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LVGT Game #2 Blackmoor’s Witch Hunter’s vs. Ryan’s (Shep) Orks

After massacring my first opponent, I am moving on up to table #8. I find that I am playing Ryan’s (Shep on this board) Orks. Ryan is from the west side of LA and I think I might have seen him around before. We do have some friends in common though.

I will say that there are few things I hate as much as the new Orks. They went from everyone’s whipping boy to one of the hardest lists out there. I made my army around trying to beat them and I get to see if I can get it done.

His List
HQ
Big Mek w/Kustom Force Field, ‘Eavy Armor, Cybork Body, Grot Oiler, Mek’s Tools
Big Mek w/Kustom Force Field, ‘Eavy Armor, Cybork Body, Grot Oiler, Mek’s Tools

Elites
15 Lootas
15 Lootas

Troops
29 Shoota Boyz w/3 big shootas
Boyz Nob w/Power Klaw, Bosspole

29 Shoota Boyz w/3 big shootas
Boyz Nob w/Power Klaw, Bosspole

29 Shoota Boyz w/3 big shootas
Boyz Nob w/Power Klaw, Bosspole

Heavy Support
3 Killa Kans, w/3 Big Shootas

3 Killa Kans, w/3 Grotzookas

3 Killa Kans, w/3 Grotzookas


The Mission: Annihilation
The Deployment: Spearhead
Points:
Player A gets Double or more Kill Points than player B he scores 17 to 3 points.
Player A gets more (up to double) Kill Points to Player B then he scores 13 to 7 points.
If they achieve an equal number of kill points then you go to VPs
Player A scores 175+ more VPs then he scores 11 to 9 points
If the VPs are less than 175, then they both score 10 points.

Great…I am going up against a very durable Ork army with only 10 kill points to my 17 kill points, with fragile vehicles.

He won the dice roll to go first, and choose to take it.

The Ork set up

He set up in the corner and screened all of his boyz with killa kans and the lootas behind them (they are the darker orks in the woods). This is shaping up to be a tough nut to crack with Kans getting a 4+ save from the KFF and all of the orks getting a 4+ save from shooting through units.

My set up

I stayed the farthest away from him as I can. The table quarter deployment helped me a little because he put his lootas in the rear and I tried to stay 48” away. Why Phil Kelly did you make lootas 48” range?

Turn #1 Orks

The mob surges forward. I was hoping he would try to shoot his lootas on the left that were way out of range and thus losing a round of shooting, but he did not, moving them instead. He shot his other lootas on the right at a chimera and lucky for me he only had a few in range and only stunned it.

Turn #1 Witch Hunters

I open up on the orks and kill a disappointing few. I do manage to kill 2 Kans though on the left. I move my Chimera a little bit back so it will not get shot so much.

Turn #2 Orks

The tide moves forward. The lootas on the left are still moving, and they ones on the right do not do any damage.

Turn #2 Witch Hunters

The killa kans are getting way to close do to him running. So I unload the exorcists on the kans in the front killing them.

Turn #3 Orks

He relentlessly moves forward. As you can see by the dead chimera, the lootas on the left are now in range.

Turn #3 Witch Hunters

The orks on the right have been getting some good run rolls and are dangerously close. The WH Inq which was hiding between the chimeras at the top run away, and the chimeras back up as far as they can. I learned the day before that stationary vehicles are dead in assault, so I try to at least move 6”. My shooting kills the last of the Kans, and shooting kills some more orks.

Turn #4 Orks

The orks Waagh and they crash into my lines. They hit my 2 Chimeras on the top and wound both badly (Immobilized, weapons gone, etc.). The DH Inq that was in the building on the bottom got hit by the orks and I survived with only 3 models. I choose to fail my LD check and ran a whole 3”. He did not pursue and spread out.

Turn #4 Witch Hunters

It is time for my counter assault. My DH Inq ran off the board. The Orks at the top that are assaulting the chimeras get hit with 2 Storm trooper squads and my SoB. They guys are pretty tough and the Big Mek and a handful of guys survive. The unit that killed my DH Inq is not so lucky when they get shot with a SoB squad, the WH Inq, a storm trooper squad and a few exorcists wiping them out.

Turn #5 Orks
His Big Mek at the top of the board assaults my storm troopers wiping them out. The remains of his Boyz are still trying to kill the chimeras and the Nob is only able to the kill one (on a penetrating 6 killing several guys on both sides in the process). He want to assault the SoB with his last boyz squad but is out of range, and manages to run 6” to get right up next to them.


Turn #5 Witch Hunters
My turn the squads at the top kill the Big Mek and the remaining boyz. I unload on the last shoota boyz and kill half of them. (in the pics the down models are dead).




The game ends here because we run out of time. That is a lot of running that they orks have to do, and moving that many guys forward takes a while. WE tally up the points and we come up with:

Witch Hunters lose:
2 Chimeras
1 Rhino
1 Storm Trooper Squad
1 DH Inq
1 Inq Retinue
Total= 6 units

Orks lose:
1 Big Mek
2 Shoota Boyz
3 Killa Kans
Total= 6 units

All that work for a tie!!! When you tie, you then go to VPs to see if it is a 10-10 points split, or a 11-9 points split and I ended up winning by a quite a few VPs. I received the +2 point bonus for having more total units and he received the +1 bonus for having a unit in my deployment zone.

So the points came out to 13 for me, and 10 for Shep. It was a great game that was a huge challenge. I am glad to know that I was one of the very few to slow him down because he ended up with 81 battle points on his way to winning a much deserved best sportsman award.

Nice report Allan, well played against an unfavorable match up.

Shep is from SoCal?

Yep. He is from West LA and sometimes plays at Aero Hobbies.

Nice report. It's a little worrisome that you built this army specifically to deal with an ork horde and came out with only a tie (before VPs). Orks are terrifying.

How would you have handled an objective mission? In this game you stayed back and waited for the orks to reach you, thereby maximizing the number of shooting attacks you got to make before close combat began. If there were objectives that required you to move into the mid-field, would you have been able to handle that?

shirou wrote:Nice report. It's a little worrisome that you built this army specifically to deal with an ork horde and came out with only a tie (before VPs). Orks are terrifying.

How would you have handled an objective mission? In this game you stayed back and waited for the orks to reach you, thereby maximizing the number of shooting attacks you got to make before close combat began. If there were objectives that required you to move into the mid-field, would you have been able to handle that?

How I defeat any ork/horde army in a long table edge deployment is just pound the units in the middle. If you can kill them off, then you are left with units on the left and on the right.

Then what I do is move to either the left or the right and attack a flank. If you do it right the units on the other side are too far away to support the units that you just took out. Then you finish off the units on the other side.

In an objective mission I would have done just about the same thing, but I would have jumped my storm troopers (since they can’t kill orks well) in the rhinos and vehicles and headed out to hold the objectives. Since Shep only has a few units so he either has to come forward and try to wipe me out and pin me in a corner so I can’t take objectives, or he has to hold back some of his troops to hold objectives and that would greatly hurt him because then there are less threats to me. I think I could have beat or tied him in an objective game, and if the game went to turn 6 or 7 I was pretty sure I could wipe out all of his troops.

Sadly, a shooty Ork army would table your (and mine) inquisitorial force.

Thankfully, most people are still running 'Waaggh' armies. Someday they'll stop and focus on shooting.

Stelek wrote:Sadly, a shooty Ork army would table your (and mine) inquisitorial force.

Thankfully, most people are still running 'Waaggh' armies. Someday they'll stop and focus on shooting.

For doing 81 battle points after gaining only 10 off Blackmoor, I'd say Shep did pretty darn well. Not to mention his army was in fact pretty shooty. 30 lootaz and 90 shoota boyz, with killa kanz? What other shooting are you looking at?

Stelek wrote:Sadly, a shooty Ork army would table your (and mine) inquisitorial force.

Thankfully, most people are still running 'Waaggh' armies. Someday they'll stop and focus on shooting.

haha, Stelek, my army is shooty...

30 lootas
3x big shootas on all my shoota boys
9 shooty vehicles.

Your buggies would have been torn up so redonkulously fast by the 3 exorcists, and your 36" range kannons would never have been able to get a look at the exorcists before the chimeras took them apart. If I could have put loota shots into exorcists I would have done so on turn 1 obviously. Spearhead prevented that. And Allan's excellent deployment.

So now you have 1 less scoring unit and one more loota than me? I don't think that would have "tabled" Allan.

I appreciate the focus on Shootiness. In fact I was able to massacre a battlewagon ork army in game 5 by playing like an imperial guard army all game. but I needed those kans to block tank shocks and kill battlewagons before they could unload on my shoota boys.


Thanks for the kind words and the cool batrep with pictures Blackmoor.

Darrian, I'm Ryan Shepard... we had in and out at the broadside bash for two days! haha

@ shep: Hmmm I guess. I like it, but I don't consider it super shooty. Very shooty, yes. Not the max you can make it though.

I have one less boyz squad than you, traded in for another loota unit.

I traded the kans for kannons. I love the grotzookas but they're so meh on the range.

Unlike your Kans (who need a big mek around to survive but can't really afford to have him and his squad around when [not if] they blow up) I can sit my buggies behind hills and go nuts with the 4+ cover saves while still shooting.

I'm just saying that your list is different than mine, and Exorcists don't scare me much.

We have the same number of scoring units in our armies.

There's also the whole stay off the board and come in from reserve guns blazing thing. Kans really can't, but buggies can.

It's not like I didn't test the Kan heavy list, it's damned entertaining but it's hard to make it work in spearhead and dawn of war. I'm glad you did, it does impress me for whatever that's worth.

I think your army is great fun, but isn't terribly shooty. Yes, there are alot of shoota shots. In 5th with the incoming prevalence of mech armies, you can have alot of S4 shots and they won't do much unless you can shoot him out of his vehicles.

To me it looks like you have 2 units to kill vehicles with, and Kans which can hurt but are terrible against vehicles--much better against foot troops. I have 4 more than you it seems. Since 5th edition is all about running around the tabletop, it's not like people aren't going to come my way.

Am I wrong? I do enjoy these conversations but if I'm gonna make you mad or something I'll just let it go.

@ whitedragon: This is my revised Ork list.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/217946.page

Shep,

Its a nice army actually. Because the opponent was sitting and letting you run it might be interesting how you would fair with commandos coming on his flank with a couple of rokkits.

Something else: In this kind orf situation, don't you think giving one of the two meks a SAG instead of a shield would be obvious. The 60" range saves a lot of running, big template scatter works ok, and you have fairly good odds of rolling 7s and 9s which are very nice numbers with a big pie plate! Against all armour it might not roll well enough, but against infantry it is GOOD.

I thought the battle lacked much tactical dimension. It was more a test of dice rolling and physical endurance than a contest that required generalship.

Thanks for the pictures and report Blackmoor!

Well played Blackmoore as that seems liked a really tuff fight. If you had to move to objectives that would of really put a dent in the over all game plan. As it was it seemed pretty straight forward with him trying to get to you while you tried to stay away from him. Thanks again for the detailed battle report and cant wait to read up on the next one.

Stelek wrote:I love the grotzookas but they're so meh on the range.

They only came up one game. My game 5. They would have been cut if i didn't go up against another ork army, but man did they blow me a way in that game. I'd love 24" range, but I'm not sure I'd pay 15 more points per unit on it.

Stelek wrote:It's not like I didn't test the Kan heavy list, it's damned entertaining but it's hard to make it work in spearhead and dawn of war. I'm glad you did, it does impress me for whatever that's worth.

Yeah, spearhead seemed to test ok, but dawn of war was a problem. the list is just forced to be a shooty list in dawn of war, there isn't really a close combat option. That hurts when you are facing down a shootier army. Fortunately my game 5 was a aginst a choppier ork army than mine. This spearhead was extra tough because Blackmoors footprint was so tiny. For anti-shooty lists I tested mostly against guard. The pictures dont do it justice just how small his deployment was. Just imagine playing tetris with 5 rhinos and 3 chimeras in the corner of the table, with tiny 25mm cracks in two places for inquisitors. Thats how little table he took up. Was an impossible hump to get there in 5 turns.

Stelek wrote:I think your army is great fun, but isn't terribly shooty. Yes, there are alot of shoota shots. In 5th with the incoming prevalence of mech armies, you can have alot of S4 shots and they won't do much unless you can shoot him out of his vehicles.

I dodged a bullet on fast skimmer mech. Non fast skimmer mech has to be able to deal with kans. Most can't. Sisters being one such exception.

Stelek wrote:To me it looks like you have 2 units to kill vehicles with, and Kans which can hurt but are terrible against vehicles--much better against foot troops. I have 4 more than you it seems. Since 5th edition is all about running around the tabletop, it's not like people aren't going to come my way.

Yeah, i took a calculated risk. Kans do just fine against treaded vehicles. And kans for the most part buy me the time i need for my 2 lootas to do some work. (when the lootas are actually in range to shoot on turn 1, i.e. not spearhead) A wave serpent/fire prism would table me if they respected the lootas enough. And a well played 3 land raider army is pretty game over for me too. But I didn't bump into that.

Stelek wrote:Am I wrong? I do enjoy these conversations but if I'm gonna make you mad or something I'll just let it go.

You aren't wrong that my army could be shootier. You may or may not be wrong that a shootier ork army could have fared better in a spearhead against sisters for kill points. I might be disagreeing with you on if absoulte 100% shootiness is the way to go for a tourney ork list. Without having actually played the kannon/buggy/loota list myself, it would be criminal for me to make any kind of judgment there.

You aren't going to make me mad, i love these discussions too. Please don't let it go.



Blackmoor, when i get home I'm going to write a little more on this battle. After what ork town grot said, I think it might be worth mentioning what tactically was going besides me moving forward. The traps we laid out for eachother, and the traps neither of us fell for and other goodies.

Sorry Ryan, I did not know your last name nor did I know your Dakka screen name.

Shep wrote:

Stelek wrote:I love the grotzookas but they're so meh on the range.

They only came up one game. My game 5. They would have been cut if i didn't go up against another ork army, but man did they blow me a way in that game. I'd love 24" range, but I'm not sure I'd pay 15 more points per unit on it.

I don't think there really is a better gun for them except possibly a big shoota.

Shep wrote:

Stelek wrote:It's not like I didn't test the Kan heavy list, it's damned entertaining but it's hard to make it work in spearhead and dawn of war. I'm glad you did, it does impress me for whatever that's worth.

Yeah, spearhead seemed to test ok, but dawn of war was a problem. the list is just forced to be a shooty list in dawn of war, there isn't really a close combat option. That hurts when you are facing down a shootier army. Fortunately my game 5 was a aginst a choppier ork army than mine. This spearhead was extra tough because Blackmoors footprint was so tiny. For anti-shooty lists I tested mostly against guard. The pictures dont do it justice just how small his deployment was. Just imagine playing tetris with 5 rhinos and 3 chimeras in the corner of the table, with tiny 25mm cracks in two places for inquisitors. Thats how little table he took up. Was an impossible hump to get there in 5 turns.

Indeed. I agree with you. Question is, if you are forced to deploy first...doesn't that also make things difficult for you?

Shep wrote:

Stelek wrote:I think your army is great fun, but isn't terribly shooty. Yes, there are alot of shoota shots. In 5th with the incoming prevalence of mech armies, you can have alot of S4 shots and they won't do much unless you can shoot him out of his vehicles.

I dodged a bullet on fast skimmer mech. Non fast skimmer mech has to be able to deal with kans. Most can't. Sisters being one such exception.

There wasn't alot of it. I was surprised really, it's one of the most powerful in the game and there were almost no Eldar mech lists only 4th Edition DE lists.

Non fast skimmer mech, you mean Tau? How do they fail to handle you? Seems to me like mech tau would wreck this list.

Shep wrote:

Stelek wrote:To me it looks like you have 2 units to kill vehicles with, and Kans which can hurt but are terrible against vehicles--much better against foot troops. I have 4 more than you it seems. Since 5th edition is all about running around the tabletop, it's not like people aren't going to come my way.

Yeah, i took a calculated risk. Kans do just fine against treaded vehicles. And kans for the most part buy me the time i need for my 2 lootas to do some work. (when the lootas are actually in range to shoot on turn 1, i.e. not spearhead) A wave serpent/fire prism would table me if they respected the lootas enough. And a well played 3 land raider army is pretty game over for me too. But I didn't bump into that.

I'm confused--on turn 1 you are not far out of range if you deploy forward.

How would mech tau table you if your lootas were in front?

Multiple land raiders are big trouble for Orks.

I think CC is about all you can hope for.

Shep wrote:

Stelek wrote:Am I wrong? I do enjoy these conversations but if I'm gonna make you mad or something I'll just let it go.

You aren't wrong that my army could be shootier. You may or may not be wrong that a shootier ork army could have fared better in a spearhead against sisters for kill points. I might be disagreeing with you on if absoulte 100% shootiness is the way to go for a tourney ork list. Without having actually played the kannon/buggy/loota list myself, it would be criminal for me to make any kind of judgment there.

You aren't going to make me mad, i love these discussions too. Please don't let it go.

Well I think either you should go all-shooty, all-mech, or all-assault. Mixing and matching, I don't favor it.

Storm boyz or lots of vehicles makes for a mean green machine.