Further Necron Experience

As I was working from home yesterday I was able to make it down my local GW, and managed to get a game in with my Necrons.

It was a 1500 point game, so I did't get to try out the veil of darkness which is only in my 1750 point list.

Here's the list I was playing:

Overlord with Warscythe in Command Barge - 180
Destroyer Lord with 2+ save & mindshackle scarabs - 160
Royal Courts consisting of 3 Harbringers of Destruction (one with solar pulse) - 125
2 x 8 Immortals (Tesla Carbines) - 136 each
3 x 5 Warriors - 65 each
2 x 8 Scarabs - 120 each
5 Wraiths - 175
3 x 1 Tomb Spyders 50 each

I was facing:

Chaplain in Terminator Armour
5 Thunder Hammer / Storm Shield Terminators
in Landraider with Cronus special character
2 x Dreadnoughts with Assault Cannons & Powerfist with storm bolter
10 Tactical Marines (Missile launcher & Meltagun)
10 Scouts including Telion with Missile Launcher
7 Tactical marines
Thunderfire Cannon

All the special characters made the list small, and I was mainly worried about the terminators (who had a 21" threat range with the landraider which couldn't be stunned with the special character) and the thunderfire cannon which could do nasty things to the scarabs

We rolled up dawn of war and the bore draw mission (one objective each).  The marines won the roll of and decided to go first, he deployed the scouts in a tall ruin which had his objective in,  The techmarine with the thunderfire cannon had upgraded the ruin to 3+ cover save, and telion gave the scouts stealth giving them a 2+ cover save.  The larger squad was deployed towards the other half of the board near my objective which I had placed right in the corner of the board as far as possible away from my opponents objective.

I deployed nothing, my crypeks went with the two squads of immortals and one of the warrior squads.  The remaining warrior squads went into normal reserve with the rest of the army coming on turn one.  My plan was to have the wraiths accompanied with the destroyer lord kill the scouts on the objectives.  The lord would advance and try and sweep the landraider.  The scarabs and spyders would deploy centrally and sacrifice one unit to kill the landraider and/or dreadnought if they went towards my objective.

The marines advanced the landraider flanked by both dreadnaughts in the middle.  The small tactical squad advanced behind the landraider, and the thunderfire cannon advanced next to the ruin the scouts were in.  My opponent smoked the landraider and dreadnoughts (which I thought was a mistake as my long ranged fire was limited and it was night fighting).

I replied by advancing and running everything up the board.  One immortal unit and a warrior unit went on the far right where my opjective was hoping to wittle down the tactical squad.  The other immortal unit went opposite the ruin with the scouts in it.  The wraiths and destroyer lord advanced on the ruin trying to stay out of line of sight as much as possible.  The overlord turbo boosted forward, hoping to be able to sweep the landraider next turn if it moved agressively forward.  With no shooting as everyone ran it was back to the marines.

At the start of the marine's 2nd turn, i popped the solar pulse to make it night fighting for them again.  The landraider only pivoted on the spot to fire all weapons and the dreadnoughts advanced a bit.  However poor night fighting rolling meant I got off without any casualties helped by the destroyer lord taking a sniper fire hit for the wraiths.

Next turn I had to change my plans as the landraider had not gone for my objective.  Rather than risk an iffy charge on the scouts (they were up the ruins) I decided to advance put stay more the 21" away from the landraider.  As my overlord could not reach the landraider he decided to boost 24" and sweep the thunderfire cannon, unfotunately only 1 of his 3 attacks hit and that rolled a 1 to wound against the tech marine.  The crytek suporting the wraiths/overlord side immobolised a dreadnought, while the squads on the right took 3 of the large marine squad.

The marines responded by the terminators leaving the landraider to charge the command barge.  I was very lucky and it was not destroyed but was stunned and shaken.  The thunderfire did a few wounds to the scarabs but I made all my 3+ cover save (as they were approaching by ruins).  The full tactical squad killed 2 immortals and one got back up, while a dreadnought who was immobolised kill a syper who had lost a wound generating scarabs the turn before.

Next turn the wraiths and destoyer lord charged the scouts (the destryer due to bad positioning and a poor differcult terrin roll didn't get to fight), and slaughtered the squad down to telion and 3 scouts.  They broke and ran near the command barge.  Thinking the command barge nearby would stop them rallying the wraiths consolidated away from the terminators (who were in combat with the command barge).  The overlord, knowing his ride was about to die jumped out of the barge and sprinted to charge the landraider (it could be used to contest objectives, or claim if the small tactical squad got inside).  The overlord managed to immobolise it.  Over the other side of the board I keep whittling away at the full tactical squad, killing another 2.  In the combat phase the terminators finished off the command barge.

The marine response was the terminators went over and killed the overlord, but not before he hit the landraider three more times, but unfortunately doing nothing.  The scouts rallied and fired a few shots into the wraiths.  The thunderfire cannon fired the str 6 shots and got 10 hits, I was lucky ad out of the 8 wounds I only failed 2 of the 3+ cover saves which killed 4 bases (bad luck would have seen the whole unit killed).  Another immportal was also killed.

For the final turn, my turn 4 as the shop had to close.  The wraiths killed the remaining scouts.  We stopped the game there, because  a unit of 9 scarabs would have charged the mobile dreadnought going for my objective, and everything else would have focused on the dozen marines stranded in mid field.

A quick win, helped by my opponents list having imho too many special characters and only having the landraider to offer him and mobility.  Losing the chronus special character on the landraider could allow him to have 2 rhinos for the tactical squads.

Here's a quick run down of what I think of the units I'm using:

Overlord: Frankly overlord's are essential for unlocking royal courts.  In this game bad dice meant he was a bit ineffective, but he normally does ok when he can sweep a vehicle or two.  In my list however because he's on the only vehicle it tends to be the one target of anti tank weaponry.  At 1750 pts I'm thinking that building some annihilation barges to be a distraction would help him perform even better.  An alternative would be to lose the command barge for more warriors and make the overlord a pharon, my only concern is that I do have units, mainly the wraiths and scarabs, which are succeptible to anti tank weapons because they get instant killed.

Royal Court:  Essential for their anti tank, but they can do other nice tricks which I haven't tried out yet, such the as veil of darkness.

Destroyer Lord:  He works so well with the wraiths.  He gives them a bit more punch in combat, they give him fearless, he can take missile launcher hits with his 2+ save and T6 to stop instant killing.  However careful positioning must be used to ensure that he doesn't slow down the unit (as he doesn't ignore terrain).  One thing I am considering is losing the mindshackle scarabs to give the wraiths 2 whip coils.  It all my games it hasn't done much, while the coils would allow me to strike first against some troublesome characters and/or high initiative units.

Immortals:  These always do well, whittling away at infantry, and tesla is allows them to keep up their full rate of fire up to 24" away while being on the move.  In objective games the crypeks will join the warriors rather than them allowing them to focus on anti infantry shooting, but in some missions I like keeping one or two warrior units in reserve to grab objectives later.

Warriors:  In this game none of the warriors fired a shot, they did win the game for me by camping on the objectve.  Maybe I should combine 2 of the warrior units into a 3rd squad of 8 immortals. What do you think ?

Scarabs:  These are a nice deterant to vehiles and weaker units which can be killed by the weight of attacks the scarabs can put out.

Tomb Spyders:  Again they do great creating scarabs early game, and the being a nice monstrous creature counter assault unit that can lend a few str 6 ignoring armour hits to a combat.

I need to get some 1750 point games in, so I can try out the veil of darkness to see if I like it, plus I need to assemble a couple of annihilation barges.  At 1750 points I'm dithering between losing the command barge to have no vehicles and having the overlord be a pharon with an orb who would join 16 warriors wih a veil of darkness crypek.  Alternatively adding 2 annihilation barges could be an easy upgrade to 1750 points.

Have you had any experience with or against a large warrior/immortal unit with a pharon lord jumping around with veil of darkness ?  Was it effective, was it hard to play with/against ?  Or do you think only having 3 vehicles (command barge and 2 annihilation barges) enough ?  Vehiles tend to do better when you have more of them to overstretch the enemy's anti tank guns.

That's all for now.

Rathstar

Speeding Up Painting - Part II

Last month I set myself the task of getting my Space Wolves painted up to 600 points so I could take them to the Magnificent Seven tournament.  I wrote here about the techniques I intended to use to speed up my painting, and you can see below that I made my goal to attend the tournament with my Space Wolves.

However I did miss out some techniques that were also instrumental in making my goal:


Sprays

There are a vast number of sprays available now, and using a coloured undercoat can really speed up the painting time.  Army Painter [link] do a wide range of colours, but you can also use sprays used for other model ranges such as Humbrol.

If the colour you want to base coat your models is not available as a spray, an alternative is to use a spray gun.

These are getting much more popular and it means that you can base coat your models quickly in any colour available. - thanks to Neath Leanan for the spray gun tip.

Because I have always used standard sprays to base coat my models I have not purchased a spray gun yet, but I have always been tempted to try one out.  For the spray gun novice like me there are loads of tutorials on the web (eg. from blogs and youtube).  I will probably buy a spray gun once my last spray can of Space Wolves Grey runs out.


Washes

The standard of washes has really improved since I first started painting.  On my space
wolves I use the red wash over my red base coat, and it does wonders for evening the colour, and giving the model good shading.

On my necrons the black wash over a silver bas coat, gave the models a nice dark metallic colour to the models while adding shading

And lastly people swear by the Devlan Mud wash.  If you don't already I definietely recommend that you experiment using washes.  I'm sure you will be greatly impressed.


Bigger Brushes

Apart from when I worked on tanks I used to the fine detail brush 95% of the time.  Although this meant that I achived neater painting, it made my painting very slow and shortened the life of my best quality brushes.

I have started to use the standard brush much more now.  The best way would be to use a standard brush and then auto correct each area by area with the fine detail brush.  When rushing to finish my space wolves I had to miss the correction stage with the fine detail brush to get the models done.

What this means it that I was able to get the models painted up to a stage I could take them to a tournament (and not be the worse painted there).  I will go back to neaten up the models later, but this tactic did allow me to get a painted army on the battlefield quicker.




So Where Are my Space Wolves Now ?

I have a painted 600 point army, great for combat patrol and other small games.  I've made on all the decisions on how I'm going base my army, and what colours to use.  However I do need to go back and add some details to some of the models.

Now the decision I have now is whether to go back and add more details and highlights to my existing models, or do I move and get a larger army painted up to the same level of my 600 point army.

I have all the vehicles (apart from one predador turret, and couple of rhinos which need transfers) painted, so it would be mainly the infantry I'd need to get painted, so I've decided that it would be nice to have a choice on what army to take to my next local tournament, which is Rapid Strike in May.  It's a log way off, but with the large number of models to build and paint I need to make sure I keep on track.  With that in mind I've undercoated the remainder of 2 long fangs squads I need for my a draft 1500 point list.

 [note the thunderwolf that I broke off it's base and now needs repair :( ]

 
Have you got any further tips on speeding up painting ?

Rathstar