Tough-as-Nails Ork Boy
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Well another Adepticon has come and gone. It was long days of gaming, lots of beer drinking, and almost no sleep before doing it all over again the next day. What could be better!
This was my third year attending Adepticon, and first year actually volunteering onsite. I’ve helped out with posting announcements on various forums across the internet, but nothing at the tournament. I was able to help Bill Kim and Greg Sparks run the Gladiator on Friday (I was the data entry monkey sitting behind the computer entering results most of the afternoon.)
After another long day playing during the Team Tournament, Sunday arrived where I got to partake once again in the 40k Championship. My previous two attendences didn’t go too well for me in the rankings. My first year playing, I finished last. Yes that’s right, dead last! I was quite the sad panda that day. My second year attending, I was able to boost my score and place about 5-10 from the bottom. Certainly not great, but still better then placing last. This year I was determined to do better. How much better did I do? Well read on and decide for yourself. Sadly I completely forgot to take pictures with my iPhone while playing. You’ll just have to use your imagination as I describe the battles.
Here is the army list I used for the event:
Warboss with powerklaw, shoota-skorcha kombi-weapon, attack squig, cybork body, warbike
14 Lootas
14 Lootas
30 Boyz with 3 rokkits and a nob with bosspole, ‘eavy armor and a power klaw.
30 Boyz with 3 rokkits and a nob with bosspole, ‘eavy armor and a power klaw.
10 Nob Bikers, 4 Big Choppa’s, 4 Powerklaws and a Painboy. I took the various different wargear to utilize the wound allocation rules: Waaagh banners, ammo runts, a bosspole, some shoota-skorcha kombi-weapons and of course, cybork bodies for all.
Round 1
The first mission of the day was played against a gentleman named Phillip Poole. He was playing a very nicely modeled/painted Eldar army with a frost world theme. Lots of blues and whites made for a pleasant looking force to play against. His army consisted of the following:
Eldrad (Inside Falcon)
Autarch with banshee mask & Avenger S-Catapult
4 Fire Dragons and 1 Exarch with Dragon’s Breath Flamer (Inside Falcon with Eldrad)
5 man Jetbike squad with 1 Shuriken cannon, and a warlock with singing spear and Embolden
7 man Jetbike squad with 2 Shuriken cannons, a warlock with singing spear and Embolden
9 Dire Avengers, 1 Exarch with dual Avenger’s and Bladestorm, mounted in a Wave Serpent with Spirit Stones and TL Brightlance
9 Dire Avengers, 1 Exarch with Power weapon and shimmershield, with Bladestorm. Mounted in a Wave Serpent with Spirit Stones and a TL Brightlance
Fire Prism with Holo-Field and Spirit Stones
Fire Prism with Holo-Field and Spirit Stones
Falcon with Missile Launcher, Holo-Field and Spirit Stones
The mission was a Pitched Battle deployment.
Primary Objective: Kill Points
Secondary Objective: Victory Points, needing to score 250 or more points than your opponent.
Tertiary Objective: Eliminate all Troop Choices including any dedicated transports.
Bonus points were given for destroying all of your opponents Elite, Fast Attack and Heavy support choices.
The table was laid out with a nice amount of terrain. My deployment had a three crater terrain feature on my left flank, and a nice three-leveled building just left of the middle. No-man’s land between deployment had a bunker style building almost dead center, and more craters on the right flank. His deployment zone has again, more craters on the left, and another large ruined building on the extreme right flank.
Gaining the first turn, I deployed one unit of lootas just behind the craters on my left flank, and the other unit up in the building. The bikers were deployed almost dead center with the boys flanking them on both sides.
His deployment? Everything in reserve. At this point, I knew it was going to be a tough battle. He could come on the board from any point on his board edge and deny my lootas that first turn firestorm I was hoping would down one or two of his vehicles
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My first two turn went pretty fast. The lootas on the left flank moved up into the craters the first turn, and basically held fast the second as I wanted to see where he would come on. One boys squad ran straight for the center of the board an arrayed itself around the bunker there. The bikes moved up the first turn and turbo-boosted the second as his stuff would start appearing then. The second boys squad moved over towards the ruined building where the second squad of lootas had taken position.
His second turn saw the arrival of about half his army. Both squads of jetbikes moved on, as well as a Fire Prisms and a wave serpent. Using the large ruined building on the right flank of his deployment, he moved his bikes up just behind it. His fire prism moved just to the side of the building and took up position to shoot my lootas in the building within my deployment zone. A nice fat template hit 4 of them, taking my squad down by about 3 models. His wave serpent moved fast and got about halfway across the board on the extreme right flank. His assault jetbike move got the bikes behind the craters in no-man’s land and just beyond the building, with a narrow corridor leading to them between the building and craters.
Turn 3 for me made me realize that my lootas on the left flank were totally out of position. It was obvious he was going to bring everything onto the right and try and overwhelm it, as only the lootas had a decent chance of taking down all of his skimmers. A decent difficult terrain and run check got them into a better position to start shooting next turn. The loota squad in my ruined building took some shots at the Fire Prism way back in his deployment zone. A couple of good shots left me with an immobilized and crew shaken results. Not too shabby for orks. The bikes turbo-boosted forward again, ending up almost at the opening of the opening of the corridor that led to his jetbikes. The Boys squad in the middle of the board moved forwards while the squad of boys in the back moved up in front of the building with the lootas.
His turn 3 saw some bad reserve rolls, with only his other Fire Prism showing up. This moved on top of the ruined building in his deployment, getting good sight on the lootas that had been shooting so far. His wave serpent moved forward to the edge of my deployment zone and dropped out the Dire Avengers, just barely with 18” to shoot my lootas hiding in the building. A bladestorm from them and a template from the newly arrived Fire Prism dropped another 5 or so lootas, putting the squad at only 7 models or so. Luckily they passed their morale and stayed in the fight. His jetbikes used their cannons to fire away at the bikes, but only put a 2 wounds on the unit.
My turn 4 is where the game started to turn in my favor. With both Fire Prisms on the board, it was only a matter of time before their templates started putting too many casualties on me. They had to be taken out quickly. The immobilized one was going to start firing next turn, so it had to be dealt with. The Warboss detached himself from the bikes and moved right up to the immobilized Fire Prism, easily within charge range. I was then left with the decision as to what the bikes should do. I was pretty sure both of his jetbike squads were within charge distance, but at least 3 bikes would have to pass through difficult terrain in order to get there. Figuring that it was worth the risk, the bikes moved up the narrow corridor between the craters and the building, easily getting within charge distance of one squad, and getting 2 bikes within distance of the second. My dangerous terrain checks for the bikes were passed and I was ready to go. The lootas in the building took some shots at the undamaged Fire Prism, but failed to do any damage. Luckily, the other squad that had hoofed it across the board were no in range, and they were able to put a crew stunned result on it. With the Dire Avengers on my right flank, my squad of boys moved towards them quickly, while the boys in the center of the table moved up some more, stretching across about a quarter of no-man’s land. The assaults were quick and decisive. The Warboss easily took out the immobilized Fire Prism. My bikers wiped out one jetbike squad, and killed another bike or two from the second jetbike squad. Failing their leadership, they started to run away. A low fallback roll however kept them within 6” of the bikes so no rally for them next turn.
The game was turning in my favor and he’d have to pull out some fancy footwork to get a win out of this. His falling back jetbikes made another fallback move, but even this still kept them very close to my bikes. The rest of his reserves rolled in and entered the board from about mid-point in his deployment zone. Moving 12, his last wave serpent hugged the table edge and deployed his Dire Avengers. They were able to get range on my boys in the middle and Bladestormed into them, putting a good 10 wounds on them. His falcon moved on, and out popped Eldrad. My Warboss was all alone near his board edge after killing the Fire Prism. Seeing an easy killpoint, Eldrad cast Mind War on the boss. With him rolling a 5 and me a 2, the Warboss had 5 wounds to pass. I felt fairly confident, as he had 3 wounds and you thankfully, the FAQ ruled that you get cover saves against mind war. I only had to pass three 4+ saves. No problem at all. Or maybe it was, considering I FAILED three of the saves and thus my Warboss disappeared from the board. Doh!
What happened next was truly interesting. The wave serpent that had dropped off his dire avengers on my right flank decided to tank shock my boys heading towards his. I assume he was trying to force them far enough out of the way that I wouldn’t have charge distance to them. Moving flat out, his serpent moved through my boys, requiring me to push a number of them out of the way. Realizing that maybe I could get lucky to grab another kill point, I decided to do a ‘Death or Glory’. One of my rokkit boys was in the path and I decided to use his attack. With being able to auto-hit, and my Str 8 against his armor 12, I figured I had a good chance. Rolling up a 5 gave me a penetration and I rejoiced. At that point he said he was rolling his obscured roll for moving flat out, and threw down a 6! But wait! How can you use an obscured roll to negate a ‘Death or Glory’? It is after all a close combat attack against the vehicle… isn’t it? We had no idea and decided to head up to the judge’s desk for a ruling. They were stumped. They had no idea either. They needed a few minutes to discuss it and decide how to rule. We still had a good 30 or so minutes left so had no trouble waiting.
The ruling they came down to was as followed: The rules for ‘Death or Glory’ do describe that you can use any weapon, whether close combat, grenades or shooting weapons to attack a tank-shocking vehicle. And it did specify that a shooting weapon made a shooting attack against the vehicle. So it was possible to gain the obscured roll. But where did the model in question lay in relation to how far the vehicle had moved? They decided that if the rokkit boy was less than 12” from the start point, he would not gain the roll. It was more than 12” the vehicle could count as obscured. We agreed that it was a sensible answer and went back to check. Sure enough, the rokkit boy was only about 10” into his move, so the pen hit stood. It did no good to me however, as I only rolled a 1 on the damage table so it was only stunned the next turn. Not only that, but it didn’t really do a good job of pushing my boys out of the way.
Turn 5 saw the end of the game. At this point I already had 2 kill points, with another of his units falling back. My bikes moved down my right flank and got into perfect position to assault his dire avengers there. My squad of boys that were tank shocked move towards the dire avengers as well. Meanwhile in the center of the board, my second squad of boys moved up in close proximity to his other wave serpent and avengers located there. It was time for a Waaagh! Both squads rolled excellent on their run rolls and got into charge range of both dire avenger squads. They were both wiped out completely. At this point, we both agreed that there was no way he could win the game. I had 4 kill points to his 1, and his last jetbike squad was still within 6” of my bikes so would not be able to rally. It would be falling back still, and thus count as destroyed giving me 5 Kill Points
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I was able to claim the Primary and Secondary Objective, but with his wave serpents still alive, neither one of us won the Tertiary. I also got one bonus point for him having no Fast Attack choices. This game me an overall score of 36 going into round 2. Not a bad number at all. It was high enough to place me in a decent position in the ranks, but not too high to worry about facing the heavy hitters of the tournament. Once the next table pairings were posted, I grabbed my army and headed to the next matchup.
I will post the next report either later this evening or tomorrow. I didn’t realize how long it would take to write this one up and the post is quite long already. Look forward to another post later in this thread, and I look forward to any thoughts or comments anyone has to offer.
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