Starshatter Arsenal Vs Cult of Magic (Thousand Sons)

I've just run my first Starshatter Arsenal against my friend's Thousand Sons list (the common one with Magnus, Deamon Prince and Terminators in a castle) which I have never beaten. Plus he bought a Mutalith Vortex Beast for the first time too.

Mission was the one where you burn objectives. Rule was cover for everyone turn 1 and no core strategies (which benefited me mostly as he loves to overwatch with his flamers)

My list:

Starshatter Arsenal (2000 points)

Necrons Strike Force (2000 points) Awakened Dynasty

CHARACTERS

Catacomb Command Barge (120 points) • 1x Gauss cannon 1x Overlord’s blade 1x Resurrection Orb + Dread Majesty Enhancement (30 points)

Hexmark Destroyer (75 points) • 1x Close combat weapon 1x Enmitic disintegrator pistols + Chrono-Impedance Fields Enhancement (25 points)

Imotekh the Stormlord (100 points) • Warlord • 1x Gauntlet of Fire 1x Staff of the Destroyer

Lokhust Lord (80 points) • 1x Lords Blade 1x Resurrection Orb + Demanding Leader

Technomancer (85 points) • 1x Staff of light

The Silent King (420 points) • 1x Szarekh • 1x Sceptre of Eternal Glory 1x Staff of Stars 1x Weapons of the Final Triarch • 2x Triarchal Menhir • 2x Annihilator beam 2x Armoured bulk

OTHER DATASHEETS

Canoptek Reanimator (75 points) • 2x Atomiser beam 1x Reanimator’s claws

Canoptek Spyders (75 points) • 1x Automaton claws 1x Fabricator Claw Array (Aura) 1x Gloom Prism (Aura) 2x Particle beamer

Canoptek Wraiths (230 points) • 6x Canoptek Wraith • 6x Particle caster 6x Vicious claws

Doomsday Ark (190 points) • 1x Armoured bulk 1x Doomsday cannon 2x Gauss flayer array

Flayed Ones (60 points) • 5x Flayed One • 5x Flayer claws

Lokhust Destroyers (180 points) • 6x Lokhust Destroyer • 6x Close combat weapon 6x Gauss cannon

Lokhust Heavy Destroyers (165 points) • 3x Lokhust Heavy Destroyer • 3x Close combat weapon 3x Enmitic exterminator

Ophydian Destroyers (80 points) • 3x Ophydian Destroyer • 3x Ophydian hyperphase weapons

How it played out: I got first turn

The 3 LDHs we're on their own on the right flank. They took out some cultists that scouted forward and then easily finished off the Vortex Beast turn 2 after it had taken some turn 1 damage from the doomsday ark. The +1 to wound did a great job on the vortex beast here for what is otherwise an anti infantry gun. They died eventually to the Daemon prince but they had made their points back by then.

The Ophydians (now 80 points which is much better) screened my backfield on one side, and then went behind enemy lines and finally took his home objective. Just having them here made him have to screen early game in case (I didn't put anything in reserve) but by turn 3 he had left space due to his low number of units.

5 flayed ones infiltrated, held an objective and then went and killed some cultists before dying. They stopped his usual tactic of scouting them early onto an objective and then getting CP when they died there. Well worth 60 points.

In the left central area was my castle. The silent king at the front, the hexmark giving an aura of -1 damage, a command barge with rerolls 1s, a reanimator, a Spyder and the LDs and LL with fall back and shoot. At the back of them was a Doomsday ark.

Imotekh sat on his own on the backfield objective and because of screening and no deep strike antics, farmed CP and scored primary for all 5 rounds.

He used a strat to snipe the technomancer out of the wraith unit, which hurt, and killed 3 of them turn 1. He also killed the command barge, which was his choice out of a lot of available targets in the castle. I lost the reroll 1s ability, and couldn't use the resurrection orb on the wraiths. The wraiths then died to overwatch from flamer rubrics the next turn, but for me that was the best thing he could have overwatched as there were only 3 left. I also didn't miss the barge too much.

From there, I went on a murderous counter punch. I killed Magnus (who was on the centre objective) using the King and the LDs with the Kings ignore modifiers, which meant he couldn't zero the damage or -1 it. I needed to charge the king to finish off the last 5 wounds. I took out several rubrics too from the objective, with even the the Spyder and Reanimator doing some damage in shooting thanks to the +1 to hit.

The King had moved out of the castle at this point into the centre objective, but the remaining castle took a lot of incoming fire from the terminators and rubrics, but at -1 damage, and adding transhuman via a strat to soak up the S10 missiles, nothing died and I got lots back through Reanimation. Fall back and shoot for the whole castle meant I killed all the runbrics and lots of terminators where otherwise they wouldn't have shot.

In turn 4, I used the auto advance strat to zoom the reanimator towards the left no man's land objective. I then burnt it turn 5.

I didn't have to use either the reactive movement strat or the move through terrain strat, but having both in the pocket was nice. Most of my CP went on rerolling the DDAs number of shots, on +1 to wound transhuman or Reanimation after the fight phase.

Overall, I think this is a solid list and I'm not really sure what I would change. I was perhaps lacking another deepstrike action monkey and might drop the CCB. All 3 enhancements were really, really good though with even the CCBs reroll 1s making my menhirs avoid misses. The list might struggle more against a melee army.

Final result: Necrons 79-44.