Chaos Knights (Lords of Dread) vs. Necrons (Starshatter)

We are back today with another battle report featuring the current build of my six big boys Lords of Dread list against my friend Jordan’s Starshatter Necrons!

Lists:

We ended up on Supply Drop and Terrain Layout 8. This was the first time either of us had played on new layout 8, and I think it is genuinely better than old layout 8 (which isn’t saying much).

Here’s my deployment, from left to right I have an Abominant, the Atropos, two more Abominants, and my Despoiler. I opted to put the Rampager into Reserves.

Full table shot.

And Necrons. Top to bottom we have a Stalker, Doomsday Ark: the first, The Silent King with his Lord buddy hiding in the Ruin, the Reanimator and some Scarabs next to the Command Barge, and then two more Doomsday Arks chilling with some Wraiths and more Scarabs.

Jordan won the roll to go first, and this time since the Silent King can just ignore the -1 to hit from Darkness, I chose “+1 to wound battleshocked things” AKA Doom as my starting Harbinger.

We rolled off that “his” objective would disappear first and “my” objective would disappear last.

Round 1

Necrons

Jordan drew Cleanse and Engage on All Fronts for his first two secondaries, after discarding Bring it Down with a CP and Cull the Horde because it wasn’t possible. He trailed his Scarabs back on the top and middle objectives to Cleanse them both, stayed completely hidden, and scored 1 on Engage on All Fronts.

Chaos Knights

I drew Bring it Down and Marked for Death. I took a cautious turn 1 here, poking the Atropos onto the bottom objective and using the Claimed for the Dark Gods stratagem to make it mine.

I discarded Marked for Death and kept Bring it Down as I felt like it would be easy to score next turn.

Round 2

Necrons

Jordan scored 10 on Primary, and proceeded to take an extremely conservative turn again. He drew Area Denial and Recover Assets. He could get one Doomsday Ark on my Atropos, and unless he REALLY wanted to let me draw lines on the Silent King, I could just throw -1 damage on it and make it mathematically unkillable. Instead, he stayed more or less stationary, so I used Rapid Ingress to put my Rampager down across from his Stalker.

Jordan did two Recover Assets, scored Area Denial, and passed it back.

Chaos Knights

I scored 5 on Primary and drew Defend Stronghold and still held onto Bring it Down.

I also drew the Burst of Speed Challenger Card. This was clearly the “let’s lock him in the deployment zone” turn, so that is exactly what I did.

Rampager moved over the wall, Despoiler peaked out after putting Claimed for the Dark Gods on my home objective and drew a cheeky line on the Catacomb Command Barge, and the Abominants trundled upfield with the Atropos.

My shooting phase took out the Command Barge, almost killed the Reanimator, and chipped up some Scarabs for the Challenger Card. Unfortunately, Jordan made a clever reactive move with them to block my Rampager from charging the Doomsday Ark, so in my charge phase it had to settle for pasting the Stalker.

My Atropos killed a couple of Wraiths – really should have used Epic Challenge here – and I passed the turn back.

Round 3

I took an additional -1 Leadership this round.

Necrons

Jordan scored nothing on Primary, drew Overwhelming Force and Behind Enemy Lines, and spent most of his turn shooting the Rampager to death. At the beginning of the shooting phase, I popped another Claimed for the Dark Gods down on the objective the Rampager was sitting on.

We both missed/forgot that Doomsday Ark guns are blast, so the Atropos took a few more damage than it probably should have as well. His sneaky little unit of Flayed Ones popped down in my deployment zone for some points there as well. I finished Defend Stronghold.

Chaos Knights

I had come into the round down at least six, so I got a Challenger Card (Renewed Focus) and scored 15 on Primary.

I drew Area Denial and Display of Might, which meant I needed to kill a single unit to hold the middle with my five knights.

My shooting phase was an unmitigated disaster, with two Doomsday Arks surviving on I believe 1 and 3 wounds respectively, and then I was only able to charge Scarabs with an Abominant. My Atropos slapped Wraiths ineffectively as well, so at the end of the turn I’d killed a single unit of Scarabs.

Round 4

Necrons

Jordan scored zero on Primary again as the top objective vanished, and drew both Display of Might and Defend Stronghold.

This turn he realized that he needed to shove the Silent King into the center objective so that he had a prayer of scoring any primary on turn 5, so he lined up all his stuff on the far Abominant so it couldn’t use Heroic Intervention, killed it, and then charged the Abominant in the center with the King. He didn’t roll a high enough charge roll to wrap to the objective, and he failed to kill the big Knight as well, so he could not consolidate onto the objective either.

I finally got smart and used Heroic Challenge to kill the leader of the Wraiths with the Abominant, which meant the Atropos with the flat 4 damage whacks polished the unit off.

Chaos Knights

I drew Storm Hostile which I pitched because I was never going to his home objective, and then Establish Locus and Secure No Man’s Land. I also scored 16 on Primary, and Jordan realized he had no mathematical route to victory as he was down by 20 odd points with no hope of scoring Primary.

We talked/mathed it out and I would have killed both hurt Doomsday Arks in shooting fairly trivially, and then between a charging Atropos and tank shock etc that the Silent King would either be dead or in combat with a lot of high OC things and unable to deny my Primary the next turn.

End math says the game would have been about 98 – 47 in my favor.

Post-Game Thoughts

The more I play this detachment, the more I realize how powerful the ability to put sticky objective on somewhere and then leave in the same turn is. I don’t even think the 5 OC matters all that much compared to the flexibility of planting it in any phase and then charging off.

I’m really enjoying this list, and I’m rapidly painting it up for the Tacoma Open. I want to try one variation dropping the Atropos for a double Thermal Cannon Despoiler with the deep strike enhancement, but I suspect I’m going to stay where I am for now if only because I’ve already sunk a few hours of painting into the Atropos and I do not have time to build and paint another knight. If it’s phenomenal, I might reconsider.

I’ve also gotten a handful of games with the list on Tabletop Simulator, and it continues to be able to score primary and secondaries with care and good placement, so that’s a comforting sign.

I think matchups to look out for are going to be:

• Votann
• Specific T’au builds
• GSC
• Imperial Knights running a lot of Armigers
• Ultramarines triple Vindicators

And then other matchups range from “pretty good” to “great”. I’m excited to keep jamming games with this detachment, thanks for reading!