Crusade Battle Report - Death Guard vs Necrons

Hello!

The Death Guard warband 'The Desiccated' march once more on the planet of Silex, this time venturing out into the southern deserts of the world's main land mass, looking to take access to the quarries and their associated manufactorums. Under the unforgiving sun, the warriors of Mortarion search for sites of aerial supply drops, but the Necrons of the Ay-Tez dynasty have risen from the sands to oppose them once again...

Game three for the Desiccated Crusade, this time against Sharpy and his Necrons (and I'm borrowing a few of his photos again!) This was his first Crusade game so we kept it relatively simple, with a rulebook mission Supplies From Above - essentially a 6 objective mission scored like in matched play, but with the twist that the objectives all moved in the randomly determined direction of the wind each battle round. Also, since we were playing in a desert, we used the twist card for Blinding Sun from the open war deck - this meant it would be -1 to hit for shooting attacks that were aiming towards the board edge where the sun was currently in the sky. As it happened, the Necrons were coming out of the sun so it hurt me a bit more - though it wasn't effecting melee so not an insurmountable issue.

After gaining a lot of experience in the previous battle against Orks, I was now deploying 60 power level, so had to leave a few things at home. I took all my troop units - Poxwalkers, Cultists, two Plague Marine squads, led by Lord of Virulence Najax the Generous and Malignant Plaguecaster Gilus the Withered. They were backed up by the Plague Surgeon, Noxious Blightbringer, Foetid Bloat-drone and two Blooded units, the Terminators 'Crotalus' Hammer' and the Plagueburst Crawler 'The Oasis of Filth'. My agendas were Reaper, Survivor (on Najax) and Turn Their Hope to Rot - points for killing the strongest enemy unit, in this case the Wraiths.

The Necrons were fielding a mixed force with a strong Canoptek element. Overlord Kothetek and Technomancer Mekeros led two units of Warriors and one of Immortals, some Skorpekh Destroyers, a couple of Lokhust Heavy Destroyers, a Tomb Spyder, nine Scarab swarms and six Wraiths. The dynasty were using Rad-wreathed for a -1 toughness in melee effect (seems familiar!) and an ability to increase the speed of Canoptek units.

The Necron agendas were Reaper, Assassinate and Territorial Imperative - getting experience for doing actions on objectives and taking out enemy units holding them.

Deployment, just after the objectives moved for the first time, favourably for the Necrons so that the three on their side of the board were comfortably under their control, while the three on my side had moved further away from me. No scoring on the first turn though so there would be another shift before we were awarded points. Terminators were off the board but everything else was lined up. The Necrons got to go first...

Turn one, the Necrons advanced up into striking distance of two now fairly central objectives, while securing the three in their own half. Those Canoptek units were pretty nippy, and would definitely be all up in the Death Guard turn two.

Similarly the Death Guard rolled up to close the gap and get a finger to some objectives, shooting was fairly ineffective, but Plague Marines on the right flank did get up into range to punch some Scarabs.

At the end of the turn all the objectives scattered to the right, not significantly changing who controlled them.

Necrons picked up a bunch of points for the objectives, then moved in to surround the Death Guard centre. The melee units came wheeling in, the Wraiths cut down the Blightbringer and a couple of marines, ending up locking the Plagueburst Crawler into combat. The Skorpekh Destroyers whiffed a bit though, only killing five Poxwalkers and leaving them to control the objective on my turn.

Elsewhere the Spyder went into combat with the Plague Marines but got punched out by the interrupting power fist.

With the central push tied up and surrounded, Lord Najax would have to get involved himself. On the flanks the Bloat-drone abandoned the objective in favour of assisting vs the Wraiths, while the other Plague Marines continued to battle the Scarabs.

With the melee units moved on ahead, it was time to spring the Death Guard trap! The Blightlord Terminators emerged from the waste tanks of bio-sludge (or the teleporter if you're being boring), lining up a charge on the now exposed Warriors, while gunning down a Skorpekh or two.

Turn two melee proved pretty decisive - the Warriors were obliterated by the Blightlords, buffed by a bunch of stratagems to make sure. The Wraiths were dropped to a single model, and I think the scarabs were finally removed.

A big swing in terms of units being killed, but after the wind blowing the objectives around again, the Necrons once again held more of them. Remaining forces castled up in the corners, getting some good shooting in to blast three of the five Terminators to bits!

Turn three for the Death Guard was spent chasing after objectives and cutting down the remnants of the Necron forward elements. The Bloat-drone made a bit of a meal out of killing the last Wraith, while the Destroyers were cut down with relative ease.

Turn four and five were spent with the Death Guard trying to take out the last Necrons, while the 'crons were trying to hold on to their objective lead. When the dust settled only three or four Warriors still stood before phasing out, but they had secured the objectives, and those vital supplies were teleported back to the tomb world. Necrons win!

Though the Desiccated were defeated, they did pick up a lot of experience again. Both the Daemon Engines got advances (the drone now ignores AP -1 and -2, the PBC can 'mark' a unit with acidic residue in addition to it's creepy spider legs), as did the Plague Marines that battled the Scarabs (overwatch on 5s), and Najax himself (improved ap in melee) - coming a little closer to his goal of Daemonhood.

The Necron forced picked up a couple of changes - the Wraiths upgraded to improve their advances and charges, which is a bit scary, while the Skorpekhs recieved a battlescar that actually helped them - rerolling hits in exchange for the inability to charge anything but the closest target. Kothetek also picked up an epithet for his victory - 'Eternal Lord of Heavens'. Suitable, since all his soldiers got killed!

Anyway, great game, Crusade is always fun, especially when both players are fielding a nice balanced list. It's great to be able to play the missions but then have something else to go for (xp) when it goes wrong! Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and stay safe.