The Dark Eldar dispatched the Prophets of Flesh to gather more slaves in the Valour System. They inadvertently stumbled across Valour IX and found the local PDF had been pushed back by the Necrons.
The Necrons were doing a final sweep of the base. Walking rank and file down the center with the Silent King and an escort of Canoptek Spyders following. Each flank had an Annihilation Barge protecting it, with the Northern Flank protected by a Tesseract Ark as well.
The Dark Eldar emerged uncomfortably close from their Webway Gate. Urien Rakarth lead a unit of Wracks into immediate cover while the Kabalites moved up the flank. Urien was also joined by a Ssylth and his other pet Ur Ghul. A squadron of three Reapers soared overhead, eager to take the fight to the Annihilation Barges. On their other flank, a unit of Wyches hung precariously off of a Raider while a full unit of Grotesques stumbled around underneath them. The Raider and Reapers deployed their Enhanced Aethersails and took high to the skies to reduce incoming fire.
The Necrons pushed up on all fronts. Gauss weapons raised and blazed away but had little effect due to their extreme range. The Tesseract Ark and Annihilation Barge in the north fired all weapons into the Raider but had their weapons defeated by its altitude and Night Shields.
In turn, the Dark Eldar moved up from cover to cover as well or soared high above. The Wracks got ready to ambush the Warriors once they got in range. The Kabalites pushed for the first bunker door to throw in shots with the ambush. Outgunned in traditional warfare, a perfect ambush is required to use their full potential!
To further assist, the Grotesques got into cover on the other side of the main path and prepared to get into the fight. The Raider soared over head, its passengers and Disintegrator Cannon knocking down several Warriors, but only truly slaying three as the rest reanimated.
The Reapers ominously soared overhead, closing to the hiding Annihilation Barge. They lightly damaged the Silent King, but it was repaired almost immediately.
The Necrons continued their slow advance. The other Annihilation Barge joined the southern flank and failed to damage the Reapers as they flew in. One of the Grotesques was injured and three Kabalites were atomized. In addition, a small unit of five Flayed Ones phased into existence to take the Red Objective.
More critically, the majority of the forces fired into the Raider. Slowly, each hit that bypassed the shield took a chunk of the craft or inadvertently hit one of the passengers hanging off. While passenger hits protected the craft, it meant its assault was going to be far less effective. As the last pair of shots came in, one intercepted the last Wyche and the other blew the craft in half, exactly what they needed for one of their objectives.
The only element not part of the ambush, the Reapers plowed full speed ahead, firing their devastating EMP weapons and destroying the southern Annihilation Barge almost three times over! (An insane roll resulting in 22 wounds dealt!).
The Wracks jumped out of cover, pushing towards the enemy. Simultaneously, the Kabalite Warriors entered the bunker with weapons raised, and the Grotesques moved up close. This is where the Raider would have swooped in nice and low with its multiple melee weapons and load of pirates that would have isolated the Spyders from the Warriors, but it had exploded.
The Kabalites seeing the undoubted success of the combat about to unfold, fired at the Spyders instead, injuring one. The Wracks did their part, charging into combat. The Grotesques failed their short range charge in a very horrible string of luck. The Wracks were able to annihilate the unit of Warriors, but most of them Reanimated. More critically, the Grotesques were not in position to isolate the Spyders (this was the back up plan if something happened to the Raider and her crew).
The second Annihilation Barge fired and crippled one of the Reapers, disabling its main weapon. The Warriors continued the fight in hand to hand combat but failed to harm a single enemy thanks to some luck and the Ssylth intercepting the blows.
The Spyders Charged the Grotesques, but did so where they were close enough to the warriors. Between the charge and the fighting, only the champion remained barely alive. It fought back with brutality, murdering the injured Spyder and damaging the next one.
The Reapers returned fire, with the disabled weapon rolling a near perfect hit on its Snap Shots! However due to some rotten luck or twist of fate, they only managed to lightly damage the second Annihilation Barge. The Melee did not go well either. Each round of fighting only killed one to three Necron Warriors, and while the incoming damage was so far nonexistent, with the Spyder support they could not keep the Reanimation to a minimal amount.
The Necrons took advantage of the botched attack of the Annihilation Barge, shooting down the damaged Reaper. However, it lost control and came crashing down in a ball of flames that broke one of the Annihilation Barges weapons and blew out its Quantum Shielding. The Tesseract Ark zipped over the battlefield, headed towards the Kabalites.
The remaining Reapers furled their sails and switched to Hover mode. The drifted in sideways, blasting the Annihilation Barge at point blank range. It was destroyed, but once again fate is a fickle thing and they just barely managed to get it. The Kabalites fired at the Silent King but had no effect.
The battle with the Warriors took its toll. The exceptional luck wore out and both Urien and the Ssylth were lightly injured. The Grotesque managed to not die, but also did nothing in return.
The Tesseract Ark closed in on the warriors, unleashing its flame weapon and killing all but two of them! Its secondary weapons were mounted to high to fire into the slit, and it was unable to finish them off. The Silent King hit the Gate with another salvo, but it refused to take more than light damage as its shield flared brightly in protest.
The Kabalite were forced to fall back, deciding it was better to engage the Flayed Ones in combat than deal with a heavy tank. More importantly they got the whimsical wish of Uriel to get Behind Enemy Lines at a crucial time.
The Tesseract Ark lobbed itself over the bunker and blasted its Gauss weapons into the remaining Kabalites. Their Combat Stimms were powerful, but not powerful enough to resist being atomized. Its main weapon switched firing modes and got one good hit through the Night Shields, crippling the engine and nearly destroying the second Reaper.
To make matters worse, the five Flayed Ones emerged from the bunker to try and shred the ships or slow them down, but two of them were gunned down by the highly ineffective antitank weapons. The remaining three failed to damage the ships and were destroyed by the Shock Prows before the Chain Snares could even catch them as they passed underneath. The Reapers drifted a slight distance away to disengage from the Flayed Ones so they could keep their eye on the prize.
The Spyders took a beating from the Grotesque but quickly dismembered it into little pieces with such ruthless and fast efficiency that Urien made a note to capture a Canoptek Spyder if possible in the near future. The Silent King loomed in very close, heavily damaging the Webway Gate but it remained standing. He then joined combat. Somehow, against all odds Urien barely survived the initial Challenge that the Silent King issued. The Wracks took losses, and it was not sustainable.
As the fight with the Silent King was not favourable, it ended quite violently, leaving just the faithful Ur Ghul to lead them away in hard pursuit after destroying the second Spyder with a perfect attack! (For once, I rolled nothing but 2s for it the whole game to this point).
In a turn of satisfying events, the Reapers got the exact damage they needed to defeat the Tesseract Ark, making it explode in the largest area possible!
The game randomly ended on Turn 5, with the Necrons winning a Major Victory 13-9!
This was our second test of the Dark Eldar Codex. All of the units to date have felt exceptionally well on the battlefield for lore and in terms of balance. There were some crazy rolls but the element of a strong alpha strike remains their strong suit as intended. Long term battle remains not in their favour, so they must choose them wisely or bring specialists. It has been confirmed that Dark Eldar operate best with support characters embedded in units, allowing them to fight on their terms.
One more good test should allow the Codex to go live and be considered Tournament capable for Alternate 40k Rules! Just need a few specialist units and the Harlequins tested at this point.
The Necrons also saw two light Codex changes that needed to take place for internal Codex balance. None of these are massively game altering but are just quality of life updates and will go live on Monday.
Alternate 40k Rules 