A Struggle of Titans

I got together with my buddy Justin for a pretty sizeable game of 40k: 3,000 points per side of Necrons versus Ultramarines. This is the tale.

Various battles across the planets' surface had raged for hours, and Ultramarine drop troops had been under persistent fire nearly the entire time. They had suffered relatively few casualties, as it was wave after wave of Necron Warrior that marched in lines from their underground sarcophagi. It got to the point that they had the system down for defeating the predictable robotic foes. 

Yet their arrival on the outskirts of the unmarked city changed the nature of the defenses. Two great towers dominated the horizon. As the vehicles of the Space Marines rumbled forward, bright lights flickered into existence on those pillars. A series of defense lines then lit up, glowing orange screens of energy. And then it seemed like dual suns opened. One came from a vault in the ground--a grand creature that towered above others and seemed like the glowing center of a star itself. Then a second one, similar in shape but entrapped within an unfolding cube, appeared. Around them stirred shadows of other defenders, but it was the near-blinding radiance of the two C'Tan which held the Space Marines' attention. If they could have felt fear, this would have known the blinding panic of the burning reality at the center of space. As it was, they lowered their boltguns and steeled themselves for the battle ahead. 

One half of the Necron battle line. Canoptek Spyder and Wraiths, supported by Scarabs and a Heavy Destroyer. Plus the glowing yellow sun of a C'Tan. 

The other half of the Necron forces: a Tesseract Vault and a Monolith, plus groups of Warriors and Immortals sheltering behind an Aegis Defense Line. 

The stalwart Ultramarines had been joined by an Imperial Titan for their battle, whose thunderous guns had cleaved through scores of the strange metal foes already in the campaign on this planet. A squad of Assault Marines took cover behind the lumbering metal behemoth, while Tactical Marines advanced in a Rhino and a squad of Devastators with lascannons and plasma cannons hugged what elevated areas covered in scrub trees they could find. 

The bulk of the Ultramarine's might came on their right flank, however. A Land Raider containing a terminator squad and two commanders was square in the center, while supporting units of Tactical Marines advanced in their Rhinos in front of two Dreadnoughts. A battery of three whirlwinds hugged the far right flank, ready to rain down destruction at range. 

The Necron Scarab Swarms made quick work of the armor plating of the Rhino, but despite their initial fury could not stand up to the fire and eventual charge of the Tactical Marines. 

Long-range Necron shooting similarly crippled the Land Raider, their Gauss blasts causing sections of the armor to strip out of reality. The Terminator Squad that emerged advanced in stalwart fashion in the face of the Necrons firepower. 

The Space Marines flyer buzzed into the scene, and turned its firepower on the Necrons below. However, abysmal targeting data--no doubt caused by the Necron field of energy being projected--caused it to fire wildly and score few hits throughout the battle. 

The Terminators reached the Necron defense lines, and made short work of the Immortals standing there. The sheer brutality of their attacks was hard for any of the slow-moving robots to face. 

The Assault Marines hit a different point of the line, facing the Necron Warriors and one of the Necron Lords commanding the force. While they caused a few casualties, the Necrons managed to withstand the attack in better fashion thanks to the presence of their scythe-wielding commander. 

One of the C'Tan, its body burning with the heat of the sun, faced off against the firepower of the Knight Titan. As it warped the world around it, it managed to keep the titan at bay--even though its own shooting attacks were unable to touch the Titan's armor. 

The Lord whose unit was battling the Assault Marines used his Veil of Darkness to escape the deadly melee, and leave the Assault Marines in the path of the C'Tan. While it shot and attacked them, they didn't completely crumble against the attacks. 

Meanwhile, a Necron Night Scythe arrived to beam down another unit of Immortals--they unloaded their firepower at the Tactical Marines who were hiding in the swamp. 

On the other side of the battlefield, the two Dreadnoughts got into a prolonged combat with the Lychguard. While the Lychguard could not hurt the Dreadnoughts, they also proved to be solidly survivable even against the high strength hits of the mechanics-drive power fists. The Necron Lord ran to assist them, but was instantly crushed by the deadly attacks of the Dreadnoughts when he tried to get involved in the combat. 

A few straggling Warriors managed to destroy one of the Whirlwinds by the end of the game. The Whirlwinds' damage across the entire battle far exceeded that of any other weapon in the Ultramarines' arsenal. 

The hopes of the Necrons were finally crushed when the Knight Titan turned its attention to the newly-arrived squad of Immortals. 

The final tally was close, but the Ultramarines managed to edge out the Necrons by one point: 13 to 12 was the final tally. It was an enormously fun game, with the lead changing multiple times. The two Necron heavy vehicles survived, but very little else of their force managed to not be destroyed. The Ultramarines took some heavy casualties, but had the pieces in place to absorb those losses and remain effective. I'm hoping to get another large-sized game in against the Ultramarines sooner rather than later!


Battles (40k):
Total 2015: 8 (Win/Loss/Tie: 1/7/0)

Necrons:
1 Win (Grey Knights 1)
7 Losses (Ultramarines 2, Eldar 1, Imperial Guard 1, Nurgle Chaos 1, Grey Knights 1, Chaos and Ultramarines team 1)
0 Ties

Crusade of Fire: Campaign Progress

The Crusade of Fire Campaign at Drawbridge Games has begun. This page will track the campaign progress.

Current Planetary Situation

Phase four of the campaign had the first clashes for the Doomsday Device components, the appearance of the first Chaos forces, and the Eldar taking control of a portion of space using the Shipboard Raids special mission. Expansions continued for the Crusade of Fire and the Prophets of War, with both factions gaining a number of victories. Ultramarines fighting for the Crusade of Fire managed to destroy some Necrons and discover a hidden Doomsday device component on Corvus Majoris, while a coalition of Adeptus Mechanicus agents managed to secure a piece of their own from vaults on Alfrost. Meanwhile, a variety of Chaos cultists staged uprisings on Corvus Majoris to sync with the orbit of nearby planet Junkatta around the star at the center of the system. Their blood sacrifices brought additional Chaos forces to power on the far planet, linking the invasion of the two through the inscrutable connection of the warp. Finally, the Eldar turned their sights toward raiding enemy ships with boarding parties to secure the space lanes. They managed to do so successfully, albeit with many losses of their own--still, it was enough to gain them a staging area in space of their own.

Astropaths, Farseers, Tau Air Caste navigators, Heretical cult leaders, and even Necrons buried beneath their tombs consulting ancient star charts all came to realize that the next phase of withdrawal of the warp storms was imminent. The forces had to decide between battling over the precious space on the worlds they held, or returning their forces to landing craft and space fleets to prepare for the next phase of the invasion.

Faction and Campaign Points

The Campaign tracks points earned by Factions as well as each Player's armies in the charts below:

Faction	Faction Points (and # of Doomsday Components)
Crusade of Fire	4 (1)
Defenders of the Sun	3 (1)
Servants of Ruin	0
Prophets of War	9
Oblivion	0

Player	Army	Total Campaign Points (-# spent)
Jared	Craftworld Eldar	16 (-7)
Jeff	Ultramarines	8
Jason	Dark Angels w/ Imperial Knights	7
Sean	Ultramarines	6
Kevin	Adeptus Mechanicus	6
Enrico	Adeptus Mechanicus	5
Cemllyn	Grey Knights	4
Jason	Tau	4
Kevin	Adeptus Mechanicus	6
Chris	Orks	1
Jono	Inquisition	1
Andrew	Necrons	1
Space	Chaos	1

As a reminder, Campaign Points can be spent before games for certain bonuses: see the chart at the bottom of the campaign rules post.

Prior Phases (record)

I don't want to just lose the prior phases as they progress, so this spot will serve as the archive for the spread of forces across the sub-sector.

 Phase One: Initial landings were made, and then the Prophets of War got off to a quick start: winning three of their battles, and tying the fourth. This let them expand both on Corvus Majoris, as well as take a sizable share of Alfrost. The control of Veth by the Crusade of Fire remains a powerful strategic location. And the Defenders of the Sun are VERY close to unearthing the first of the Doomsday Device Golden Flags.

Phase Two: Two separate strike carriers emerged in the system bearing the inverted omega of the Ultramarines. One Ultramarines force had a clash with Eldar from the Iyanden Craftworld, solidly defeating them in the name of the Crusade. The other force was a preliminary scouting expedition, and had a brief skirmish against some Adeptus Mechanicum forces when trying to decide who would get control of critical central high ground on Corvus Majoris. Meanwhile, other Eldar forces managed to defeat the Dark Angels and stave off further expansion of the Crusade of Fire. While the Defenders of the Sun have yet to find the Doomsday Device Golden Flag which they are near, the relentless rune forecasting of the Eldar seems to have brought them particularly close to a flag as well.

Phase Three: Two new belligerents joined the battle at this point. Not only did Orks make their appearance to spread havoc in the name of Oblivion, but the Tau emerged to contribute to the advances of the Prophets of War. The Orks made initial landings for Oblivion on Corvus Majoris and Junkatta, clashing against the Eldar forces on the latter planet. The Eldar struck their initial supply chain and encircled the Ork landing just as it was beginning. Elsewhere, the Crusade of Fire-led by the Ultramarines--managed to uncover the first of the Golden Flag spaces on Corvus Majoris. The Defenders of the Sun also managed to uncover such a space, on Junkatta--despite the minor clash between Inquisition and Mechanicum forces over the site, it was squarely in control by the Defenders of the Sun. As servants of these two factions begin to plumb the depths of ancient archaeotech ruins, hoping to find the components to make a weapon to win them absolute control of the region, other factions scheme to prevent it from falling into either of their hands.

Doomsday Devices and Shipboard Raids

This post does double-duty, as the recent phase of the Crusade of Fire featured players doing two different special missions. One was struggling to find the Doomsday Devices that were revealed the last phase, and the other was one of the campaign participants pursuing the Shipboard Raid special mission.

I'll start with the efforts to find the Doomsday Components first. Here's the mission:

Most of the photos are from my match (against Jeff's epic old-school Ultramarines force). We played 1,500 points per side, with the Ultramarines as the "discovering faction."

The Ultramarines arrived in force, with tactical and devastator squads spreading evenly across the battlefield, supported by a Land Raider Crusader, a Whirlwind, a Landspeeder, and a Dreadnought. 

The forces of the Necrons array behind their defensive walls. In addition to the C'Tan in their midst, a Monolith loomed in reserve to teleport into the midst of the enemy formation. 

The scarabs advanced under cover of the ruins. 

The Heavy Destroyers took pot shots at the Land Raider, but didn't land a scratch on it. 

It was the Scarabs, however, that finished the mighty metal behemoth. 

The scarabs formed the bane of all the Ultramarines armor--their tiny deconstruction lasers annihilating with a thousand cuts. 

The wounded C'Tan faced off against the Dreadnought, but was ultimately destroyed, leaving the Ultramarines in possession of the critical objective in the center of the board. 

Even with the Monolith joining the fray, and the Necron Lord slicing Ultramarines with his Warscythe, it was too little too late for the Necron forces to triumph. 

I got some pictures of the other games as well:

Inquistiorial-allied Imperial Guard advanced through the rubble. 

The Eldar war-host they faced off against. 

The beautiful Sisters of Battle and their tanks--what an amazing Exorcist tank in the background!

At another battle site, Dark Angels Ravenwing squared off... with a massive defense cannon turret fortification on their side. 

The resilient Skitarii faced their nominal allies in a clash over which faction would control the Doomsday artifact. 

Meanwhile, in space above the planetary systems, another clash was happening. The Eldar finally made a push to wipe out some of the opposing spacecraft--they set their sights on a Necron Scythe Harvest Ship that was landing Necron forces on the planets. To allow this, the Eldar player spent some of his campaign points on the special mission--enabling him to make the attack. If successful, he would establish a special spot for the Eldar space superiority on the campaign map.

Dire Avengers stalked the halls of the Necron ship, where heavily-armed Immortals waited. 

The Necrons posed a significant threat--especially the Lychguard that defended their territory in the face of overwhelming firepower. 

The Dire Avenger Exarchs were crucial in breaking the stalemate of combat, as the sturdy Necron foes were tough to displace. 

Warp Spiders, who traversed the exterior of the ship with their warp jump technology, managed to strike the final blow to the Necron defenders. 

The Eldar managed to triumph, and thus they gained a special position on the campaign map--represented by the Eldar ship in the lower right. As other races seek to establish their control of land and sky, it will be fun to see where the campaign spreads (and what will happen when the remainders of the solar storms retreat)!

Battles (40k):
Total 2015: 7 (Win/Loss/Tie: 1/6/0)

Necrons:
1 Win (Grey Knights 1)
6 Losses (Ultramarines 1, Eldar 1, Imperial Guard 1, Nurgle Chaos 1, Grey Knights 1, Chaos and Ultramarines team 1)
0 Ties

What's in a (Changed) Name?

So my gaming blogs have transitioned a lot as I've changed armies and hosted my comments about 40k on my other blogs. For a (long) while I was focused on Eldar, and had Doom of the Eldar as my blog:

 So pretty. So many points. And such a pain to paint. 

Then I decided to stray from the Eldar and start a Space Wolves force, using the Great Company of Gunnar Red Moon as my inspiration.

I do love the deadly Space Puppies. 

Then I got pretty heavy into Warhammer Fantasy, and made a massive blog of those endeavors. As my interest returned to 40k, I started just keeping my notes about my 40k games on that Warhammer blog: Mousillon Expedition. In addition to playing my Eldar some, I started a Necrons army but started blogging about it there:

With the silly blue Skaven watermark from the fantasy blog... /sigh

Then I switched from the fantasy blog to the Red Moon's blog for the Necrons, naming it the C'tan's Shard:

Man, I nailed that paint job. 

Yet Necrons were just not my thing. I tried (and tried and tried... see the older posts). I just didn't have the brain for Necrons. And while I loved the color scheme I did, repetition and I don't work very well together. I need variation in a project, and variety in the army. 

So I converted all the older blog posts of the Space Wolves project (and the Sanctus Reach campaign I ran), as well as spliced in all my current stuff about the Necrons and Crusade of Fire campaign that I am running, to make all my 40k gaming be in one spot. I'm also doing it because I don't want to lose the good history of battle reports I've written for the Eldar, the Space Wolves, and the Necrons--even though both armies are moving on to other hands. I had friends procure the Space Wolves, the Eldar took a journey through eBay, and the Necrons are around but definitely on a potential chopping. The older posts on this blog will retain the wrong blog watermarks, which will lead to my Warhammer Fantasy blog or to the Warp for the ones that are renamed/deactivated. But I wanted to retain the fun older stuff so here it is.

Convoy Ambush

Another night for the Crusade of Fire at Drawbridge Games, and that meant another special mission night. As the different factions consolidated their positions on planets in the system, it meant that there would be moments when they needed to move troops and materiel from spot to spot, and would be more easy prey to other raiding forces. Thus, it was time for the "Convoy Ambush" mission:



Here are pictures from the battles that were held on Thursday night, and there was another clash between Orks and Eldar on Saturday. Defenders and attackers were equally victorious at the mission, and it seemed that players responded well to the odd set-up and scoring.

First up were the Tau, their column ambushed by the Ultramarines. Lots and lots of crisis suits!

Devastator squad! Commanded by Marneus Calgar himself. 

Second devastator squad (some Space Wolves Long Fangs showed up to help out).

The dreadnoughts arrive by drop pod to try and break the Tau column. 

Second game: Mechanicum being ambushed by Grey Knights. The players forgot that they were on the same faction side--so this one is some internal confusion between the Defenders of the Sun over recovering lost and dangerous xenos technology. This is the Mechanicum line of march, not suspecting their supposed allies are about to intercept them. 

Two Dreadknights lie in wait to ambush their prey. 

Two squads of Grey Knights Terminators, one led by a Librarian, ready to close the trap. 

The game was very close: the final Dreadknight managed to stave off attacks by Sicarian Ruststalkers and a Tech Priest, and carry the day. 

Third game: a column of Eldar exploring the marshy terrain of Corvus Majoris were intercepted by Mechanicum forces. 

The sturdy and deadly gunline of the Mechanicum--tracked cyborgs with huge damage output guns wreaked havoc on the Eldar vehicles. 

On the other side, two of the Kastelan robots advanced across the rocky scree to begin the assault. 

The Howling Banshees rushed into the fray, but their attacks were unable to get through the resilient Mechanicum forces' defenses. 

The Guardian Defenders right before gouts of flame and deadly shooting bolts from the Kastelan Robots decimate their numbers and send them fleeing. 

The Eldar managed to hang on and win through attrition alone. The few numbers of the Mechanicum made their losses less tolerable, and two independent Vyper jetbikes managed to shoot down the last of the Mechanicum forces and scout the marshes for victory points. 

At the end, the Prophets of War had won three total battles for the week (two by Eldar, one by Tau), with the Crusade of Fire picking up one of their own. And a bonus (pity) point for the Defenders of the Sun for facing off against each other.