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First off a bit of a primer. This is a "home brewed" mission created from a youtuber Doremicon. The concept behind it is to create a scenario that only uses the models from the Assault on Black Reach set and create a more evened playing field since the orks are lacking a bit. First I'll go over the mission and loadout of both armies, then the battle report, then my personal thoughts on the mission.

Mission Briefing
In the battle for Black Reach, a thunderhawk gunship was shot down and now the survivors must battle back to warzone.
The Space Marines must get at least 2 of their scoring units (which in this scenario can be either combat squad of the Tactical Squad, the Captain, or the Dreadnought) to 3 inches of the opposite side of the table. The orks must do whatever they can to prevent this. If the Space Marines only get one unit to 3" of the opposite side then it is a tie game.

Table Setup
This mission is setup on a 4 foot by 4 foot table. Terrain is kept simple, a hill in each corner and one in the middle. These kills provide a 5+ cover save except for the dreadnought and deff koptas.
The orks choose a side and deploy up to half way into the table (one deff kopta must be in reserve), then the Space Marines deploy within 9 inches from the opposite table edge (terminators held in reserve). The Orks will go first but the Marines may steal the initiative.

Special rule: Once any Space Marine model reaches the halfway point, any dead deff kopta can return to the game on a 5+, arriving from the Space Marine table edge.

Army Loadouts
Originally, the idea was for the Space Marines to use the Blood Angel codex since it was free at the time however switched back to the standard Space Marine one.

Space Marines
Captain w/ Power Weapon, Combi-flamer, and teleport homer
Combat Squad 1 w/ Sergeant, flamer, 3 normal marines
Combat Squad 2 w/ Missile launcher and 4 normal marines
Dreadnought w/ multimelta and DCC weapon w/ stormbolter
5 terminators w/ 4 power fists and sergeant with power weapon

Orks
Warboss w/ power klaw
20 ork boyz w/ 2 big shootas and stikk bombs
5 Nobz w/ big choppas and stikk bombs
3 deff koptas w/ rokkit launchers (they run separately)

The battle report
The orks setup with the boyz joined by the warboss set up in the middle hill to get some cover. The Nobz are right behind them to use the boyz as a screen. The koptas are behind them waiting for something to pop out.

The Space deploy with the Captain joining the combat squad with the serg and flamer up north just on the edge of the northwest hill. The other combat squad with the missile launcher setup on the southwest hill in similar fashion. The dreadnought is setup above the Missile launcher combat squad.

Space Marines roll to steal initiative and succeed.

Turn 1
The Captain and Combat squad w/serg move up at full speed and rapid fire into the ork boy mob (JUST in range) and managed to kill 3 of them. The dreadnought moves straight across and fires it's multimelta into the ork boy mob and cooks an other boy. Finally the missile launcher team holds ground and fires everything into the boyz as well, killing 4 boyz.

The ork deff koptas move to intercept the dreadnought and only manage to stun it for the time being. The ork boyz attempt to move towards the captain but roll poorly on their difficult terrain test and only move half speed, stopping them from charging but fired into the Captain's squad anyways and kill 1 tactical marine and wounding the captain once! The Nobz start moving southwest to attack the southern missile launcher team but not in range of anything yet so they ran forward.

8 dead ork boyz.
Captain down to 2 wounds
1 dead marine from the Serg's combat squad
Dread is stunned

Turn 2
The terminators fail to arrive from reserve.
The Captain and his combat squad move up and unleash their flamers and rapid fire bolters onto the boyz but only manage to kill 5 more boyz. The dread is stunned this turn so unable to do anything. The missile launcher team fire their rocket at a deff kopta and manage to kill it.

The last deff kopta arrives from reserve and joins the other one in firing on the dreadnought again. They manage to destroy the close combat arm but nothing else. The nobz continue to move towards the southern squad and manage to get into charging range. The Nobz were able to kill 2 marines but the marines dealt two wounds back to tie the combat. The boyz fire on the Captain and his combat squad again and manage to kill an other marine then they charge in. The captain and serg focused on the warboss while the rest of the squad attacked the boyz. The captain deals two wounds to the warboss and the serg gets the final hit to finish him off. The other marine left ends up killing a boy as well. The boyz focused on the combat squad and manage to just kill the rest out but fail their leadership and get sweeping advanced by one angry captain.

Warboss is dead
Ork boyz are wiped
1 kopta is dead
Nobz lost 1 guy
Combat squad w/ serg is wiped out
Captain down to 2 wounds
2 dead marines from the Combat squad w/ missile launcher
Dread is missing it's close combat arm


Turn 3
Terminators arrive from reserve and deep strike along with the captain, the captain then moves and joins the terminator squad.
The dreadnought turns around and joins the close combat with the Nobz, the combat squad and the dread manage to actually inflict 4 wounds, killing two nobz. The nobz were only able to kill one more marine. They failed with leadership and got sweeping advanced as well.

Down to the deff koptas for the orks, firing on the dread nought but unable to do anything for the time being.

Warboss is dead
Ork boyz are wiped
Nobz are wiped
1 kopta is dead
Combat squad w/ serg is wiped out
Captain down to 2 wounds
Combat squad w/ missile launcher down to 2 men
Dread is missing it's close combat arm

Turn 4
Everything on the Space Marine end decided to move and run to the opposite end of the table.

The orks regain one of their deff koptas and fired on the other combat squad, killing them off.

Only 3 Deff Koptas remain for the orks
Terminators, Captain, and dreadnought remain for the marines

Turn 5
Once again everything runs to the scoring zone. Placing the Captain in the score zone. The dreadnought continues to run towards the same objective.

The Deff Koptas fire onto the dreadnought and only manage to shaken it.

Only 3 Deff Koptas remain for the orks
Terminators and Captain are now scoring.
and dreadnought is shaken

Game continues to turn 6
The terminators fire and down a deff kopta but keep the captain in scoring position. The dread continues running and gets into scoring range!

The 2 remaining koptas fire and manage to immobilize the dreadnought.

GAME OVER

While the dreadnought was in scoring range, we decided to keep to the spirit of the mission and not count him since he was now immobilized. Leaving one scoring unit for the marines and making it a tie game.

Personal thoughts
The concept was great, the marine player had to really gun it towards the end. The problem I felt that even through he managed a tie game, the ork only had 2 koptas left so it didn't feel like a victory really. There were some really bad dice rolls too which caused some freaky things to happen. Balancing these two armies out is rather difficult honestly, I do believe that the Marines have like an extra 100 points, which doesn't sound like much but when you are talking around the 300 - 400 point level it does. The orks have hardly anything to combat the terminators either so once the captain joined them and started running to the objective, the ork gave up on trying to stop them which was good since that lead to the tie but still. I would suggest maybe giving the nobz and the warboss some 'eavy armor and maybe even giving the koptas some buzzsaws. Hard to make suggestions with a limit on what models to use and such.

I appreciate the report. Thanks for writing it.

I agree that the AoBR set was poorly balanced. It favored the GW poster boys because that's fluffy... but a poor introduction to the game of Warhammer for new players since those that might want to play Orks are automatically disadvantaged.

Good BatRep, pretty good scenario that did some to balance out the sides...


More terrain and clever use of cover might've helped the Orks a bit, but 6+ saves against rapid firing bolters makes things go south quickly, especially when you're already at 100 points less.

The biggest problem with the Black Reach set are the terminators in my opinion. The orks have nothing to fight them with, aside from the warboss with powerklaw but he can be taken out fairly quick here. If they include a nob with a pk in with the boyz and have one of the regular nobz carry a pk as well I think it would be nice. But every game I see using the black reach models, it always come down to how quick the dreadnought dies and the terminators.