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2014/02/04 01:52:58
Subject: Revdar vs Orks with a kill bursta (1750pts) Completed!!
Helping practice for a friend who is going to be in the valentines day massacre I'm putting on. He wanted to get some practice in against the big bad revenant titan, figuring that would be the worst that he would see. I tried the basic list JY2 wrote up not to long ago, and adapted my own with some additional bits I like. I'm a huge fan of artillery, even when the eldar feel they have to be mobile.
So lists to the best of my memory for the game.
Eldar:
HQ Warlord trait unused
Farseer on jet bike, laughing mantle, super spirit stones
Powers: Guide, Forewarning, Terrify.
Troops
4x jet bikes (3)
Fast attack
Night wing
Heavy
War walkers with scatter lasers (2)
Shadow weavers (3)
LoW Revenant
Fortification
Warp field generator (3)
Orks:
HQ Warlord trait was useless.
Warboss on a bike with a pole, and power klaw.
Big mek w/some toy or other
Elite?
Burna boys (5) plus three meks?
Lootas (11)
Fast attack
Grot bomb launchas (3)
Heavy
Kannons w/ lots of grots (3)
Kannons w/more grots (3)
LoW Kill bursta w/goodies
Fortification
Orkshield landing pad.
Missions are:
Primary: Emperors will
Secondary: Big guns never tire three objectives
Tertiary: Heavy units end the game in opponents depolyment zone.
deployment: Vanguard strike
no night fighting to start.
So, initial thoughts: When I tried out the JY2 army list against my TAC eldar list I found that the army was played to close to the warp field generator. The need to stay within the protective bubble negated a lot of the mobility that the eldar possess. Also, used the revenant in a very defensive manner, staying out of reach of anybody who could cause damage. This time I planned on being much more aggressive. Get the titan into a position where it can charge in and stomp on people every turn. With a 36" jump that shouldn't be too hard. The massively large number of orks should also make scattering nearly a non-issue. My primary goal will be to take out his D weapon in the kill bursta, then follow that up with the heavy weapons hiding on the sky shield landing pad. Taking out the war boss will be tertiary to those two goals. The titan can feel confidant in the limited number of threats on the board, and how well my other units should be able to take out the masses of ork infantry.
The shadow weavers will plan on setting up on and behind the warp field generator, and claim a big guns never tire objective. Jetbikes will come in to mop up any orks in my area, and claim objectives where they can. Revenant will smash everything else. Simple battle plan.
Now as to running these Lord of War armies at tournament level points is quite a challenge. I believe these super powerful titans in particular create to much of an imbalance in the force organization. There just isn't enough supporting the titan to pull out a win. As the game goes on and as your opponents become smarter about D weapons, there are diminishing returns to what is a 900 point investment. Another 100 in the void shields to protect it that first turn. This is one of the reasons that I'm running the tourney with all the escalation and forgeworld rules allowed. I'm a firm believer that an equal distribution of points in your force can cause equal to or more damage to an enemy.
I believe the ork plan prior to the game consisted of:
Kill bursta should survive a turn or two, move forward with the meks fixing hull points (up to four a turn.) while the burnas inside toast any troops or infantry they can get their hands on. Big gun shoots the big target. War boss wants to get in close combat with the titan and eventually the farseer. Klaw attacks should damage the titan pretty quickly, and enough boyz in the squad to soak up smash hits. Sky shield landing platform creates two levels to hide units between, spreading out the maximum potential of damage, and to hide from the shadow weavers.
Deployment
Spoiler:
While the Orks won the roll off, they decided to let the eldar go first, this way they would have the last turn effect when it came time to claim objectives. As the eldar player, I was plenty happy with this. Allows me to get off my psychic powers, move the revenant and take out his most dangerous units before they can do anything if all goes well. Warp field generator was placed far enough out to give the revenant protection should the orks seize the initiative, and at the same time as far away as possible, so the orks had to travel across lots of open terrain. Revenant was set up centrally located, but with some line of sight blocking cover again for that touch more protection. Shadow weavers claimed the big guns objective, scatter walkers over by the emperor will objective with lots of cover, and the farseer placed with good range for casting fun.
Orks deployed in a great big line as you would normally expect, however he used the multi level ruin terrain very well, spreading one of his back up units between three different levels in one piece, and the grots were set up to hoof it into a multi-level ruin housing the third big guns objective. His kannons and lootas however were all on top of the sky shield.
Orks failed to seize the initiative, there is no night fight to start the game.
Turn one
Spoiler:
Eldar turn one:
Eldar start off with casting as able. Forewarning for the titan, he now has a 4+ invul to ad to his doughty defenses. Scatter walkers get guide to maximize their damage potential. Now the plan unfolds!
Scatter walkers peek out from behind their terrain to shoot at the warlords squad, the idea being to eat up those choppa orks on the front line. Revenant jumps over as close to the kill bursta as he can get, about 6 inches away. Farseer zips towards the same area, trying to get close enough to cast forewarning again without endangering himself.
Shadow weavers kill off a couple of grots manning the kill cannons as well as three lootas. Scatter lasers zap away six of the orks around his warboss. Trying to get cute the titan hits the kill bursta with one gun, the warboss with the second, and his missiles try to take out some grot bombas. Missiles do next to nothing, and the warboss uses six of his boys as meat shields from the D cannon. The kill bursta takes four hull points of damage between the three blasts that hit it. (one scatter aimed at the orks.)
The titan then charged the tank, over watch from those inside actually manage to hit the titan and cause a glance, but forewarning save nullified it. Hammer of wrath takes off another hull point. Two swings auto hit because he never moved, punch through the armor and cause a good sized explosion, the orks inside all burn alive, and the explosion being D hits the revenant itself taking off two hull points. First blood to Eldar.
Orks turn one:
Gretchin shifted forwards quickly into the near ruins and ran up into the multiple levels. War boss and his choppas surround the back side of the titan. A little shuffling by the artillery gretchen so a couple were under the skyshield. The orks at the front move forward a bit to bring as much fire power on the tip of the farseers jet bike. Lootas get some thirty shots at the shadow weavers along with the kannons. They took out all three of the warp fields for the generator, but it took all of their shots. The Grot bombas unloaded their three missiles at the shadow weavers, hoping to cause a test and have them run off the board. Two died, and they made their leadership. Numerous shots were fired at the farseer from a shoota squad, caused three wounds, and sure enough, he decided to let one of them get to him.
Shooting by the warboss on the rear armor of the revenant had no effect, so he charged in. His fellow choppa boyz did nothing, much like the revenant who ponderously swung and missed. Initiative step one, the warboss rolled his five dice. and a 5. His one oh so important hit did get past the holo field and punched a hull point off, but that was supposed to be a bit more effective. Stomp attack killed off the last of the choppa squad and left the warboss alone on his bike.
Summary:
Well this is how most people expected the revenant to do I would say, even with some bad luck, it took three hull points off, but killed off around 450 points single handed. In the mean time the larger portion of the ork fire power was barely able to take out the warp fields and two gunners on my artillery.
Turn two
Spoiler:
Eldar turn two started out with the arrival of the nightwing, and no jetbikes. Who needs an autarch.
The farseer castguide on the scatter walkers again, then discovering the charge for the revenant took him just out of forewarning range, kept the extra charge in case of a perils.. Terrify hit the gretchins hiding in the building to no avail, they passed their leadership easily. (This would be a surprising theme.) True movement began, nightwing, scatter walkers and the farseer all lined up on the warboss on a bike. I wanted to prevent him from being able to take another swing at the revenant. The scatter walkers also had a good field of fire on the shoota boyz if the nightwing took out the boss. Revenant jumped out of combat (I couldn't find an exact rule that allowed this in retrospect, we assumed that much like vehicles, super heavy walkers could not be tied down in combat.) Revenant landed in front of the sky shield landing pad and the shoota boyz.
Nightwing and farseer managed to put two out of three wounds on the warboss, which sadly required the scatter walkers to join in as well. Six wounds were laid on the boss, and he made five of them, falling to the last one. Warlord to Eldar. Shadow weavers lobbed blasts at the artillery again and failed to get any wounds to stick. Now the big hitter swung. All four D blasts were plastered on top of the sky shield, while the missiles hit the orks directly in front of him. Scatter rolls went poorly and one went off the board, one caused two hits, and last two dumped eight hits on a single kannon squad. A single surviving runt herd from one kannon squad. No kannons, and two dead gretchin in the other, and one more dead loota. Both Kannon squads passed their leadership and loved it. Missiles killed one ork. The revenant then tripped and failed his 7" charge. (Another recurring theme.)
Orks turn two
Without grot bombs to launch, the launchas now became fast, mobile cover. They lined up along the skyshield and waited for a target of opportunity while blocking line of sight to half of those hiding beneath the platform.
The artillery gretchins with no cannons hid in this dark space, while the single runt herd hung out above them. Both of these units were now claiming the big guns objective at the skyshield. Lootas and various others took aim at the nightwing, throwing enough hits at it that I Jinked for the super cover save. One hull point was lost any way, and now it was snap firing. Any orks on a single level spread out to be less of a blast target and take up more space.
Summary:
At this point it really seemed like the ork force was neutered and it was just a matter of time before the revenant would wipe them all out and the game would be over. There was some slight consideration of calling it here, but that would have been un-orky.
Turn three
Spoiler:
Eldar turn three
Two biker squads came in from reserve, and set up to fire upon the gretchin in the building claiming the important third big guns objective. Revenant jumped to the end of the ork line, planning on assaulting the large squad of shoota orks and stomping them with no consequences. Farseer attempted to cast guide on the scatter walkers and failed, attempted to terrify the gretchin and periled, negated by his third charge. It did however go off, but to no effect as the gretchin once more passed their leadership. Nightwing zipped towards the only undamaged ork squad, hoping to get a couple with snap shots.
Gretchin were chosen as a troop because they can go to ground without repercussion, and that's what he did as the farseer and two jet bike squads opened up, only killing two gretchin, no leadership test for them.
Night spinners whiffed on the lootas, causing only a couple of wounds, and both of them saved by the skyshield. Scatter walkers saved the eldar shooting phase by zapping 7 orks from the large scoring unit still spread out in the open. Nightwing missed all of its snap shots. The all importants Revenant! One primary targeted the lootas, one at the big shoota squad who were claiming the emperor's will primary, missiles at them as well. The lootas watched the first D blast smash the building behind them, and the second hit only two, one of them saved by his lucky blue hat. D weapon number two hit four orks only and managed to roll three ones, four missiles only managed a single additional kill. All told, the revenant killed two orks...and one loota.
That' was not worth 900 points. Assault, I only need a 5 to get those pesky orks...3 inches. That's it, another failed charge
Ork turn three
The whole goal at this point seems to be to soak up damage and hope the game ends early. Gretchin stand up, four lootas left glare angry at the revenant, and the back orks take aim at the nightwing. Shooting is under whelming as most of the lootas jam their guns, and those that don't miss totally. A couple of hits on the nightwing that don't get through it's paper armor, and that's it.
Summary
While I've had some terrible scatter rolls the past couple of turns, this is what I come up against with D weapon blasts, so many points are tied up in them, if you have poor scatter it massively effects your damage output. currently the way things are set up, the eldar are losing. They control their emperor's will, I don't have mine. I have one big guns, they have two. That will change as my reserves come in, but I still have to get him off of his objectives, or contest them in the final turns.
Turn four
Spoiler:
Eldar turn four
Last of the bikes come in, one takes control of the emperors will, while the other three line up on the gretchin once more.
Farseer guides the scatter walkers, terrifies the gretchin who fail their morale! However a runt herd punches one gretchin and they re-roll successfully. Revenant scoots forward to within an inch of the orks so he can try to charge again this turn. Scatter walkers move farther out into the open to strike at the emperors will orks. Nightwing lines up on the lootas to ensure their end.
Shooting goes faster every time it seems. A couple more gretchin and one of the three runtherds are gunned down by bikes, forcing a leadership test this time, but to no avail. (They hit the deck again.) Night spinners scatter 9 inches from the intended lootas and manage to plaster the heck out of the rail around the table. Scatter walkers manage to kill another five or six orks. Night wing and one pulsar take out the lootas to a man. The second pulsar and missiles on the revenant kill all but seven of the remaining orks.
They fail their leadership and run three inches, half an inch from the edge of the board. Due to all the deaths, my revenant fails to make in into close combat for the third turn in a row.
Ork turn four
Very short turn here, the running orks make their leadership and consolidate back around his emperors will objective. The grot bombas shuffle a little bit and take failed pots shots at the night wing. The orks who have been hiding in the building near his skyshield make their move, booking it out of the ruin and running as well to get into position to support the emperors will objective turn five. This leaves almost no shooting except the gretchins continuing to snap fire ineffectively.
Summary
I'm slowly making headway here, for half a turn I was winning the primary. Next turn I'm planning on running the first of my biker squads up to his objectives, plan on contesting both of his and giving him too many targets. Orks are still surviving, but the end seems inevitable.
Turn five
Spoiler:
Eldar turn five
Night fighting happened.
Farseer casts forewarning on the squad of bikes planning to book it to the emperors will on the ork side. Guide fails to go off, and terrify is useless against the seemingly fearless gretchin as they make their leadership once more. Jetbikes shuffle around and the war walkers continue to advance on mid table. Titan jumps back to where the ork tank used to be, from here he has a great view on most of the orks who just left the building. Being on one level I can take most of them out I expect. The night wing zips back to where it was turn three and lines up over the edge of the building at that same ork squad.
Jetbike shooting is effective, however the gretchin make yet another leadership test. In the assault move one of my bikers moves right next to the objective, however poor rolls for the other squad keeps them from sharing the contest.
Scatter walkers open up on the severely damaged ork shoota squad taking them down to two models left, despite all of them having shrouded.
Night spinners were outside of 36 inches and thus were useless from now on. Night wing shoots a couple of orks, but they make their cover saves. The revenant opens up with a fury unseen since turn one. twenty two wounds on the orks, however due to a lack of line of sight, a handful of them would survive.
Hard to believe it, but actually nine orks were out of sight.
Moving super fast the forewarned jetbikes zip into claiming range of the emperors will on the ork side.
Ork turn five
While they took over fifty percent casualties the ork mob didn't break and moved towards the now claiming eldar jet bikes. The two surviving orks from the other squad moved into contesting. The Grot bombas salt and peppered the titan zipping between his legs.
Shooting at the jet bikes that were contesting the gretchin big guns objective turned out to be ineffectual, one wound caused and he saved it. However on the other side, the two squads of orks opened up on their jet bike squad and killed one biker. While pondering the action of charging them however, they broke and ran back to the scatter walkers.
Summary
I didn't mention it in the eldar turn, but the initial shuffling of the grot bomb launchas created a bubble around the ork big guns never tire objective, preventing me from contesting that one. This seemed a pretty good turn for the eldar, however the large difference of being unable to make my leadership would prove to be the deciding factor. A third party rolled the turn dice and much to my chagrin, the game ended.
Primary: Emperors will. Orks 1, Eldar 1. Tie game there.
Secondary: Big guns never tire (3 objectives) Orks 1.5, Eldar 1.5+warlord and first blood. Eldar win the secondary!
Tertiary: Neither army had heavy units in oppositions deployment zone.
Turn six
Spoiler:
Not so much.
Turn Seven
Spoiler:
That's right out.
Summary of all
Spoiler:
That was all that survived of the orks right there. 9 in a shoota squad, 2 in another. 1 Kannon runt herd, and three grots from the other artillery unit, oh and those silly gretchin. In the world of what ifs a sixth or seventh turn would almost surely have ended the orks. I could have repositioned the Revenant to kill off the gretchin (largest squad left), sent more troops to knock out the last of his units. However, that didn't happen. If we had played it as it was supposed to be with the revenant unable to jump out of combat, the war boss would have likely put another handful of wounds on it, or I might not of been able to get over and destroy the kill bursta first turn. That in turn would have been able to kill my warlord, night spinners, or just done damage to revenant. A very different game and one I'm not sure I would have been able to even get a tie out of. I think the conclusion I'm coming to as far as lords of war in a tourney environment, less is more. I believe the fewer points you spend on your lord of war the better you will end up doing in the tourney. Imperial guard and orks probably have the easiest time with this. Bringing their D weapon tanks to counter 2+++invuls while at the same time keeping the ability to field a flexible and dangerous army around it. Were I competing in the tourney I'm putting on I would lean more towards a cobra or a lynx I believe, possibly a scorpion, but that would allow for a much more rounded force. I look forward to seeing how the great big point sinks do in the coming tourney. I believe those who limit themselves to around 600 points will have more success then those bringing the near 1000 points worth. Finally as to the sky shield versus the warp field generator, the way my opponent utilized the differing levels to protect him from my barrage weapons, and to split the damage potential of my D weapons really minimized the danger he faced. While you could do that to a lesser extent with the warp field generator, as a building with an AV, I can shoot down the shields and then D the building taking out anyone hanging out on the battlements as well as a chunk of my opponents army. The skyshield on the other hand can't be targeted.
I hope you all enjoyed my battle report, and I look forward to bringing on another one or two before the tourney, as well as an overview of some of the games at the tournament itself.
Cheers.
This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 2014/02/06 02:33:28
~seapheonix
2014/02/04 15:53:07
Subject: Revdar vs Orks with a kill bursta (1750pts)
I don't see this going well for the orks at all. In Escalation games, you really need Void Shield Generators to stand a chance at all, especially when going up against multiple-D's like the Revenant.
Take it easy on your friend. You don't want to discourage him for the SVDM.
BTW, did you know that there is a GT also called the SVDM in the East Coast?
I did not know that actually, however I wouldn't be surprised if that's where I got the name for the idea after seeing it mentioned on here at some point in the past. So much for my unique idea for a name....maybe not.
Got a couple of turns up, I'll ad some more tomorrow.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/02/05 06:07:35
~seapheonix
2014/02/05 10:36:12
Subject: Revdar vs Orks with a kill bursta (1750pts)
Finally someone who have actually played escalation. I have arrived at exactly the same conclusion as you. It is actually hard to make good tourney list with LoW, you will always have some giant weakness in your list. Looking forward to the report, Orks could use some more mobility options, but I think they have a decent chance. Get that warboss into the titan, and it is probably game over
That is their giant weakness, so if you played that he could not, that makes this tilt very much in the way of eldar. Also, no holo field in close combat.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/02/05 11:15:24
Pfft the titan is to fast to lock, you can screen him, and you need to come close, that means eating those D-blasts...
good luck in locking it...
You have ruled this galaxy for ten thousand years
Yet have little of account to show for your efforts
Order. Unity. Obedience.
We taught the galaxy these things
And we shall do so again.
4500 pts
2014/02/05 14:07:47
Subject: Revdar vs Orks with a kill bursta (1750pts)
Well, still a learning curve with the escalation rules. That was good placement for the warboss being next to his super heavy, and it would have tied me up at least one more time.
As to the holo-fields in close combat. We read through that a couple of times, and it says attacks that hit before rolling for armor pen. Not shooting attacks, but just attacks. So we played it as working for both.
~seapheonix
2014/02/05 14:16:21
Subject: Revdar vs Orks with a kill bursta (1750pts)
Valek wrote: Pfft the titan is to fast to lock, you can screen him, and you need to come close, that means eating those D-blasts...
good luck in locking it...
I´ve locked Revenants in combat in all but one game I´ve played against it. If you have enough fast threats, there is nowhere to run. That screen you are talking about comes at the expense of defense against something else like D, normal shooting, accuracy, clean up crew, scoring units, AA etc. For 900 points, the damage output is not really that insane if you have prepared for it and have appropriate terrain (ruins, los blockers)
I agree. The conclusion that I've come to in my limited two games worth of knowledge. Is that truly competitive armies in an escalation/stronghold environment will limit their expenditure of points to around 600 for those special units. More then that and you compromise the integrity of your army, and it makes it more difficult to have the flexibility to take on all the armies out there. With that kind of a mental points limit in mind, that makes the Orks, space marines, and imperial guard some of the strongest armies potentially.
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