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So, having unsuccessfully tried to find a game yesterday, I loitered around my local Games Workshop with a sort of hangdog expression until someone took pity on me and agreed to play. He had orks, which is smashing because I haven't as yet played orks in this edition.

We played 1500 points.

My Grey Knights:
Draigo
Librarian: (quicksilver, might of titan, sanctuary, shrouding, warp rift), warding stave
5 paladins: 2 psycannon, stave, m/c hammer, 2 swords, falchions
5 paladins: 2 psycannon, m/c hammer, 2 swords, 2 falchions
stormraven: TL plasma cannon, TL multimelta
dreadnought: assault cannon, psybolts (hereafter 'psycannon), heavy flamer, psyflame (hereafter 'incinerator')

Ben's Orks (I'm not sure of his precise list but roughly):

Thrakka
The Special Character weirdboy
mob of Nobz with painboy
10 Lootaz
3 mobs of orcs
5 tank bustaz
3 killer kanz

We rolled Capture and Control and Pitched Battle. I won initiative and chose to go second.

Report with photos to follow tomorrow.


The Orks deploy:


Lootaz on his right flank (nearest camera), Boyz right-centre, Kans centre, Tank Bustaz centre, Thrakka and Nobz centre, Weirdboy and boyz on his left-centre, Boyz on the right wing.

I reserve everything. Librarian, paladin squad and dreadnought in the stormraven, Draigo and a squad deepstriking (I pondered Scout/Putflanking but decided on the somewhat risky deepstrike instead - not my usual tactic but I need both squads in the middle this game His objective (a squig) is in the building just ahead of and beyond his Kanz. My objective (a golden demon) is more or less straight opposite his and in the open but it's obscured by a building.

Turn One:
Orks: Baffled by the lack of visible enemy, Thrakka lumbers forward and his host follows. Ben runs in the shooting phase after I remind him to and he bemoans the lack of suitable targets. Next time he says he will bring Gretchin for a bit of early target practise.


The Boyz on his left flank advancing into brilliant sunlight. Hopefully the increased photosynthesis will not cause them to increase in size before the game ends.


You can see my objective marker clearly here as well as his rather nicely painted rusting Kanz in the middle of his line. Note his Lootaz have line of sight to my objective. Ben kept the weirdboy hanging back and I wasn't quite sure why.

Paladins: Draigo's elite wait and allow the vegetables to vegetate. Perhaps they will grow roots and be unable to advance further.

Turn Two:

Orks: The vegetables lumber forward grumbling about lack of targets.









Paladins: I roll for reserves and only Draigo and his squad come on. Bah! I'd rather have had the stormraven and its payload. Still, we shall see... Deepstriking location gave me some pause for thought. Normally i favour a bold approach to wargames decisions (because if rules don't tend to favour bold (as opposed to reckless) decisions over cautious ones then they're crap rules). But Ben's actually covered the board quite well and has limited my options if I don't want to face a possible mishap by scattering into his troops or risk getting multi-assaulted by Thrakka and another unit. I plump for arriving in the corner of the building just to my left of my objective marker, becaus edeepstriking into terrain holds little fear for paladins. In the event, I scatter 'southeast' 12 inches and end up here (ignore the stray paladin to the right of the squad, he's part of the reserves):



My shooting inflict 3 wounds on Thrakka's Nobz. Ha ha. But now we must prepare to weather the storm of return fire...

Turn 3

Orks: Thrakka, in his illiterate orkish retardese, declares a Waagh! This surprised me a bit as only Thrakka and his Nobz were anywhere near Draigo's squad. But on reflection I think it was probably wise of Ben to do this now as next turn the stormraven would likely arrive and I'd get the charge after considerable shooting...

So the orks move and either fleet or shoot. Everything within range opens up on Draigo's small band of paladins. That's all the lootaz, the tank bustaz, and the three Kanz. Result? One wounded paladin, the ork fire being both wildly inaccurate and remarkably unable to penetrate terminator armour.

Now the moment of truth... is Thrakka within assault range?


Yes! Only just, but a good piece of distance judging and bold decision making from Ben when he declared the Waagh!

Now there ensues bloody carnage. Draigo and the squad cast hammerhand but only one 'goes off'. This was a mistake on my part, only Draigo should have done so, the squad should have waited and used their force weapon activation. Draigo insta kills a Nob. The paladins and a couple of the Nobz strike at initiative 4. I roll terribly and inflict only 2 more wounds, but don't lose any men. Initiative one, my hammer kills 3 more Nobz but the power claws kill all my paladins. I took 9 wounds but inflicted 10, winning the combat despite the loss of the entire squad!

Draigo fights on alone!



Will the Librarian's squad arrive in the nick of time to save Draigo?

Paladins' turn coming up...

Reserve roll succeeds and the stormraven comes on, unloads the dreadnought, librarian and squad. It fires all its mindstrikes at the Weirdboy and his squad but only two hit, reducing the psyker to 2 wounds and removing a couple of boyz. Its plasma fires at the tank bustaz but to no effect. The dreadnought fires at the boyz who are rushing to help Thrakka, catching one with his incinerator and dropping another two with his psycannon. Ha ha.



Assault! The Librarian and his squad surround the Nobz who are surrounding Draigo. It's a sort of Ork sandwich - very vegetarian. Draigo casts hammerhand to boost his own attacks, the Librarian casts Might and Hammerhand. All attacks at S6 and the squad can activate their force weapons. Draigo and the Librarian attack Thrakka to no avail thanks to his 2++, the squad attack the Nobz, inflict 8 wounds, activate force weapons and wipe them. Ha ha. Thrakka, dribbling with rage, attacks Draigo but inflicts only 2 wounds, both of which are saved. He loses combat by 9 and fails two armour saves. Ha ha. Now he is surrounded!

Turn Four:

Orks: The weirdboy's squad advances (Ben has something specific in mind). The Kanz advance. The rather dubiously red-lederhosen attired boyz squad moves to help Thrakka.



Shooting. Everything that can (Kanz, Lootaz, Tank Bustaz) shoots at the stormraven which will get no cover save! Librarian casts sanctuary to give it 6+! Result... one stunned stormraven. Ha ha. Orkz shooting fails horribly once more.

Assault. The Boyz charge to help Thrakka! Sanctuary! They fail to make contact and lose 2 of their number to dangerous terrain, and a wound on the Boss commanding. Ha ha. In the ensuing combat, Thrakka is slain by Draigo without the paladins having to soil their weapons with vegetable stains. Consolidate forwards!

A brilliant flash illuminates the battlefield, dazzling the orks and making the photo somewwhat less distinct than I would have liked. But you get the idea, I think.



Things now not looking so jolly for the Orks... but I have to make sure I hold the demon objective and contest his in order to win... and he still has shots in the locker (however inaccurate they may be. But I have a turn before he can reply...

Paladins turn: The venerable dreadnought moves 6" through the crater towards the mob of boyz. I toy with flat-outing the stormraven forward to contest the ork objective this turn but decide that I can do it next turn and instead move 12" sideways to shoot at his Kans with my multi-melta and his Tank Bustaz with my plasma. Big mistake. I forgot that boldness always pays. Or rather I didn't forget but chose to ignore the voice of experience...



Shooting, I make no dent on his Kanz and miss his Tank Bustaz. Punishment for not having been bold. Between them, the rest of my forces overwhelm the red lederhosened boyz with a torrent of fire. Only the boss remains.



A combined assault by dreadnought and librarian's squad eliminated the boss with disdainful ease and I consolidate back towards the objective and cover.


Another brilliant flash of light marks the end of the turn!

Turn Five:

Orks: The Kans move up, not quite near enough to contest, but the game may go on for another two turns yet...

In shooting, the weirdboy manages to get off his psychic attack against the Librarian despite the presence of the Dreadnought and his Greater Aegis. I fail to hood. We roll off. The Librarian is turned into a squig!



In other news, his Lootaz finally do something useful and immobilise my stormraven. That is why I should have moved ity to contest last turn! i'd have got a 4+ cover save, which might not have saved it from 3 penetrations and a glance, but might have done. oh well...



Position at the end of Ben's turn 5 is this:



He holds one objective. I can easily hold one in my turn. But if the game continues, he can contest it with his Kanz and possibly with the weirdboyz squad if they leg it and get a good charge (actually i don't think they would have been able to in hindsight, looking at the photos, but at the time I wasn't so sure).

Paladins' turn:

I decide I must eliminate the Kanz. that would have been really easy had the Librarian not been a squig, but will be harder now with no Might of Titan.

I move Draigo to join the squad.



And the dreadnought to deal with the weirdboy and his mob.



the squig heads towards the ork objective (possibly becasue it too is a squig, who knows?)

Shooting. The dreadnought inflicts heavy casualties on the Weirdboyz mob. The vegetables flee screaming and soiling themselves.



Draigo's squad's psycannon inflict mass penetrations on the Kanz! 6 in total! The result is one loses two weapons and another one. Bah!

The immobilised stormraven can still see the Tank Bustaz, shoots them with everything it has, inflicts two wounds with plasma and the vegetables fail morale and flee! Now his objective is not held!



Assault:

At this point if I stand fast, I will win 1-0 if the game ends. But next turn, if the game continues, he can move his remaining boyz up to hold his objective and his kanz can contest unless they're destroyed. In hindsight I should probably have not assaulted his kanz but I was reasonably confident of wiping them out and then being able to consolidate back to my objective.

Was this wise?

My assault, powered by Hammerhand, results in two Kanz destroyed in almighty explosions. The third, though crippled, is still in the fight.



We roll to ssee if the game ends and it does.

Nobody holds any objectives. Draw.

I think orks will win. Because orks duz Kill krush an' destroy!

Yea, I'm going with woodbok on this one. Not enough dakka to take on that ork list

will like to see how this plays out.

Paladins should win if he knows what he is doing.

I think Orks will win if they know what they're doing.

Thanks for the comments so far.

Now complete up to the end of turn two with Draigo's brave boys about to weather a veritable storm of hideously inaccurate BS2 fire.

Hmm. I wonder if you'd Outflanked if he'd have deployed as he did. If so you could possibly have moved/assaulted your way to the objectives over 3-4 turns.. Mind you, Draigo would then have been deepsrtiking by himself which against that ork list may not have ended well. As an aside, what was your Grand Strategy?

I think that Draigo will go absolutely bananas, slaughtering the whole ork army, ripping Ghazzys head off only using bare hands, and then lighting an big bonfire around his corpse. Then he will use the burned corpse to write an demonic symbol to the ground, open up an warp rift and then continue slaughtering demons for the pleasure of Matt Ward, thanks to giving him such an OP fluff.

Then he will use the burned corpse to write an demonic symbol to the ground, open up an warp rift and then continue slaughtering demons for the pleasure of Matt Ward, thanks to giving him such an OP fluff

To me, it feels more like he took the basis for the fluff from an anime/manga called "Hellsing" where in evil (chaos) can only be defeated by mortals. If you are running around immortal and can't be hurt (i.e. turned into a monster), you can't hurt other monsters ( chaos)...

So while Drago appears to be all powerful in the warp, he's not actually destroying anything as it's all reknit after he moves on so as long as he's impervious to the warp, he also cannot affect the warp back in a meaningful way. He'll have to be a mortal to be able to truely defeat it. (see Father Anderson vs Alucard) I apologize for taking thread off track but it's just random lore that popped into my head XD

in other news, I predict that drago will kill alot of orcs before he rolls double 1's and eats power claw to face! rawr!

sudojoe wrote:To me, it feels more like he took the basis for the fluff from an anime/manga called "Hellsing" where in evil (chaos) can only be defeated by mortals. If you are running around immortal and can't be hurt (i.e. turned into a monster), you can't hurt other monsters ( chaos)...

I have watched Hellsing and I actually agree with you. My comment before was more like a joke, but seriously thinking Draigo isnt doing a lot in warp. Every singel demon he kills, an another comes to take its place.

(sorry for taking taking the thread to another subject matter) Please people, vote for Draigo, the Demigod of of awesomness!

More up.

To Epic chaos dude. Your avatar pic actually reminded me of hellsing to bring up that bit of thought

anyways, come on power claws, go for the eyes! Almost got him! He's down to 1 man!

And finished. Thanks for looking, reading, voting and commenting.

I didnt think you could assault out of a stormraven that just deep struck?

It came in from my table edge. I only deepstruck Draigo's squad. in general I think deepstriking is for losers...

Blood and Slaughter wrote:It came in from my table edge. I only deepstruck Draigo's squad. in general I think deepstriking is for losers...

Ah, I didnt realize he was storming up the board that quickly, my bad

No worries.

he began 12" on.

First turn moved about 7" combined slow and purposeful plus running.

19"

Second turn another 9".

28"

Third turn, Draigo's squad are about 10" from my edge.

he has 12" to make with move+run+charge, which his Waagh allowed him to make with about an inch to spare.

Hrm... can the librarian squig contest?

Most certainly. He is a unit under my control. In the event he didn't need to but he certainly could. why not?

He certainly could contest - its a unit.

When you cast sanctuary you said they didnt make contact - i assume that meant the charge failed thorugh Diff Terrain rolls? If that happens no models actually move,meaning you dont take dangerous terrain.

Do you normally scout / outflank paladins? Would have thought that then having draigo go it alone / joining with the other paladins and making then walk wouldnt be worth it?

I didn't realise that about Sanctuary, thanks, Now you mention it, it makes sense as failed assaulters don't move. In the event, it made no odds as in the following turn's assault I dealt more than enough wounds to have eradicated those squad members not present due to rolling 1s.

In this game it would actually, as it turned out, have been better for Draigo and chums to have walked on rather than deep struck, and I didn't Outflank because of the positioning of the objectives - though I think if I had, I might have been able to move/assault my way across the table not too badly, removing his Lootaz, say on the turn of entry (with careful positioning getting one assaulting model 12" in, consolidating forward d6", then moving 6", possibly assaulting his boyz or kans depending on what they did, leaving his objective within striking distance. but if I'd come in the other side, the 'chaining' might not have worked quite so well.

At 1500 points I often Outflank one paladin unit and deepstrike Draigo, but it does depend on the specific mission and within that the positioning of and how many objectives there are. I do sometimes deepstrike Draigo and Paladins, and won a spectaular success against Tau as a result of doing so, but on the whole I think Outflanking is actually less chancy than deepstriking and gives you a better chance of objective grabbing and/or eliminating enemy units than walking on. Once only Draigo came in, turn 3 and the other units didn't arrive until turn 5! Due to targeting difficulties and Draigo's extreme durability, he survived (and I ended winning 2-0 on kill points). That was a somewhat unlikely game though - it's long odds against that happening again.

Nice rep
I have no real interest in GK's so I don't know what its called, but the dude with the red banner is very well painted!

Nice job. IMO, the paladins should have tried to activate their force weapons rather than use hammerhand against gazzy and the nobs.

I took 9 wounds but inflicted 10, winning the combat despite the loss of the entire squad!

My Nobz do this same thing every goddamn time they get anywhere near a proper combat unit: massacre the unit, "lose" combat, and get run down by whatever character was leading the enemy. It's really bloody annoying.

TechMarine1 wrote:Nice job. IMO, the paladins should have tried to activate their force weapons rather than use hammerhand against gazzy and the nobs.

Yes, it was a big mistake to cast hammerhand instead of going for the force weapon kill.

My Nobz do this same thing every goddamn time they get anywhere near a proper combat unit: massacre the unit, "lose" combat, and get run down by whatever character was leading the enemy. It's really bloody annoying.

I confess I could hardly stop laughing when I realised I'd won the combat and Ben could scarely believe it either, though he took it in good spirits. He got his revenge though with the squig trick on the Librarian - I don't think he realised until too late that the Librarian is actually a much bigger threat than Draigo, hence he went for Draigo with Thrakka rather then the Librarian.

ah always liked battlereports with pictures. im a fan of gk and Orks. draw suits me ^^

Well that was a good read, at least I know orks can still potentially win games(this battle report is even better to read if you have the Russian theme from call of duty 5 on IMHO...).

I sense someone really doesnt like orks...

Who me? I love vegetables. They're good for you.