Liche Priest Hierophant
|
Well, here goes, my first batrep. I was playing against a friend I'd met a couple weekends ago at the FLGS in town (sorry, I can't remember his name right now. I'm terrible with names) and I'd actually played him just last weekend as well, Orks against Marines, only 1500 points, and I lost terribly. I think it was because I forgot to include any walkers in my list- I'm lost without my Dredds. Anyways, in that game, (Capture and Control, Pitched Battle) there were a few bright moments that carried over, such as his Land Raider Crusader killing every one of my Tankbustas, and sitting on the other side of the board at the end of the battle, taunting my Meganobs- and how when he dropped his pod right in front of my Killkannon battlewagon, missed every single one of his Sternguard's Combi-Melta shots, and a well-placed Kilkannon shell killed half his Sternguard, exploded his Drop Pod (which killed the other half) and nearly killed Mephiston, all in the second turn. He still won, though, by a landslide. Tabled me, other than my Meganobz. This mission was a bit different, though.
Roll for Mission Type: Annihilation
Roll for Deployment: Dawn of War- Dawn of War- Pitched Battle. (Neither of us wanted to play Dawn of War.)
Roll to go first: Opponent wins, gives me first turn. Doesn't try to sieze.
The armies are as follows (please note, I don't have an exact list for my opponent, and I'm not gonna put down an exact list for myself. I will have all the important stuff, though.):
Me:
HQ:
Big Mek Whizzitz- KFF, Cybork, Armour.
Megamek Zzaprunk- Mega-Armour, Cybork, Attack Squig, Bosspole, Burna.
Troops:
19 'ard Boyz, Shootaz, 'eavy Armour, Stikkbomms.
Deffdred- KMB, KMB, Armour, Grots.
Deffdred- DCCW, DCCW, Armour, Grots. (Blendredd)
Elite:
8 Tankbustas- Nob w/ 'eavy Armour, Bosspole; Tankhammer, 2 Bomb Squigs.
Nobz-
Squigtalez – Big Choppa, 'eavy Armor, Stikkbombs, bosspole, Cybork
Vet'ren – Big Choppa, 'eavy Armour, Stikkbombs, Cybork
Krabb Klaw – Power Klaw, 'eavy Armour, Stikkbombs, Waaagh!! banner, Cybork
Nidslaya – Kombi-skorcha, 'eavy Armour, Stikkbombs, Cybork
Slinga – Twin-linked Shoota, 'eavy Armour, Stikkbombs, Cybork
Ruky – Twin-linked Shoota, 'eavy Armour, bosspole, Cybork
Doc Gulgor – Painboy, Cybork
Meganobz-
Grimskraga – Mega-Armour, twin-linked Shoota
Blitzag – Mega-Armour, Twin-linked Shoota
Grodrukk – Mega-Armour, Kombi-Skorcha
Tufteef – Mega-Armour, Kombi-Rokkit
Ulkrukk- Mega-Armour, Twin-linked Shoota
Dedicated Tranports:
Da Boomstompa- Armour, Grots, 'ard Case, Hull mounted Kilkannon, 4 Rokkits in a sponson.
Klawagon- Armour, Grots, 'ard Case, Boardin' Plank, Wrekkin' Ball, Deffrolla, Grabbin' Klaw, Red Paint Job.
Heavy Support:
3 Killa Kanz, KMB, KMB, Big Shoota.
3 Killa Kanz, KMB, KMB, Skorcha.
Opponent:
Lysander
LR crusader (2x sponson Hurrican Bolters, pintle Multimelta, hull TL Assault Cannon.) filled with a Tac squad with Flamer and Lascannon.
5 man Scout Squad, snipers. Sarge with Powerfist(?)
5 man Scout Squad, CC weapons. Sarge with Powerfist and Shotgun.
Drop-pod with 10 man Sternguard, assault squadded. One 5 man team with combi-melta, one with combi-plasma+sarge with Powerfist. Lysander with Plasma squad.
Razorback with TL Assault Cannon, (Hereby known as the Assaultback)
Razorback with Twin-Linked Lascannon. (Hereby known as the Lasback)
Ironclad with MM, SB, Seismic Hammer and DCCW.
Drednaught with Twin-linked Lascannon and Missile launcher. (Hereby known as Missy, the Wondernaught)
Landspeeder with Heavy Flamer, had the CC scout squad in it.
Also, a small biker squad, with one Attack Bike with MM sidecar. About, hmm, 5 bikes?
Oh, and something with a Demolisher Cannon.
This is our second match, and my Tankbustas are determined to kill that F*(&ing Crusader, which demolished them last game, along with a rokkit buggy that I'm not using this game.
I deploy first. Left to right, I have my Big Shoota Killa Kan squadron sitting between to bits of jungle, then my KMB Dredd, Boomstompa and Blendredd sitting all cozy about a quarter from the left side of the table, my Klawagon just at the edge of the KFF bubble, then more jungle between that and my Scorcha-KMB kanz, then a big bit of jungle, then my Tankbustas, a little ruin, and my Boyz.
Left to right, he's got his Ironclad, the AC Razorback, the Golden Missile drednaught, the Twin Linked Lascannon Razorback, his Crusader in the middle, and his Snipers in a strip of jungle on the far right, with the Landspeeder full of CC Scouts behind them. The Sternguard and Lysander are in the droppod.
First turn, nothing really happens. He shoots stuff at me, I shoot stuff at him, we don't do diddley to each other. He mostly sits back, waiting for me. I'm marching my Kanz and Dredds up, get my Tankbustas into that big bit of jungle to their left to hide from his Crusader. Do the same with my Kanz, only moving about 2 inches due to Difficult Terrain, but getting into the terrain for the 4+ cover. Boyz move up 6 inches, as do the Dredds and the Boomstompa. Klawagon heads off towards the Crusader, zooming 13” through some bits of brush. Boomstompa pops a Killkannon shell towards his bikers, it scatters into No-Mans-Land, does nothing. GunKanz fire at his Ironclad, and do Nnnnnothing. Same with my KMB Dredd, only at his Shooty Dred. Other Kan squadron fires at his Crusader, does nothing. Tankbustas fire at his Crusader- nothing. Shootaboyz are out of range of the Snipers. He returns fire, doing pretty much nothing back. I think he manages to snipe one of my Boyz down, starting a long trend of killing one boy every time he fires at that squad, and no more than one boy. His droppod comes in this turn, and he combat squads the Sternguard out of it, leaving Lysander with the Plasma. He puts the Pod right between the rear ends of my two Battlewagons, aiming the Plasma boyz at my Klawagon, and the Melta troops at my Boomstompa. Both fire, each get two shots into rear armour, two three into side armour- none of them do anything worse than a single Immobilization and some Stunns. Usually, that'd be bad, but since I have both Grot Riggers and a Big Mek in each, I'm not too worried. Note, though, that if those wagons hadn't been Hard Case, they'd have both been wrecked first turn. I don't really like Open Topped vehicles that much. Oh, and I think his Drop pod Storm Bolter may have fired at the rear armour of my KMB Dredd, but it missed. It was either this round or next. So yeah, 1 boy dead, two Immobilized Battlewagons.
Round 2.
This is where it starts getting interesting. So, over on the right side of the table (from my point of view, anyways), we've got a Landspeeder with Heavy Flamer and CC scouts sitting behind some Sniper scouts, both staring across at a 19 strong mob of kitted out 'Ardboyz. Shootas, 'eavy Armour, Stikkbombz, yeah. Now, I'm worried about that Heavy Flamer, (though not so much about the Scouts- my Boyz eat Scouts for breakfast), but I know that his Landspeeder is only Fast, and it's far enough away that if I don't move up, he won't be able to Scorch me. But I'm still too far to shoot his Snipers. In a rather un-Orky move, I decide to sit there, taunting him.
Meanwhile, a few inches to the left, my Tankbustas are in a stalemate with his Crusader. I move up near the edge of the Jungle covered hill, but I know if I run out into the open, I'm a sitting target for his Hurricane Bolters and Assault Cannon. So I just hunker down in that comfortable 4+ terrain to wait him out. My Kanz are less fearful (being ensconced in giant metal death machines) but, being ensconced in giant metal death machines, are less able to slip through the trees, and so only move a couple inches further into the jungle.
The Klawagon, being immobile, doesn't move. The Meganobz inside, however, are pissed at Lysander and the Sternguard for keeping them away from the Crusader, and Megamek Zzaprunk is angry that they broke his Wagon. So the MaNz pile out, and get into position to assault, Grodrukk coming around the end to get them in position to get Skorched. Whizzits and the Nob Squad in the Boomstompa are less concerned with their group of Sternguard (well, Whizzitz is more concerned with why his KFF failed at that crucial moment and they were able to Melta half the Boomstompa's legs off) and are content to just sit inside and line up some Shoota and Skorcha shots of their own through the fire-points. Dredd 1 and Dredd 2 are still just marchin' up, unawares that they'll soon be leaving the safety of the KFF. The far left Kan squad is perfectly aware that they're not in KFF range, but they're more interested right now in Krumpin' that Ironclad that's sittin' there thumbin' its noseplate at them. (really he was just making sure his joints were properly annointed, but they didn't know that. Grots, if you didn't know, ain't the smartest bunch.) Finally, it's Shootin' time.
So, once again, KMBs on everything are as effective as a 5th edition Squat army, while Whizzitz tries, and fails to help the Grot Riggers to repair the Boomstompa. The riggers on the Klawagon are similarly stumped, but Zzaprunk gives the Wagon a bash as he gets out that jars something back into place, and the engine starts up again. Zzaprunk and the MaNz are too angry at Lysander and the Sternguard to get back in, though, and Grodrukk gleefully unpluggs his Skorcha on them, while the rest of them fire off their Shootas in preparation for the scrap. A couple of them actually hit their targets, and Grodrukk manages to catch Lysander's head on fire, dealing a wound to the big guy. Nidslaya, Rukie and Slinga Skorch, shoot and shoot 3 of the Melta Sternguard to death at the same time from the back of the Boomstompa. Dredd 2 (da Klawdredd) runs towards the Drednaught on the hill.
As I said earlier, none of the KMBs, including the ones aimed at the Crusader, do anything. Tankbustas aren't much more lucky, the Hammer user even sending one of his Bomb Squigs to die in vain, crushed under the uncaring treads of a Land Raider Crusader. Shoota boyz are still out of range, and aren't going to run into range of that Heavy Flamer, either. Dey'z too smart fur dat, see?
Assault time. My Meganobz crash into Lysander and his 4 Sternguard, utterly annihilating the Marines and almost killing Lysander, leaving him to strike back with one wound. It helped that Zzaprunk struck before any of the Marines did, with 6 Str. 5 Power weapon attacks from his Burna. Lysander did manage to crunch poor Grodrukk, with his Thunderhammer, though. Aand that's it for the round 2 first Assault phase.
After his movement phase (which, honestly, I didn't pay much attention to, other than to notice that he pulled his Lasback and Crusader away from my gunline) my opponent fires back, once again sniping a single Boy down, and missing all the Tankbustas and Kanz with his Crusader and Razorbacks. He pretty much ignores the newly mobile Klawagon, except for trying to snipe it with his Crusaders' PotMS MM, doing nothing to it's front armour. He tries to Lascannon my Blendredd, but lucky Dredd is lucky, and is still within range of the KFF (bareley). The Missiles Miss, of course, and his Demolisher template scatters way off, impacting one of the closer Kanz and exploding it. I'm not quite sure what his Ironclad or Assaultback are doing this round, but it mustn't have been that much. Oh, I think I know. They must've been the ones that destroyed my KMB Dredd. Blew it up nice, they did. Strange, it's usually the other one that dies first.
And his Snipers snipe another of my Boyz. Seeing a pattern here?
Theres' more pretty fireworks in the Assault phase, as Lysander smashes another Meganob while fending off their Powerklaws with his Storm Shield, and the two remaining Sternguard plant Krak grenades on the back of the Boomstompa, wrecking it. The Nobz pile out the side into a patch of jungle, while Mek Whizzitz ditches them and heads out the other side towards the still-running Klawagon.
Turn 3. Honestly, this is where everything starts to blend together into a single long turn of Awesome, so I might not even bother with turn counters anymore, and just describe the happenings as they seemed to go.
I move my Lefthand Kanz up, fire KMBs at his bikes, they do nothing. But I am within charge range, so I do. Killakanz into his Bikes, they bikes do nothing, and my Kanz kill all but his Assault Bike with Melta. Unfortunately, that leaves my Kanz stuck in combat while his Ironclad comes up from behind and pounds them into scrap with his Seismic hammer. On the bright side, said piles of scrap, and the scrap that created them, block the LoS of his Demolisher cannon, and he has to move it to a more convenient location, losing the ability to fire it.
Blendredd gets an arm Lazzed off as soon as he negotiates his way out of some TloS ruins, though he does manage to run to the bottom of the Missiledred's hill. A landslide keeps him from getting any closer, though.
The Klawagon turns around and drives through the Drop Pod, causing it to explode a glorious six inches! Which, of course, everyone promptly ignores. It's all 2+ and 3+ armour saves, what did you expect? It almost pastes the Sternguard, but they jump back out of the way. The Deffrolla only managed to slap them a couple times, and they just ignored it.
The Nob squad is really, really mad at the Sternguards for wreckin' their ride, and vaporize them with their Shootas. They don't even give them the honor of dieing in close combat.
In the existing Close Combat, though, on the other side of the Drop pod, Lysander is still catching everything the Meganobz and Zzaprunk are throwing at him on his Storm Shield, and manages to kill Zzaprunk with a swing of his Thunderhammer. When his own Assault phase comes around, he still ignores the Meganobz. Well, maybe not ignores, so much as crushes Grimskragga and Ulkrukk into a fine mash with his hammer. Blitzag and Tufteef decide discretion is the better part of valour, but since they don't really know what that means, they just start runnin' away instead, crashing through the trees and vines as Lysander checks the batteries of his Storm Shield and heads towards the Kans that're still threatening his Crusader. That shield's taken a lot of punishment so far!
The afore-mentioned only remaining Kanz, tired of their shots pinging off AV14, turn their sights (yes, they use sights- these are Grots, remember?) on the Lasback, and for once in their useless lives, destroy something bigger than the local squig-dropps. They then get Assaulted by Lysander, who smacks their DCCWs right off their wrists, crunch-crunch-crunch. They spend the remainder of the next two turns kicking him to death, as he keeps removing limbs, weapons, and Kanz. The last one, after finally stomping one last time on his bloody corpse, is subsequently shot full of holes by a vengeful Assaultback Rhino. I think it explodes.
While all this is going on, Whizzitz and the Nobz commandeer the Klawagon (it's not like Zzaprunk and the Meganobz are gonna be needing it any time soon) and drive it into the Crusader, which has finally moved up close enough for the Tankbustas to assault, once they finished immobilizing the Landspeeder off to their right. They've been whittled down in the ensuing rounds, so now there's only the Nob with one wound left, one regular Bustaboy, and the Tankhammer swinger, down to his last Squig. They decide to unleash one last volley of rokkits into the Crusader, and Hammerboy unleashes his last Bomb Squig, who, confused by the fact that there seems to be a Battlewagon growing out of the side of a Land Raider, runs straight under the Battlewagon and detonates, wrecking the Klawagon. It lasted so long, only to be destroyed from within by one of it's own allies. Say la Vee. Well, at least the Klawagon, between the Wrekkin' Ball, the Deffrolla, and the Ram, managed to Immobilize the Crusader. Actually, I have to wonder if Hammerswinger didn't set his Squig on the wagon on purpose, to keep Krabklaw from taking their kill with the boarding plank. Whizzitz once again ditches the Nobz (they just keep following him for some reason!) only to get his head Melta'd off by the Assault Bike, who zoomed up unbeknownst. The Nobz themselves pile out of the wrecked Klawagon, doing their best to block off the assault ramp of the Crusader. They seem to succeed. The Tankbustas assault the Land Raider's last opening, slamming their Tankbusta Bombs home while Hammerswinga swings his hammer into the roof, and they finally manage to wreck that blasted Crusader, forcing an Emergency Disembark for the Tactical Marines inside.
Over on the right, da Boyz got sick of waiting around, and moved up to shoot those dang-blasted Snipers. 36 shots later, one of the Snipers is down, and there's a Landspeeder racing towards them, ready to douse them in burning Promethium and loosing its cargo of 5 Assault Scouts and Seargent with Powerfist. It douses them alright- and only kills a single 'ard Boy. 1 wound, out of 7 armour-ignoring, 3+ to wound hits. Awesome. That swoop costs the Speeder, though, as it brings it close enough to the Tankbustas to incite their rokkity wrath, and they shoot it out of the sky. It plows a furrough in the earth next to the 'ard Boyz, the Scouts on the other side of the immobilized vehicle. That moment of distraction costs the Tankbustas most of their squad, though, as that's when the Crusader tracked their Rokkit contrails back to their hiding place in the brush and mowed them down with Hurricane Bolter fire. The Boyz are luckier, though, and gleefully accept the boon the Bustas have brought down, releasing a hail of lead on the de-transported Scouts and killing them to a man, before crushing the speeder under their hobnailed boots. (In game terms, they then shot at and assaulted the Landspeeder, wrecking it.) Flush with victory, they charge towards the remaining scouts, still sniping away from their spot in the trees. (They consolidated towards the Snipers.) Honestly, the Sniper scouts didn't last much longer than the Close Combat Scouts did, dying within two assault phases, though they did manage to take another boy with them. The 'ard Boyz squad is now down to only 12 Boyz from its original 19. Still fearless, though, which is why the apparently took it when the Tac squad from the wrecked Land Raider came through, Rapid-firing and Assaulting them. They were able to hold combat for the Marine's Assault phase, but ran and were swept the next turn. Tankbustas, brave, foolish Orks that they are when LoS to other vehicles is blocked by wrecks, then attempted to assault that 10 man Tac squad. Predictably, they didn't last long either.
And speaking of Other Vehicles, whatever happened to Blendredd and Missy the Wonder-naught? You ask. Well, I'll tell you. In a far off place known as the rocks on the left side of the board, two Drednaughts were engaged in an epic struggle. Blendredd valiantly kept climbing up the side of the mountain Missy was standing on, taking hit after hit, losing three of his four DCCW arms to enemy fire, until, unbalanced and filthy, he managed to reach the top, and assault Missy! The two iron behemoths traded blows, Blendredd fighting past his unbalanced frame to lightly smack Missy in the arm, while the Space Marine Sarcophagus forwent its missile-filled arms in favor of kicking its Orky counterpart in the shins. In the end, Green Skin Know-wots prevailed! And Blendredd slew the ancient fighting machine-man. Lo, and did Blendredd tumble back down the mountainside, and upon reaching the bottom, did tear into the rear armour of the Demolisher tank, exploding it! The ashes and shrapnel cleared to reveal a great spectacle of combat- the Nobz first shrugging off the Ironclad's MultiMelta and Storm Bolter, and then assaulting the metallic monstrosity, hacking into it with Big Choppas and crushing it with Powerklaws before it could even get one of the green-skinned creatures in its claw.
Noting the position of the sun, both Marines and Orks decided the battle was over (it was actually just the dice deciding there was to be no 7th turn), the enemy Biker, Assault-Cannon Razorback, and Tactical Squad heading off the field, while the Nobz and the one-armed Blendredd took stock, noticing Blitzag and Tufteef still running, or rather, plodding, away since earlier in the battle. It was long, bloody, and barely any of them survived, but hey, they're Orks. That's what they live for.
This was an incredibly fun game, for me and my opponent. By the end of it, the board was littered with craters and wrecks, and we were each down to our last few squads. By one measure (I think it's Killpoints? The 4th edition one, counting units killed instead of points killed) I won. By the current, 5th edition measure, we at first thought we'd tied (which blew our minds, honestly- it was a close battle, sure, but that close?) but it turns out he'd actually gone into the game with about 9 fewer points than I had (2000 point game, I went in with 1999, he with 1990), which meant he'd won, by a narrow, narrow margin. Great game, any way, and I found I rather like this list, at least for Annihilation. If it had been Objectives, I would've played completely differently, and I think the lack of scoring troops would've hurt me a lot.
Anyways, hope you enjoyed the batrep. I might just take this and re-write it as a narrative, a little bit of 40k fiction, as it were. Yeah, it was just fun!
Edited. I'd written Mephiston instead of Lysander, 'cause I can never remember the names of those 'umie HQs. They all look the same to me. Thanks to Kredic for setting me straight.
|
8k points
3k points
3k points
