The Death of Varantis Revised

Last weekend I replayed the First two scenario’s of my short campaign (see post below). Only this time i played the Necron invaders and my good friend Peter was gallant enough to offer his imperial guardsmen to stand in the path of the onslaught…ahem…

For the first mission, a 400point combat patrol, i took two squads of basic Necron warriors, a swarm of scarabs (6 bases) and a Storm Cryptek as the commander. Peter fielded a rather kind imperial guard list with 1 chimera, used by the platoon command squad, two infantry squads of one which contained  his commissar. Added to this he deployed a mortar squad and a special weapon squad with sniper rifles.

Necron deployment

Guard setup

We set up the battlefield similarly to last time, with Outpost 4-19 in the centre of a 4’by 4’ table. I got the first turn and advanced with my units, holding the scarabs back to avoid having them blasted form the field by the instant-killing multilaser and autocannons. Because dawn had not yet arrived the human infantry was partly cloaked in darkness, and only a few of my robots managed to score a kill. The gauss fire did manage to shave a hullpoint of the command chimera that was advancing slowly up the centre of the table.

The first and last advance of the Cryptk and his guards, maybe if I finish painting them the dice will be nicer to me...

 Next it was Peter’s turn to open fire. Using the faint traces of the emerging dawn one of the snipers took aim at a Necron carrying a large glowing staff, and accurately put a bolt right in one of it’s glowing eye sockets, causing it to fase out immediately (exit stage left for the Cryptek...He’ll be Back...). Subsequently lasgun and heavy weapon fire poured into the unit of Necron warriors that had been guarding the Cryptek. Mortar fire rained down from the skies, and after that torrent of fire only two remained standing. Only to see five of their fallen brethren rise again due to rather efficient reanimation protocols.

The alien menace reanimates!

 Duting the following turns I advanced with my units firing a withering hail of fire into his infantry units and wrecking his chimera with gauss fire. The Scarabs meanwhile crept up the left flank, ready to pounce on the Commissar and his loyal guardsmen. The Platoon commander emerged from the wreckage of the chimera with his flamer bearing retinue, who doused the offending Necrons in promethium. Unfortunately for the brave guardsmen (can you see where my heart lies?) only two of Necrons were destroyed by the fire. The following fase saw my scarabs plunge into combat with the commissar and the platoon command squad die in a hail of gauss fire.

the last brave moments of the platoon command

 Meanwhile the remaining units of Peter’s guard were trying to secure his right flank by firing everything they had at the oncoming Necrons. Three of which continued to advance and clash with the mortar squad. Some rather abysmal dice rolling on peter’s side saw the combat between the two units drawn out over several turns, with the snipers joining in the fray and even an remnant of a infantry squad joining in. Eventually the mob of guardsmen took down the last Necron, clearing their  table quarter just as I killed the commissar and his bodyguard. That had us both at 4 VP (a table quarter each, First Blood for Peter thanks to the deadly sniper fire and a Linebreaker VP for me).

Scarabs swarming the commisar

 The dice gave us one more turn of shooting, but that failed to cause any meaning full casualties. We were about to call it a draw when we realised that Peters snipers were just a few inches away form claiming another table half, and a full turn of movement saw his loyal sharpshooters turn it into a solid guard victory....

The Game winning snipers advancing cautiously into unknown territory

Minicampaign: the Death of Varantis

Last weekend my friend Ron and I started a 40k mini campaign I dubbed 'The Death of Varantis', about a necron incursion on a distant imperial world, garrisoned by a small Valhallan contingent. It's mainly meant as a try-out for a bigger campaign we want to play later this year.

The campaign was to last three battles, each influencing the next:

1. Combat Patrol
Two small forces clash over the remains of a suddenly silent imperial listening station in the northern regions of Varantis. the winner of this patrol gets to choose the scenario for the final battle, and pick any objectives in his own deployment zone instead of randomly determining them. The loser is gets to send a kill-team in the next mission. VP are awarded for table quarters (3VP each). All units that survive this mission will gain the prefered enemy special rule int he final battle.

Outpost 4-19

My small combat patrol arrived at the outpost just before dawn, finding it eerily quiet. in the forest green will 'O Wisps seemed to dance arround, only to emerge out of the darkness and reveal themselves to be hulking metal monsters, carying weapons that could skin a man in seconds and obliterate whole armoured vehicles...
Which is exactly what happened....

The Necrons advance under cover of darkness

I deployed a small platoon with some roughriders and a hydra flakgun as support. Ron had two small groups of warriors, a handfull of immortals and an annihilation barge, which lived up to it's name and annihilated my army, save for a lone vox-operator  and some brave lads under command of Commisar Voss.

mental note: don't bring a Skyfire gun to an infantry fight...

Ron's army was very firepower heavy and having the first turn managed to either supress most of my unit's or kill them outright, and a few failed leadership tests saw my chances of victory evaporate.

'Brave' vox operator Balyushin

So I selected my valorous kill-team , trying to include as many of the survivors from the previous mission, representing the few surviving stragglers and vehicle crew under command of Commissar Voss, trying to destroy a necron communications node. If I succeed I get to force three of Ron's Necron units into reserve in the final battle. All I needed to do was avoid getting bogged down in the permafrost swamps of Varantis....

Commissar Voss and his 'dirty dozen (ten actually)'

My luck had left me however and the first time my boys tried to take down a squad of necron brute's they got stuck combat for close to five rounds, meanwhile giving Ron a chance to acrue Klaxon counters and get his other brutes into position.

The not so killy kill-team at work, trying to take down some necron brutes

 
Allthough commissar Voss managed to get to the objective through sheer tanacity, he failed to make his gettaway, being gunned down by the alarmed guards and leaving the necron Cryptek in command of the Node.

The necron Cryptek on his node...

Now all that lasts is the final battle for Varantis, to be fought in the ruins of the capitol. Hopefully I'll be able to fight Ron to a standstill, even with the odds against me. I think I need to paint some Glory Boys, because there is little else that can get trhough those AV13 Barges of Doom....