Waaagh! Warbiker
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So a few months ago I got roped into coming to Throne of Skulls. I generally avoid tournaments as I don't like arguments; I want to have fun, not quibble over RAW.
My regular list uses FW stuff so I had to replace some things, although I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to my DeffWing (if it's not a battle wagon or in mega armour, it's not used), I thought I'd make it a bit more competitive.
I was using:
2 x Warboss, Mega Armour, Bosspole, Cybork.
2 x 6 Meganobs in Battle Wagons with 2 Big Shootas, RPJ, Ram, Riggers, Armour Plates.
2 x 10 Lootas
2 x Battle Wagons with 4 Big Shootas and Armour Plates.
Off I went in the snow (as in barely drivable until the motorway, and that was dodgy) with my DE player friend and his vile DE/Panzee jetbike list. After much buggaring about we got up there and I crashed at a mates house.
Still half sleep deprived we drove over to WHW in the morning for fun (?) and games (obviously).
I think there was about 60 tables, so 120 players. Frankly I was barely hoping for a single win, I didn't really consider my list viable at all.
Game 1.
Mission: Emperor's Will.
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil.
Opponent: Necrons.
He had:
Spider walker thing with the 2 shot multi-melta of what I hit gets screwed.
10 Immortals with Overlord.
Two big units of warriors, one with the teleporting dude.
Two skimmers with more tesla than is really necessary.
Death ray flier.
Three wraiths.
Some scarabs.
I placed the meganob wagons on one flank and the loota wagons in the middle and the other flank.
His warriors stood at the back on the objective with the immortals, the vehicles at the front.
Turn 1:
He moved up the walker and skimmers with the wraiths running ahead. The walker taking a hull point from one of the wagons. Nothing much moved, the infantry camping the objective.
I gave things the dakka. It didn't go that well, dropping only a few hull points on the vehicles and killing a wraith.
Turn 2:
The croissant of doom turned up and laser beamed three of the wagons. Only one actually died (a loota wagon), one lost another hull point and the other was immobilised.
The lootas in the other wagon ate the croissant. Another wraith dropped to shoota fire. I think the spider took a hull point. A scarab base died.
Turn 3:
The remaining wraith kills a meganob wagon and the other one is immobilised by the spider, which was then assaulted by the scarabs (I think the guy got how scarabs work wrong, he removed 9 points of armour and then same time made 20 penetrating hits against it in the same assault phase).
The scarabs were assaulted by the meganobs, as was the wraith, both died.
Turn 4:
Cue tesla dakka of silliness against my warlord's mob, several meganobs die.
The spider is assaulted and destroyed for it's insolence. A tesla skimmer is finally brought down by the lootas.
Turn 5:
Teleport dude brings his squad over to flamer of death the warlord's mob, few remain now. More tesla action leaves the warlord the only member of his mob left.
The other meganob mob charges the new arrivals and slaps them silly, unable to run them down they start walking back, teleport dude dies in a challenge though.
Warlord calls a Waaagh! to pull off a 11" charge and challenge the overlord. Mind shackle scarabs makes him punch himself in the face.
Turn 6:
More dakka comes my way in general, a couple of meganobs drop.
Stranded miles from my home objective the remaining warboss and meganobs assault the retreating warriors for good measure.
Final score: 5 - 1 to him (a loota wagon had been rolling up a flank over the last few turns to grab line breaker).
I was far FAR too cautious and scared of all the gauss weapons killing the wagons that I left myself too long to get across to his objectives. Especially as the wagons died anyway, which was going to happen in all likeliness anyway. This resulted in a fire fight I was probably never going to win. Abandoning my home objective only made things worse. If I had camped it I would have had to take some of the secondary objectives, but I split my fire too much in the first turn, giving him first blood.
I needed to be far more aggressive with the meganobs, ignoring opportunities to shoot. Racing up as fast as possible and not caring if the wagons died.
Game 2.
Mission: Purify the Alien.
Deployment: Dawn of War.
Opponent: Chaos Marines.
He had:
Typhus.
3 x 20 zombies.
2 Maulerfiends.
3 Helldrakes - 2 flamer, one auto cannon.
I placed one loota wagon in the centre, the meganob wagons to the right and the second loota wagon on the right flank.
Two of the zombie squads hid on his right flank, Typhus and the third in the centre and the maulerfiends behind a building on his left.
This was a bit of a blurr, so I'm not 100% on what happened in which turn, but roughly in order.
Turn 1:
I think he seized the initiative, but I'm not sure.
A Loota wagon moved to one side and fired into one of the maulers, striping a couple of hull points. One point was regenerated.
The rest of the army dropped a few zombies from Typhus' squad. These moved up to the edge of the terrain they were in.
I didn't realise the Maulers could move 12", probably the main mistake of the game. They both rushed up, one towards the loota wagon on the flank.
Turn 2:
At this point my lootas began to fail me, the worst part being that only by a small margin. The maulerfiend that had healed itself took a single hull point (Which to add insult to injury I think was got back later).
A helldrake came on and buzzed a loota wagon, doing a glance. I put several hits on it, two glancing and a pen, one glance was saved, the pen was a shaken, which it ignored (I think).
Turn 3:
My Warlord and his mob charged the zombies and Typhus. In the challenge the force weapon did for the warboss, and Typhus passed all the saves put on him. Many zombies died to the meganobs so I won the combat. A couple of hull points were taken from the helldrake.
The loota wagon on the flank was munched by the mauler, six lootas dying in the explosion. The meganobs did enough damage to put about five or six wounds on Typhus. He passed enough to be left on a single wound, then rolled a six for his weapon and wiped out the meganobs. The other meganob unit assaulted the other mauler, loosing a few before tearing it apart.
The other helldrakes arrived and did a bit more damage to the remaining loota wagon.
Turn 4 and maybe 5:
The meganobs failed a charge on the other mauler, which went on to kill another wagon. A helldrake was finally killed off by lootas before another of their number killed their wagon too, they were then gunned down, as was the small number of lootas remaining from the other mob.
The meganobs failed a charge on the remaining mauler, which went to kill the final wagon, they failed to assault it again and then it came back to finish them off.
Final Score: 13 - 4.
This was going OK until the dice left me. As mentioned, everything was failed by a small margin; Calling a Waaagh! and failing a 5" charge, doing just one too few hull points/hits, him passing just enough saves. It all added up until my force was broken completely, the second mauler going on a rampage in the final turns.
Game 3:
Mission: Crusade I think.
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil.
Opponent: DeathWing.
She had:
Belial.
5 DeathWing Knights.
2 x 5 Termis.
Landraider.
Tactical squad.
Devastator squad.
Aegis Defence Line with Quadgun.
She placed the objectives in my deployment zone and the centre, all spread about, with one near the front of her deployment zone. Obviously planning to deep strike down, splitting my focus or force me to deal with them one unit a time within the turn limit. I only had power klaws to deal with the raider, which meant if I assaulted it, I would get counter charged.
Except that wasn't what happened.
It quickly became clear that she was very inexperienced, as in probably less than 10 games of 40k.
The defence line went at the front with the devastators, the tacticals behind in a building with the objective.
One unit of termis went on one flank, with the raider behind and the other termis near that. Belial and the knights in reserve.
My Warlord trait was Outflank, so only one meganob wagon was deployed, the loota wagons near the back.
Turns 1-3:
Dakka.
I felt horrible as I poured big shootas, twin-linked shootas and lootas into the advancing termis. The empty raider slowly rolled up one flank, trying to kill the loota wagons with no success other than a hull point. The meganob wagon rolled up through some terrain towards the defence line.
Belial came down on turn three. I shot a few of them down and then failed a charge against the devastators whcih I had hoped to spring board off to avoid a charge from the new arrivals. I think they then failed a charge and then I failed another one against the tactical squad.
Some bad rolls saw many of the meganobs die including the warboss, leaving two wounded. The remaining knights charged, finishing them off.
Turn 4-5:
My warlord turned up and along with the rest of the army, gunned down Belial's squad, leaving the guy on a single wound. The warlord charged with predictable results. The meganobs charged the tacticals to take the objective. Turn five was my whole army firing at the five man devastators.
Final Score: 6 - 0
I did feel a little guilty about the game, though I tried not to be nasty and have a fun time and I think she did too.
Game 4:
Mission: The Scouring.
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil.
Opponent: Imperial Guard.
The Scouring. Against infantry blob guard. He also had a vendetta with some vets in (not melta though oddly enough, 'nades).
He rolled auto-nightfight for his warlord trait and claimed that meant he could choose for it to be automatically NOT nightfight. Cue argument.
So it was going to be one of those games. The reason I don't go to tournaments.
I couldn't be arsed getting into a proper row, said **** it and let it slide.
I rolled Furious Charge in the enemy deployment zone, wonderful.
He deployed his blobs back in his deployment zone, with the lascannon team in the middle in some woods.
The meganob wagons set up on one flank behind a building, the loota wagons sat just outside lascannon range, one in the middle, one behind a big rock pile.
The four point objective was the one in my backfield that one of the loota wagons was sitting on, the ones in his deployment zone were 2 and 3.
Turn 1:
Nightfighting would not have helped, the first volleys did nothing. Nothing moved of course.
Learning my lesson from the first game, the meganob wagons raced for the other end of the board. The Lootas moved up slightly and unloaded into the lascannon team, killing all but one.
Turn 2:
The vendetta turned up and tried to take down one of the loota wagons but the rocks saved it or did nothing. A few hull points and a big shoota was taken off one of the meganob wagons.
The loota wagons kill off the last lascannon and the passengers open up into the vendetta. He chooses to jink, even though I only did a single hull point.
The wagons continue to race forward. The warlord's mob jumps out of their wagon and multi charges a bunch of guard squads butchering many of then, the rest fleeing.
Turn 3:
He manages to kill one wagon with mass rockets on the near-dead wagon. The meganobs jump out into a terrain piece with an objective in it. Some of his squad rally, some run off the board. He unloads quite a lot into the meganobs squad, but just can't force enough saves to really make a dent.
The vendetta dies along with most of the passengers; the survivors start running. A few guardsmen die to some dakka from the wagons. The other meganob unit tries to get into the warlord's wagon but roll too low, so they shoot some guardsmen instead.
The warlord charges again, sending more squads running off the board including his warlord. The meganobs consolidate back on to the objective the guardsmen used to be occupying.
Turn 4:
With essentially half his army and one flank in tatters or simply destroyed, the meganobs, though they take a pounding, survive, though many are now wounded (rotating unwounded models to the front of the unit).
The meganobs get into the wagon and start driving for the second objective in his deployment zone. Dakka and charges finishes off one flank and starts digging into the other.
I ask if I can go for a quick smoke before turn five, but he calls it there. A wagon and a single meganob are dead for the loss of over half his force including his important units like the lascannons, vendetta, and warlord. I'm sitting on one objective with an untouched mob baring down on another.
Final Score:
End of Turn 4: 6 - 0 (2 point objective, first blood, warlord, linebreaker and fast attack)
Probable at end of game: 9 - 0 (2 & 3 point objective, first blood, warlord, linebreaker and fast attack)
If I am fair to him, aside from the first moment about nightfighting, he was a good guy and the game went very smoothly. Against other vehicle armies he might have done better, but without the lascannons stopping a wall of AV14 was always going to be tough, especially with only three. A single vendetta gave me nothing else to focus on. Hammer and Anvil seemed to suit him, as did the scouring, but it was too static and reliant on a single unit grabbing back-field objectives and people being unable to weather the storm for the other ones.
Game 5:
Mission: Big Guns Never Tire.
Deployment: Dawn of War.
Opponent: Space Marines.
He had:
Tricked out Biker Captain and Biker Command Squad.
Three units of Bikers, two with meltaguns and multimelta attack bikes, one with plasma guns.
Two Storm Talons.
I placed the two loota wagons in the centre and the meganob wagons to the right to go for the objective in his deployment zone (the other two were in terrain pieces in the centre).
He put the plasma squad behind a building opposite my meganobs near the objective. The rest went on his right flank.
Turn 1:
The meganob wagons advanced while the loota wagons opened up on the closest bike squad, dropping a few.
He advanced the bikes towards the loota wagons.
Turn 2:
Dakka fell slightly short of giving me first blood, leaving a wounded attack bike.
Both Storm Talons turned up and each one flew in behind each of the meganob wagons. Both lost a few hull points, were stunned and immobilised. The plasma squad pulled round to target the meganobs that didn't appear. The other bike continued to advance towards the loota wagons.
Turn 3:
Dakka from the loota wagons (which had backed off as far as possible) took down one of the talons and forced the other to jink. The meganobs assaulted the plasma squad (with overwatch wounding the warboss twice) and the command squad. The plasma squad was wiped out with the storm shields saving the others from too much damage, they fell back and the warlord's mob consolidated on to one of the objectives.
The jinking talon failed to hurt the loota wagon it targeted. The bikes shot the meganobs, wounding one and killing another. The command squad failed a charge on a loota wagon.
Turn 4:
The warlord and his mob charged the remaining bike squad and killed them, again consolidating on to the objective. The other talon was brought down. The other meganob mob shuffled towards the other objective in the centre of the table.
The command squad finally got to charge the loota wagons, melta bombing both (totally against the rules as you can't split ICs from a unit in the assault phase, I don't think captains can split from a command squad and multiple charges don't let you charge units that far apart, I was feeling sorry for him, so i let it slide). One explosion killed two lootas, the other one killed none (didn't even have to take a save). The last, wounded attack bike ran behind a building.
Turn 5:
The meganobs again shuffled towards the objective. The lootas shot at the command squad and then they were charged. My warlord killed his and I got a extra point for it from my trait.
Final Score: 9 - 2
The guiltiest part of this game was the rolls for the lootas. Only about three or four rolls in the whole game were less than three. Not that they could hit for toffee, but when they did hit on average, they were doing bad things.
I don't think it would have gone a different way though. He might have got first blood if the talons didn't mes up, but he didn't have the staying power or the numbers to deal with the ranged firepower and combat potential I was bringing. The tooled up command squad probably did him no favours at all.
I was completely shocked at this point. I had gone into this hoping for a single win and ended up with three. If I had known about how to use my list better and knew a few other bits about the different armies I faced then there could have been the possibility to win all five (though the first two were always going to be a lot tougher than the others).
In all it was actually a lot of fun. I was one of six ork players and with three wins I thought I might have a shot at best ork player, the armies I had seen around didn't seem too powerful at first glance. As it happened, another guy (who also one best army) won it with four wins and a bucket of favourite game awards, getting 17 points.
In fact there was one ork player who won all his games, but lost out on the top ork spot by one point.
I didn't come last though, with some other person getting two wins. I ended up with 10 points.
Orks came second in average army score in the end, only beaten by Chaos Daemons.
My friend that I came up with got overall DE player with 16 points.
The overall winner?
The guy I played in the second round. He beat the top ork player by a single point (18).
There was another player with 18 points, but had a lower margin of victory.
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