The Battle of Varantis Prime

The last few weeks I played the final battle of the Death of Varantes mini-campaign twice. Once as the imperial guard defender of Varantis and once as it’s Necron nemesis. Both battles turned out to be a fun and fitting end of the mini campaigns and have given me inspiration for a continuation of the story line.

My battle as a guard player against Ron’s Necron hordes was an uphill struggle. I had lost both skirmishes leading up to the big battle, so Ron had the advantage of choosing the scenario and selecting the nature of any objectives in his own deployment zone. I used the Valhallan guard army featured in a number of my previous posts and build up around the patrol, fielded in the First mission. Ron expanded his force’s with some wraiths, a large unit of immortals, some scarabs and destroyers, all led by a Necron overlord joining the immortals.

 

The battlefield, with the lone unclaimed objective in no-man's land in the top crater

 The table was nearly identical in both battles: a ;long road crossing the table marking the edge of the city ruins, with some craters and defence lines in no-man’s-land giving cover to the advancing alien menace.

Ron picked the Scouring scenario; giving the objectives a random value and making fast attack units scoring. He got to deploy First, placing two  of his troops on home objectives, selecting one to be a force field(increased cover) and the other a targeting matrix(rerolls to hit). His assault troops were gathered on his right flank were he could easily reach the cover of the city edge.

Ron's assault troops, a small unit of necron warriors and the scarabs are advancing beyond the building on the right

I deployed my units in the centre of the ruins, with most of my armour on the right flank, as far away from the fast attacking, armour stripping scarabs and wraiths as possible, and with their sights on the one remaining uncontested objective.

My central defensive position, the large guard squad in front was eventually whitled down to only a few survivors

The battle began with Ron’s fast attack units advancing towards the objective(which turned out to be another force field) on my left flank, guarded by an infantry squad and a special weapon team equipped with a demo charge. Ron’s units advanced into a withering hail of fire, but the surviving models managed to wipe out the Imperial guard defender to a man, a single phasing necron wraith the sole survivor of the battle.

 

Ron's scarabs secure the objective after a succesfull assault, only to be vapourised by a democharge seconds later

On the right flank my armoured units, supported by a mortar squad managed to stall the Necrons advancing towards the uncontested objective. The destroyers sallied forth to destroy my armour, but failed to notice the five brave roughriders hiding in the shadows of the arbitus precinct house, and where duly cut down by a glorious cavalry charge (Ron really had forgotten about them because he couldn’t see them from his side of the table).

 

Ron's destroyers, lured close by the PCS Chimera, just before their destruction by the cavalry

Seeing his assault falter and having the troops on his home objective come under heavy fire from my armour and airunits decided to take the gamble and advance with his immortals, but it was too few too late. The battle ended with the guard infantry clinging to their objective’s, securing the city and forcing the lord to phase out back to his Tomb...

 

Ron's immortals advance for a last attempt to contest the central objective,
while the guard armour secures the objective on the rightflank

All in all the battle went pretty much above expectations for me. In Ron’s defence it must be said that he was suffering from one hell of a headache when he decided on the scenario, and some mistakes in army selection (no transports) and objective placement saw him fighting an uphill battle. Because his assaults came in piecemeal I could defeat them one at a time and keep firing at his remaining troops.

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....

The Fate of the Daemon-Prince

Last weekend we played a game of 40k at the club, and I(we?) had a blast. After our 2000 point grand mêlee of a few weeks ago we decided to pick slightly smaller forces, so we could actually finish the game. Erik fielded a small detachment of his guard army, and I took my revamped (thanks to the new codex) Sons of Malice chaos space marine warband. We played 750 point game, with The Relic as the mission (a important piece of equipment lies at the centre of the field, the side that claims it at the end of the battle wins. It can be moved, albeit rather slowly.

 

The Relic

 Erik fielded an infantry platoon, reinforced with a griffon heavy mortar and hellhound flametank, and some rowdy penal legionairs. I had a winged deamon prince, 3 chaos spawn, two small units of Raptors (jump-troops), a 5 man squad of Chaos Marines and two units of chaos cultists.

The guard patrol returns in full force

The table had an outpost of cargo containers in one corner, with some barricades and barbed wire surrounding it. diagonally across the table were a number of obviously eldar ruins, some of which infested with strange green crystals (random archeotech). I won the roll for table halves and picked the side with the outpost, mainly to deny it to Erik, and give my deamon prince some cover. Obviously the guard had send out a patrol in force, looking for the chaos marines preying on the eldar remains, only to return empty handed and finding their left behind comrades turned traitor.

The Chaos warband emerges from the compound

The First turn saw my forces attempt a heavy assault on the left flank, with the deamon prince, spawn and a unit of raptors advancing quickly. Seeing a large deamon prince land right before them  Erik's guard opened up on it with all available firepower. I thought my prince would be relatively save swooping high in the sky, unfortunately there is a change that a flying creature hit by fire while flying is brought crashing to the ground….The mighty prince of chaos was brought low by a humble imperial guard flashlight lasgun, and subsequently vaporised by close range firing of most guard units. So much for the Might of Chaos and 2 vp’s for the Imperial guard (Kill the warlord and First blood)… The Griffon meanwhile started pounding my cultists who were cautiously advancing towards the objective.

'Comrade, take that relic and let's split...'

The rather early demise of my deamonprince coupled with a few bad dice rolls on the charge saw my advance on the left flank falter. On the right flank however my raptors charged the Hellhound, and the Aspiring champion tore into it with his power maul, wrecking it. Subsequently they bounced over intervening guard infantry squad and assaulted the platoon command. Another round of appalling dice rolling saw my champion stranded in a challenge with the guard lieutenant and my spawn stuck in a never ending battle with Erik's lone armoured sentinel. In the mean time my troops did manage to reach the relic and started carrying it of, all the while being pounded by the Griffon. With both flank attacks grinding to a halt and casualties amongst my relic bearing cultists mounting fast I needed a miracle to turn the tide.

The Eternal Struggle

The next round Erik had his infantry squad come to the aid of the beleaguered lieutenant,and saw his penal guard emerge from the flank.  They took down the last remaining raptors on my left flank and started to advance towards the relic toting cultists, who quickly handed it over to the nearby chaos marines. Combat dice rolling was abysmal, but my Champion managed to defeat the lieutenant, and was granted a roll on the chaos boon table, and was promptly rewarded with deamon hood! The defeated prince (minus the wings) returned to the battlefield, and promptly slaughtered the entire squad, only to reap into the Griffon, flipping it over with a single blow. 

Apotheosis of the Prince

The emergence of the prince completely turned the tables (and than to think just moments before I was muttering that the table is nice, but doesn’t really influence any games.. O how fickle the dice gods are…)

My prince and continue to destroy Erik’s units, the command squad and sentinel dying in rapid succession. In the mean time the squad of penal legionnaires chased down the Relic, destroying the remaining cultists and forcing the last two marines to hide inside the compound. 

The dirty half-a-dozen

A Marine to far

 In the end it came down to a few tense dice rolls. The penal legionnaires managed to shoot down the chaos marine sergeant, but the last remaining marine refused to fall back. Before they could launch a charge the spawn crashed into the penal legionnaires, whom held the legionnaires long enough for the prince to arrive and slaughter the remaining legionnaires to the last man…

The final verdict of the Legionnaires...

That was a very exciting game, which I should have lost i fit wasn’t for the return of the Prince…I’m not sure about the prince; the grounded rule makes it a bit to vulnerable for my liking. The week before I tried a similar list but with a Dark Apostle carrying Skalathrax instead. It was vapourised by the necron army and the dark Apostle killed only a few skeleton robots. There just isn’t enough speed and staying power in my list, maybe I need bikes…..

Aspiring champion Prince of the Match

On Magic, and other random musings...

Back when I started fantasy-gaming the Magic the Gathering CCG became hugely popular. It quickly turned out that other people were able to invest a whole lot more money in the game than I was. And the problem with collectible card games is that if you are able to invest more money, you get significantly better cards and thus greatly increase the odds of you winning. So my small collection of cards was doomed to spend the next decade-and-a-half in an old wooden wine bottle box......

My Magic collection never came close to being this size, my miniatures however...

Until some during the last year some of my friends started to play again, largely because of an internetstore opening a venue in town where they organised weekly and monthly small scale tournaments, most significantly boosterdrafts. The concept of a boosterdraft tournament is that at the start ot the game every player gets a couple of boosters, and through clever system of passing the hands of newly acquired cards along the group they are divided amongst the players. This allows you to select which cards you want, but eliminates the possibility of large, preconstructed decks with loads of expensive cards.

For the last couple of months we have been playing  boosterdraft now and again, and it has been a blast! for less than the price of going to the movies, we have a evening worth's of fun, and get to take an newly gained deck of cards home. It was such good fun that it made me look up my old cards, where I discovered that magic had also suffered from the 'power creep' that seems to be associated with GW codexes and armybooks. Most of the (rather mundane) cards I own are nowhere near as good as the current common cards. The acquisition of new cards has had us playing regular games of magic as well, but this has quickly revealed that still those of us who (again) spend the most money on it get the best decks. And not all of us enjoy the multiplayer games that tend to mitigate the power-imbalance somewhat.

Then I stumbled upon a small amount of Shadowfist cards, hidden in the same wooden winebox, which had been a freebee at the spellen-spektakel game show somewhere in the nineties. I remembered it being fun as well as especially suited for multiple player games. It's theme is stolen form the 80's and 90's action flicks: oriental martial artists and triads, mixed with some good old fashioned Godfather-goons and hightech genetically puritan Germans form the future. To my surprise the game has recently been revived through a kickstarter project, so when the cards are on sale maybe I'll try to convince some of my friends to start it as well. But first I have to get them to play Saga, otherwise I'll have a hard time convincing anyone why I really needed those Anglo-Danes/Saxons....