Hoo, boy! With the climactic clash that was Round 1, it's time for Round 2 - this time, I faced the Green Menace, the terrible chaos of the Orks!
Round 2 - 1000 points
4'x4' table
Deployment: Dawn of War
Mission: Retrieval
Modified: First Blood is only awarded for first Non-Troops unit destroyed
Four Objectives, worth 3 points each at the end of the game, held by the player with the most models within 3" of one.
...Against ORKS? Balls. I'd better kill a whole lot of them, real fast!
Then again, this is 8th edition. These are the new Orks. Do they even play the same? I'd better load up on Flamers just in case.
I made some tweaks here, with another 250 points this round, I dropped the Wraithlord's guns down to one Shuriken Cannon, swapped the Guardians' Meltas for Flamers. All told I wound up with the points to add in four Windrider Jetbikes with Shuriken Cannons, Eldrad, and bring back my Disintegrator Cannon.
While Orks are a new wrinkle, I've faced my opponent before. Last time he commanded AdMech against my Seer Council, and it wasn't pretty. However, it was a great game, and my Striking Scorpions brought down a unit of Ruststalkers AND a Dunecrawler. No small feat! So I went into this optimistic and ready to have fun :)
I wasn't disappointed! I was, however, caught unprepared. Turns out, Ork Walkers are all the rage in 8th! Here's the list:
Ork Spearhead Detachment
Big Mek (Warlord, Choppa, Kustom Force Field)Weirdboy
30x Ork Boyz (Nob)
1x Deff Dread
3x Killa Kanz
Gorkanaut (or Mork? The shooty one - Gork!)
Armor?! And I swapped out all my Meltaguns!
The Orks won the roll off the pick Table Sides, so I placed the first Objective. It was a Goff banner, and in honor of the Orks, I slapped that sucker dead-center of the board!
Orks finished deployment first, and I failed to seize. Ach, nein!
Note the Objective placement - I placed the center one, and the one in the upper left. The Orks placed the two on either side of my army. But, before Deployment, he'd opted for the other table side. Which was gentlemanly, but also very much in the spirit of playing "Orky." That is, not wanting to leave anything in his Deployment Zone!
A nastier opponent would have stuck one right behind the big rock in the upper right corner and sat a throwaway unit on it. Don't be that guy :P be like these Orks!
Turn 1 (Aeldar - 0, Orks - 0)
The Orks moved up across the board, with the Deff Dread choosing to Advance. But the big move was the Weirdboy using DA JUMP to fling 30 Boyz clear across the table!
The idea was that he thought my Wraithlord was the biggest threat to his Walkers. The one he could poach off the edge of my army at least. Both true - he could get to it since it was exposed, and it was swinging at S9 with Rend -4 and D6 Damage per attack. He was banking on being able to kill it in one turn. And with 30 Boyz, plus the army's shooting? I bet he can!
Yikes, that sure is intimidating...
And true to Orky form, they used 'Ere We Go to make the charge with little trouble-
I got lucky - surviving the over 60 dice thrown at me! Turns out the Wraithlord is no slouch. Between shooting and the Assault, he did take some damage, going down to 5 Wounds (half strength), even with a Command Re-roll (how dare you fail again, re-roll!)
There was a learning moment here. During Overwatch, I fired my Shuriken Cannon, but missed, but the big lesson was that my Flamers have 8" range, and he was Charging from beyond 9", so my Flamers didn't get to fire Overwatch. That's a big change from 7th where "Wall of Death" let you always Overwatch with Template weapons.
Now it's my turn!
Now I knew I had to clear out those Boyz ASAP, or the Walkers would be right on me before I could act - but also the Boyz alone could clear my lines if I left them, so I played aggressive.
The Visarch disembarked, moving to Assault range, while my Autarch and Windriders pulled out of the way, and the Wraithlord retreated. The Wraithlord sacrificed any chance to swing again, and still couldn't shoot, but I figured he was in the most danger of not making it to the next turn - but more importantly, I wanted to shoot the Boyz, so he had to break out of combat.
This was Eldrad's time to shine, popping off Doom on the Boyz which allowed* him to fire off Smite on 10+, for D6 Mortal Wounds - netting three.
*Eldrad gets a +1 to cast a Psychic Power once per turn after passing a Psychic Test
Then my entire army laid into those Boyz!
Now you see them, now you don't. Turns out, Doom is real good! It took all of my shooting, and both the Visarch and Autarch charged in, but I wiped 30 Boyz in one turn!
In all seriousness though, I can brag and be all excited, but it was close. Really close. It took every single shot I had, AND both of my beatstick Characters Charging. Even then, the Nob went down to the very last attack, and had I not had Doom up there's no way I could have done it. Before that moment, I'd thought Eldrad may have been a bad choice, but he made up his points right there.
The resulting Soulburst had me repositioning my faster units to brace for the 'Naut, and taking some ineffectual pot-shots with my infantry.
Turn 2 (Aeldar - 0, Orks - 0)
Woo! So, I felt pretty good after taking out the Boyz, and better after the Orks shooting proved as harmful as very loud rain.
That feeling evaporated VERY quickly when a rampaging Gorkanaut crashed into my lines...
Huff! He multi-assaulted my Windriders and the Visarch, and I risked using Heroic Intervention to pile-in and take some swings with the Autarch. Since he wasn't Charging, he would only be S3, but it would be attacks before I otherwise could have. Plus, he can Fly, so he can Retreat and still shoot normally. Although, I hadn't thought about the fact that a unit that Retreats can't Charge again in the same turn. Uh-oh.
He split his attacks evenly between Windriders and the Visarch, and quickly showed just how gnarly that monster is! Killing the bikes gave the Orks First Blood, and killing the Visarch gave them Slay the Warlord for a 2-0 lead
Well that went from bad to worse! The Visarch's 4+ Invulnerable was a great defense, but the few Wounds he didn't save did three damage each, and he failed all of his Tenacious Survivor rolls. Damn. I used another re-roll with the 4++ to try to save at least one, but failed it. Again!
Double damn, since I'd charged in with the Autarch, he wasn't able to Soulburst to shoot where the Autarch would really shine. I hadn't assumed he would get the chance, because I didn't think the Gornanaut would kill *everything.* The double Fight the Autarch did with his Soulburst instead did nothing :P
After a decisive combat, it was my turn again!
Obviously I was pretty sure I needed to kill this thing, and despite my ferocious army, I was anything but confident I could do it. My Wraithlord moved up, and Eldrad tried to repeat the magic of DOOM.
...and failed, even with his stock re-roll. He did, however, cast Smite for two Mortal Wounds. He then cast Fortune on the Wraithlord, but Perilsed in the process, took three Mortal Wounds and failed all of his Ghosthelm saves.
I even used a Command Re-roll to re-roll one of the 6's, and it came up 6 again.
Dangit, Eldrad! Get your head in the game!
Not getting Doom was bad, but follow-up shooting from the entire rest of the army chipped wounds off a few at a time, with the Autarch doing a whopping *ten* damage between all of his guns (!?)
Best. Character. Ever. The re-roll 1's bubble is amazing by itself, but the volume of epic guns AND how often he can shoot them is utterly jaw-dropping.
But then - something bad happened.
You figure that a 6+ is rare, so there's a 1 in 6 chance the vehicle will explode at all, and I 'd played a few games with the Raider, so I thought all vehicles blew up the same way.
But the Gorkanaut Exploded. I was so shocked that I didn't even realize that I could re-roll the Explodes result. Why was I shocked? Because that heinous bucket of bolts explodes 9" in all directions. And for D6 Mortal Wounds, not D3. I suddenly visualized my entire army going up in smoke after being *too* good at killing things.
The Big Mek that had been hiding in the Gorkanaut used his Disembark to run behind a wall, while my units used Soulburst to shuffle and took more pot-shots at the Walkers. About this time was when I realized just how terrible my Poisoned weapons were going to be against even light tanks. Even S3 is better against a T5 Walker :P
Ouch.
Ouch, ouch, ouch. I lost two Kabalite Warriors, three Storm Guardians, Eldrad straight-up died (after I used another Re-roll to try to get his Ghosthelm to keep him alive with one Wound), my Autarch went down to one Wound (!) and my Wraithlord went down to 2.
On the plus side, the Big Mek took two Wounds, with only two left, he was in a very precarious position.
Turn 3 (Aeldar - 0, Orks - 2)
The end of Turn 2 made me both feel like I had real teeth, and then realize all too clearly just how precarious my position was. I could, feasibly, kill of nearly all of the rest of the Orks next turn. The Autarch and Wraithlord were more or less guaranteed to kill something they pointed at, and the Raider could pick off the Big Mek or Weirdboy without too much trouble. But all of that was assuming they all survived the turn.
First things first, the Deff Dread moved up into easy Assault range, and the Big Mek Advanced to get right on the Objective here on the right. The Weirdboy moved into those industrial ruins, in cover, but within range of the Objective.
In the Psychic Phase, with Eldrad out of the way, the Weirdboy was free to Smite like the dickens, and successfully cast it. I considered using a Command Re-Roll to make him fail it, but with 2/3 showing, it was unlikely I could force a roll under 5. So I saved the re-roll for the more critical die: damage.
In a rare streak of luck, he rolled his D3 and rolled a 1. He then used a Command Point to re-roll it, and it rolled a 1 again! Huzzah!
The Wraithlord lives!
After that, Grotzookas and some shooting from the Deff Dread put a dent in the Raider, although I used another Command Point to blunt it (and did save it!) but he saved most of his gumption to Charge my remaining foot Infantry, multi-Assaulting both units and easily killing them all. I opted not to do Heroic Intervention this time, because I was fairly certain I was going to get some Soulburst shooting this time.
And I did!
The Deff Dread Consolidated after combat to get into cover. It was blocked/too far from getting out of line of sight, but he was able to get entirely into cover for the bonus Save.
It didn't save him
The Blaster from the Raider-mounted unit and the Disintegrator Cannon made a dent too. The Wraithlord didn't get Soulburst, but the Autarch - as he is wont to do - annihilated what was left of the Deff Dread.
Then it exploded.
It's no Gorkanaut, but I was barely hanging on by a thread here, so I didn't want it to explode. So, I used a Command Re-roll!
...It Exploded again. Another 6!
#^&*%@#&*^%#@*^#&*%*(#%^!!
Balls. Crap. Curses. Arg. ACH NEIN!
With no defense against Mortal Wounds and guaranteed at least one, both the Wraithlord and Autarch just died. Then, small favors, the Big Mek died as well, taking two Wounds. What a blood bath!
Now it was my turn, with nothing but a Raider and five Warriors to my name left on the table. Yikes.
Here's where I stood:
The one thing I absolutely didn't want to happen was for the Kanz to corner my surviving units while his Weirdboy held the Objective. I also really wanted that Weirdboy dead to avoid Smite. So I opted to play more aggressively.
I moved the Raider's 10" to within range of the Objective, then threw everything at the Weirdboy, and missed so many shots that he survived! I even used my final Re-roll to try to get another Wound through, but failed the re-roll. So, I was forced to Charge, using my Shock Prow. I managed to hit with the Prow, and the Orks used their final Command Re-Roll to re-roll it, and it passed anyway! (Slay the Warlord to the Aeldari as well). This gave me a Soulburst for my Warriors to shoot at the Kanz, but the Poisoned weapons did nothing, and the Blaster missed.
No more Command Points. Brace yourself for-
Turn 4 (Aeldar - 1, Orks - 2)
The Orks were in similar straights. With only one unit left alive, he had to keep me from taking Objectives or getting where I would be too hard to catch. The Grotzookas weren't cutting it, but the Kanz in Assault...
He opted not to shoot, and instead to just got straight for Charging (!)
Overwatch did nothing, sadly, and the Kanz easily peeled five Wounds off the Raider, which did not Explode. The passengers disembarked, and Soulburst!
...And missed completely :P
There was some hope here. I had a Blaster, and a lot of shots (even Wounding on 6), but also my Close Combat attacks would Wound on a 5+
But even better, Kanz still have to take Leadership. And their Leadership is a tragic 5, so kill even one and the unit has a 1 in 3 chance of losing at least one more model. On a 6, the whole unit would be wiped. So I took my hail-mary last turn!
I shot, the Blaster missed *again,* and I didn't do any damage with anything else, including on the Charge. In return attacks, the Kanz didn't do that much, but it was enough to kill four of my Warriors. The one standing Blaster STILL had a chance to kill a Kan and win the game - but I rolled a 6 for Morale. Which, with base Leadership 7 minus 4 for lost models, would have been enough to kill three models. So, oops? Game over!
I was tabled and the Kanz easily had the center Objective, for another three points.
Final Score: (Aeldar - 1, Orks - 5)
Huff! What a game!
I probably should have played more to Objectives (duh), but my strategy was sound. I got the kills, and did absurd amounts of damage to a lot of units very, very quickly!
But, it was a great game :)
The Explosions hurt - a lot - and my opponent spent most of the game telling me I'd won, handily, except for repeatedly blowing myself up. Which was generous of him!
In terms of Orks in 8th, they sure are different. But their Close Combat punch is really something, particularly now that they swing first if they Charge (yikes) and hit on 3+ most of the time in Close Combat (double yikes!)
They also have the new faux Fearless of Mob Rule, as well as 'Ere We Go for very reliable Charges. The Weirdboy was a surprising perk too, significantly impacting the game with Da Jump, and but for an unlucky roll, nearly killing my Wraithlord. Heck, even just being there he was a spoiler for Eldrad with the constant threat of Denying my powers.
As for weaknesses, Leadership is still a thing. Orks have new ways to mitigate it, but once the dominoes start to fall, the Orks start running away in droves. Also, they're slow, with a 5" move on most Infantry, and clunky slow Walkers as many of their vehicles.
For my part, I should have kept my Meltaguns. What I'm finding in this edition is that even against hordes, the weapons that reliably do Wounds outshine the volume of shots weapons. Both against enemies in Cover and hard targets, but also simply by not wasting shots. And of course so you don't wind up shooting Poisoned weapons against tanks!
I'll go in loaded for bear for Round 3!
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