Necron Days and RavenWing Knights

One of my regular Opponents wanted to try a Game against a fairly hard RavenWing list, so I pulled out all my half-finished and unpainted Bikes to give it a go. No pics, because like I said, unfinished Models and Proxies and such (plus poor lighting at his apartment), so this isn't really a BatRep, but more of a review of the RavenWing Knights, Support Squadron, and Nephilim Jetfighter.

Even using my unfinished Bikes, and proxying Storm Talons as a couple of Nephilims, I didn't have quite enough to fill out 2K properly, so I tooled up the Black Knights all the way: Full Squad, Champion, Apothecary, Banner, 1 Grenade Launcher.

My first Turn, I had a pretty long Charge lined up for them, so I didn't bother shooting. Did cast Righteous Repugnance on them, tho, and made the Charge thanks to Sammael's Warlord Trait. Necron Wraiths are tough. Even with 30 S5 Attacks on the Charge, plus a few more from Sammael and a couple of Hammer of Wraths, I only managed to drop two of the three. Next Turn, I put one Wound on the last one, which was perfect, because then I got to Hit & Run 19" out of there thanks to the RavenWing Banner!

Second Turn, I lined up on Orikan and his Squad, wanting to take him down before he hulked out. Other than my Librarian killing himself with his second Perils in three Powers (I totally forgot that I could have taken FNP against those), and forgetting to fire the Stasis Grenade first (only Orikan was left by that point, and it scattered off him. If I'd fired it when there were still 10 Immortals spread around him, it would have been almost impossible to miss), it went off perfectly. Gunned down all the Immortals, and then it took all those Attacks to drag Orikan down.

This then left my Knights sitting in the open near a bunch of Warriors. Think basic firepower wouldn't do more than drop a couple, I didn't bother Jinking, but then my Opponent got ridiculously jammy (14 Saves forced by a single Squad of 10 Warriors!), and I screwed up my positioning by leaving my Apothecary closest, and he managed to wipe the Squad just with massed Gauss fire.

Overall, I was very impressed. They basically died because I got overconfident with them, but they did a pretty ridiculous amount of damage, given the insane durability of Decurion Necrons.

The Nephilims were kind of underwhelming. Not bad, but I feel like three Storm Talons would have done rather better, for just 5 Points more. Being able to re-roll their Jink Saves thanks to RavenWing is very nice, but because almost none of their firepower is Twin-Linked, it really hurts them in the Turn after. The firepower is also kind of lacking as Anti-Vehicle/Anti-Air. Certainly better than it was in the previous Edition, but not really where it needs to be. It took both of them to down a single Night Scythe, even with my Opponent failing all his Jink Saves. Did rather better as Anti-Infantry Ground Attack; Strafing Run plus that loadout makes it pretty good at taking on Necron Warriors. If they could get the TL Lascannon as a replacement for the Heavy Bolters instead of the Bolt Cannon, I think it would be a much more effective dogfighter.

(Double checking that just now, I realize that I accidentally cheated. I thought both variations had Hover, but I see now that only the Dark Talon does. Oops.)

The Support Squadron was excellent. I never did get a chance to use RavenShield, but the ability to keep the regular Speeders screening the DarkShroud was great. I would have lost that thing way sooner without that. Three Typhoons is a pretty nice load of firepower, but I think I may want to go with Assault Cannon Tornadoes instead. To get good use out of the DarkShroud, I need to get up close, and the Typhoons want to hang back.


In general, I lost the Game because I've been playing my DK and SW too much lately. I got way too aggressive, and ended up spending too much time in that short-ranged firefight zone that Necrons like so much. I should have used my speed more to hang back at the edges of my Range and pick away for a couple of Turns, and then rushed in Turn 3 or so. I also probably should have Combat Squadded. With only 5 Units and a couple of Flyers, I was really inefficient at dealing with my Opponent's greater number of Units, and he had a bunch of things left at the end that were just 1-3 Models strong, but I couldn't justify throwing an entire Bike Squad at them. If I'd had a few solo Attack Bikes and a bunch of 3-man Bike Squads, that would have let me clear off a bunch of those little dudes, and clear off the Objectives they were holding.

Time to get back to work on painting up this Company Master. Hopefully I'll have him done in time to do a Modeling Monday post.