Extract the Package

 The Corsairs Voidscarred landed on Volkus and tried to find an important MacGuffin but the Necron Hierotek Circle had the same idea.

One of the more confusingly worded objectives.

The board.

The Corsairs.

The Circle.

The Corsairs deployed mostly to the centre and east flank, with a lone Shade Runner skulking on the west side.

The Necrons prepaed to advance on the west flank.

I started the game on the wrong foot, for some reason thinking the Deathmark had already moved. Instead he dashed into position and put a blast through the skull of the badly exposed Kurnathi Hunter.

Trying to secure the eastern stronghold as the Necrons advance, but the Fatedealer and Heavy Gunner with wraith cannon were largely non-factors in the game. The wraithcannon wounded a necron immortal before being assiassinated by the Deathmark and the sniper was cleverly expsed by an immortal that climbed into postion for an obscured shot. 

Shaderunner skulkily advanced so that...

... on turning point two she could warp in and do some surviellance for my Tac op.

In the centre, the Felarch and psykers hug the cover, afraid of the impressive guass weaponry.

The Duelist runs out and blasts an Immortal with the fusion pistol.

The Immortal would revive (a common theme this game) and the Appretek counter fire wounds but not kills the Duelist. 

Another wounded immortal charges  but stumbles and is killed by the Duelist in close combat! (Don't worry, he gets back up.)

The Duelist continues to wreck Necrons with Fusion power... but finally he is put down... and the Necrons get back up and heal.

On the west flank, the Technomancer finds the package at the third point, and decides to take matters into his own claws.

He steps out and kills the survielling Shade Runner. The Felarch runs up and Neuron Pistols him to death at the end of TP2 and begining of TP3. He does rivive but but is charged by the Kurnathi swordmaster and put down for good. An Immortal sees the swordmaster and lays him low from across the board while the Deathmark finishes the Felarch.

With the numbers of the Eldar dwindling, I secure a couple more Surviellance points but the necrons advance and take control of the stronghold.

The Deathmark was MVP of the game.

The final score was 12 to 9 for the Necrons. My failure to be able to put down weakened revived Necrons did me in as I got 0 points for the Kill Op while my opponent wracked up 5. A good tough game.

Time for the Corsairs

 I broke out the NPO rules again, this time to try my hand with the Corsair Voidscarred kill team versus NPOs of heavy brawlers and marksmen.

The Eldar Fatedealer and Heavy Gunner try to own high ground while the rest of the team run forward...

... but the Black Storm have more and higher high ground. Eek!

In hindsight, the Breach mission which is just an "eliminate the other team" mission in which the NPOs get a 9 inch deployed zone gave the NPOs access to too much high ground, an unfair advantage.

The heavy gunner with wraithcannon dealt 12 damage to a heavy brawler even in light cover.

But the heavy marksmen in the tower took care of the fatedealer in light cover even more easily. I should have deployed him with conceal in heavy cover to avoid this.

The Kurnathi hunter sends the Falchu to Seek out the wounded marine and finished him off while another heavy marksmen wounds the Kurnathi beside him.

After one turning point things are not looking too bad.

The wraithcannon proves its worth again killing the marine in the tower and throwing more smoke to stay safe.

The tide begins to turn as a heavy brawler charges and kills two Eldar before they do anything. The heavy NPOs get 3 action points and the heavy brawlers can fight twice while the heavy marksmen can shoot twice.

The Wayseeker finished off the marine for revenge with some well placed lightning.

A heavy marksmen used that double shoot to zero in on the wraithcannon gunner and eliminate him.

The Felarch tried to lure a heavy brawler into a door fight which would allow the Eldar warrior to strike first since he was in the stronghold while the marine was outside and maybe kill the marine, but the die rolls were against me and the Felarch fell while the marine survive with 2 wounds left.

I conceeded for the Voidscarred when there was just two left, the Kurnathi blademaster and the soulweaver.

In hindsight, the extra high ground and the 98 wounds of heavies proved to be too much, plus I made some rookie mistakes with the Eldar. I decided to try again with a more equitable board layout and one fewer marine (3 heavy brawlers and 3 heavy marksmen instead of 4 and 3).

The high strongholds are in the middle, and while the marines start 3 inches closer the Eldar are faster moving.

After one turning point, already the Eldar are leading. The two heavy marksmen on the high ground were baited out of conceal with some bait Eldar to shoot at and the wraithcannon, fatedealer, and wayseeker lightning made them both pay for it dearly. A heavy brawler on one flank killed an Eldar but was killed by fusion gun fire in return, a favourable exchange.

The Shaderunner got to slice the throat of a wounded marine and put him out of his misery with a slicing attack. The marine was mortally wounded by the wraithcannon, who is quickly becoming my MVP versus elites.

The Felarch again tried to bait a charge but this time was successful. He has a once a game ability to interupt an action to fight or shoot the operative he is interrupting, so the heavy brawler charged, I interrupted to fight meaning I could strike first. AND the Felarch had a warding sheild from the Wayseeker so could ignore the first damage. And I rolled decently so I was able to apply 12 damage before the first 5 damage from the brawler got through, and then had one more hit to kill him.

The finish the game, the duelist used the fusion pistol to finish off the last brawler.

Heavy NPOs are much tougher opponents than the light NPOs. The 14 wounds and 3+ armour save definitely makes them more survivable, coupled with 3 APL and double fight/shoot. Going to try a mixed NPO team next time.

Opeation Vicious

 Yesterday my son Terjoe and I had a game of Kill Team, with him using the Kommando Orks once again and me trying to use the Voidscarred Corsairs decently this time. We chose the 1.3 mission of Soulshackle, Cryptogrammic Raid where the goal is to acitvate terminals for victory points. The board is not quite symetertic however and as defended Terjoe select the side with two hatchway access to two rooms, whereas I would need to blast some walls to get in to them quickly.

Both of us quickly moved to our small consoles and activated them (we could not activate the big consoles in our drop zones, but we could activate the big console in the opposite side for extra VPs) and I moved troops into position to guard the centre hall and blast into the Hololith console room.

The orks however wasted no time getting into the hololith room and setting the Snipa boy on guard duty, ready to blast the first pointy ears he saw.

I blasted the wall and my concealed Fatedealer dealt some fate to the Rokkit boy, wounding him in turn 1 and finished him off at the top of turn 2. First blood!

But for every action.... I opened up the cetnre hallway door and blasted the squig with my blaster. I rolled two hits (but no crits) and at AP 2 against a model with a 6+ save I thought that would be enough so i opted not to reroll the misses, but Terjoe rolled the 6! The bomb squig survived with 1 wound! OH NO!

Terjoe immediatelly activated the wound squig, and with half its face melted off it ran and threw itself at the Eldar. BOOM! First time ever the squig made it to combat. The blaster gunner who fumbled the shooting died into many pieces but somehow the Shade Runner survived without any damage.

Meanwhile, in the adjacent small console rooms both sides got ready for the breach. The orks detonated the charge but the Eldar rushed through!

The Kurnathia swordmaster easily dispatched the Slasha boy but the Dakka boy took revenge by shooting the Hunter and his bird through the door. It was a bloody fight! 

The Breacha boy ran into to prepare to fight the swordmaster next turn but before he could, the Shade Runner whipped a plasma grenade into the Dakka boy and killed him and severely wounded the Breacha boy. The Felarch and Soulweaver then prepared to join the fray.

Exiting the Hololith room, the Nob ran and krumped the Fatedealer earning two extra VPs for a headhunter Tac Op, but the duelist made him pay with fusion pistol deadliness. 

Meanwhile the Burna boy snuck up behind the Shade runner and Wayseeker in the centre hall and flamed them from the rear while the comms boy blasted them from the front!

AS the last turning point started, the Ork sole control of the Hololith started to tell as their lead became unsurrmountable and no amount of dancing could get me to the big console in the Ork deployment.

The wounded Shade runner tried to kill the comms boy but Terjoe use Just A Scratch to avoid death forcing me to use the Wayseeker. The Boy in the small console room finished off the Shade Runner while the Burna boy finished off the Wayseeker. But it was all just cleanup as the Orks won, 9 VPs to 8.

IN the hololith room, I could not kill the concealed Snipa boy but I prevent him from activating the console by hiding on the other side of it. In frustraiton, the Snipa boy whipped out a Sledgehammer and crushed the skull of the Eldar.

Great game, both of us with only two models left, but the Orks early advantage of activating two consoles to the Eldar one paid off. I got 4 Tac Ops VPs to his 3, but the console advantage won the day.