Squishy Oil Squig
Australia
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APOCALYPSE BATTLE REPORT
Orks vs Necrons and Chaos
Army design and set-up
For this game, I had been given the role of Mork: my job was to make sure the kunnin’ plan went off without a hitch, but first, I needed a kunnin’ plan. Before the game, however, I had nothing more complex than an intention to, in true apocalypse style, bring everything I possibly could (with the aid of my fellow warlord, Gork) to the game and concentrate an attack, backed up by a hail of heavy dakka. This was my first game of apocalypse, and I had heard down the grape-vine that the Necron boss had a couple of tricks he was bringing to the board, and was positively rusting himself up with glee, so I didn’t entirely know what to expect, and wanted to leave my options open.
We all arrived at my house (late, but enthusiastic) and set out the board while the Chaos player made his army list (?!?!?!). We ended up with a no-man’s-land travelling diagonally across the board, slightly off-centre. Orks won the option to choose our edge, so we chose the larger, wanting to push our enemies into a corner for the slaughter. Suddenly, upon all our armies (finally) being made, we realised that the orks (at six and a half thousand points) outnumbered the enemy by nearly two thousand points! There was initially some discussion about us reducing out points values, but I recall putting my foot down, it was already past midday and we had not even started, so the Chaos/Necron alliance got something like ten extra strategic assets, and borrowed some of my beastmen to use as 19 bloodletters. Already, I could see the need for a quick, decisive victory, but knew the enemy would be rife with nasty tricks. Already, I was forgetting the warning about the Necron’s sneaky plan, and would be caught completely unawares…
Orks (unsurprisingly) bid almost twice as much time to set up as Necrons/Chaos, and they breezed through it with time to spare, only placing the chaos army on the board: the entire Necron force waited in reserve. Then it was time for orks. Just then, they played their first strategic asset, denying me and my fellow warboss the chance to confer on our deployment. It seemed that Gork and Mork had had a fight and were no longer on speaking terms. Not that it mattered much, Gork laid his forces down admirably, and I supported him wherever I could. Soon, our biggest problem became where to place all our models. Our front line soon became impossibly full, and stretching the entire diagonal length of the board in one unbroken green line, and we had to pile heavy weapons and battlewagons behind our troops. My dear reader, how to convey to you that sense of awe I felt looking at such a mass of grots, trukks, boyz, battlewagons, everything of every variety. I had never seen so many miniatures of any kind in one place ever, never mind the fact that each of those vehicles was packed with more orks and our entire selection of 30+ bikes and 12+ buggies were left in reserve. We packed everything in as close to the Chaos as we humanly could, but our battle-line stretched so far that the majority of our battlewagons would have to travel for a couple of turns before they would even get to discharge their squads of burnas, boyz, and the coup de grace, Ghazzkull himself.
We had six objectives on the board, most were placed around the Chaos lines, and among our opposing force, but I noticed the Necron player placed one in and odd position: behind our lines on the furthest flank of our long battle line. I was of two minds, on the one hand I knew he was up to no good, and I should expect a flank attack, but on the other, the heady thrill of moving all those tanks and boyz towards the practically encircled Chaos force would be too tempting to pass up, and it wasn’t worth turning to miss out on a fight, just to get an objective (potentially winning the game – watch for more of this type of counterproductive but very orky thinking later on).
CHAOS/NECRON TURN 1
The game began with a surgical strike, immobilising or stunnin two trukks full of boyz. Hey! That’s cheating! They never even got to put da boot in! Practically the only movement was that forced by the Mark of Khorne, and the psychopathic 7-attack-wielding, known for wiping out whole armies singlehandedly Chaos lord spreading his wings and flying towards my line without any backup. Yes, you heard me, without any backup. The dude was so confident it was frightening. Then came the missles and chaos tanks, focusing on all the orky vehicles, blowing up at least 2 and disabling others. Already the orks were in trouble, and I was eager to shoot back – to show them the new and improved ork weaponry. Unfortunately for me and Gork, they finished up by placing some blind barrier across most of the board, blocking all line of sight through it. Curses.
ORKS TURN 1
Well, that was no fun. First things first, let’s kill some Grots. They had placed several scary-looking minefields all along in front of us, but 30+ Grots later, the way was clear. Love those little guys. In fact, this turn would be characterised by the Grots. Despite moving absolutely everything towards the blind barrier (including what vehicles we had left – about a third of them were now reduced to inconvenient scenery before they even got to move), only the grots and a deff dread actually got to fire, opening up on the Chaos lord, and depsite a double-handful of dice, I was not surprised to see them do nothing to him. Meanwhile, Old Zogwort and his retinue (already sadly reduced by frag missiles) teleported behind the shooty grots, a Kunnin’ plan already forming.
CHAOS/NECRON TURN 2
What follows is an account of the longest, most disheartening enemy turn I have ever sat through, and possibly the most memorable. Enter the Necrons. My Necron opponent had decided to buy two more Monoliths and assemble them in secret, then hiding them in a box under the gaming table. So naturally, me and Gork had no idea they existed until he literally plonked them on the table in formation around the furthest arm of our force, using the Phalanx special rules and disgorging dozens of ancient warriors, as most of his army flank-marched onto the objective. The one saving grace of this turn, was that by using two strategy assets ork snipers (go figure) got to shoot at his flank marching forces, and a displacer beacon sent half of them over to the chaos side. But then, the damage began. Half a dozon more vehicles bit the dust under heavy fire and scarab swarms. Boyz poured out, only be pinned or gunned down. One squad fled but was cut down with nowhere to run to, surrounded by necrons and the hulks of vehicles. Another was cut down trying to flee by scythe-wielding nasties. More vehicles and a Zzap gun were destroyed by the Chaos tanks and infantry, and the Lord charged into a massive unit of boyz, killing so many that they barely got to fight back, but held on regardless. Similarly, his bikes slammed into the Stormboys, killing a quarter of the unit but failing to make them flee.
ORKS TURN 2
The painful spectacle of the Monoliths efficiently reducing a quarter of our forces to a junkyard maze was incredible, and they hadn’t even rolled that well. We were initially so dishearted with that side of the board that we wanted to bring in our Speed Freaks division to support the chaos side, but there simply still wasn’t room! So there was nothing for it. They roared on at breakneck speed towards the Monoliths. My 2 remaining Battlewagons could not approach the Necrons for the rubble of all the other tanks, and spewed forth dozens more boys into the junkyard along with Ghazkull himself. Only one squad reached combat and inside, Grots fled everywhere and there were some notable exceptions who remained pinned, but we still had enough to get things going, and this was starting to feel more like an orky fight! To support this new confidence, After showing the Ork Codex to prove I wasn’t cheating, Old Zogwort promptly turned the incredibly scary Chaos Lord into a squig. I don’t think the Chaos Gods approved of such treatment of their possessions, somehow. In an incredibly lucky (or unlucky) assault phase, two squads of Necrons were cut down including a Lord, the same tight quarters now working in my favour. Then, one Monolith fell to too many Power Klaws to comfortably think about, and Ghazkull prevented one from moving or shooting next turn. That’s more like it! On the other side, Tankbustas chargd Chaos Terminators and brought down one at the loss of half their squad, and Gretchin charged Khornate Marines to no effect other than losing eleven of their number. Oh well, at least none of them fled. I knew we could tie-up this half of the board long enough that if I could forcc the Necrons to phase out, all my Speed Freaks could Strategic Redeploy. But realistically, we could only squeeze out one more turn with the time we had.
NECRONS/CHAOS FINAL TURN
Chaos reinforcements, as a Tide of Spawn rippled towards the orks, but they sadly could not reach combat this turn, nor could any of the other chaos forces, but they kept their iron stranglehold on two strategic points. Then, 19 Bloodthirsters burst forth and howled into the edge of the junkyard to support the Necrons, instantly wiping out a squad of Boyz. Other than this, a farily lacklustre Chaos turn. Another Dredd blew up, and eleven more Grots fell but somehow held on. The tankbustas were wiped out as well, but all eyes were trained on the Necrons. A better shooting phase for them, but with less to bring to bear. The last two vehicles fell, and another squad of boyz was totally wiped out. Then, Ghazkull lost half of his wounds in the assault phase and nearly fled. Despite us depleting their forces severely, they dished out enough to make us worry.
ORKS FINAL TURN
Right! Time to finish this. Not very much on the chaos front, other than two spawn falling, the last of the Grots dying unceremoniously, and the Terminators falling to a wave of orks after a spectacular bout of bad luck. Gork was running this close combat, and remembered to consolidate back onto an objective. I’m glad he remembered, because on the Necrons side, objectives were the last thin on my mind! Old Zogwort did impress however, by sending a wave of crackling lightning all the way into the Chaos deployment zone and blowing up a pesky tank, killing two more marines as it exploded. Next, sounding a mighty Waaagh! Ghazzkull and the Nob bikers tore into the two remaining Monoliths. A fist full of power klaw attacks later, all 3 Monoliths were down! We could scarcely believe our luck. Every Necron on the board except those we had sent to the Chaos deployment zone was wiped out, and they were one model away from phasing out! As the Chaos forces had mostly stayed back and shot, declining what the Orks would call “a real fight”, the only threat remaining in reach was the 19 Khornate daemons. Five squads (including warbikes, boyz, burnas, and stormboyz) used Ghazzkull’s Waaagh! to surround them and charge. I was feeling understandably confident about my chances, but my face fell as we removed three of the squads before they even got to strike. These guys hurt! Luckily, I still had a goodly amount of power klaws with which to retaliate, but we did not cause as many casualities as I would have liked and amazingly, we won the combat, but they passed their instability rolls with flying colours. It was all over.
VISTORY CALCULATION
Right here, I started pulling my hair out. In my enthusiasm to wipe out the Necrons and daemons, I had left an objective totally undefended, and no one near enough to claim it! Oh well, at least I got a good scrap. The Chaos still had their two original objectives, and thanks to a timely consolidate, as did we (Thank you Gork!). It all came down to the mid-table objective contested by my reduced squads and the battered daemons. It turned out that we had only JUST reduced the daemons to half strength, but they had the Hold At All Costs strategic asset, allowing the daemons to still contest the objective. We had to beat their 90 or so points. All but one of our squads were too badly damaged to even bother with, but we had 8 Boyz from a squad of 12 who just tipped the scale in out favour by less than 20 points! Amazing!
AFTERTHOUGHTS
This was an amazingly thrilling game from start to finish. Every one of our turns, it looked like we were winning. During their turns, it looked like they were winning. For a little more than six hours, we all forgot about hunger, fatigue, or anyhting but rolling that next dice, moving that model. This is what Apocalypse is all about!
It was also something of a game of what ifs. What if we had started on time and got to play another turn? What if the Necrons had placed themselves right in the thick of the Chaos forces and focussed all their power on one flank? What if I had remembered during the last turn that the point of the game was to hold objectives? Would we have won that objective back from the daemons if I had? At them end of the day, I don’t think any of us had any complaints about the way the game went though (except for the Chaos player who felt very hard done by when I turned his invincible Lord into a squig. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have rubbed it in so much, but it really was just so darn funny!).
There were some truly memorable maneuvres and heroes in this game. The Scythe-wielding Necrons almost bringing down Ghazzkull. The sudden apperance of the Monoliths that we had no idea even existed! (incidentally, thanks to me, the Necron player has become quite well-known at our local GW store as ‘that sneaky Monolith guy’). Old Zogwort turning a Lord of Khorne into his pet and then turning around and obliterating a tank. Let’s not forget those fierce daemons erupting from nowhere and refusing to die. And finally, spare a thought for those lovable Grots we hurled into minefields and Khornate Marines with reckless abandon. Excepting those hell-spawned daemons, I don’t think any unit showed more enthusiasm for the fight than the Grots, leading every charge with their Grot Blasters held high. Waaagh!
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"Spare me your space-age techno-babble, Attilla the Hun!" 
Started my Salamanders army 
Suffused with the dying memories of Sanguinus, the warriors of the Death Company seek only one thing: death in battle fighting against the enemies of the Emperor.