http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/17.page JForum - http://www.jforum.net de guerre on here of Troy_Tempest. We decided to play a quick 1,000pt game, using the Maelstrom rules. Despite the low points value, the madness was pretty full force this game, and hopefully you shall enjoy this glorious tale of woe and dakka.

Firstly, the field of war!



We decided that the hills were normal terrain, with the exception of the cliff-faces, which would be dangerous. The tower and the rectangle of barricades represent ruins, giving a 4+ save, while the forest would give a 5+.



As you can see, we went for a painfully pedestrian arrangement of objectives, splitting them up fairly evenly.

The Armies

We then have the minor matter of the two armies. With only a thousand points, we had no formations nor fancy detachments on display. We didn't really have all that many models on display, really.



I was really keen on giving my new blue Battlewagon a test run, and so brought it out for a go. After taking two Battlewagons, I didn't have a lot of points left, and decided to try out a mobile Loota firebase inside the blue Battlewagon, with a matching compliment of seventeen 'Ard Boyz with Shootas in the other Battlewagon. To lead this brave company of heroes, I brought a Mega-Armoured Warboss, waving the Lucky Stick, and a Painboy. The good doctor joined the 'Ard Boyz, who thus had a 4+ armour save with a 5+ FNP save afterwards. The Megaboss joined the Lootas, giving them Relentless so that their Battlewagon could move and not make them snapshot. To round out the army, I brought along four Warbikers, two Deffkoptas (each flying solo), and a unit of ten Gretchin with minder.



For his part, David brought all of the things in his codex that make me sad, albeit not many of each. He had Saint Celestine, the most astoundingly enraging model in Warhammer 40,000, leading his forces. He also had a Penitent Engine, which would laugh at my puny Orks in melee. There was an Exorcist (at the top left). Then there was a Priest, leading eight Archo-Flaggellants. Adding to this misery were two full squads of Battle Sisters, a unit of Imperial Guard veterans (represented by the Escher gangers), and a Company Command Squad in a Chimaera, with a pet Psyker in tow. He got Psychic Shriek and some other stuff.

Deployment



I won the roll for first turn, and duly set up. We had the awkward diagonal deployment, which nobody likes. We also had drawn Deadlock for our mission, meaning that we would start with 6 Maelstrom cards, and would decrease our maximum hand size by one card each turn.



The view from the Ork side of the table. Pretty empty deployment zone, with the Gretchin in reserve and 90% of my army embarked on two vehicles.



The Exorcist lines up its shots, thanks to the FILTH that is S8 AP1 missiles. D:

We also got Night Fighting, by the way.
]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7430539.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7430539.page GMT Turn One



We both drew our cards straight away, to make things easier, and scouted them out. Thanks to going first, and the way that the objectives were lying at this point, I had a pretty easy run at getting a lot of victory points up front simply from sitting on objectives.



My Deffkoptas moved forward, trying to get some shots at the Rhino over on the left. They would also claim an objective by doing this. Meanwhile the Lootawagon moved slightly for a better shot at the Exorcist.



The Deffkoptas managed nothing with their shots, predictably, and were now left hanging awkwardly in the middle of nowhere. Not my best strategic call ever, to be honest. They would now become prey for David's forces, allowing him to get a whole bunch of extra movement.

The rest of my shooting was essentially irrelevant as well this turn, with the Lootas not managing to kill anything, despite their fearsome internet reputation.



David responded by detaching Celestine from her squad, and flying her directly at my Deffkoptas.



The rest of his (surprisingly melee-centric) forces also scuttled forwards, with one Rhino racing to claim the hilltop objective.



The Exorcist and other Rhino do a somewhat confusing shuffle to claim the objective on this hill.



In shooting, little of note happened, beyond the Exorcist gunning down two Warbikers from afar, who passed their morale save to stay.



Assault saw my Deffkoptas get charged by a swirling morass of horribleness...



...and get totally destroyed. Tactical genius, here. Sigh.



At the end of this turn, thanks to my scoring four separate objectives on my turn, and David doing the same along with First Blood, we were sitting on a mighty impressive 7 VPs for the Sisters and 6 VPs for the Orks. The loss of the Deffkoptas was a bit painful, even though they had helped to claim an objective this turn.

Turn Two



Stuff moved. The Warbikers swung backwards, to be exactly 18" away from the hated Celestine. The Lootawagon shuffled behind the hill, aiming to get a clear shot at the Exorcist while also not being a clear shot back.



The Gretchin also came onto the table, and awkwardly swarmed onto an objective, hoping that David wouldn't notice them behind that building.



The Warbikers lined up their shot on Celestine, doing nothing...



...requiring the Shootaboyz to show them how it was done. The ladz gunned down the silly bint, and they didn't even break a sweat doing it. David put another priest model down to mark where she would reappear.



The Lootawagon then plinked 2 hullpoints off of the Exorcist, thanks to a cheeky invuln save by David preserving the last hullpoint, much to my sadness.



Celestine came back. Boo! Boooooo!



She then flew towards my poor Warbikers, who were feeling a touch victimised at this point.



The Battle Conclave then settled into the ruins, which is clearly what a bunch of mind-blanked psychos would do. Hide. Hide in ruins. Forgin' that narrative! Maybe the objective had some particularly good engine oil in it or something? Who knows.



Other stuff moved up, and stuff. The Sisters got out of their Rhino, since David was convinced that my Shootaboyz would be disembarking any moment now, and wanted to get more dakka on them.



The Rhino that had been opposite the Gretchin decided to drive over to look at them, so that the Sisters inside could mercilessly slay my poor little pseudo-Goblins. Oh dear. The Rhino had gone flat out, though, so they had a turn's grace.



Celestine shot one of the Warbikers down with her heavy flamer, before charging and killing the other one. Oh dear.

The Exorcist shot at the Lootawagon I think, but didn't do much to it. Har har. I do think that the red Battlewagon lost a hullpoint or two to the shooting from the Chimaera, though.



Unfortunately I had a very poor hand this turn, and so wasn't able to score; it also meant that my ability to score in future turns would be lower, since I couldn't quickly cycle out cards for new ones. David, meanwhile, scored another two objectives this turn, getting up to 9 VPs to my 6 VPs. Uh oh - but I still have both of my powerful units in play, and my Battlewagons should give me the movement to pick my battles and claim some good spots.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Turn Three



The Gretchin desperately fled away from the scary Sisters. Would their stunty little legs save them from the metal box of doom?



Contrary to David's expectations, my ladz stayed inside their vehicles this turn. My plan was to gun down Celestine and that Penitent Engine, at which point my Shootaboyz would be able to rampage through David's lines with relative impunity. Nothing else in David's army could deny their armour saves, while those two would be devastating to the poor ladz in melee.



Both Battlewagons pointed their arse ends at Celestine, the passengers ready to disgorge dakka upon her. Unfortunately a storm of gunfire was weathered by Celestine to no effect, making me angry frowny face. The Battlewagons fired their kannons at the Penitent Engine, missing. More frowny face.



David's troops hurtled forwards like the nutters that they were.



The Sisters Battle Squad disembark onto the ruins from their Rhino, eyeing up the fleeing Gretchin.



The Saint used her heavy flamer on the Battlewagon, killing a passenger and taking it down to two hull points.



The Gretchin, meanwhile, got gunned down like dogs. I mean, the Sisters were wounding on 2+. It was grim. Kinda funny to picture all those tiny green limbs flying around the place though, as mass-reactive bolts hit home. Good entertainment for the ladz.



Celestine then charged in. The Battle Conclave also tried charging, but flubbed it. The overwatch from my mighty swarm of Shoota Boyz did absolutely nothing to Celestine. Who then made the Battlewagon blow up.

I
HATE
SAINT
CELESTINE

The Ladz got out, taking approximately damage from the explosion. By approximately, I mean that I just can't remember, but that the armour and FNP probably kept the damage down regardless. The photo shows 15 Shoota Boyz and a Painboy though, so they have only lost two Shootaboyz so far.

In terms of the score, David continues to pull ahead at this point, with around 10VPs, while I am stuck on 6 VPs.
]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7430751.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7430751.page GMT 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! ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7431134.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7431134.page GMT
Keep them coming ]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7431846.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7431846.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7432060.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7432060.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7433786.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7433786.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7435180.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7435180.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7436847.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7436847.page GMT
Your result seemed to confirm the best Ork strategy is to have numbers, be decisive and get stuck in! The big mob of 'ard boyz with dok really did a good job as the core of your army.

Thanks for sharing. I'm looking forward to seeing more of these.]]> http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7436951.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7436951.page GMT http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7449492.page http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/preList/627081/7449492.page GMT