Friday, March 16, 2012

Dark Eldars Vs Necrons Battle Report


Hey guys, I was playing with the Idea of WWP list with Grots. When I checked synaps3 blog and he's beautiful army I just get this bump of "I want to do something like that as well". So I started to make a 1750 list taking in account his advices, and ended up with something like that :
Archon : Agonizer, Blast Pistol, Combat drugs, PGL, Haywire Grenades
Haemonculus : liquifier, WWP
Haemonculus Ancient : Agonizer, Casket of Flensing, WWP
8 Grotesques : Abberation with Scissorhand.
5 Warriors : blaster
5 Warriors : blaster
7 Wyches : Hekatrix with Agonizer
7 Wyches : Hekatrix with Agonizer
5 Scourges : 2 blaster
5 Scourges : 2 Heat-lance
Beast Pack : 3 Beast Master, 1 Clawed Fiends, 5 Khymera, 2 Razorwing Flocks
Talos : chain-flails, TL Heat-lance
Talos : chain-flails, TL Heat-lance

I asked my buddy if he could play this army (lot of proxy of course) against my 1750 tournament list which can be found here. So let's check how both army works.


Fairly cover on all the table, Seize ground with 4 objective. One center, one on the left and two on the right. Spearhead deployment, DE win the roll off and decide to go on the right bottom corner, letting the Necrons with the less cover corner. 

Drugs : reroll to wound, DE deployment, Grotesque Haemi, and Archon deploys as much in front as possible, spreading to get a Haemi on each side of the pack.

Necrons deployment, 
Scarabs in front in cover ready to shield. Both AB in front to shoot. One squad of warrior in cover on the back with GA on the side. On the Center, a little bit in the back Warriors,GA, DL and praetorian + C'tan to counter charge.
Flayed Ones, in reserve

No size

DE Turn 1 : Grotesque pack advance 6", both Haemi unleash WWP, one is close to center objective, the other on the right side.

Necrons Turn 1 : WA, GA, DL & Praetorians, C'tan move to the right. CCB Zoom on the right, Scarabs spread to shield AB. The rest stay stationary
All the shooting kill a Grotesque, The Abberation lost a wound, the normal Haemi lost a wound, and a grotesque is down to one Wound.
They're really resilient

DE turn 2:
Reserve roll : One wyches, one kabalites warriors, Scourges with Heat lance, one Talos get in.
Grotesque move forward center, Wyches goes form the right WWP to get cover close the upper right objective. Kabalite come from table edge to get the bottom objective later. Talos come from left WWP.
Wyches run 6" in cover. Grots, Kabalite, Talos run 5" forward. Scourges destroy the CCB, Overlord pass pinning check.

Necrons turn 2 : Flayed Ones come. They go on the right where the Kabalite are in the open. Both AB move back. WA, DL & Praetorians, C'tan move backward a little bit. Overlord move in cover on the right close to the wyches  Scarabs move to engage the grots.
C'tan and Wa shoot to death the Scourges. Both AB, 3 Wa squads shoot at the Talos but only put 3 Wounds on him. GA rapid fire the Wyches in cover killing 2 of them.
Flayed assault the Kabalite unit, killing them all without loosing any of them.  Overlord assault Wyches killing one of them and don't get any wound on him even with the reroll!
Scarabs assault the grots, the Haemi/Archon/Grots put 10 wounds on them before they can attack, all the attack of three bases go on the archon, he fails one of his save, his Shadow Field is gone. Then one more dies and an other is down to one wound because of fearless save. But they've done their job, the grots are locked for the next turn.

DE turn 3 : 
Reserve roll : everything comes except for the second wyches unit.
Talos comes from right WWP to charge the Overlord in combat with Wyches. Beast Pack come from the left WWP. Kabalite come from table edge to shoot the Flayed ones. 1st Talos move toward the AB. Scourge comes closer to the GA on the left.
Talos shoot Heat-lance at the AB destroying it. Kabalite rapid fire the Flayed killing one who didn't come back. Beast Pack run 5" forward. Scourges don't succeed at doing anything to the GA
Wyches put a wound on the Overlord, then he put one on the Talos eventually dying from the Talos attacks. Talos and Wyches consolidate in direction of the objective. Grots finish off the scarabs and consolidate forward.

Necrons turn 3 :
C'tan come closer to the Talos on the right objective. AB, WA, DL & Prae move backward. GA get in position to rapid fire the wyches on the objective. The other to rapid fire the beast pack. Flayed ones move to charge Kabalite.
C'tan shoot at the Talos but he saves thanks to FNP. GA and WA inside shoot at the Wyches in cover killing them all. Cryptek from WA on the top of the board finish the last wound from the first Talos. AB shoot the grots and kill one. One squad of WA, GA and the WA inside shoot at the Beast Pack and Scourges , killing 3 Khymera and putting a wound on Clawed Fiends and both Razorwing Flocks, the scourges die from the firepower.  The beast Pack pass moral check.
C'tan assaults the Talos, then both inflict a wound on each other. The Flayed Ones assault the Kabalite and wipe them out consolidating a little bit backward in case the wyches comes from the portal.

DE turn 4 :
Wyches comes from reserve. Grots move forward. Beast get closer to the warrior squad in cover. Wyches get in cover on the bottom right objective. 
The Ancient Haemi shoot his Casket of Flensing at the WA in front of the DL & Praetorian. But roll 1 to the Dice for wound. Even the blast pistol from the Archon doesn't wound the squad.  Beast Pack run in direction of the WA in cover.
Beast Pack needed a five to assault the WA but only get 4 out of three dices. C'tan and Talos look at each other but don't put succeed to wound the other one.

Necrons Turn 4 :
GA on the right move to get the Wyches which came from reserve in range.  Flayed ones move toward the Wyches. Left GA move between objective to get Beast Pack in rapid fire. AB move backward. DL & Praetorian get close to the Grots to charge.
One wych dies from the GA. WA + WA/GA rapid fire on the Beast Pack killing all the Beastmaster, Clawed fiends and putting several wounds on the razowings. They don't pass the moral test and fall back of 7".  WA/AB/Praetorian shoot the grots, killing one and normal Haemi. 
C'tan put a wound on the Talos, he's down to one, the Talos pass ld check.  DL move to engage the Archon and Abberation, the mindshackle choose randomly between Anciant Haemi, Abberation and Archon, get the archon and fail his test. He finishes off a grots. Then grots and  Haemi Ancient attacks killing the DL and two Praetorians. Praetorians kill the Archon. One dies from fearless but then DL and 2 Praetorians get back up. Flayed Ones don't succeed to assault the Wyches in cover.

DE Turn 5 :
Wyches move to engage the Flayed ones. Beast Pack can't rally because of the GA less than 6" away and fall back 12".
C'tan and Talos fail to wound each other. Mindshackle a grot who puts a wound on his buddy. Ancient Heami kills the DL with his Agonizer, then the grots attacks the Praetorians, and none of them are dead. Praetorians passed 8 3+ saves and then finish off a grot. DE loose combat but pass ld check. DL doesn't come back. Wyches charge Flayed Ones wiping them out and consolidate back in cover on the objective. 

Necrons Turn 5 :
WA in cover move in direction of the left objective, WA from the center GA disembark and move on the center objective. The GA move 12" in direction of the right Wyches to get in range. RIght GA get in range of Rapid Fire. Top Warriors move clove to the Big Assault.
GA on the left and Rapid Fire from GA/WA don't kill any wyches with their 4+ cover save and FNP. Left WA run and grab left objective.
C'tan and Talos still look at each other. Grots and Haemi Ancient finish off the Praetorians and consolidate on the left objective. 

We roll off to see if the game end and it's a 1. So at the end it's 2-1 objectives for the Necrons.

So a really close game, with a lot of stressful moment. Like always my Necrons surprise me, when it comes to the first 2-3 turn I always think how I'm gonna pull off something from all the threat that are in front of me? But Necrons being pretty resilient if you apply coordinate fire power they can really shine. About this game I think I've done pretty good choices to hold back as much as I could and play the mission. I focused on the troops of my friends because I know they're not that tough. I also used my superior speed with my GA which is pretty ironic when you think that my Necrons were faster than the DE. My luck in my dice especially when the Praetorian charged the Grots and hold them longer than I expected really helped. I'm learning more and more every time I'm playing my Necrons (which doesn't happen as much as I would like to), theory hammer is nice but nothing is better than experience. 

About my DE list, I also learn quite a lot, I think I will wait until the 6th edition before buying for more than 100€ of Grots but I really enjoyed how the army turned out. Even if my friend made few mistakes with the army, it's normal for a first time playing it, I would have done the same. There is so much possibilities on the deployment thanks to WWP. The grots mob is really hard to put down even if it's sooooo slow. The DE are really a glass canon army, when they strike they strike hard but can't get much fire power back at them. After I finish my Necrons for the different tournaments I should participate I will have fun painting. I will probably paint a Tyranids unit then DE units so I don't get bored about it. 

And here some WIP of my Ghost Ark, this guy take forever to paint with so many pieces to paint separately. Hopefully I'll finish it this week.








Sunday, March 11, 2012

Praetorian and lava bases test

Okey guys still working on my necrons army, and for those who checked my schedule, I might say I was quite optimistic. Mixing my life being a student and this amount of Hobby is pretty hard. In two weeks I'm going back home for a work placement, so I will have much more time to put on my painting.
Anyway, I'm working on my praetorians now. I love the model, I love their fluff, I love a little bit less the rule but I still found a use for them. Without waiting, here the pictures :




So I decide to go with the green/gold and all the energetic part will be in purple. I like the combination of green and purple because the purple still make a contrast with the green but don't catch too much of the attention like a red would do. This model was nice to paint (I think any model is nice to paint when it been such a long time I haven't been painting) but for all of those who want to build their Praetorian, I recommend to keep the "jump pack" part before painting, because I couldn't access to the main "power orb".
During my painting session, I came up with a problem, my fine detail brush is dead. I was trying to do the highlights with a bigger brush, but it didn't end up as clean as I wanted and I was spending more time swearing that actually doing the highlights. I'll order my new brush today, hopefully I will receive it before I move back to my place... Anyway, after doing the green highlights I was so pissed agains my brush, I just decided to stop with highlights before I get my brush that's why the gold parts are not finished yet.

Now I will need your help guys, I don't know how to paint the pistol part. Do I go for metallic, green like the armor, gold, purple, I really struggle to make a choice. So it would be you my dear readers who's gonna choose for me!

Now let's move to the lava bases, here the pictures :

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, I tried different stuff on this awesome product from Dark Art Miniatures. First they were much more red oriented, but as much as I was checking pictures on the net, I just said that being hotter the color should go more toward a yellowish one. Like I said, pretty happy with the result and I think it's really pop more than a basing sand/tufts base. And thanks to the Salamanders army out there it gave me the inspiration for my green necrons on lava bases.

What do you think about all of theses, any advises, criticism. Being a pretty rookie painter any feedback is welcome.
And of course I'll keep updating as much as the army goes.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

1750 Pts to paint up in less than one and half month


The title is pretty explicit, I got a tournament in April 14th and after painting really few of my necrons I just decided that I didn't like much my paint scheme, so I'm going for an other one. After some tweaking I changed my list for the incoming tournament so here the list of stuff I need to paint :
Destroyer Lord & 5 Praetoriens
Command Barge & 2 Annihilation Barge
20 Warriors, 4 Crypteks
30 tiny Scarabs (6 bases)
5 Flayed Ones, C'tan
And all the bases that comes with it.

When you have such a short deadline you have to plan how and what you will paint. That's why I planned some painting time EVERY single day. My painting time will be split in two part, one part for the troops and one part for the Vehicles. That why the army can build up constantly and I can manage more easily if I make some changes in my schedule.
For example : now here you can see my schedule for this project :

As you can see, I will be quite busy but that might be expected for such a short deadline. Here you can see that I got few days where there is few or nothing to do at the end. I will use that time if something went wrong and I need more time to finish up some stuff. It's better to plan a shorter deadline and if you messed up you still can manage (somehow) to finish in time. 
So far I'm following that schedule, but I just started yesterday so it's still quite easy!

I'll keep you tuned with pictures as soon as I finish anything. 
Until then, I would like to get some insight of people who had such a project of really short deadline painting.