The Dark Harvest Part 1

It was nice to play long time regular opponent Haydn once again. This time he brought a Necron army using the Maynarkh Dynasty army list in the Imperial Armour 12: Fall of Orpheus Necron army list.

This is an interesting new army and it was interesting to face the Tesseract Ark and Nightshroud Bomber. His warlord was Phaeron Kutlakh the Charnel Lord and the fact that he could go insane at any time and grant me a Slay The Warlord victory point without dying was an interesting weakness. On the other hand, his attacks inflict Instant Death, which is just one thing that makes him worth using.

After playing a 1500 point game we teamed up against two Space Marine players (1000 points per player). Two macabre evils versing the Imperium.

Lechetern’s host encountered an evil as ancient and sinister as himself - the Necrons of the Oroskh Dynasty. He had faced Necrons and was more than familiar with them, but he sensed a dark insanity stirring within these automatons. Being an atavistic beast himself, he was intrigued.

There was a number of reasons he was especially eager to engage these Necrons:

• They were after the Pendant of Defleshment - an artefact that could better serve their blood tithe crusades by stripping flesh from bone with greater ease and speed. Lechetern assumed this could only be detrimental. He wanted it in his hands to ensure his work would continue unabated. Perhaps he could find a way to make it serve his purposes.
• He also reasoned that bringing defeat to another insane dominion would bolster his dread reputation amongst realspace. It is his quest to establish himself as the ultimate horror of the galaxy. Yes, this invites delusions on his behalf; who says Daemons are mentally sound?
• Furthermore, as with any other foe he wished to visit his virulent gifts upon them and see how it could mix with their curse. Of course, he was hoping to erode their well being even further.

The Chaos Daemons launch their assault. By Lechetern's command they must not let the Necrons have the artefact.

The Necrons prepare to repel the Daemons and seize the Pendant of Defleshment at any cost. The Nightshroud Bomber (Haydn may or may not be adding conversions to this) and Deathmarks await in reserve.

 

The Nightshroud Bomber is to be feared as it has armour values of 12 on all sides, plus the bonus protection of Quantum Shielding (+2 armour on each side aside from the rear) and holds 5 bombs, each Strength 8, AP1 and having a Large Blast effect. It had some other weapon but I can’t remember off the top of my head what it is. But it’s not the Death Ray.

 

The Daemons use this ruined fortress to their advantage. It's especially an advantage for the Plague Drones, considering their Shrouded rule.

And there is the Phaeron Kutlakh the Charnel Lord, seething with insanity and ready to deal death to anyone who gets in his path.

The Necron Warriors and their Cryptek observe the Plague Drones looming in the distance. Well, at least most of them were paying attention.

 

Lechetern’s gaze falls upon the ideal testbed for his diseases. A shame he didn’t gaze for much longer than this point.

 

Is that my fingertip or a glimpse of a Skullcannon in the bottom right corner? The Tesseract Ark had destroyed 10 Plaguebearers and the Herald in one turn with one of its several impressive modes of fire (no wonder four of them look like they've been badly burnt). The one Haydn used consisted of five (!!!) small blast shots. To make matters a tad worse, being hit by these blasts requires the models to take a Difficult Terrain test in my next Movement Phase.

The good news (for me) is that the first Flamer drop was a success. The bad news is I just noticed some have slight blemishes on their backs because I used to be slack at cleaning model joins. Bugger!

 

It didn’t bode well to charge the Plaguedrones into the Flayer King and his Immortals. I was hoping to thin out some numbers with them before they were slain. On the plus side, they were held up for a bit by that last drone on his last wound (after Daemonic Instability).

The Beasts of Nurgle (Riddip! Intruders! Riddip!) and the Skullcrusher tried to halt the Deathmarks, hoping to bog them down and weigh them down with a sheer number of attacks. But owing to some good armour saving throws from Haydn, they were able to squash my froggies into disgusting warp-paste.

The Screamers on the other hand, swarmed upon the Necron Warriors that survived the Flamer attack and tore them to shreds, running down the survivors. They were then ready for their main objective – the Tesseract Ark.

The Deathmarks were even nastier for me than usual – they reduced Lechetern to below half his wounds. Mind you there were two squads, each with 5 or 6. One of them had marked him (meaning they wounded him on 2+). A nearby Necron Warriors squad finished him off and yes, he was yet again displeased. When has he ever not been angry about something? Even with Feel No Pain (4+) he couldn’t handle the vast number of shots.

The Necrons peered at the remnants of the Plaguebearers and advanced towards the relic. But their Difficult Terrain test result was so low (off the top of my head it was 1 or 2) that they didn’t even enter the crater. Even the deathless (and insane in the case of the Maynarkh Dynasty) must tread carefully.

I was surprised at how long the Screamers were able to linger right next to the Tesseract Ark. That would owe to some unlucky shots and some lucky Invulnerable saves. Not that they managed to destroy the vehicle. They took off one hull point but that was it.

 

The Skullcannons and the Deathmarks were still there. The remains of one Plaguebearer squad had bogged one squad down for a bit, but not for long. I was hoping to ram the Deathmarks to death but mark my words: it was very fruitless and now I need a banana. Although eventually one Skullcannon fell, this was for the most part the Stalemate Corner.

My other unit of Herald-led Plaguebearers did surprisingly well against the Flayer King’s cohort. Although the Herald died in the first round of combat, the Plaguebearers were doing fine like a pestilential wine. Maybe it would have been better to hold back the Plague Drones until the Plaguebearers were in.

In the words of Haydn, “hey you damn fish, stop biting my car!”

 

And so the great bog down continues between two tar-pitting units.

The more Nurgle-inclined Flamers had a less than successful Deep Strike, scattering 12 inches and landing right on the board edge! Two got zapped before the unit was of any use, but the sole survivor and the remaining two Flamers in the other squad incinerated this Necron Warrior squad. The survivors were then assaulted and cut down.

Now here is another Stalemate Province. The Tesseract and Screamers struggled to bring each other down - especially the latter. It would have been handy if the surviving stingray had capitalised on its luck by not fang-fumbling.

This Skullcannon just wouldn’t die. Neither would the Necrons surrounding it. They might as well have been playing Volleyball at this point.

With a little help from the Flamers, the Plaguebearers whittled the retinue down to the king himself before he slew them all. As tough as they are, Immortals aren’t entirely meant for combat but they had the Charnel Lord. In the left shot the last two Plaguebearers don’t seem to look like they know what they’re doing. One looks like he’d rather do the limbo under that warscythe.
 

The Tesseract Ark zooms off in search of another target, having finally blasted the last Screamer.

As impressive as the Nightshroud Bomber was, with armour values of 14 owing to Quantum Shielding and with five Strength 10 AP1 bombs it had trouble destroying the Skull Cannons because of my lucky Invulnerable Savemanship.

The battle would have been a stalemate had Lechetern not being slain and had the Deathmarks not delved deep behind his lines. Although both sides were reduced to a fraction of their forces, the remaining Daemons sensed the Necrons’ advantage and their presence in realspace suddenly diminished.

In other words, Haydn earned Slay The Warlord and Line Breaker. He also earned First Blood but I’m not sure how properly I can fit this into the story. None of us even touched the relic so we relied on secondary objectives alone to determine the winner. I had achieved none, so victory was firmly in Haydn’s robotic hands, so rusty and cold.

Without warning, the Pendant of Defleshment disappeared. The Charnel Lord’s disappointment could have stripped the flesh from a thousand unlucky beings if it were a knife. But this was no victory in Lechetern’s eyes; for all he knew the pendant was not truly gone and someone else could claim it.

Confident that Lechetern and his host had been defeated, the Charnel Lord had bought himself time to seek out the artefact he desperately wished to claim. He too knew it had simply disappeared elsewhere. He briefly wondered if this was trickery on behalf of the Eldar and that the artefact could even have been an illusion to draw two of their worst enemies into conflict. Nonetheless, the blood tithe will still be met in his search, so no time would truly be wasted for one who has an eternity ahead of him.

Assuming you are still reading to this point, be on the look out for the next stage of The Dark Harvest, where Lechetern and his Nurgle host have made a deal with Phaeron Kutlakh and the macabre duo take on the Ultramarines and Salamanders (1000 points per player).