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Just played an incredibly tight game with KevinNash. he is tuning a mech orks list, and I've been throwing mechvets at him over and over again, I decided to throw a 'best of' marine list at him so that he didn't get too used to the way IG plays. I borrowed my roommates dark angels, which are wonderfully painted by Wolflordkjel.

We played a 1750 standard game. Rolled a 3 objective seize ground with a spearhead deployment.

Here are the lists.

DARK ANGELS

Sammael

dreadnought with multi-melta
dreadnought with multi-melta
dreadnought with multi-melta

10x tactical marines with flamer and multi-melta in rhino
10x tactical marines with flamer and multi-melta in rhino
10x tactical marines with flamer and multi-melta in rhino

speeder with heavy flamer and multi-melta
speeder with heavy flamer and multi-melta
speeder with heavy flamer and multi-melta

predator with heavy bolter sponsons
predator with heavy bolter sponsons
predator with heavy bolter sponsons


ORKS

Ghazkgull
Mek with kustom force field, power klaw and bosspole

15 lootas
14 lootas

19 shoota boys
18 shoota boys
20 shoota boys with nob, power klaw, and bosspole

deffkopta with twin-linked rokkits and buzzsaw
deffkopta with twin-linked rokkits and buzzsaw
deffkopta with twin-linked rokkits and buzzsaw

battlewagon with deffrolla, red paint job, big shoota, boarding plank
battlewagon with deffrolla, red paint job, big shoota, boarding plank
battlewagon with deffrolla, red paint job, big shoota, boarding plank


Ok, so I won the roll, and chose to play, because there was a corner that didn't really have any good places for lootas. I deployed thusly.


I held the speeders in reserve and said 'deep strike', which might have been a mistake. But not a huge one.

He deployed his orks thusly.


He held his deffkoptas in resrve and did NOT say outflank. The long table edge gives you some semi-outflankiness in spearhead without having to roll. And rolling the short table edge behind your own models with an outflanker is all kinds of crappy.

He attempted to, and successfully seized the initiative. I was lined up to do a lot of first turn shooting on his lootas, so that gave him a lot more loota shots. But he traded in his 'last turn' objective grab.

ORK TURN 1
He motors his wagons ahead 13" right down the center line of the table. One loota unit opens up on a rhino in cover and immobilizes and shakes it. the other loota unit went after a dreadnought in cover and shook it.

DARK ANGELS TURN 1
Had to do a little more moving since the initiative was seized, two of my three predators had to move, so 4 less heavy bolters went into the lootas. Sammael moved up to start taking out lootas. One rhino moved laterally 12" and popped smoke to get out from behind the mass of armor. One other rhino shifted over to my left. My dreadnoughts kept themselves in cover and prepared for an important turn 2. I shot everything I could into the 15 strong loota unit and killed 4 of them. I had 2 long range multi-melta shots one at front armor and one at side. Not surprisingly they didn't do anything. I'm really really happy with my composure at this point. I think I may have finally figured out just how imporant it is to focus on the lootas, and to not bother with low percentage shots into vehicles that only have a limited sphere of influence. For instance I could have put 2 autocannons into side armor of a battlewagon in cover. I fired them at the lootas and killed two instead. If you run the numbers on the side shots into AV12 in cover, I think I'll take 2 lootas.



ORK TURN 2
KevinNash plays a little conservative (which I feel was definitely the right play when facing 6 multi-meltas) He lined up his lead battlewagon for a boarding plank attack on my leftmost predator, 2 of 3 deffkoptas arrived and moved on to shoot and charge the rhino on my left. His other two battlewagons moved to the far left side but max speed of the first wagon, they did this to put a lot of distance between them and my tactical squads and dreadnoughts. In the shooting phase the first loota unit opens up on a rhino that popped smoke and blows it up on a 6. I lose 4 marines from the explosion, and now the rhino behind is cover free. The other loota unit shoots at it, and destroys it on a 5. The deffkoptas shoot at the rhino, one of them hits and weapon destroys it. In the assault phase the nob walks over the boarding plank and wrecks the predator, and the two deffkoptas charge the rhino. Needing 6's they only get 1 hit which results ina crew shaken.

DARK ANGELS TURN 2
No speeders arrived yet. My preds can finally hold still and unload, sammael shuffles a little more, the dreads all stay in cover but slide over to the left more. One of them is over near the deffkoptas to support the rhino, the other two set their multi-meltas up on the closest battlewagon. Both of the exposed tactical squads also have close range multi-melta shots, and so hold tight. I now have 5 close range melta on the lead wagon. The shaken, weaponless rhino spins in place and tank shocks the two deffkoptas, they both fail their test, and one of them runs off the table, the other hangs on just barely, and thanks to my poorly chosen tank shock direction, he will have a chance to regroup. First shot I take is the furthest dreadnought's multi-melta. It pens and wrecks the lead wagon. All of the orks debark on the other side of the wreck, and I dont really have anything to do with the rest of my multi-meltas, I shoot what I can into those boys, but they all make their cover saves. Sammael and the two predators unload on the 11 strong loota unit and take it down to 5. The dreadnought who moved to cover the tac squad just took a potshot into the falling back kopta and IDed it. KevinNash didn't want to lose the 5 lootas, so he popped 'prophet of the waaagh' to make them fearless. No assaults.


ORKS TURN 3
The third deffkopta shows up and sets up a rear shot on the rhino that tank shocked his mates. The boys that fell out of the first wagon move forward towards the rhino, setting up a charge on the unit and the dreadnought if the unit is forced out of the rhino. Ghazkgull's wagon moved 7" and lined up some shots on one of my two already footslogging tac marines. The other wagon floated a bit to my right, as there wasn't anywhere to go forward with all those boys in front of him, and they wanted to shoot also. In the shooting phase the loota unit on my left fired at a dreadnought in cover, and crew stunned him. The 5 man loota unit got 3 shots, fired at the dreadnought that was about to be charged but failed to hurt it. The deffkopta fired its missile and wrecked the rhino. I chose to deploy my tac squad as close to the approaching orks as possible, to spoil their auto '6' waaagh that they had coming, and to keep that combat close to my support that was running over from my right flank. Ghaz and company fired at my fresh tac squad and killed 5 marines. The wagon with the big mek in it shot at my 6 strong tac squad and killed 3 more. Everyone was good on morale. In the assault phase the boy unit dual charged my tac squad and the dreadnought, and the deffkopta got in on that action with a charge on the tac squad. I killed 3, he killed 5 and got an immobilized result on the dread. My tac squad failed and ran, the dread held the boys and kopta from being able to sweep.

DARK ANGEL TURN 3
Only one of my three speeders shows up. I need to start getting sammael into position to support the mess that is happening on the objectives, so i move flat out laterally across the table, keeping my good armor facing the lootas. The speeder tries to DS a multi-melta into the rear of the big meks wagon but scatters backwards, close enough to put souffle on the 5 man loota unit. My predators post up for another turn of full firing, My unstunned, unlocked in combat dread moved up towards the meks wagon to shoot/charge, and the three man tac squad set their flamer up to roast any boys who fall out. the now 5 strong tac squad moves over to charge into the very winnable combat with the dread. the running tac squad was still within 6" of the orks and so kept running. In shooting, the speeder and two predators knocked out 5 lootas, ending one unit. The dread can't manage to scratch the meks wagon, and the tac squads can't shoot at the targets they want to charge. Assault phase, my 5 man tac squad rolls a 2 and a 1 on their difficult terrain roll and can't plug into that combat. The dreadnought and the 3 tac marines charge the meks wagon. the dread and one krak grenade get a 6. The grenade detonates harmlessly but the dread gets a destroyed result. 4 boys die in the fireball. On the other combat, my dread with its now single attack was able to smash the deffkopta that got into base to base with it, the nob that was only strength 8 now couldn't roll well enough to hurt him. he won by 2 and the boys crumbled a little bit from 'no retreat' wounds.


ORK TURN 4
Ghazkgul's wagon moved 7" again, but made an effort to get within 6" of the falling back tac squad. The big meks unit was in a pretty hopeless situation, so it just moved to set up shots on the 5 man tac squad that missed its charge. Pretty short movement phase. In shooting ghaz and company plus the big meks unit all put into the 5 man tac squad and killed it off. The lootas shot at the dreadnought that was threatening the big mek unit and managed to only score a crew shaken. This was the second decent shot the lootas had all game (first one was the suddenly unobscured rhino), and they needed this one, and they couldn't cash in. In assault the nob whiffed on the dreadnought again, and the dreadnought whiffed with his 1 attack as well.

DARK ANGELS TURN 4
I moved the dreadnought over to try and get him to reinforce the hobbled dread that was holding off the smallish boy unit. I moved the other dread to the most obnoxious corner of the big meks unit for tarpit action, I moved the 3 man tac squad behind the wrecked battlewagon to hide. they were my only scoring unit left. Sammael leapt 12" over the building to set up his assault cannons on anyone who fell out of ghaz's wagon, which was wisely staying away from meltas. I got my last 2 speeders, one deepstruck to set up cloes range melta on the wagon and had a good landing, the other set up souffle on the loota unit and made a picture perfect landing. My first speeder moved 12" to set up more template on lootas, predators still had a priority target and so stayed still. I begin my shooting phase by cooking and shooting lootas, i take them down to 8 strong, would have loved to kill one more . I ran with my 3 man tac and found a nice spot totally out of LOS to everyone, I ran with the dreadnought racing to lock the boys in combat and got a mighty '1'. The speeder with the multi-melta hit, then rolled a 3 on two dice to get a pen on an unobscured ghaz wagon. I tried to be cool about it, but I had a few words for my dice. No one is perfect . Sammael then tried in vain to rend into the side armor, no 6's. Ghaz was untouched. The lootas passed their leadership 8 test. In assault, my dread missed with his one attack, but was able to shrug off the nobs klaw yet again. My other dread charged the big mek unit, killed a couple, a couple more crumbled. All of the boys in that unit looked over to the big mek and said "ey boss, you got that klaw, git over here and wack dis fing" to which he replied "gulp".


ORK TURN 5
Ghaz decided that he'd had enough of the tac marines hiding on that objective so he debarked and moved over to set up a charge on them. His wagon positioned itself in scoring fashion on the other objective, moving no more than 7", that was it for his movement phase. Shooting phase, the 8 remaining lootas shot and killed a speeder, and the wagon and boys all shot into the speeder closest to them, immobilizing and shaking it. in assault ghaz picked up one of the three tac marines he charged and proceeded to beat the other two to death with him. he then consolidated towards the dreadnought involved in CC with his dwindling boy unit. the big mek bravely stepped up the dreadnought and had his gob knocked completely off his shoulders. The rest of the boys crumble a little. the nob fighting the immobilized dreadnought whiffs one last time, as does the injured dread.

DARK ANGELS TURN 5
The fresh dread sets up a charge on the combat he was headed towards, Sammael and the other speeder, along with the two predators prepare to finish off the other loota unit, and then we move to the shooting phase. One loota survives the hail of fire and i seriously am hoping he fails morale, which he does. In assault my dread charges into the boys, kills a couple, their nob couldn't finish off the immobilized dread, but they were still fearless. The game continues.



ORK TURN 6
The remaining wagon shifts a little in place, trying to score the objective its over. Ghaz suffles forward a bit, lining up a bull rush on the dreadnought. And thats it. Shooting phase, the wagon and its boys shoot at the immobilized speeder and stun it. In assault ghazgull smashes apart the immobilized dread, blowing it up, the resulting explosion brings the boy unit below half (gets me some VPs), he consolidated into the other dreadnought, along with the boy unit. The close combat on the other dread grinds on, but the boys still have 11, I'll need to kill one next turn or I won't get any VPs.

DARK ANGELS TURN 6
All my speeders crash down onto the objectives, ensuring that this game is going to be decided on VPs. they are also set up to go to work if we get a turn 7. My dread in the center of the table punks out one more ork, booyah, half dead. Ghazgkull smashes apart the other dread, freeing up his unit of boys, I think there was about 6 left at this point, they consolidated towards an objective in case we got another turn. We didn't.


We silently totaled up our victory points and were actually within 20 VPs of each other! It just doesn't get closer or more fun than that.

Some thoughts...

ghazkgul mag uruk thraka! What a beater! I thought that maybe i had a chance to take him out with my dreads, but then KevinNash reminded me that he has eternal warrior. there isn't any shortcuts to killing him, and he is a monster. His fearless trick if well planned is a real boon as well. Popping the waaagh in the enemy shooting phase to not take any tests when you know you'll likely want the movement in your next turn is a rad combo.

I've finally persevered and saw all the lootas off the table. It all clicked in my head once i did that. there was a point in the game where it started to turn my way, after the lootas were shrunk down and a couple of his units were locked in tough to get out of CCs, KevinNash commented on not really having anything to work with. He had a battlewagon, some boys, and ghaz. And ghaz was almost enough. i certainly lose on VPs next turn when ghaz charges sammael. (i suppose he could whiff)

Sammael has been and continues to be really frustrating to my opponents. Every game i've played with him he has just floated around completely untouchable and then dashed for an objective block. He brings rites of battle to the table too. And considering how many tests I took this game from all of the shooting I took, I'm glad to have that.

Dreadnoughts. When people talk about dreadnoughts and how you shouldn't take them because they are easy to kill, just don't listen to them. armor 12 in cover all game, with a mobile multi-melta is great. Locking units in either unwinnable or seriously hard to win combats is so much more than great. If there was a single unit Kevinnash would have preferred me to not have that game it was easily my dreads. You just have to protect them. Where you put them, what you shoot at first, and then what you do with them aren't brainless things. When used right, 125 points is a steal.

Speeders in reserve. I don't know, all my deep strikes landed well enough, I just got them too late. It was frustrating to only get one of them through 3 turns. If I had placed them on the table and moved flat out on turn 1, then if the lootas wanted to kill them they could have, but that would have taken heat off of other units. I know the initiative was seized, but if it wasn't I certainly would have wanted them on the table.


Such a fun and close game. Both lists are very tight. i think the dark angels one is locked. I had zero complaints about its content. KevinNash is still working on his list for sure. But it certainly is getting very strong, and able to compete in the mechanized world where foot orks and biker orks are having more problems.

Thanks for reading and discussing.

Shep, I'm a fan of DA mech armies but other than Sammael, why would you run this as DA rather than straight up Green Marines?

That is an amazing Dark Angels army!

Nice report too, sounds like a great game.

And Ozzy, come tonight so we can finally get a game in! All we have played is fantasy.

Ozymandias wrote:Shep, I'm a fan of DA mech armies but other than Sammael, why would you run this as DA rather than straight up Green Marines?

Just Sammael.

Dark Angels are frustrating. If you look at the lists side by side, the predators are 10 more points apiece than vanilla marines, the speeders are 5 points more apiece, and with stupid restrictions to unit composition (one of each type of upgrade). Their dreadnoughts are 20 more points (or 15 more if both take heavy flamers). And their tac squads are 10 points more with equivalent weapons. Although dark angels tac squads can have a 5 man unit with a special weapon.

Minus the HQ, the whole list works EXACTLY the same for 135 more points. Now add the cost of sammael 205 and sammaels real cost is 340.

The good news is, a BS5 armor 14 land speeder with rites of battle a twin linked assault cannon and a twin linked heavy bolter is undercosted at 205. The changes to 5th edition make him damn near unkillable to shooting, and rites of battle has become a unique, powerful global ability. I don't think he is undercosted by 135 points... but 50? Sure.

Anyway. I play the list as dark angels, because thats what they are. The list isn't so overvalued that it isn't competitive. It is a little painful seeing the direct comparison to space marines, but eldar and tau are other examples of armies that perform decently in competitive environments with obviously across the board overcosted codecies.

DA termies suck. I've tried them to death, not as good as space marines by a long shot and overcosted to boot. Ravenwing bikers configuration and overcost makes them very different and IMO inferior to SM bikers. Razorbacks are overcosted, and land raiders have the crappy version of PotMS. This is the best way I can figure out how to play DA... but I'm pretty happy with it.

The only alt config I've had any success with for DA is basically an identical list but without any tac marines, and 3x3 double melta bike units (one with apothecary) and 3x1 MM attack bike. This gives me enough points to add a multi-melta speeder to one of the three lists. It's more fragile, but it eats up vehicles more easily. It also doesn't mesh well with the dreadnoughts. They have less places to hide and no one to support.

I know you play DA as well, I'd love to hear if anything that I'm not using is working well for you.

Really nice report. It was a pleasure to read.

Great report. I'm in the process of developing a mechanized DA army (despite common criticism).

What are your thoughts on Azrael and a Command Squad? In a mech list, it seems to be a viable hammer unit. Fearless, +1 attack for everyone in the squad (Chapter Banner) and a 4+ inv save seems to be a hard unit to assist in assault (never assault by itself). I'm also considering the LRC, but its size and fear of immobilization in difficult terrain has me questioning it.

Last question (sorry) about DA? What about upgrading a dreadnought to Venerable? I've got a FW DA Dread and his look really stands out to my other Dreads. Worth the points?

And I concur completely about Ghaz. I've been using him of late in my own Ork army and the ability to call the Waagh at any time in the game really makes for some frustrating moments for my opponents. I consider it one of those very flexible abilities that most opponents have trouble overcoming; in a similar fashion that makes a well designed Sisters army hard to defeat.

Ahhh Steleks Best Of Dark Angels. Love to see it in action. I love that list TBH and hopefully he will get around to helping me with my Deathwing : P

I don't think you said who won? maybe I missed it but I assumed you won?

Ghazzy wouldn't be as nasty if we had the good TH/SS... O well.

Great report!

But DA Speeders don't have deep strike if I remember correctly.

I didn't think you could consolidate into other units anymore? Or did was the other Dread already in CC with Ghaz?

Shep wrote:
I know you play DA as well, I'd love to hear if anything that I'm not using is working well for you.

Well you are spot on with Sammael, I've lost him a few times to Ork Warboss' on Bikes tracking him down but otherwise he is nearly invulnerable and it's nice to have a HQ unit that can have such a devastating impact on the game.

I've found I really like 5 man melta squads in Razorbacks. It's only 150 points and has a mobile twin-linked heavy bolter. I usually take several and find that the weight of fire will drop anything without a 2+ save. I also use Ven Dreads. It's only 20 points for the upgrade putting them at 150 with Multi-Melta (though sometimes I go Plasma Cannon for old times sake) and Heavy Flamer. The Ven upgrade helps survive those lucky hits and I've used Dreads to hold up 15 man Plague Marine units indefinitely.

Ultimately, the only real way to run DA is mech and my list is different than yours but touches on the same basic principles.

EzeKK wrote:Ahhh Steleks Best Of Dark Angels. Love to see it in action. I love that list TBH and hopefully he will get around to helping me with my Deathwing : P

I don't think you said who won? maybe I missed it but I assumed you won?

Ghazzy wouldn't be as nasty if we had the good TH/SS... O well.

We tied on objectives (0-0) and we were within 20 victory points of each other.

ptapanin wrote:Great report!

But DA Speeders don't have deep strike if I remember correctly.

Don't even joke about that! I'll have to go and check, that would make me very angry

Uriels_Flame wrote:I didn't think you could consolidate into other units anymore? Or did was the other Dread already in CC with Ghaz?

It was a tricky situation. Both of my dreads were in combat with one of his boy units, and then ghaz charged one of the dreads. He killed the dread, and I killed some boys. With all of them tied together, it was a single combat. When ghaz 'piled in' he got into base to base with the other dread.

Thanks for the responses guys


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ozymandias wrote:I've found I really like 5 man melta squads in Razorbacks. It's only 150 points and has a mobile twin-linked heavy bolter. I usually take several and find that the weight of fire will drop anything without a 2+ save. I also use Ven Dreads. It's only 20 points for the upgrade putting them at 150 with Multi-Melta (though sometimes I go Plasma Cannon for old times sake) and Heavy Flamer. The Ven upgrade helps survive those lucky hits and I've used Dreads to hold up 15 man Plague Marine units indefinitely.

Will definitely be trying all of those suggestions. thanks Ozy