Games, testing and more games. Road to Apoc 2015.

SO! As promised, here is more info on the gaming element of my road to the Apocalypse game at the end of the month.

Firstly, I decided to swap armies with my Dark Eldar friend Chris, who has kind of just started really.  Dark Eldar are glass cannons and can prove a hard place to start in 40k.  Luckily, Chris, despite always complaining, never stops trying.  But the army he would be using in the Apoc game would need to be tested regardless.

And I wanted to play Dark Eldar.  So there.

The game was done old school, played with whatever scenery we could scrounge, despite being done on one of those fantastic latex mats from Zuzzy in the states.

For deployment, I wanted to use his own "fun" army.  I was playing to test out things, be daring, try out tactics you would normally shirk from.

So for deployment I held as much in reserve as possible and hid!

So much wrong with this picture, I know.

 The early game was shadowed by a fantastic stroke of luck.  Gambling everything into one attack, I put 2 venoms with trueborn toting more splintercannons into danger, backed up by Scourges firing long and a deepstriking raider + the Archon using his portal for a no- scatter deepstrike!

Result?  Necron Warrior unit reduced to 0 warriors and one pissed off Necron Lord.
...
1 Necron Lord with an warscythe to gring.  He charged next turn. I learned then that my Archon had no Agoniser or other offensive option... thank Cthulu I had a shadow field!

Weird seeing this guy on the opposing side of the board...

The game went slow, lots of umming and ahhing on my side as if it was a chess game.  (Which incidentally has a clock to stop people like me driving the game into the late hours!!).  It was all in all a close match, as most Maelstrom games are, my earlier gamble folding under the weight of Necron troop spam.  Damn those 20 man squads are tough in 1500pts!

***

Later that same week saw me and Chris joining several other players for some light 1000pt quick matches.  The aim was simple: Have fun, learn something new!

Into the breach, inspired by a dawn of war map.

There were just 6 players active, these three boards above being used.  Highlights include seeing Dark Eldar finding themselves in the unenviable position of holding off a Tyranid horde.  Only the narrow terrain helped them, though the quick assault of flying xenos nearly won the day.  Poison weapons are for Tyranids what Bananas are for me.  Poison.  (Edit: Find better analogy).

City fight board, used by IG vs IG. 

Two Imperial Guard Armies battling across a ruined city. Ordnance Pie plates at dawn a amongst aegis lines and meat shields. :) Arguments ensued over who was more faithful to the emperor, and who was just trying that little too hard.  An Inquisitor was brought in.

Eldar were having a bad day as an Ultramarine drop pod assualt ranked up 11pts in just the first 2 turns of the game.  Devolving into a cat and mouse game, the Space Marines held on for 6 turns, avoiding a vengeful Iyanden host trying to table them as their only option.

Band of buggered...

While I only played 1 game (I was on rules duty for the first round) the game itself showed me a fault in using Meprhit in small games.  The compulsary demand for 3 Troop units it a big negative.  Necrons do better when fielded in larger units, as to take advantage of their reinimation protocols.  If they lose all their number in 1 phase, they cannot come back, as their Lord doesn't count.

FFFUUUUUUUU!!!!

In small games, this means you have very little room for special stuff like an Annihilation Barge or 3.  With the Mephrit Dynasty this problem is made worse yet.

This was demonstrated very clearly for me by good old nasty Chris and his Dark Eldar flier, essentially carpet bombing my main big unit down a street with Necrotoxin missiles.  Combined with a few other focused attacks and cheeky deep strikes later, it was clear I had lost. 

Dammit, the noob is learning. 

So for 1000pts I'd recommend using the standard FOC.  The variety is better and the ability to snab objectives with troops is always useful.  However, I have another 40 Warriors and 15 Immortals to paint.  So with regards to Mephrit, I'll be back! (See what I did there!??)

Thanks for reading.
R