Prot's War in the Warp

So again I’ll try to be brief, but this game actually gets complicated quickly. I’ll try to tell the story in point form, starting with the most important stuff:

• I drop Magnus to get a fuller immersion in Rubrics x 3 squads (one is 15 dudes big). And a 10 man Scarab Occult Squad.
• I drop Cult of Time, and pick up some heavy hitters: Cult of Magic on Daemon Prince Battalion, and Cult of Duplicity on my main Battalion.
• I pick up more bodies, but need more hard hitting anti-tank so I pick up a twin, double lascannon Contemptor, and a dual Butcher Cannon Decimator.
• The Necrons aren’t here to play nice. They go with 3 Doomsday Arks, a character hunting lord on skimmer, a Deceiver C’tan, loads of troops, 6 Wraiths, and a squad of 6 Destroyers!
• Although we did know we would play each others army, he has the anti-elite infantry army that is going to give me trouble. However, he has no Psychic Defense.

My Cult Recap:

Duplicity: WL trait to move up to D3 units pre game. A power that is basically Da Jump on a WC7. And yes… I try the relic I have bemoaned: The Prefidious Tome!

Magic: I use additional CP to take: WL Trait, add 1 to Mortal Wound Damage. A power called Astral Blast that is similar to Infernal Gateway but passes on a 5, and a second Relic for +1 to my tests. (I put this on my Daemon Prince with Wings/Talons.

Early Game:

• I go first, and since I’m using Duplicity I have the ability to remove stuff pre game in case he seizes so I go with Risen Rubricae and put a block right out his front door.

• With Turn 1 I can finally test Fusilade to full effect on a 15 man Rubric Squad. It goes poorly. The main target was a very, very dangerous squad of Destroyers in the ruins above on the main floor. The secondary target was the Immortals on the second floor. Even with Vets of the Long War, he was still getting a save of 5+ in cover, and I only killed about 2 Immortals, and 2 Destroyers. This was immensely disappointing, but realistically he may have had ‘good’ save rolls but I think this is not as hot as I thought it would be.
• I do use Cult of Magic to great effect. The Daemon Prince gets off an Infernal Gateway hitting a Doomsday ark and a subsequent squad of Warriors. Not bad, but not great. The extra damage is needed though. I get off a smite with a +1 damage as well. The tank is still there though and I pour a LOT of psychics into it to get a single kill on a Doomsday Ark. Not ideal.
• Shooting wise I get a 10 Man Scarab Squad to pour into an Immortal blob and since they are in cover, yet again I fail to remove substantial numbers.
• My dual Dreads are terrible. But I shoot EVERYTHING into the remaining Destroyers because I know what they will do. Amazingly I get them down to 1 model on 1 wound. My opponent had a huge horseshoe up his butt, however I’ve seen this before and it isn’t fun.

A very disappointing first turn. My opponent was reeling at the mortal wound damage but I know the repair factor of his army and this is nothing.

Necrons Repair like there’s no tomorrow:

• His repair rolls are on fire. He brings back 3 dead Destroyers to full health putting him up to 4 (that’s 150 points back from the dead).
• He repairs just under half of his dead troops. The roll is high, but it’s not that uncommon. I’m in trouble.

• He activates the Wraiths. His shooting from the 3 resurrected Destroyers is brutal combined with the nearly untouched Immortal squad I lose a fair amount of Rubrics and Scarab Occult.
• He charges into the Scarab Occult with his C’tan. And does enough damage that about half are dead. I can’t touch the C’tan with its 4++ save and T7.
• I calculate I should only lose about 3-4 Rubrics with his Wraiths charging in since I have increased my Invulnerable save with the new stratagem. He rolls off the chart and kills 8. I’m in more trouble.

Mid Game: Whose Undead is more Dead?

After a quick evaluation I realize I’m in big, big trouble. Far out gunned, and with regenerative powers, I have to either A) take the lead in points and turtle for the rest of the game, or B) push forward and take the flanks.

• I have a few mid game attack type powers that just simply fail. This is the downside of psychic armies. They pay, and rely heavily on arcane might and sometimes, it simply won’t cooperate.
• He has a huge BLOB of warriors in the middle of the table I have to take care of. My cultists try but are ultimately unsuccessful and charge in to hold him up.
• On my left flank, where those Rubrics were torn to shreds by Wraiths, my Termie Sorc casts Death Hex on his Wraiths, get it off, and my 20 Tzaangors actually kill the entire squad (with Prescience going off).
• So on my left flank I have success. But on my right flank with all my heavy hitting characters, it took EVERYTHING to take down a second (of 3) Doomsday Arks. This is really looking grim.

End Game:

• So his C’tan, bored, starts to retreat. I lose my Scarab Occult squad which largely did nothing all game.
• He has one untouched tank left, it puts my Lascannon Contemptor within 1 wound of death.
• His Destroyers (I killed 2 more) come back to life. (That’s 250 points of resurrected models from that single squad alone.) They combine with the continually resurrecting Immortals to kill 18 of 20 Tzaangors that just finished the celebration of killing the Wraiths. I use 2 CP to stop them from running as I want to tie up those Immortals next turn.

A desperate, final attempt.

• It’s over unless I have a crazy good turn, but it’s possible….
• I use Duplicity “Da Jump” to bring my Sorc Termie over to help my Daemon Prince Warlord who has also moved up.
• I use Smite a bunch of times to kill the Ctan.
• The Tzaangors make it into close combat without getting overwatched (I made sure to approach from underneath where he could not draw line of sight.) The Tzaangors failed to kill a single model, but the Immortals kill them in return.
• I shoot my dreads to zero effect with Butcher Cannons and twin lascannons (easily saved on his special armour rule, and his Destroyers in cover). He’s back up to 5 Destroyers so I’m toast.
• The Daemon Prince and Termie Sorc MUST make it to close combat vs his Command Barge Lord. However my Termie Sorc failed the 9″ charge and takes 3 wounds in overwatch. The Daemon Prince failed his 6″ charge.

With that I call the game. I’m down to 1 Rubric, and my HQ’s (minus Ahriman) are about to wiped out with ease with all the shooting he has left. He is still regenerating squads back to full strength, potentially back to 6 destroyers.

I think I made a single big mistake that I can see in hind sight. There was a squad stuck in CC that I should have ‘Da Jumped” earlier, but other than that I don’t feel like there were a lot of mistakes in this one. Necrons were simply far superior in shooting and one bad Psychic phase can and will still cause this army a game.

Disappointing moments: Fusilade. I could not have asked for a better start to a game. it simply didn’t matter. Necrons in cover, with regeneration are just really not worried about that level of fire power.

Duplicity is GOOD. But situational. Against an army that largely doesn’t want to be in CC with you, it’s really not doing much.

Magic is important. It flat out has zero utility, but makes a beast out of a character. However in games with large sniper capacity, be prepared to lose him fast.

Perfidious Tome! I really was dead set against this relic. I called it goofy and said Helm of the Third Eye is better. Well in the last 2-3 games I’ve been keeping track and I average about 2-3 CP back with Helm. This game, with Perfidious Tome I got 4 CP back! Lucky? Maybe but since I had no luck on the table at least the relic was lucky!

Thanks for reading. Back to the drawing board for me. This was largely a failure outing, and I’m actually contemplating dropping all vehicles for Magnus to compliment the Magic Daemon Prince!