Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Colonel Vasily Grenko stood on the hull of his Vanquisher command tank. He could hear each step of the massive Stompa resounding like an artillery round over the idling of his tank despite the fact that it was still a couple of kilometers away. For two long years Grenko had led the defense of New Madron against the greenskins and watched his regiment being slowly ground into grist. Each wave saw the death of a thousand orks and a hundred men yet still the greenskins had the advantage. His hope had been momentarily lifted when he received communication for the Dark Angels Cruiser "The Shadow War" that they had arrived in system for some much needed repair following a recent series of battles. He was even convinced the Emperor had answered his prayers when word came that Grey Knights were on board and would lend their aid in prosecuting this war. He couldn't help feeling disappointed when he saw their numbers. Even if one marine could account for a hundred greenskins, there were far too few.

The beating of drums and alien chants carried across the no man's land. The smoking, belching embodiment of their primitive gods had arrived on the battle line at last and soon they would be charging. There would be no salvation this day, only fire and blood and, hopefully, a noble death.

Hey all, WolflordKjel actually had a day off for the first time since November and that alone was cause enough for a day of gaming. Add in the fact that Shep had recently built and painted up a couple of new superheavies (a Shadowsword and a Stompa) and it was sounding like another Sprue Posse apocalypse day o' fun!

Shep has been jonesing for a fully painted story based apoc game and all the stars aligned and I was able to sneak of the house and the game was on.

One other aside, Gitsmack and I are resetting our escalation campaign now that postnewborn life has started to settle a bit and I am absconding with the game to be a bit of pre-history for our campaign.

The forces looked a bit something like this -

Da Big Waagh
Waaagh Guteata (commanded by me)
Warboss with stuff
2 Big Meks with KFF and stuff
Mad Doc Grotsnik
3x30 shootaboyz
30 choppaboyz (warboss, mad doc and both big meks started here)
9 killa kans
3x3 kannons
2x15 lootas
Stompa

Waaagh Gitsmack
Warboss with stuff
Battlewagon with 10 nobs and warboss in it
20 choppa boyz (in stompa)
Trukk full of boyz
Something else that I don't remember

And lining up against this mighty green horde was:

New Madron Defenders
Shep's Vostroyan First Born Regiment using IG rumors codex
(I am not 100% up on the rumored units yet so might have these names wrong)
Artillery commander (free bassie shot every turn)
Command squad with banner in chimera with commander
30 Man stubborn blob with a few lascannons
5 veterans in chimera with 4 meltas
vanquisher special character
baneblade
shadowsword formation with 3 leman russ tanks and 3 sentinels

Wolflordkjel leading Dark Angels Detachment
Tac squad in drop pod
Tac squad in rhino
10 man assault squad
5 thunderhammer/stormshield termies

Absolute Blue leading Grey Knight Detachment
GK Justicar in terminator armor
3 GK terminators
2x10 GK squads on foot

Gitsmack and I decided to go with very themed assets - we took Hammer Blow, Rok 'em and Reinforcements.

The Imperials took a (IG)disruptor beacon, (DA)outflank, and (GK)jammers to prevent us from talking during deployment. Luckily Gitsmack and I were in very orky moods and just gonna do what we felt like anyway - really that asset probably just saved some bruises.

Deployment-
The orks bid 12 minutes and were undercut by the imperial bidding 7. They castled up the IG and kept all the power armor in reserve. We deployed most everything in a massive line along the deployment zone (as a house rule we always go corner to corner for apoc games rather than the scatter - it just keeps things a bit more fair). Two units of shoota boyz started the game in reserves. We placed the objectives (the trees and the dead Vostroyans) and got to it.

Grenko's teeth rattled in his skull as his loader slammed another shell into the breech. The smoke from his the tanks under his command filled the air with grey haze and the taste of cordite.

"Bring that thing down!" he shouted into his vox. The infantry opened up on the massive walker. It was impossible to miss, even at this range. As the lances of light impacted the warmachine the energy was dispersed along a shimmering field and coruscated along its rusty shell.

Grenko took up his field glasses and scanned the line of greenskins finally spotting one particularly large greenskin carrying the device generating the shield and trying his best to hide behind one of the smaller walkers which Grenko knew as killa kans. He ordered the rest of his army to eliminate the shield generator before the stompa hit his lines.

The Baneblade "The Iron Lady" turned its full fury the horde of greenskins completely vaporizing a dozen or more but the survivors - including the mekaniak - continued on undaunted, some of them even laughing raucously at the carnage showering down around them.



Turn 1 -
The entire Imperial army opened up by shooting either at the stompa or at the choppa boyz. They were well protected by the kustom force field and the line of kans clanking along in front of them but the shooting did manage to prevent the stompa from moving or firing its skorcha. The Shadowsword fired at the battlewagon which was, by far, the fastest threat on our side of the table and immobilized it. The nobs decided to stay on board and see if their mek could somehow fix the slag of molten metal and boiling oil that had once been their engine.

Most of the rest of the army moved forward in both the movement phase and the shooting phase via run (or, more accurately, stroll leisurely - I got one 4 and everything else was 1s and 2s). The Stompa opened up with its shooting firing all of it's one shot weapons since we didn't expect it to survive. Also, we wanted to shoot everything before our assets came crashing down, probably destroying us in true orky fashion. The rokkits, guided by suicidal grots, slammed into the 2 chimeras, destroying the command chimera. The supa-gatla killed a couple of guardsmen and then strafed its way over across the leman russes and destroyed 2 of the sentinels before running out of ammo. The deff kannon didn't do much either.

Apparently the krew of the stompa had been talking smack to the kill kruza in low orbit and they decided to get a bit of payback by firing down on it, causing 2 structure points and damaging the drive shafts. A massive asteroid slammed down on some other battlefield cause a 6x8 table was too small for them to hit (it drifted 6 feet).

Turn 2
Imperial reinforcements showed up in the form of the GK Justicar and his Terminator bodyguards. The Deathwing unit along with a supporting unit of assault marines outflanked the building that the lootas had taken as covering positions over 2 objectives. The models were hugely outnumbered, but quality counts and the hearts of men were lifted.



The majority of the Vostroyans fired at the same targets as they had last turn for much the same results. Orks were taken off by the handful despite the Mad Doks tender ministrations. The immobilization of the battlewagon allowed the Shadowsword to turn its mighty gun on the Stompa. The skorcha was again disabled and the deth kannon was destroyed. The Grey Knights fired at the nearest unit of lootas since the Deathwing would need to ascend the building as well as charge into it. They were well dug in though and lost only 1. The Deathwing used their thunderhammers to clear the way setting up an easy charge next turn. The assault marines held their fire hoping to be able to charge the other unit of lootas. Unfortunately they came up just short with their difficult terrain check and were unable to get 4 they needed to charge which left them in a pretty precarious position.

It was time for some ork reserves to come on. A unit of 30 shoota boyz came on and threatened both the Deathwing and Grey Knight terminators. The shoota boyz who had only strolled 1 last turn turned back to charge the assault marines. Gitsmack's mek got the battlewagon moving again. The lootas added their fire to the newly arrived shootaboyz and managed to kill 2 of them which surprised the orks and pulled the Terminators out of charge range. The shootaboyz charged into the assault marines. The assault marines fought like angels of war, killing 12 of the boyz before being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Though one brother remained, he had won the combat , forcing the greenskins to pile in around him, climbing over the bodies of the fallen (and trampling 3 slowpokes).



Turn 3
Grenko wiped sweat from his brow. It was well over 100 degrees in his tank and he fancied that the Vanquisher's barrel must be starting to glow in the approaching dusk with the heat of repeated firing. The stern voice of Commander Khel came over the vox. "All reinforcements deployed. We will drive the greenskins from this world or it will be our sepulchre."

The IG again turned their formidable firepower on the orks who were getting uncomfortably close to them. When all the shooting was done the choppa unit was down to the warboss, the mad doc, 3 choppa boyz and a big mek. Fortunately their proximity to the stompa made them fearless. The stompa also down to its last structure point and immobilized.

The rest of the Marines arrived coming to the rescue of their own (it should be noted that there were 3 objectives in relatively close placement which is why it was such an active area). A Dark Angels drop pod slammed to the ground and before the dust had even begun to settle the Space Marines were firing into the lootas. A rhino drove up in support of the last assault marine and piled out, ready to charge in and turn the tide. Both units of Grey Knights came on in support of their Justicar. All of the grey knights fired into the orks killing several of them but there were so many orks that the Grey knights were still able to charge in at about 20 of the greenskins which they wiped out with contemptuous ease. Ouch.





The Dark Angels charged in to rescue their embattled brother. The orks lost combat again, but the bosses powerklaw cut the assault marine in half and the boyz accounted for 3 more the green beakies.

At this point the sun was setting and Shep suggested that we make the rest of the game be night fight (following our turn). Sounded like fun, so we did it.

The big mek left the choppa unit and went back to fix his beloved stompa and everything else moved and ran forward.

The last ork reserve showed up as well as reinforcements in the form of the shoota boyz that the grey knights had just wiped out. This time the orks decided to leave "dose shiny beakies" off on their own. One unit moved up to support the greenskins in the huge scrum near the lootas building and the other just to the other side of them to shoot at the drop pod unit.



The lootas and kannons both added their fire into that unit and knocked it down to 6. The shootaboyz ran toward the survivors of the drop pod squad and (thanks to a waaagh) charged three - the rhino, the embattled dark angels and the survivors of the drop pod. The boyz immobilized the rhino and won the combat through the surviving dark angels were made of stern stuff and held. I also learned that killa kans couldn't waaagh.

The huge lumbering warmachine was no longer moving toward his lines. That last volley must have done some severe internal damage. Grenko saw his chance and fired his Vanquisher at it. There was a blinding flash as night turned to day for a fraction of a second. Grenko waited impatiently as his visual systems reset themselves after that massive overload. The stompa was gone! He scanned the survivors scurrying amongst the wreckage of the mighty warmachine but the mekaniak was nowhere to be seen - he must have been vaporized in the explosion.

Grenko had only a moment to savor this small victory. The smaller ork warmachines were at his lines. "Courage!" He yelled above the din. "For the Omnissiah and the Emperor deny them! Deny them!"

He saw a bright flash as the venerable leman russ "Vostroya's Pride" went up in its own mini-nova as one of the kans touched off its power plant. He could hear the screams of his infantry escort dying to yet more of the mechanical beasts and the hoarse cries of Commissar Vaelim keeping them in a combat they couldn't hope to survive, much less win. Grenko's life was now measured in minutes and he knew it.

"Let it be enough" he prayed and then popped open the hatch and lent the soft voice of his pistol fire to the mighty growl of his Vanquisher.

Turns 4 & 5
The arrival of Ork reinforcements really broke the back of the Imperials. Gitsmack's choppa boyz who had been all cozy in the stompa for most of the game were now taking shelter in its wreckage, claiming an objective. The nob's battlewagon was running again and the killa kans were all but on top of the tank. Not being ones for self pity the Imperial commanders pulled out all the stops and attacked. At this point it was getting late. The Shadowsword fired on the battlewagon and destroyed but the nobs pressed on toward the objective. One of the units of killa cans lost 2 models and the third had its close combat weapon blown off but it wasn't enough.

Likewise they also destroyed the stompa in this turn but it was next to another objective so they just hunkered down in the wreckage and dared the baneblade to try and shift them. When gitsmack made 10 of 11 cover saves in one throw it was obvious that the Emperor had turned his gaze elsewhere. The lootas finally managed to kill the last of the deathwing in close combat before being gunned down almost completely by the grey knights. The orks consolidated their gains with the two shoota boy units claiming objectives and the choppas moving up in front of the Grey Knight terminators, preventing them from contesting.

The final score was, I believe, 3 objectives for the orks (the two held by shootas and then the one held by gitsmack's choppas). The nobs held one but that would have been contested by a flat out leman russ. 1 objective held by the imperials - the Grey Knights were well in command of theirs and the remaining one was unclaimed (the kans charge pulled the IG blob off their objective and while there were tanks there, we use the 5th edition rule of only troops can score).

It was an amazingly fun day of gaming with a great bunch of guys and a fully painted table and models. It really doesn't get much better than that.

Thanks for reading! I am sure that the other guys will post their comments here before too long. I will leave you with my favorite shot as the orks approach the imperial lines.

Great Battle report. It sounds like the type of game I would have loved to been a part of. Well written also, it really added to the flow of the report.

I didn't think that the shadowsword would be that bad. Are the rules no good or was it all bad luck on the damage tables?

Gonna edit this with way more thoughts, but the shadowsword actually did quite well.

turn 1- immobilized the battlewagon and vaporized the trukk that was right next to it in a single shot

turn 2- weapon destroyed the stompas deathkannon

turn 3- destroyed the battlewagon

turn 4- couldn't see anything with pitiful nightfight roll (why did I think that would be such a good idea)

turn 5- killed 4 nobs (nobs with all the fixin's) in a single shot

All painted! yahoo! Great report and well worth the work to to get everything painted

Wow... great Bat-Rep, Somnicide; excellent narrative.

You got pretty much every detail down (including that 10 of 11 cover saves on the last turn - crazy lucky ), though I think we (the orks) actually managed to hold 4 objectives at the end... but only because of the turn the game ended on, and because it was night-fight for the last turn.

I will throw in that, if it hadn't been for that night-fighting for the closing turn of the game, things would have been a lot rougher for the orks. The guard line was doing an amazing job of shifting back and shooting, slowing our fast elements and taking big bites out of the ork line each turn. Even the line of Kans supported with KFF bigmeks and boyz was starting to look pretty anemic by the end.
Tactical placement of the reinforcing shoota boyz on the other flank by Somnicide wiped out the Dark Angels and kept the two big Grey Knight units out of close combat.

All in all it was a really fun day of gaming.

Standing atop the steaming pressure-cap of the underground promethium reservoir, Warboss GitSmack surveyed the carnage with a satisfied grin. So much more scrap and fuel were now theirs for the looting and BigMek NugLutz and his burna boyz had already begun loading the LugWagons.

The growing red glow of the rising sun bled across the wreckage of both armies, revealing the brutality that had only been seen by the flicker of muzzle-flash and an occasional stab-light the night before. Gouts of thick black smoke boiled into the sky from dozens of burning vehicles and 'umie and ork bodies lay scattered as far as the eye could see.

In the morning mists of the valley, painboyz moved like ghouls, grabbing chunks of unfortunate boyz and stapling them to other bitz that might just grow back together.
The Warboss chuckled to himself. They'd be a tough lot, if they lived, and he figured he'd wait until they were back on their feet before he'd gut a couple to bring them in line.

The gore-covered landscape and the smell of blood and carrion carried on the breeze almost made him forget that he was looking for something, until the cross-hairs of his bionik implant flashed bright.
Just below him, on the low mound of earth, a shape stirred.
The dark green lump of muscle and flesh that pushed itself up on its scorched limbs would have towered above most boyz and been a match for GitSmack himself - if it was still attached to the legs that twitched uselessly, further down the hill.
"Dok. Get me tha Dok!" The huge greenskin slurred through bloodied lips.
GitSmack turned. "Grognak!" GitSmack shouted down at him as he stomped lazily down the hill. "Lemme give ya a hand."
Grognak looked up with a bit of a smile in his eye and nodded at the "lesser" Warboss. But the smile quickly faded.
The hand GitSmack offered Grognak was made of hardened steel and hydrolic pistons and neatly scissored through both the neck and skull of the shattered boss.
"Oopsie, looks like you ain't gettin back up after all, then," growled GitSmack. "Guess that puts me in charge ov the whole lot what's lef now."

>Great. Nice job with the painting.<

Great. Nice job with the painting.

Great report, loved the narrative

Shep: How did the "Guard Codex" work out for ya? Orders help much?

BoxANT wrote:Great report, loved the narrative

Shep: How did the "Guard Codex" work out for ya? Orders help much?

Yeah, some major improvements revealed themselves. I used 'Bring it down!' every turn with 3 lascannons and it felt useful. I used 'First rank fire! Second rank fire!' once to try and finish off the barely alive ork boy unit that was escorting the big meks. I would have used 'Fire on my target!' if there was anything but lascannons and lasguns in the unit.

All of my orders passed on leadership 9. But I discovered that for 25 points I can upgrade a baneblade to have commissariat crew, and get a 12" leadership 10 bubble. That is going to be standard kit for any infantry based apocalypse force.

A 30 man blob got charged by what was left of the entire ork front lines. They weren't going anywhere. We would have had to play for another 6 hours for them to die. Unfortunately, after a couple of pile in's they got yanked off of their objective.

Knight Commander Pask (in a lascannon vanquisher) was pretty damn consistent in putting structural damage onto the stompa, he did completely miss on one turn (I think it was 2)



The orks indeed had 4 objectives to our 1. The objective that the guardsmen were sitting on went unclaimed, because i went too aggressive with my platoon command unit with meltaguns, and they got pinned getting out of their wrecked chimera. If they don't get pinned they could run back and claim, but that still puts us a far reach out of the win. In standard 40k games, you can use a big platoon blob to block chargers and block people from blocking your objectives. But remember to keep a small cheap troop choice safely behind that combat in order to actually core it. Pile in's WILL pull you off the objective unles you are very close to it. And if you are there is a chance that the enemy unit is in range to block. Platoon command squads are perfect for this, as are HWS.

It was a royal ass-kicking, and reinforcements mixed with 'good for you bad for us' objective placement was the foot.

It seems that the only strategic asset worth playing is the 'Your opponents team includes wolflordkjel' (just kidding!)

My teammates and I were so separated, it was as if there were two games going on. The ork deployment zone objectives were wild and bloody, and the IG gunline was just trying to stem the tide in time to hold the objective. I needed a little bit of direct fire to finish off the KFF unit so I could turn my lascannons on the kans. I get that help a turn earlier and I take my own objective and block the one the nobs had. No one wanted to come and help me because of that battlewagon filled with nobs

And I couldn't really help them for fear of scattering deadly blasts onto them.


"Angelis base, this is Angelis 2-0 approaching the killbox. Request target clarification" The Marauder Colossus known as "The Decider" voxed back to base. "Angelis 2-0... do you see that mass of green bodies? Right in the middle of that!" Came back the sarcastic reply. "Priority confirmation that friendly superheavies have cleared the danger zone." The Marauder captain glanced over his shoulder at the bombadier who had heard the instruction and was already scanning the ground with his scope. "Looks like a Baneblade and a Shadowsword, I see them. They've disengaged. The shadowsword's piquet is holding back the enemy pursuit." The bombardier continued to scan the field out of curiosity and found a huge platoon of Vostroyan Firstborn embroiled in a melee with all manner of bizarre orkish fighters and contraptions. "THRONE!" he said. "What is it bombardier?" The young Naval cadet just sighed and pressed the sign of the Aquila onto his chest. 'Emperor forgive us for what we are about to do' he whispered softly and then voxed in. "Nothing sir, target area is clear of all priority assets." "Roger, bombs away." "Aye sir, bombs away" and he pulled the lever.

Great looking game! I like the table and the armies all ook sweet. Thanks for posting it!

The background fiction was nice too.