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Just over a week ago, I was lucky enough to go to Warhammer World, where I met up with Forge World's writer and designer (and all-round top chap), Andy Hoare, previously of Fantasy Flight Games and the Games Workshop design team, for a tour of the place and a game of 40k at the famous gaming hall at GW HQ. Here is a battle report of that game...

*** Wazgrim spat over the side of the battlewagon and resumed staring through the binoculars as the armoured column of ork warmachines rumbled forwards. He peered left and right for any signs of the Battle Krumpany's intended quarry, but as yet, no sign. Wazgrim muttered to himself, partially in agitation at the lack of viable target and partially in fear, it was his Wagon that carried the Kommizzar and he could sense the hulking monster silently watching the back of his head, hear, even above the noise of the tracked vehicle, the muffled sound of the chained blades of his killing klaw. The Kommizzar was getting impatient and that was dangerous, Wazgrim had served under other bosses before, usually before battle they'd be all shouts and dishing out beatings and getting themselves worked up... not this one though, not Da Kommizzar.

Kommizzar BlakBludd was silent, immobile, stood atop the wagon's transport bed like a statue, he radiated menace and the other orks were terrified of him, his brooding and silence instead of the usual ork warboss behaviors of noisemaking and violence was totally unnerving and there was a empty circle about him, where no ork would tread, as they instead crammed into the corners of the wagon's hold... They all knew when this one did snap, the dead piled high fast.

Wazgrim chanced a quick look behind him from his turret and immediately regretted it, The Kommizzar was, as he'd feared all along, staring straight at him, wicked and far too intelligent yellow eyes peering out from under an oversized officer's cap, peering out from over a chevron pained iron jaw that Wazgrim had seen gnaw through a tyrannofex's throat just a week back. Those eyes stared right into Wazgrim's soul, shriveling him where he sat, unable to look away. He sat, locked in fear, staring at Kommizzar BlakBludd, contemplating flinging himself off the wagon and running in fear when suddenly the radio speakers crackled loudly into life, mercifully breaking the silence:
"WISKEE SEVUN NINER, SEEARA TAN-GO O-VA!" Screeched an ork voice over the speakers
"Dis is Da Boss Wagon. Wot yooz going on abaat? Stop talking all dat nonsunz an talk propa!" Wazgrim shouted into his headset.
There was a long silence. Wazgrim sighed in defeat "...O-va..." he finally said into the mic.
"BOGEEZ SIGHTED!! VEKTA TEN-FORTEEN, VIZUAL IZ KONFURMED! TALLY HO! O-VA!" The voice barked with excitement as high overhead the dakkajet it originated from banked sharply to the right with a roar of jets.
Exasperated, Wazgrim opened the radio channel again.
"Wot duz dat evun mean? O-va!"
There was a sudden and huge thud from behind him, the wagon shook and a shadow fell over Wazgrim and as he looked up, Kommizzar BlakBludd leaned down close to his turret and spoke in a quiet growl that somehow carried, like millstones grinding bone.
"Wot dat meanz, iz dat we'z found our bown-tee... Now, signal da rest of da konvoy to follow da jet, da humie boss and his mareenz are over dat ridge."
Wazgrim relayed the instructions to the other tanks and several hundred tons of scrap tanks and the alien mercenary killers they contained turned to follow their flying scout towards the target.***

***The Lord Inquisitor lifted his hooded face to the sky where the Astartes pointed, his own human eyes taking longer to detect what the superhuman soldier had detected some moments earlier and saw the alien scrap-craft like some rusted vulture flying towards his encamped force. He turned to the Astartes Captain, resplendent in his crimson armour
'Captain, make ready your Red Hunters, the greenskin mercenaries have come to test us and seek claim the bounty offered by the rebels, how about we deny them their paycheck eh?"
The Captain smiled, nodded and turned to his sergeants
"Brothers, take up position, man the barricades and bring forth the Typhon!'
At his words, as his men moved to their positions around the ruined buildings, a roar broke the dawn, vast engines fired and an ancient red-armoured monster emerged from the cover of the gutted factory it had slumbered beneath, it's tracks cracking stone and metal beneath them, it's brutal cannon-mawed hull turning towards the oncoming alien vehicles cresting the ridge, to the cheers of the Red Hunter Astartes. ***


Points: 1500


Orks:
1 Warboss PK, AS, BP, Cybork
w/ 18 slugga boyz, nob with pk in decked out BW with Kannon and DR
1 Big Mek KFF, Burna
w/ 18 slugga boyz, nob with pk in decked out BW with Kannon and DR
10 Burna Boyz in decked out BW with Kannon and DR
1 Dakka Jet with all the trimmings
7 Lootas
1 DeffDred with 4 CCW.


Codex Marines Red Hunters:
1 Ordo Xenos Inquis with Needle Gun and possibly other various funky things, Psyker, Ally
1 Marine Captain with Thunder Hammer and Invuln Save
Command Squad with a banner dude and plasma gunner, flamer, medic and some bloke with axe and shield
Inside a Razorback with Las
2 x Tactical Squads with missile and melta and sargs with grav I think
1 Jump Assault Squad (deep striking in)
1 Venerable Dread with Assault Cannon
1 Typhon Superheavy Siege Tank. - Lord Of War


I chose the card for his Inquisitor's Psychic Power... Precognition, very nice for the Inquisitor!

The Table:



The little green balls are 'Spiker Plants!' for added mayhem.



Army lists were shared.
Andy rolled Mission and got Emperor's Will
I rolled Deployment and got Dawn of War
We rolled off for sides:
My side:



His side:



He wins the roll and elects to go first, I fail to seize the cheese... He deploys first, I set up to bring my wagons deffrollas to bear on that giant metal monster, not fully aware of how it's weapon works... oh well...

Deployment (this photograph shows Andy's movement at the start of Turn 1, hence the razorback and dred being far forward).
You can see our deployments here, wagons lined up against the typhon, lootas in the building, dred lurking behind them. My objective below them in that building.
His typhon off to one side, tactical squads behind the aegis line dead center, his objective next to them in the ruined statue, the razorback with command squad, captain and inquisitor set to zoom up the side and take my objective, with the ven dread moving in support.



MARINE turn 1:
He moves the razorback up with the venerable dread moving to support.

The Razorback fails to connect with anything, then...
The Typhon speaks... BOOM!

I learn the hard way that the thing drops a huge template and ignores cover, so no KFF for me... It destroys a battlewagon straight off the bat, my burna wagon btw, which makes me a sad stompa... Two of the toasty buggers are fried in the explosion, taking the unit to 8...


ORK turn 1:
My middle wagon empties it's contents of a boyz mob with the Big Mek (as the KFF is pointless in the face of this orrible typhon and loads up with the remaining burnas, the boyz then head for my objective to protect it and the lootas from the closing command razorback full of goodies and the lumbering dred... The remaining two wagons race to deffrolla the typhon and avenge their brother!
My lootas take aim at the Razorback, which Andy describes as a bullet magnet.

Boom! Destroyed... but fails to kill any of the sneaky armored gits inside...

Still, the lootas have a laugh and prepare to target either the command squad or the vendred.


Here's a shot of the end of Turn 1, my boyz with big mek in the bottom left, heading across the table towards my objective and lootas, the deffdred lurking behind the building, other wagons headed at comfortable speed for the typhon, his command squad out and moving middle right.






Next up, TURN 2...

OOoo Nice. Love the Warboss Looking forward to turn two!

Can't wait to read the rest !

**SCANDAL ALERT**



Andy Hoare shamelessly put 7 models in a razorback...

Which I, having no idea about new marine codex, didn't even blink at.

Someone did immediately spot this and asked me about it. I've just asked Andy who said:
'"Hah, yeah, tell that guy he's spot on, that's what I get for playing 30k nonstop for the past 3 months! Sorry about that!"

For me, since it wasn't the grand final at Adepticon, don't really give a shiz myself, the thing blew up same as a rhino. No harm, no foul.

(There, I said what you told me...I expect my meka-dred is in the mail now, eh, Mr H?)...

We continue...

Onto Round 2!

His pesky Assault Marines show up (boo!) but scatter into range of the spiker plants, which immediately kill one of them (YEAH! go team green! I was very careful with my measuring after seeing that, always exactly staying out of range of the things...)


His command unit continued to push forward on my right flank with the dred cautiously moving behind them in support.


And then his monster tank, the Typhon, turned its attentions to my remaining battlewagons... the giant template was placed over both of them and... hit... and... penetrating on both... destroyed on both... GAH!
3 boys died in the Boss Wagon and a further 2 burnaz died in the Burna Wagon... My face fell. I was completely gutted at this. All three tanks, a lion's share of my points, eliminated in 2 shots from that thing... I was at this stage, ready to throw in the towel, but it's not every day you get to come to Warhammer World from America and game against one of their writers... So I sucked it up and arranged my poor exposed boyz in the space where the wagons had been...


Really not terribly amused at this stage, I rolled for reserves and on came my Dakka Jet. I declared WAAAGH and moved my orks up. Boyz with Warboss moving towards that Typhon I was now determined to smush, with the sorry remnants of the burnaz in tow (avoiding the spiker plant...), whilst my other boyz mob with Big Mek moved to protect my objective building with the lootaz. The Dread came around the side of the building to remind the assault marines they should clear off!

The WAAAGH-hyped dakkajet opened up all guns on the command squad, greasing the axe guy, flamer dude (yeah!) and the plasma bloke. Not as terrifying as I'd hoped but not bad, peeling off a lot of ablative wounds from the two command types...
The Kommizzar snarled and determined that it was time to pay that tank back for wrecking his ride... CHARGE!

Thanks to some mighty dice, they connected with an almighty crash, Warboss and Nob set about tearing the great tank to pieces in very short order. Sweet dice! Lots of Penetrating hits wrecked the Lord of War in short order. Wagons avenged!

The Warboss cracks the hard outer shell to get his powerklaw on the soft bits of astartes inside... The Burnas run off to stay out of the fight and deny victory points, the cowards...

The other boyz ran for the objective to take on the advancing command and assault squads.

The Kommizzar and co consolidate round the back of the dead Typhon, edging towards the two tactical marine squads in their Aegis Line bunker...



I felt decidedly better about all that. At least if I fell now, I'd taken the big orrible tank down!

Next up... TURN 3! (admit it, you're surprised...)

Turn 3

Andy Marines being threatened by the sneaking warboss and boyz pivot to face them, ready to shoot. His Assault Marines bound up onto the ledge of the building with the upper layer of lootas, not taking any casualties from hoping into the terrain. His command squad and characters move into range to threaten/claim my objective. His dread comes wide of the building to bring it into full sight of the side of my dakkajet...

His marines facing my closing ork kommizzar and mob fired and did virtually nothing... terrible rolls dropped maybe 1 ork. (cool beans!). His Ven Dread used chapter tactics of the Red Hunters to use skyfire on the assault cannon to spray the dakkajet... and nothing. Munitions bounced off the jet's flank and it sped on happily.

His assault marines charged the lootas, killing the top layer of them and consolidating down onto the layer below.


My Kommizzar and mob formed up right at the wall of the aegis line side. The Dakkajet turned into the battlefield and gunned down 2 marines in the second tactical squad. My Big Mek boyz mob reached and began moving into my objective building, as the assault marines carved up their loota kin above.

The burnaz loitered about doing nothing except eyeing the remains of the typhon and pondering how best to cut it up for parts...


My Kommizzar and mob charged, i rolled well and easily cleared the aegis and just reached his tactical squad, who fired an ineffective overwatch... and the boyz demolished them in short order, in fact the Kommizzar didn't even get to roll... consolidating to threaten the other tactical marines now.




Turn 4

His remaining tactical marine squad, seeing what had befallen their comrades, scrambles over the aegis line and made to scoot round the difficult terrain holding his objective (the bone dice) but rolled poorly and just made it over the wall.

They fired at the orks, who, in a turn of fate, were able to use the aegis as cover... one ork was splatted.
His Command Squad, with Captain and Inquisitor, realizing the ork mob at the ork objective was in move-charge position, moved around the side of the building, to the solid wall with door.
His assault marines polished off the last lootas hiding in the corner and all stood around looking pleased with themselves...

I hopped my Kommizzar's squad over the aegis and into charge range with the remaining tactical marines and more importantly towards the marine objective they were protecting...


And Stampy, my dred, had enough of hearing the lootas dying squeaks, clambered up onto the tower like some terrible mechanical spider, right behind the assault marines...

and charged! Carving up the helpless marines in short order.

The Kommizzar's mob charged into the remaining tactical marines,

who felled a couple with overwatch,

but who were totally overwhelmed.

After which, the mob consolidated around the rubble and the marine objective.

Turn 5...

Andy now moves his remaining characters and command squad into the building, shooting and then charging the Big Mek squad and issuing a challenge!! ( we removed the building at this stage, to enable us to work out what was happening).


I pondered the challenge and whether to put up the nob with pk as sacrifice or gamble everything and use the big mek with burna (pw)... I chose to gamble and the big mek, with the potential to do 3 wounds with no armor saves, stepped forward to meet the thunder hammer equipped Marine Captain (madness? Yeah but wth eh!)
The Inquisitor and remaining two marines charged the rest of the ork mob as the dual began... And whilst they killed several orks, they were cut to ribbons in return.

The Big Mek stepped forward against the Marine Captain and hefted his burna torch... and hit... 3 times... and wounded... 3 times!!!

But the Marine officer had an invulnerable save still to go. Which he failed once, twice.... then passed! So close yet so far, the marine survived by the skin of his teeth and then, gathering his remaining strength, swung his thunderhammer, taking the mek down!






At this stage, with a Marine Captain and Ven Dread remaining, Andy opted to concede. We shook hands and took a look over the devastation.

He had first blood, I had linebreaker, slay the warlord, his objective and if we finished the turn, my objective as well. I was well pleased with the game, having gone from totally ready to give up when my wagons were all popped by the Typhon, to clearing house with my 'man of the match' Warboss and finishing the game with a nail biting dual that really did defy the math.

ORK VICTORY!!

***The Captain took the ork mek's head clear off with a sweep of his thunderhammer, before fighting clear of the ruin, slamming the steel door closed on the braying ork mob. He moved away from the battlefield, the ancient dreadnought, the only other survivor, laying down covering fire to protect them both as it too moved cautiously away. Lightning streaked the sky above and the Captain looked away to the ruins his men had defended, to see the massive silhouette of the greenskin 'Kommizzar' stood atop a mount of astartes dead, and knew the beast was looking at him. He swore vengeance then, against that monster, by the Emperor, by the fallen Inquisitor, by his Chapter's honor, and was shocked to see the thing nod towards him, it was a nod of understanding, that it would be waiting for him. The Captain and the dreadnought fled then, as the steel doors of the ruin burst and orks spilled forth to harry them. ***

***Kommizzar Blakbludd stood atop a pile of dead marines as his boyz partied and celebrated their victory, he stood silently, great klaw soaked in astartes blood and gazed towards his own base of operations. He saw the Marine boss leave the building with his dread pet and he nodded to the human. Run then humie, go hide, the jets will hunt for you come the morning, know you were bested by an ork, know yer mighty Empra didn't help you, cos he was hiding from Gork and Mork, cos he was hiding from me...
The Kommizzar nodded to the human as he turned and disappeared into the night. Then he looked down to an ork near his feet, who had helpfully brought the Inquisitor's head to his master.
"Get da doks and make sure they get Bodgit's ead back on a body, I need dat dozy mek to fix da wagons..." He growled, he then peered over at the wrecked Typhon "And when he'z fixing again, he can make me a brand new wagon out ov dat..."
The ork saluted, tossed the inquisitor's head onto the pile of dead at the Kommizzar's feet and bounded off to relay his instructions, BlakBludd resumed his silent watch, yellow eyes blazing with hate and triumph.***

At any point did you ask him if the rules team was aware of the craziness of the current ruleset, and if they planned to address it in the upcoming edition? Because if I had the opportunity to talk to someone close to the rules writers that is what I would do.

Great game! Man that Typhon really spoke up eh?

Also you need to explain why Cpt. Kirk and Mr Spoc are staring at me from under the gaming table in one of those pics?! Hahahahaha!

slaede wrote:
At any point did you ask him if the rules team was aware of the craziness of the current ruleset, and if they planned to address it in the upcoming edition?

We debated various things over the 3 days we hung out. We agreed on some, disagreed on others and with regards the rules as they currently are, we had personal discussion of our own viewpoints on it as well as the company's view on it and the community's view on it.

We agreed 100% on D Weapons and their impact on the game. We agreed 100% on allies in the game. We agreed 100% on a streamlined tournament/pick up game ruleset.

However Andy, whilst being a great person (he and his wife took 3 days out of their lives to entertain two people they'd never met before face to face, great hosts and wonderful people), he is not the steering force of GW, doesn't make the decisions on what should and should not be created for the game and is one voice among many.
One thing he made very clear to me is that the current state of 40k is due to a wish for a basic thing, the ability of a player to put any of his or her toys on the table and use them.
The second, something that really made me think, was this, he asked me 'what bad experiences have you had in 40k and of them, how many were caused by the player or the game?' which honestly I must say, any time I've not enjoyed myself was due to a player's behavior or a player opting to 'min/max' an army.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Red Corsair wrote:
Great game! Man that Typhon really spoke up eh?

Yeah... I nearly curled up and cried when it ate all three battlewagons in 2 turns. He kept telling me the day before that it was really nasty against marine infantry. Stupidly, given the look of it, I didn't get that it would be firing giant pie plates or that it ignored cover (I really hope the next ork codex gives the KFF inv instead...).

 Red Corsair wrote:
Great game! Man that Typhon really spoke up eh?

Also you need to explain why Cpt. Kirk and Mr Spoc are staring at me from under the gaming table in one of those pics?! Hahahahaha!

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
One thing he made very clear to me is that the current state of 40k is due to a wish for a basic thing, the ability of a player to put any of his or her toys on the table and use them.
The second, something that really made me think, was this, he asked me 'what bad experiences have you had in 40k and of them, how many were caused by the player or the game?' which honestly I must say, any time I've not enjoyed myself was due to a player's behavior or a player opting to 'min/max' an army.

This is great info and explains a lot.

Sounds like you two had a good time with a real stand up guy.

pretre wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
One thing he made very clear to me is that the current state of 40k is due to a wish for a basic thing, the ability of a player to put any of his or her toys on the table and use them.
The second, something that really made me think, was this, he asked me 'what bad experiences have you had in 40k and of them, how many were caused by the player or the game?' which honestly I must say, any time I've not enjoyed myself was due to a player's behavior or a player opting to 'min/max' an army.

This is great info and explains a lot.

Well, I fully understand it and certainly agree with the sentiment to an extent. But as I said to Andy, as I would happily say to a board room full of GW's gaming decision makers, I don't game with a regular group of friends who have established their own rules out of the smorgasboard of available stuff, I have pick up games when I can make it to stores or attend a tourney, you meet all sorts out there, including very nice decent players who have a totally different view of what should and should not be taken, due to GW's entirely permissive stance. I feel they need to acknowledge that this sort of global game is taking place and seek to establish a 'core rules' vs 'agreed upon expansions' strong white line, so that players may still opt to choose whatever they like, if they like, but that there is clear definition for those seeking to just hook up for a game or attend an event. I also explained, as someone who's gamed a fair bit on both sides of the pond, that the US mindset and style of gaming is quite different to the UK version.

Ifurita wrote:Sounds like you two had a good time with a real stand up guy.

Honestly Andy and his missus rank as two of the best human beings we've met. We also had the opportunity to meet with dakkanaut Captain Jack (he of the irridescent swarmlord fame) and look over his beautiful eldar and also Ramshackle Games owner Curtis Fell who was able to drop by for a quick drink at Bugmans. Both excellent chaps.

I loved this report !!! Very exciting and it was so awesome when your Boyz smashed the über tank !!!

Awesome report! The best part to me was the lack of WAACiness and what seemed to be just a fun game. This is how 40K should be played.

Great report with some great pictures and, it sounds like, two great guys playing.

Fething Typhon is fething terrifying. I was looking at your vehicles bunched up like that, thinking, "well, in real life that'd be poor tactics, but in 40K I guess you can get away with th.....HOLY CRAP THEY'RE ALL DEAD?"

 SisterSydney wrote:
Great report with some great pictures and, it sounds like, two great guys playing.

Fething Typhon is fething terrifying. I was looking at your vehicles bunched up like that, thinking, "well, in real life that'd be poor tactics, but in 40K I guess you can get away with th.....HOLY CRAP THEY'RE ALL DEAD?"

The Kustom Force Field carried by the Big Mek, when on a vehicle, means that any friendly model within 6" gains the benefits of a 5,6 cover save. Unfortunately cover saves don't do shiz in 6th against many new and terrible weapons... like this monster tank.

I bunch them up like that to spread the AV14 of the fronts wider by combination. Which also doesn't do much against that monster either. But I wanted to get the D6 Str 10 deffrolla hits against it...

But in the end the wagons served as a highly point expensive ablative armor to the ork warboss mob of doom.

The Warboss kicked serious ass.

Yeah he didn't rout or anything!

Great stuff, glad a good time was had by all. Pity I couldn't make it up there with you. Pretty cheesy army though.

 RandyMcStab wrote:
Yeah he didn't rout or anything!

Stra-teee-jik wifdrawl we calls it...

 RandyMcStab wrote:

Great stuff, glad a good time was had by all. Pity I couldn't make it up there with you.

Had a great 3 days, after the high stress of Cornland it was a really nice mini-break and Andy and his good lady made us feel like royalty. You'd have loved a stroll around the mini galleries, so many to look at (not nearly enough 'old school' stuff though, would have loved to see more old sculpts from back in the day and 'evolutions' of certain mini ranges).

 RandyMcStab wrote:

Pretty cheesy army though.

Yep, I get told that a lot, what with the 4th edition codex, no allies and no lord of war, I roll hardcore! WAAC man!!!

I meant him...............

(cap fits?)

*ducks*

 RandyMcStab wrote:
I meant him...............

(cap fits?)

*ducks*

I was being sarcadoodle.


*geese*

I am so jealous!

Oh snap it's getting really good now !

What a neat opportunity!

Interesting that one of GW's designers has been playing nothing but 30k. I wonder what that will mean...

 Ailaros wrote:
Interesting that one of GW's designers has been playing nothing but 30k. I wonder what that will mean...

Yeah that's a bit ominous, I guess he knows how terrible 7th is going to be.

 Ailaros wrote:
What a neat opportunity!

Interesting that one of GW's designers has been playing nothing but 30k. I wonder what that will mean...

... That he works for Forge World and was playing several games of something they produce...?

Andy doesn't work for 'mainstream' GW and hasn't for years.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

One thing he made very clear to me is that the current state of 40k is due to a wish for a basic thing, the ability of a player to put any of his or her toys on the table and use them.

They had that already, it was called apocalypse. This is the crux of the problem, 40k was for armies, apoc was for collections. Forcing the collection crap on all of us is what killed 40k.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

The second, something that really made me think, was this, he asked me 'what bad experiences have you had in 40k and of them, how many were caused by the player or the game?' which honestly I must say, any time I've not enjoyed myself was due to a player's behavior or a player opting to 'min/max' an army.

The first one is player, the second one is on them. You can be a perfect gentleman and still be playing something disgusting. And that’s on GW.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure me and you see eye to eye on most of that. Thanks for sharing the batrep dude, I really enjoyed

It's not all gloom and doom quite yet.

Great report, thanks for sharing and fantastic story. You made me think about the bad moments that I've had with 40k and the majority were a friend and I spending 30 minutes trying to decide what a rule actually meant through the misspellings and poor clarity. There were a few times when it was so bad we quit mid-game and went to have a beer....which come to think about it wasn't all bad but we didn't need 40k if we were just going to have a beer..

Bring the beer to the game, save time!

But isn't the 30 minutes of confusion precisely why GW has their "feth it, just roll a die if we're incomprehensible" rule.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Bring the beer to the game, save time!

But isn't the 30 minutes of confusion precisely why GW has their "feth it, just roll a die if we're incomprehensible" rule.

Sometimes we do that but ultimately we do want to know what the rules actually mean. Reading them sometimes feels like the document was translated from English to another language and then back again.