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Hey, Dakka! I'd like to share this batrep. I've brought a 1250 army to our cosy lgs in hopes of a random fun relaxed game but it turned out to be some sort of tournament preparation. And the guy who agreed to play vs me had a 1500 army of a 3-knight formation + a few sm. So, he dropped 1 knight and took a vindicator instead.

Rules:


Lists:


Board, Mission, Warlord Traits and Deployment:


Pre-gaming thoughts in the ork's head:


Turn 1 Orks.
The bulk of orkses marches forward.

There's, strictly speaking, only one target that i can more or less reliably harm. I don't see any use in trying to strip one or two hull-points from a knight when there's another shooty threat that's much less armored, has 2 times less hull points and can be shaken to boot. Vindicator. Kommandoes come a bit closer to it from behind and the tank's left side. Kommandoes from behind shoot their rokkits and miss. Another group of kommandoes fires at the side, hit once but the shot bounces off. One kustom mega kannon shoots, hits but can't penetrate a 13 front. Another kmk overheats but saves thanks to 3+ armor. Grots are happy. Yet, orkse's anti-tank is totally ineffective. Lobbas shoot the very same demolisher just cause there's nothing else to shoot...and score 2 glances! So, with such an unexpected twist, i look at what's left to finish the tank off. Left shootaboy'z rokkits are out of range, but the right ones have a single rokkit in range but that'd be a single bs2 shot at the frontal av13 arc and the tank would get cover. I choose to simply run closer to relic instead. Left shootaboyz, central grots and a 30-strong squad and the right shootaboyz - all run forward. With the right shootaboyz happening to be within 4' of the relic.

Turn 1 Knights + SM.
The first pod comes in and lands close to my right multi-level ruin with a KMK on the top of it, right behind my lines within 12' of my board edge. Disembarks his melta-marines so that they have a clear view on one of the crewsmen. The melta-knight moves closer to my left flank shootaboyz. The battlecannon-knight moves a tiny bit closer to the corner-wall ruin and faces my kustom mega kannon in the open close to the multi-level ruin with another kmk on top. Vindicator moves forwart and faces the same ground kmk. Lukky lobbas force him to make a hard choice - fix the vindicator with a master of the forge, cause kommandoes are still facing it's side and rear, or try to charge a squad of kommandoes that are somewhere within 19'-20' of him. He chooses to fix a vindicator and to simultaniously provide cover to it's rear arc with motf.

He focuses his vindicator and meltaknight on my open-field kmk, kills a crewsman, lands a wound on a gun and kills 2 choppaboyz that were running around. The kannon knight kills 7 choppaboyz and 2 grots. 5 Marines + pod focus the kmk on the top floor of a ruin and kill a crewsman + wound a gun. Basically, doing the same ammount of damage as a melta-knight + vindicator

The one remaining grot on the top of a ruin promptly fails his ld5 and flees off the board. The secont poor grot also fails his ld, grabs the kannon and flees 11' right behind the ruin close to space marines.

Turn 2 Orks.
Thankfully, the warbosse's warlord trait helps a truck driver find the way on a battlefield. He drives straight to the vindicator. Fleeing grot gunner manages to regroup and hide into a ruin. Now that's me who has to make tough choices. I can either go forward at a knight with my choppa blob that's still above 20 strong but than i leave the space marines in the backfield and this guyz will surely wreck face to my grot artillery in mellee - both to a regroupped kmk and lobba crew. But on the other hand, there's nothing too important about artillery when they have nothing to shoot, so i decide to go forward hoping that lobbas + a bunch of shootas will help me out vs marines. Grots march forward in hopes of blocking the knight's movement in their following turn. Choppaboyz go forward but remain a bit further from a knight and stretch the mob to simultaniously remain within reach of my backfield. Concentrated boyz are not doing any good vs knights but are dying in droves due to stomps anywayz. The plan is to deny the battlecannon-knight from advancing towards the relic. Left shootas see that a melta knight is within a charge range but i choose not to give him a free turn of stomps and just bauble wrap the choppa squad coming within shoota range of pod-marines with 3 boyz and 2 rokkits. Right shootas stretch the mob too and grab the relic but still have like 15 shootas and 2 rokkits within range of marines. Kommandoes advance towards the tank in hopes of attracting motf attention. One of them goes in a crater and another one proceeds across the sacrificial grounds.

Kommandoes shoot demolisher and noone hits. Lobbas fire at bunched up marines (he surely had underestimated s5 ap5 small blasts) and kill everyone except for a sergeant! That puts some shootas out of range making the left flank shootaboyz unable to fire at him. But there were still 2 rokkits! Rokkits miss. Another shoota squad still has around 12 shootaboyz and 2 rokkits in range. I force 4 saves from shootas and he passes everything. 1 rokkit hits but fails to wound. The situation is that he still has a sergeant close to my kmk artillery and within 12'-13' from my lobbas. And 1 space marine is pretty capable of wiping a squad of lowly grots. The only thing i can still do is shoot + charge my choppaboyz at him or try a lucky shot with an arrived truck. But the battlecannon knight threatens my plans much more and i choose to run in both directions - back and forth to both more reliably block a knight and make a probable sergeant assault on my lobbas less likely. First i watch how far the grots can run and they're doing it really fine hiding on the edge of the corner-ruin within 10' of the knight. After that, choppaboyz run 2' which is still enough to protect lobbas. The current plan was to deny the opponent from coming closer to boss + nob with his knight as i've allready noticed that he avoids the choppa squad for fear of meeting 2 power klaws. Truck with 'ard boyz flat-outs behind a ruin in his deployment zone close to vindicator and motf but from such a distance to the knight that if he happens to charge, he'd be within choppaboy'z threat range.

The lonely sergeant rolls a 9 for ld and runs 4' towards his board edge - basically, towards choppaboyz. Now that's a relief.

Turn 2 Knights + SM.
A lonely sarge auto-regroups and moves closer to a ruin with kmk (i guess, he's still afraid of it for some reason). The second pod comes in right behind the lobbas (in all fairness, i expected him to drop close to a relic or behind a truck), marines disembark and spread - now fully aware of how deadly lobbas are. The melta knight moves on top of the hill close to my left shootaboyz. The battlecannon knight just moves a tiny bit not to grant cover to right shootaboyz with relic but doesn't go any further! So, my plan actually works. Master of the forge comes out from behind the vindicator and stays close to a ruin in his deployment zone close to a vindicator. Vindicator moves a bit and rotates to face a truck - but it's still behind cover.

A regrouped sergeant and 2 pods shoot at a kmk gunner to no effect. Disembarked marines shoot at lobbasand slay one grot gunner. Battlecannon knight shoots my right shootaboyz slaying 8, they drop relic. He shoots stabbers at grots and kills 3. Master of the forge shoots his relic bolter at grots and kills 5 including a runtherd so that i only have a lonely grot remaining. Demolisher shoots at a truck...but the lobba barrage seems to have crippled it's targeting system and the demolisher shell scatters a lot and touches both a truck and Master of the forge. To the deffening laughter of boyz, mighty marine is evaporised and the truck passes it's cover save. The melta knight tries to down the truck but rolls a 1 on a s9 ap1 blast and glances it. He shoots a stabber at the closest shootaboyz (on my left flank) and kills two.

Right shootaboyz fail ld but thanks to mob rule, after bashing some 'eads the nob manages to bring back the fighting spirit, one boy is dead and thanks to random wound allocation, it's a rokkit boy. A lonely grot goes insane and leaving enough building material to construct a cosy gobbo hut passes his mighty ld5! From now on i call him The GROT.

The melta knight charges left shootaboyz, overwatching rokkits do nothing, boyz fail a fear test. After all the hitting and stomping - he rolled 3 stomps, but 1 of them did nothing, the knight kills like 12 boyz while the nob manages to pull a lucky glance. Thanks to mob rule (rolled a 1), boyz are well and kicking! The second knight, not having expected the sheer insanity heroism of a lonely grot decides to finish him off in mellee. The GROT fires overwatch, cause why not, and the knight doesn't make a charge - it was like 10' away.

Turn 3 Orks.
I call WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! to guarantee a sucksessful charge against both a pod and marines (the idea is described below).
With The GROT paired with a lucky truck + truckboyz i'll be able to completely block a battlecannon knight for a turn or two. I move towards the opponent's board edge with one squad of kommandoes and get a linebreaker. Another squad of kommandoes and right shootaboyz (there are like 11 of them) are moving towards the relic but due to previous casualties, can't grab it yet, though are within 2'. Truck goes close to a vindicator and 'ard boyz disembark. With the upcoming blockade of a battlecannon knight, my choppaboyz are gona have a free turn they can spend clearing the backfield of marines. Furthermore, i want to deny my opponent a linebreaker with a pod close to my ruin with kmk. So, choppaboyz stretch even further with boss + nob going for the pod with a couple of boyz to eat the possible explosion wounds, painboss + mek + some of the boyz going towards marines and some boyz going in the opposite direction - towards the relic just to stay as close to the midboard as possible after all the pile-ins and charges are made. The GROT moves towards a knight blocking the path.

KMK shoots a lonely sarge, hits but can't wound him. Right shootaboyz upload everything at him. Rokkits miss. But shootaboyz pull 3 wounds one of which happens to be lethal. Lobbas choose to forego shooting cause there's a choppa squad really close and every boy counts now. Kommandoes run - the linebreaker ones are spreading to minimise damage from possible shots and the second squad runs towards a relic and ends it's move within 4' of it. The GROT runs in place - cause that's what every mad grot would have done, running around and shooting in random directions screaming insanely. Truck flatouts to block the knight even further.

Choppaboyz multicharge the pod and marines, 1 dies on overwatch and they easilly make it into combat. Sarge issues a challenge and even though he's like 12-15' away from both warboss and pk nob, they can strike a pod thuc count as being into combat (?) and if i deny the challenge with my painboss, who's within 3' of the model in b2b with marines, he can nominate my warboss to forego his attacks. So, i have to accept with a painboss. Sarge strikes 2 times...oh, now i think it's a bit wrong cause he had a combi-weapon and wasn't upgraded to veteran sarge, so should have gotten only 1 attack, but anywayz...and lands a wound on my painboss who fails to save. Painboss does nothing in return. Marines fail to wound the orkses. Boyz strike their ~40 attacks at marines and...do nothing. Boss explodes a pod denying my opponent linebreaker. The explosion kills one ork thanks to awesome 6+ armor and fnp...and kills off the last kmk grot gunner! Boyz pile in towards marines that have failed their ld but with bosse's ini 4 i catch them and the combat goes on.The melta-knight kills all but nob and 1 shootaboy. They do nothing in return thanks to fear. But an awesome mob rule saves the day and thanks to a bosspole the nob manages to restore order. Roaring in anger he lands 6 mighty blows on the head of a single shootaboy knocking him off and stays in combat vs a knight all alone.

Turn 3 Knights + SM.
The battlecannon knight can't advance. He will have to either forego shooting and charge The GROT - cause even stabbers will reliably kill a t2 model without armor in the open, and even if he does so, there's a truck and a squad of 'ard boyz nearby to ensure he's not going anywhere for at least a turn. So the only thing he has left is try to shoot linebreaker kommandoes off the board and charge 'ard boyz. He moves towards 'ard boyz.

The knight completely misses linebreaker kommandoes and stabbers kill 1 'ard boy. Pod doesn't kill anything.

The knight charges 'ard boyz, they fail fear. He rolls 3 stomps once again but 1 fails to do anything and pile-ins don't allow to cover too many models, though he kills more than half the squad. I roll a 1 on mob rule, so the fight goes on! Painboss kills a sarge and boyz finish off the rest of marines consolidating towards the relic. Melta-knight kills a nob and consolidates towards choppaboyz.

Turn 4...
And by now, we're out of time. Deployment and first 2 turns take really long for hordes. If we had at least 30 min more, we'd finish the game, but rules are rules. We look at what's left:

My opponent has 2 almost unharmed knights and a pod.
I have ~20 choppaboyz + warboss + painboss + mek + half the squad of shootaboyz + a few 'ard boyz + truck, lobbas + 2 kommandoes + The GROT.

My opponent gets First blood.
Knights + SM: 1.

I get Linebreaker, Slay the warlord and more points on the slayed squads. But i get penalized by 2 points due to a timeshield rule cause, clearly, it was me who used most of the gaming time.
Orks: 1+1+1-2 = 1.

It's a draw! We shake hands and both are happy with the result. The opponent was happy he didn't loose and I was happy that a regular footslogging ork list without bikes and wagonz managed to oppose a tournament list with 2 really strong lords of war. And almost pulled a win! It's hard to say who'd eventually win if the game went on, in all fairness. I had enough forces to both deny knight's movement and grab a relic. Besides, there was still boss + nob left to kill at least one of them. But on the other hand - the longer it goes - the less forces i have left and knights are acting at full potential unless destroyed. Besides, their long-ranged large blasts, stomps and catastrophic damage explosions could put an end to my boyz. They're quite fast to boot. Thus, it could turn any direction and a draw is the most fair result here.

The game was really fun with all the unexpected things happening. Kustom mega kannons and a whole bunch of rokkits doing absolutely nothing across the whole game. 40 attacks failing to kill even a single marine, demolisher killing his own warlord, melta cannon failing to penetrate a 10-10-10 truck, exploding drop pod finishing off the artillery unit...The GROT. Oh, this image of a single little gobbo half the human size runnign around a rampaging titan, screaming something and shooting in random directions - that's what this game is all about. Madness!

Finished the report.

Thanks a lot for the report.
It misses some pictures.

Yep, in all fairness, i chose not to take pictures cause most part of my army ain't painted and i'm not sure when i'll be able to proceed with painting. And i had feral orkses proxying kommandoes

Well played sir!
The penalty for the time like this a bit dumb because you didn't waste the time, you are playing a horde army, that's all! Anyway it is all cool since both parties are satisfied/enjoyed the game.

That grot should be promoted to a killakan I say... ;p

XC18 wrote:
Well played sir!
The penalty for the time like this a bit dumb because you didn't waste the time, you are playing a horde army, that's all! Anyway it is all cool since both parties are satisfied/enjoyed the game.

That grot should be promoted to a killakan I say... ;p

Thanks! Though, note that we played acording to local tournament rules and the time limit is totally understandable in the case of a 1-day tournament. It's obviously penalizing towards larger-sized armies, unfortunately. But hordes are considered not competitive anywayz. And from what i've heard and seen, almost all tournament players lean towards low-model count armies like knights, centstars, serpent+wraithknight spam, flying circus and stuff like that.

Just to say, I'm not sure about the comment on knights.

Knights move 12" but otherwise follow the rules for normal walkers with Move Through Cover - which means 3D6" pick the best when moving through difficult terrain.

I'm also not sure if strikedown applies to ranged attacks. Damage-type rules such as fleshbane, rending, etc, tend only to apply to a models melee attacks unless the ranged weapon has the rule - don't have the rulebook in front of me.

locarno24 wrote:
Just to say, I'm not sure about the comment on knights.

Knights move 12" but otherwise follow the rules for normal walkers with Move Through Cover - which means 3D6" pick the best when moving through difficult terrain.

I'm also not sure if strikedown applies to ranged attacks. Damage-type rules such as fleshbane, rending, etc, tend only to apply to a models melee attacks unless the ranged weapon has the rule - don't have the rulebook in front of me.

Well, that's what he told. I didn't bother to check the rules myself. Maybe i should, but some time later - don't have a rulebook with me. Did we play it wrong?

Nice report!

Nice dude! I wouldn't mind proxies or unpainted in pics or vids...

Nice report. Thank you!

Thanks for the replies, i apretiate it! I didn't expect a picture-less wall-of-text report to get so much attention

Great Report!!! THE GROT has shown me the importance of diminutive green skins!

Awesome report, delightful mental imagery.

 Waaagh 18 wrote:
Great Report!!! THE GROT has shown me the importance of diminutive green skins!

That's the case when something is so bad - it's becoming good.