40K Narrative Campaign: Necrons

Hi Fritz,

Your response is very timely indeed - the campaign kicks-off tomorrow!

Quick details: 3,000 point roster with just 1 HQ, at least 2 troop choices and then anything else goes. The master game map has approx. 20 hexes, territories are evenly divided between 2 teams (4-6 players per team), each team will place generals on different team-owned territories. If a hex your team controls is attacked and does not have a general on it, you do not get to use your general. If your general is on an adjacent hex, you can bring it in from reserves if desired. 500-1500 points per battle (bonuses based on territory values and walk-in players). Complete rules are in the attached document.

Important note: If a unit is wiped-out in one game they are not availabe the following game. ie. if I lose my Monolith or Tomb Spyder, it will not be available again for 2 weeks.

Standard game will be Anniilate: Pitched Battle, with an Apocolypse finale in 6 weeks.

My opponents are from nearly every codex! The 2 gents with space marines love teleporting Terminators into back lines, or button them up in a land raider and charge them forward. There will be Nids, Dark Eldar, a green tide of Orcs and the IG player has more armor than I've ever seen on one table!

The Necrons I have on hand are:

1 C'tan Nightbringer
1 C'tan Deceiver
2 Destroyer Lords
4 Necron Lords (various builds)
12 Immortals
22 Flayed Ones
10 Pariahs
84 Warriors
15 Destroyers
9 Wraiths
32 Swarms
9 Heavy Destroyers
9 Tomb Spyders
4 Monoliths

90% are painted and ready to go. I can pick up more Immortals, Flayed Ones or Pariahs as needed.
So far my army roster is shaping up to look like:
HQ (either Nightbringer, Deceiver or Destroyer Lord - your *.pdf build)
10 Immortals
5 to 8 Pariahs (to neutralize deepstriking Terminators)
50 Warriors
15 Destoryers
0-8 Swarms (Tar pit or Destroyer Lord escort)
3 Heavy Destroyers
1 Monolith
1 Tomb Spyder
I have all of your *.pdf's concerning Necrons and I've read everything you've put on your site concerning them. I look forward to your HQ and army composition suggestions!

Thanks again for the timely reply!!

Sincerely,

Brian B

Reply Out:

Interesting. Well, I see two ways to game this, speaking from my own experience in playing two campaigns with the Battle For Salvation club. You need to dominate both on and off the table with two goals- making sure you have a good amount of points to show up with to the apocalypse game, while shutting down the points of the other players. Let’s talk about that first and then move onto the 500 point Necron list…

Play for each mission should go like this- play to win the mission, but at some point if it becomes clear that you can’t win the mission, then you switch over to keeping your units alive so you have them next week. This is going to be a fine line that you have to be ready for. If you can’t win, not from a defeatist point of view, but from a practical point of view, then start pulling back and running away, keeping stuff alive. Lose the game, but still be up for next week- don’t lose the game and lose your key models for next week.

The second layer is while you are trying to win each mission you are going to be looking to take out key units that your opponent might need for next week’s battle. Look at the map, where they can be next week and who they may face, ask yourself what units they have to make the win for next week, and try to take out those units.

It is not only going to be about winning the day, and 99% of the players will be approaching it from this POV, it is about setting things up for next week, and the week after, so you arrive at that apoc game sitting pretty.

Team up time. Team up as much as you can to attack single territories is also going to be key. You’ll need to game and sell this point of view. Say you and a space marine player are looking at the same territory. Tell them a team up would work flawlessly. Your Necrons which are great at holding objectives thanks to the WBB rolls and long range mass shots of the destroyers are perfect in support of a space marine assault force. Think of how unstoppable it would be- I’ll (Necrons) will hold the objectives and blast away, while you (space marines) clean up in the assault. Sounds like a win/win right? It is for you- win the territory, but let the Space Marine player take the key losses, hurting them for next week. Of course you will have to take some losses for yourself, but game this.

You’ll have to be both a tactician on the table, and a general commanding the campaign. Play it only from the table top POV and you’ll flounder.

Ok, onto the list…

500 point Necrons there is only one build- two warrior groups and a lord. The only choice is the wargear on the lord. I’d go with a destroyer body and a warscythe. 500 points on the spot. At the 500 point level you might be too weak to win that first mission, so then it is about killing key units, and your own surviving.

Generally I would look to play it this way. Once group of warriors on your side of the table, say to hold an objective. The second group just ahead with the lord joined so he can’t be picked out. Second group advances to center to shoot, etc. and then as your opponent react, you pull back to the first group, with the first laying down 24” shots. If needed the lord can then break off to take out smaller units, or turbo boost away to contest an objective later in the game.

As you build out from there I would then start adding destroyers as my next choice- a group of them, and join the lord to them. Keep adding destroyers and a third warrior group, followed by the monolith and finally the C’Tan. I of course am going to recommend the list used in my .PDF as it has the best flexibility vs. the most armies.

-Fritz



Campaign Rules Below:

These are the official rules for the Warhammer 40k campaign, set to kick off on October 6th. PLEASE do not post here unless you are adding the additional rules, or if you have anything else of extreme significance to add.


Overview

Players will be broken into two teams and will be competing for control over the region known as Murder Valley. For the first six weeks of the campaign, players will vie for control of a meta map alla Dark Crusade; territories will be attacked and defended and the results of these encounters will be determined by a standard game of Warhammer 40k. To determine the final results of the campaign, players will all participate in a massive Apocalypse battle at the end of the first six weeks. What players can take to the Apocalypse battle and how many and what type of assets they receive will depend on how well they did on the campaign map.

During the course of the campaign, players will be encouraged to submit battle reports and track the successes or losses of their team. At the end of the campaign, all of these reports as well as any other fluff submitted by the players will be compiled into a massive narrative and posted for all players to access. The goal of the campaign is to provide a means of setting up regular games between 40k players, and to produce a fun and original narrative that ties their armies together.

Getting Started

Before the campaign can begin, players will need to produce an Army Roster which they will use throughout the course of the campaign. The army roster must consist of the following;

- One and ONLY one HQ (the player’s General)
- At least TWO Troops choices, to be used in standard games.
- Any other combination of Troops, Elites, Fast Attack or Heavy Support options to a total of 3000 points (including the player’s General).

Note: It is OK to take multiples of a unit in your roster. The roster only represents what you have access to for the duration of the campaign. It will still be necessary to display all of your units on the field at the same time if you wish to take them (this is so players that might not own 3000 points of models can still participate in the campaign).

Once submitted the roster may not be changed throughout the course of the campaign and units must be taken as they appear on their army’s roster. This includes war gear options and unit composition, for both the player’s regular unit choices and his or her General.

The only exception to this will be Dedicated Transports, which players may choose not to bring with a selected unit. Note still however that dedicated transports may never be taken without the unit they were bought with, and they still follow the rules for all the other units on the roster (including the inability to change war gear).

In addition to their army roster, players will also need to provide basic information about their army, such as their General’s name, which company/platoon/cadre he or she commands, and possible explanations for why he or she is fighting for his team. Because players will not necessarily know which teams they’ll be fighting for until the campaign begins, it will be alright to come up with this stuff as it goes on.


On the first day of the campaign, all of the players that are present will be divided into two teams, and each team will be given a handful of starting territories on the campaign map. The two teams will roll off, and the winners will get to decide which team will make its first move. Afterwards, the campaign will carry out as normal until the six weeks are done, as described below.

Playing the Campaign

Each team will be given a handful of starting territories on the game map, and the position of each player will be represented by placing his or her General in one of their team’s territories (the starting position of each General will be determined randomly).

Combat every week will play out similar to a round of combat in Magic the Gathering. The team whose turn it is to attack that week will start by declaring which territories they will attempt to try and control. Players may attempt to attack any territory that is adjacent to a territory that already belongs to their team (including kitty-corner). Multiple players may also choose to attack the same territory, where they will fight as a team to conquer the opposing force.

Once decided, the defending team will have a chance to assign defenders to oppose the attacking team. Defending players may defend any territory that is being attacked by the attacking team, including territories that they do not control. Like the attackers, they may also assign multiple players to defend a single territory. If the defending team fails to assign defenders to a territory that is being attacked, then control of that territory is automatically given over to the attacking team, and any players that were attacking that territory may choose to participate in any other battle of their choosing (the defenders may not react to this). Once all of the attackers and defenders have been assigned, the players will break up and play their round of 40k.

If the attacking player(s) win, control of that territory is given over to their team. If they lose, control of the territory remains unchanged. After all the battles are done, the campaign will end for that night and the results of each battle will be recorded. Next week the teams will trade roles as attackers and defenders, and will alternate attacking and defending until the campaign is done.

Fighting a Battle

Before players can fight a battle, they will first have to determine which units will fight. The rules for picking units for a fight are as follows;

- Players must follow the Force Organization Chart outlined in their codex as normal. The only exception is the inclusion of a player’s General, which will be explained later.
- Players may bring up to the number of points listed on the territory being fought over. If two players are fighting on a team, the points available to them are shared.
- There is a bonus 500 points for each additional player that a team brings to a battle. For example, if two players team up to attack a 1500 point territory, they may take up to 2000 points of units from their roster.

Note: Because players may not change the composition of the units in their roster, it might not always be possible to completely fill all of the points available to them. This may also occur if a player doesn’t have a lot of available units in his roster when he picks his army.

To keep progress simple, players will fight a standard format throughout the campaign. This format will be the Annihilate scenario played using the Pitched deployment format. When the game ends (determined by rolling a die), the team who has scored the highest number of kill points wins. If the game would end in a draw, then the players may extend the game until one side gains a kill point over the other after a full game turn, or until one side concedes the match.

Losing Units

If at any point during the campaign a unit is completely destroyed in battle, that unit becomes unavailable for selection for the next week in the campaign. For instance, if a player pulls a unit of Terminators from his roster and those Terminators are completely destroyed in battle, then he may not take those Terminators again for the next week.

This includes vehicles that were taken as Dedicated Transports, and any units that were taken to serve as a retinue for their army’s General.

The exception to this rule is that a player may always take any units from his rosters that are labeled as a Troops choice, although if their dedicated transport is destroyed then they may not take it for their squad the next week.

The General

The General is a special character whose presence is supposed to have an impact wherever he goes. To magnify this there will be restrictions as to when your General may actually participate in a battle. The rules for fielding your General in battle will be as follows;

- If a player is attacking, he or she may field his General if he is standing in a territory adjacent to the one being attacked on the campaign map.
- If a player is defending, he or she may only field his General if he is standing in the territory being attacked. If a territory is being defended adjacent to the territory the General is standing in, he may be fielded but must enter the battle from reserves.

- A General may never be fielded if he was slain in the week prior (however, this does not change how he moves around on the campaign map).

Players may not voluntarily move their Generals on the campaign map unless their team is currently attacking. If a player declares an attack on a territory and wins his battle, then his General is placed on the territory that he just conquered. If the player loses, then he must place his General in a friendly territory adjacent to the territory he was attempting to attack. If a territory is given to an attacking player by default (for instance if there were no defenders assigned to it), then the player may choose to leave his General in that territory, or may attempt to move his General into a territory being attacked by another member of his team (following the rules as if his General were standing adjacent to the territory being attacked).

Defending players may never move their General Voluntarily, and if their General was standing in a territory that was lost to the other team, the owning player must move the General to a friendly territory adjacent to the one that was lost. If the owning player isn’t present at the time the territory is lost, then his team may place the General for him.

Ending the Campaign

The campaign will last for six weeks, or until each team has had three chances to attack or defend territories. Afterwards, planning will begin for an Apocalypse game available to anyone that’s interested in playing. The most effort will be given into accommodating the schedules of the people who had the most participation during the campaign. However, once the date is set, ANYONE who wishes to participate may do so.

There will be NO awards of any kind handed out at the end of the campaign. The purpose of the whole thing is to have fun and to write up a good narrative (although we could probably hand out comical titles to people who had some rather memorable incidents occur during battles). Players will be encouraged to write up their own version of what happened at the Battle for Murder Valley. Props to including anything fluffy; memo’s, Captain’s logs, personal journals, or anything that helps flesh out the atmosphere of your army.

All of this stuff will be compiled into a general battle report of the entire campaign, with access to each of the individual players’ write ups.