Turn Four
I was angry now. We all know what that means: it means that it was time to start punching stuff.
The Lootawagon angled for a solid shot on the Penitent Engine, hoping to remove it from the game quickly before it could ruin my fun.
The Megaboss jumped down from the Lootawagon and started marching towards Celestine, keen on a Warlord vs Warlord duel of dueliness. He was particularly keen because her melee weapon is AP3.
As you can see in the background, the Shootaboyz started marching en masse towards the enemy. Apparently I also forgot that this isn't Warhammer Fantasy, and ranked them up...
Shooting mainly saw my Lootas once again fail to kill a vehicle, with the Penitent Engine surviving on one Hull Point. :(
No worries though, because I charged into the Battle Sisters squad, swarming over the silly little 'umies like it was 5th edition.
After rolling some dice, the shouting had somewhat died down, with four Sisters left; their Superior (equivalent of a Nob, only not as cool) remained only as a happy memory and as a smear of blood on the Nob's powerklaw.
THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE
Ahem.
David's Rhino raced forwards, planning on giving a lift to the Sisters next turn.
The forces of the Corpse God raced forward, now that the game had descended to a giant brawl.
Shooting from various places took two wounds off the Warboss, leaving him looking fragile. This so tempted David that he decided to try charging the Warboss with the Battle Conclave, seen in the top of this photograph, and unfortunately for him this gamble did not pay off.
Over in the giant brawl, the Penitent Engine barreled into the fight, even as my Orks battered down the remaining Sisters.
Thanks to the fact that he was still in base contact with a Sister when he swung, my Nob couldn't attack the Penitent Engine, and was forced instead to execute a T3 model. A very valuable use of his time and S8 weapon, no doubt.
Everyone clustered around the Penitent Engine, eager to watch it explode and shower flaming hot debris upon them.
At this point the scores were looking more exciting, with my Orks up to 9
VPs, but David had also advanced, so that his score was now 12
VPs. So close!
Turn Five
The Warboss decided to go hunt some squishy humans.
The Lootawagon (offscreen) shot and blew up the Chimaera. I did this for three reasons: firstly, because I wanted to have a chance to dakka down the infantry inside on my turn; secondly, because I was feeling vindictive; thirdly, because I had forgotten about the new damage table, and was hoping to make the vehicle explode in a glorious shower of hot flaming death that would scythe down the infantry nearby. But Lootas are AP4, so it merely got wrecked. Oh well.
The melees saw my Shootaboy Nob fail to kill the Penitent Engine, while it squished a boy or two. More excitingly, the Warboss charged the Battle Conclave, which was mainly notable for having no AP2 weapons, and then he had a gala time punching them to bits. Tiny little bits.
David began by making some moves that might look very strange; however, he had drawn a card to claim the objective next to the crater caused by my red Battlewagon, and he decided to snake his Infantry squad through the various melees and try to claim it using some run moves and the Go! Go! Go! order.
This turn saw the first particularly significant psychic power of the game being cast, which was Dominate upon my Shoota Boyz; this would force them to take a Leadership test before being allowed to move, shoot or declare charges.
Run, run, run little guardies...
This photo is very sad. You see that empty space at the bottom of the screen? That is where my Lootawagon was. I had turned it, for some reason, on my last turn; as a result it gave David's Exorcist a view of the side armour and was thus easy prey for his AP1 missiles that blew it sky-high. The surviving Lootas fled off the table.
Boo.
On the plus side, the Warboss battered down the Battle Conclave so hard that the surviving two Archo-Flagellants fled from him. Being big and fat he couldn't pursue, and so just stumbled after them a bit.
Meanwhile the Shoota Boyz finally managed to kill the Penitent Engine, and amused themselves by lining up to execute the Guard squad standing next to them. Har har!
The scores at this point remained fairly steady from last time I think, with mine still a few points behind David's.
Turn Six
It was my turn again, and I celebrated by shooting the crap out of the Guardsmen, having passed my Leadership check from Dominate. I would fail the check to charge though, which was pretty sad.
The Warboss did charge the Command Squad though, and punched them so hard they ended up eight inches away. I then stood him on top of a wall, because apparently I don't understand how the Line of Sight rules work. Sigh.
The Guardsmen managed to run onto this objective, claiming it for the Corpse God and his maggot minions. The Battle Conclave unit didn't rally, continuing to run away, but the Command Squad pulled up its socks and stood to fight again.
Meanwhile this Rhino had raced around the hills, bring more sisters to the fight against my Blue Blob of Doom. The Exorcist shot at my Warboss, but thanks to the Lucky Stikk and a cover save he managed to survive. Hooray!
Turn Seven
The Shoota Boyz shot up the Guardsladies some more, prompting them to flee. I kind of feel like I must have charged the survivor, but I don't remember. It wasn't hugely relevant, I guess.
The Warboss shot at the Command Squad, killing two to everyone's surprise...
...before killing the survivors in glorious melee.
And then he got shot.
Final Scores and Analysis
At the end of the game, I had scored 10
VPs to David's 15
VPs, putting him on a comfortable win.
This was a totally daft game, with two armies chosen more according to the Rule of Cool than anything else. I definitely made some terrible moves - the Deffkoptas in turn one was a senseless waste - and arguably I was far too hesitant with my large unit of Shootaboyz, who turned out to be devastating to David's army once I unleashed them. My game plan really depended on my Lootas killing David's vehicles in good order, and this they failed to do two times out of three; however, I wasted a turn shooting them at Celestine, when they could have finished off the Exorcist, which would itself kill them a few turns later. Saying that, Celestine was right there, and a single wound snuck through her 2+ would have insta-gibbed her, so you can see my thinking.
The Megaboss I placed with the Lootas to see what it was like to move and shoot with them, but I'm not sure that it made such a huge difference in the end; 6" here and there wasn't hugely useful. If he had been with the Shootaboyz, he could have hopped out on turn three and simply charged and killed Celestine in one go, before she killed my red Battlewagon. In the event, the Megaboss had a remarkable killing streak, claiming about ten scalps during the game, considerably more than the Lootas managed.
Speaking of the Lootas, the Lootawagon was another experiment this game, and one that I was a little unsure of the results of. Normally David's Exorcist rains missiles on them all game, easily killing two or three a turn and prompting morale checks. By hiding them in a Wagon I found that I gained three advantages: 1) the ability to shoot all 12 at one target from a single viewpoint, while the same number of foot really struggle to all get a good
LOS at the same thing, 2) protection from idle damage, going essentially straight from fine to dead without a gradual loss of ability inbetween, and they could easily have survived the loss of the Wagon and kept fighting if my dice had been kinder, and 3) the ability to move faster if required. The last point never came up, but the other two were really apparent and quite interesting. Are they worth 130points for the protection of the vehicle, when I could have another 8 for the same price? I'll have to try the Lootawagon again, I think, to get a better handle on how it goes.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and please leave any comments and criticism below!
