chosen to lean against. Using Mind in the Machine we took over the Warhound Titan and used it to fire upon the Castellan Knight! Its Plasma destructor tore through the hastily rotated Void Shield (Matt does like that Strategem) and reduced it to Half Wounds! The look on our opponent's faces was priceless. Sadly we forgot to declare we were overcharging the cannon or the damage would have been even worse. Macro weapons make a MESS of Knights. The guys were learning that the hard way.

With that masterstroke out of the way it was time to continue the assault. We had completely given up with the right flank, trusting that the distance and scenery would mostly save us from Stu’s massed Tank brigade. We were looking good to grab a couple of objectives and we weren’t going to be able to play all day as the guys (STILL) had commitments, I must be the only one who has no life and can play all day. Still the heat was stifling and I’d not be sad to see the game end early. A tactical third and probable last turn started to take form in my mind. Through shooting I had managed to whittle down the Custodes and reduce the Captain to two wounds (he had shrugged off a truly astonishing amount of fire)

War rages on.

The combat between the Lord and Lychguard and the Dread ground on, it had been joined by a Dragoon and some Ruststalkers but we saw those off and left the Dread with one wound. My Praetorians charged the Vexila Custode who was standing all on his own for some reason and left him with a single wound as well. Things were looking a touch more positive now but we still had a third turn to weather from the Alliance. A unit of Warriors charged the Custodes and immediately regretted it as they were wiped out by the elite warriors. The Emperors finest were proving to be one hell of a speed bump.

Turn Three:

At the stage of the third turn it became clear that the Alliance had rethought things a little, possibly perturbed by how we had stomped over the left of the field. Matt had a few Battered Armigers and his Errant and Castellan, which he promptly repaired a bit. Enough to restore it to full functionality. Dave was pretty unscathed in all honesty and had redirected a lot of his force to support the Guard tanks that were rolling up the table. Most of his casualties had been from the exploding Knight the turn before (chortle). Stu had been mostly left alone on purpose, the Titan was hovering above half wounds and the Custodes had taken everything we had thrown at them and were still kicking, albeit with casualties. (I was hopeful of dropping that commander and nabbing Slay the Warlord.)

Dave moves up to support Stu.

Neil moved the Warlord back to the edge of the table, trying to ensure that it didn't have sight of the Castellan, another good shot could finish it off despite Matt's repairs. It shot and destroyed Mike's last Triarch Stalker and gunned another Doom Scythe out of the sky. Elsewhere it was the Monolith's turn to suffer as both were removed from the table in short order, Monolith's just don't have the survivability of other Necron units and it was all too easy for the guns of the Alliance to destroy them. The Castellan in particular more or less accounting for one on its own. Three Destroyers were also taken down as well and the Tomb Stalker and a number of Immortals, they were mostly failing to finish off full squads though, at last.

The Shadowsword tried to destroy the Immortals by the central objective and felled a fair few but couldn't wipe out the squad mainly due to cover and the Cryptek's presence.The Wraiths were still attracting  a lot of attention and Jon now moved in his Cuastodes to take out the squad menacing the Armiger

A bunch of Abhuman guard tried to tie up Arkhan, to stop him from taking over the Warhound again but though they made it into his Lychguard they failed to engage the traveller himself. Arkhan eyed the scout Titan malevolently, it was close enough though.

The Dread finally falls. 

The Custodes dread fell in the combat phase, the lord proving to be enough to destroy the golden behemoth with his Warscythe. The Custodes ground away at the Wraiths and vice versa, the toughness 7 Armiger was proving much more difficult to wound than the toughness 5 Custodes, invulnerable save aside. The Vexilia died too, overcome by the Triarch Praetorians though they had in turn been assaulted by a Knight that had killed a few of their number.

So this pretty much bought us to the end game. We had weathered the storm and now, given that this was going to be the last turn of the game, it was time for a cheeky smash and grab. For my part EVERYTHING I had left headed for the objectives, we could win the game here if we could just shift a few squads. We had successfully prevented Stu from being a major factor in the game (sorry Stu),  The Tau had been a pretty constant thorn in our sides due to their mobility and the Knights, the Castellan in particular, had ravaged our combined force. Things were made a little easier for us when Jon took his Custodes off the board to get an early start back to Kent. They were heavily depleted anyway, the Captain down to one wound, (I was annoyed I wouldn't get to kill him and had been denied Slay the Warlord) but every little helps so they say.

The Warhound had successfully squirrelled itself away behind a building so that it couldn't see the Castellan but Arkhan took it over anyway and used it to heavily damage one of the other Knights that we had fallen out of combat with. The Annihilation Barge had taken to the top of a building to nab an objective and took some shots at the Beastmen/Abhuman unit holding the central objective. The Immortals heading towards them also thinned out their numbers. The main bulk of what was left of our force took out the Castellan (finally) and for shits and giggles the Necron lord and his bodyguard charged the Warhound. I also manged to get into the Tau Markerlights at the back of the field, I didn't see why Dave should get off scott free.

FIGHT!!!

And with that final grab the game was over. The Necrons won but oh man did i think we were in trouble at one stage. It was an utterly brutal game. The Alliance held the right side of the battlefield but the Necrons had done just about enough to secure victory.

But how? Well, refusing the flank was a major part of it, this pretty much took Stu's tank brigade out of the game (Sorry Stu) and shielded us from a lot of firepower. There was plenty of firepower to go round though, in particular the combination of Markerlights and the Castellan knight were utterly devastating. All the guys have played mine or Mike's Necrons at some point and have become quite adept at fighting them, focusing their fire and maximising the damage to ensure that they took us down so that we couldn't get back up.

Without the Pylon to soak up the firepower in the second turn I think that the damage could have been a lot worse so that had an impact as well, the psychological impact that it had in one-shotting one of Matts knights alone made it worth the 8 quid I spent on it. A nasty surprise for the lads.

The second wave idea worked well too. The deepstrike got us up in the guys faces much quicker than we thought would be possible and although much of it was destroyed pretty much right after it served it's purpose.

Our flyers were frankly a disappointment., not only was the Tesla spectacularly unexplody but they were taken down pretty quickly. Note, Hydras are bad for Scythes. I also made a massive mistake by not moving the Immortals forward in turn one, robbing myself of quite a lot of firepower. Then again, it meant they were there for grabbing objectives at the end so it all worked out I guess.

The Custodes were utterly horrifying, a gleaming golden wall that we slammed ourselves at again and again to no avail. A wall full of spikes that really hurt us. Our firepower bounced off them and the Captain took forty shots without damage at some point. Really really tough.

The Warhound is not worth the points I think. 2k of army could have hurt us a lot more than that Titan. Especially if it had been 2 Castellans. In the end we just ignored it, (well apart from using it to shoot it's fellow war engines). *evil mechanical laugh*

The last thing we could have done a LOT better is utilise the characters. Mike taking every single one gave us a massive palette to utilise and there is no question in my mind that we failed to take advantage of that. The points could have been better spent.

Oh and I completely forgot to use my Wraith's pistol weapons for the entire game. Little things eh?

Overall it was an experience but in all honesty quite a draining one. Fun, but i'd only play Apocalypse once or twice a year at most.

Till next time.....

Now the Necrons of Abydos slumber once more. Till next time.