40k 8th: First Patrol

1x Necron Lord

-1x Warscythe

10x Warriors

-10x Gauss Flayer

5x Immortals

-5x Gauss Blasters

1x Destroyer

-1x Gauss Cannon

3x Canoptek Scarabs

-3x Feeder Mandibles

Unless otherwise noted, <Kabal> and <Dynasty> treated as <Stolen Soul> and <Nihilakh> (since Trazyn the Infinite is my only Unique Overlord). For this battle, Command Points and Warlord Traits will not be used because I forgot about them entirely, but our respective HQ units are still our Warlords.

Both of these lists were built by me beforehand with no knowledge of what will work, and kinda sorta work as parallels of each other. Both have an HQ suited for combat but without any combat support, both have a basic firebase made of Warriors plus a slightly smaller eliter firebase, both have a zippy option. With hindsight, a second Destroyer in place of the Scarabs and a few Warriors would have created a tighter Necron list, allowing a surviving Destroyer to actually roll for We'll Be Protocol-Bound To Call This Something Legally Sound.

Game-Wide Misplays: For this game we were still rolling 2D6 for Morale. This mattered all of once, since the Necrons have enough Leadership for it not to be relevant to them most of the time.

Using the Only War basic mission, I rolled for the Tactical Objective and got the four objectives one. Meanwhile, Escape began the deployment phase and, as the Underdog, decided which of us got the first turn (me because they're still learning the game and don't generally like going first for some reason). By the end of deployment, things looked like this, with the Archon and Trueborn beginning in the Raider (since Transports can accept more than one unit so long as they don't go over capacity). The skull tokens with dice in them are the four objectives here. And so it begins.

The filthy soul stealers get off to a decent start here, the 6-man Warrior squad putting two wounds on the Scarab Swarms whilst the collective firepower of everything bar the Raider (read: the return of 'I fire a single Dark Lance and miss') downs a single Immortal. The Raider's single Dark Lance hits! And causes 4 damage to the 3-wound Destroyer! At this point Escape regrets conceding first turn.

In return, the Necrons fail to repair their single casualty (after a forgotten but posthumously passed Morale test), but there will be other chances. Shooting from the Warrior unit depletes my 6-man Kabalite squad to 3 (a later check revealed Pain would not have helped here), and in the Charge phase the Scarabs successfully engage with the Raider, each unit wounding the other a grand total of once. Another forgotten but later passed Morale test ensues.

Usefully, I can still disembark from the Raider because there is no such term as being 'engaged' here. This allows the Archon and Trueborn to alight 3" away from the Raider and then move ANOTHER 7 to 8 inches to get where they want to be (cover for Trueborn, 2 inches from the Immortals for the Archon). What I forgot here was that the Raider's Fly keyword means it can Fall Back from being 1" away from enemy units and still fire its weapons. As such, it stays in combat and another 1-for-1 exchange happens. Meanwhile, the Archon charges the otherwise unscathed-from-shooting (2+ saves behind the cover piece on rifle/cannon fire) Immortals and I realise that AP -2 on the Huskblade isn't that great when you only wound on 5+. Fortunately, she takes no damage in return for her single kill.

Again, no Immortals rise up, so we get another 1-for-1 combat out of the Raider and Scarabs and a dud round for everyone else. At this stage, the Necron Lord is angling to engage either the Trueborn or the small Warrior unit but 5" isn't great range.

At this point things get hazy, but I'm pretty sure now is when the Raider falls back and allows the Warriors to gun down the Scarabs. Meanwhile, another Immortal goes down and then gets back up again in the Necron turn.

The Lord reaches the Trueborn and cuts them up with its Warscythe. The Warriors get serious, too, killing 3 of my big Kabalite unit... who then fail their Morale check in the relevant phase by 4 and so lose even more troopers. And to think that next round they'd have become effectively Fearless. Damn.