Battle Report: Warhammer 40K, Road to Mechanicon

ROAD TO MECHANICON TOURNAMENT RESULTS.

Well here we are, 2 months away from the Mechanicon convention in West Chester PA and I am working on my Warhammer 40,000 army list for the Grand Tournament.

I am continuing to stay with my Goff Space Ork army: Krogg's Karnage, and will continue to run them until such time as I finally win a GT. Weather this takes 2 months or 10 years, the goal is the same, simply to win a GT with Orks. More importantly, it is to have fun doing it, AND also to stay true to my signature style with my orks.

Many ork players i've noticed, like to use tried and true units like a large mob of Nobs with a paindoc, or perhpas even Nob Bikers, or heavy troops in a battle wagon. I like to think I've gone a bit different in my selections and am trying to make the overall system work. After this last 3-game tournament at the Adventurer's Guild, I have learned that my list still needs a little more work.

That being said, I had a good time and learned quite a bit. One thing I can tell is that I have been a bit out of practice and need to revisit the basics again.

The big part of my list I like to center it around is two large mobs of stormboyz. Some Ork players don't like them. I on the other hand, love to use jump infantry. I especially like the ork Stormboyz as they not only move the 12 inches forward, but gain and additional d6 inches of random movement, and can still assault. This gives an effective strike range of 14 to 24 inches for the Stormboyz to assault. The downside of these units is that they are fragile with a terrible armor save and they are twice as expensive as a normal ork warrior.

Regardless of personal preferrence, this is just my matter of preferrence and something I am working on trying to make work. In a standard mission deployment I have opted to field a unit of warbikers up front as not only do they offer the rest of my army a 4+ cover save, but also gain a cover save themselves. They can also move 12 full inches and still shoot with Twin-Linked Dakka guns, with 3 shots each.

So here was my list going into this event:
HQ1: Warboss with 'eavy armor, cybork body, Power Klaw, Kombi Shoota/Skorcha
HQ2: Big Mek with Shokk Attack Gun, 'eavy armor, ammo runt

Troops1: 27 orks with choppas & sluggas, nob with bosspole, Power Klaw, 'eavy armor
Troops2: 20 shoota boyz with 2 x Rokkit Launchas, Nob with Bosspole (to stay and hold objectives and defend them)
Troops3: 15 Gretchin & 1 Runtherder
Troops4: 15 Gretchin & 1 Runtherder
Troops:5 10 shoota boyz, 1 big shoota

Elite: 5 x Tankbustas, 1 tankhammer, 2 bomb squigs

Fast Attack1: 8 Warbikers, Nob with Big Choppa, Bosspole
Fast Attack2: 20 Stormboyz, Nob with Bosspole, 'eavy armor, Power Klaw (White Storm)
Fast Attack3: 20 Stormboyz, Nob with Bosspole, 'eavy armor, Big Choppa (Red Storm)

Heavy Support 1: 3 x Killa kanz armed with: 1 Big Shoota, 1 Grotzooka, 1 Rokkit Launcha
Heavy Support 2: Big Gunz: 3 x Zzap Guns, 2 gretchin each, 1 Runtherder, 1 additional grot gunner

The tournament consisted of 3 rounds of game play at Standard Warhammer 40K GT format at 1850 points. All standard codexes applied. 8 Players showed up to do battle, and the winner of this tournament won a ticket to the Mechanicon GT.

I arrived representing the Berks-PA Gaming Club with my Arch Rival and great friend John T, who was bringing his Star Dragons Space Marines to the tournament.

This will be the first of 3 battle reports, as we played 3 games. I had also tied each game into the Berks 40K campaign: False Hope Crusade, as we were building up to a large Apocolypse style game the following week. So, for all intents and purposes as far as fluff go, my stories count towards the siege of Thrak.

Game 1 vs. Slaneesh Chaos Daemons. My opponent from York, Steve K., came sporting something you don't normally see at a tournament. He was playing Slaneesh Chaos Daemons. Chaos Daemons are a difficult enough army list to play, but to keep it themed to just one of the 4 chaos powers meant that this guy was playing for theme and here to have a good time. I expected a fun game, and got exactly that.

We ended up playing all 3 missions that were "Special" mission from the Cabin Fever Warhammer 40K GT held at the Adventurer's Guild that January. So I had a slight advantage as I have played each scenerio once before.

Mission 1: Hit the Ground Running. Scoring: 500 points for each Table Quarter held by a scoring unit and no enemy units witin that quadrant. An additional 1850 points earned by Victory Points, and an additional 150 points if you have any troop choices left by the end of the game. This gave a maximum of 4000 battle points.

Deployment: ALL units are Deep Striking. EVERYTHING. Minimum of 3 units had to deploy right away. This was all due to interference and warp storms. All other units are held in reserve, and Outflanking units add +1 to their reserves rolls due to energy disturbances

Game 1: Making their way through the static in the atmosphere, Warboss Atogg, the right hand Ork of the great Ork Warlord Krogg Satogg of Krogg's Karnage had led his troops to the strike zones on Thrak. Success from previous ork missions had increased their load of technology and the Ork Meks and Grot Oilers had finally gotten the "Telly-Porta" machine working. Atogg would be the first to try it out.

As their strike team assembled, they would lead the assault, bringing their troops into the first battle zone. Xox Grotsmasha, the lead Ork Mek, would continue to teleport ork troops in until the power ran out and than reserves

would land and meet the rest of Atogg's forces planetside later.

Coming into the drop zone, Atogg pointed out to his troops to have them start using the Telly-Porta and make their landings. Atogg himself led the drop along side with a large mob of ork boyz. Following them in suit were the Warbikers of the OCC (Ork County Choppers), Zegg Fliggblast the Big Mek along side with his gretchin body guard/assitants. The trio of Killa kanz also made the drop planet side.

The orks could do very little but spread their troops out. Atogg's plan was simple. Get forces on the planet and spread out so that they could cover every quarter where the enemy troops arrive. Their deep striking was dead on, the entire game rolling hits on 75% of the rolls, and the others scattering an average of 4 to 6 inches on those that missed.

Incoming was the Slaneesh Daeomons. They may not have known exactly what they were going to be up against. In bound were a Slaneesh Daemon Prince (excellent covnersion from a C-Tan), a pack of Daemonettes of Slaneesh, Fiends of Slaneesh, and riders of Slaneesh. All they could do was land on the planet, materialzie out of the warp, and spread out. There was very little shooting and what did take place from the Prince of Slannessh missed.

Ork turn 2: More reserves came into play. The five-man Tankbusta Squad teleported right on target, ready to fire rokkits into the Daemon Prince. The Big Gunz crews landed right near the trees and started to run for the woods, bringing their Zzap guns in tow with them. As for the rest of the orks, well they now had plenty of targets and started to go after them.

Zegg Fliggblast, the Big Mek charged up the Shokk Attack Gun, only to have it fail horribly and warp itself into an explosion, taking out himself and about 7 or 8 grots. The surviving members fled the battlefield, looking to live to fight another day.

Remarkably, I get about 1 out of every 3-4 games where my orks seem to really be able to shoot well. It just so happened that this game would be that game. The 30 strong mob of orks made their way towards the Demonettes, who had an Icon with them. After cutting down half of their number with shooting, the orks were able to assault them and bring them down. Sadly this left the Daemon Prince unattended. The Warbikers made their way around lending their fire into the fiends as did the other mob of stormboyz.

Daemons turn 2: Seeing that they were being swarmed quickly by orks, the Daemons of Slannessh were lacking on the reserves, but had another squad of fiends arrive. Unfortunately for the Daemons, by the end of their assault phase, one full squad of Daeomonettes were gone. The Masque of Slaneesh Arrived as well and between it and the Daeomon Prince, they tried to take down some of the orks and shoot the gretchin mob.

The Fiends of Slaneesh did a number on the orks. Getting 4 or 5 attacks at a high initiative and strength, they killed a slew of orks. The problem was that there were just too many orks.

Ork turn 3: Ork shooting continued to be a factor. Warbikers changing gears and moving from one battle to another as foes were killed off, led their dakka guns to the cause as the Stormboyz arrived and lent their guns to the mix as well. At every turn, no matter where the Slaneesh Daemons arrived, there were orks there to greet them. Either through shooting or assaulting. The Masque of Slaneesh tried to do it's thing, but the Orks advanced, in range of an assault. Instead, they dispatched the fiend with their sluggas.

The battle would rage on, Daeomons trying to assault orks, or the orks assaulting the Daemons, losing five or six orks in the charge, only to have over a dozen more fill in their ranks and whittle down the Daemons. This game was looking to be a solid ork victory going into turn 5 when the orks had a chance to cut down one more unit of Daemons and go from claiming 2 table quarters to 3 or 4. So we agreed to play one more turn, which actually saw the Daemons kill off 2 squads of orks and have their last Daemonette unit still alive with only 1 model left.

The victory points gained helped the Daemons, but the game still ended as a Victory for Krogg's Karnage, with the orks holding 2 table quarters to 1 for the Chaos Daemons.

When the smoke cleared from the battlefield Warboss Atogg looked around at his troops, pleased with the carnage they had caused. The fiends of Slaneesh were chased from the field of battle, and this would lead up for the next advance, where more key objectives waited.

Games Day 2010

Well, we made it to Baltimore MD, to the Inner Harbor at the Baltimore Convention Center for Games Day 2010.    Quite a few members of our local gaming club, Berks-PA Gaming Club made the trip as well.   It was also good to see friends from other gaming clubs like Rich D and the guys from the Adventurer's Guild in Harrisburg, and Tony, Doug and the gang from the Gaming Garage, who will be hosting the Mechanicon-GT in West Chester PA this November.

I took my son along, Ethan, who is now 8 years old and building an Imperial Guard army as well as a combined Space Marine army with me.    This would be his first ever Games Day.      We took time to review the events list and think about what we wanted to do the night before.

We decided to make this a special Father/Son getaway and booked a hotel room at the Days Inn right across the street from the venue.   Funny how many of the folks working there, especially staff from GW and Forge World were staying in our hotel.

I recall from Games Days in the past that there is so much going on, not to get bogged down in a big tournament.   However, we did want to make sure that we played at least a game or two, get to see what was there, view models, buy stuff, and just enjoy the day.

Last year I was very dissapointed that there was no open gaming.   Thankfully that was corrected this year.    It seemed that many of the gaming clubs picked up on this as well and sponsored their own tables for games.    I must say that this was perhaps one of the best features of Games Day for us.   

We were drawn to the tables by Ineptus Astartes, a club based locally in Colombia MD, and their comical signs of "special forces" featuring a space marine dropping a hand grenade.     

One of their game tables was "Da Hunt for Red Orktoba", a play off of the movie, where an Ork Warboss steals an imperial submarine and bursts through the snow and ice to launch a death missle.    You could command Ork forces or Imperial Guard forces and try to destroy the submarine before the Orks launch the missle.

My son substituted 500 points of his Cadian 17th Imperial Guard for 500 points of the game club's Vostroyans.    Sure they looked a tad out of place, but it added the personal touch of having some of your own forces.    

We played with 2 players running the IG (us and another player) and 2 players running the orks.    Hosts from the Game Club acted as referrees.    The game was solid, the Submarine was very well built.    The mission was fun.   We had 5 turns to destroy the submarine by taking away all structure points.   The sub was broken down into 4 sections, each with 2 structure points:  Front: Armor:13,  Sail: Armor:14.   Middle/Hangar: Armor:12 and Rear: Armor: 12.

We all started with a few forces on the table and other units in reserve.    We got to use one of their Valkyries, placing my son's stormtroopers inside and also a Thunderbolt fighter.    In the end, a very tense fight (with a battle report to follow!), my son scored vicotry combining fire with our comrade and the Guard took away the last 2 structure points at the top of Turn 5.

We had incredible fun, and leaving that game with my son feeling really proud of himself, we made our way to the Forge World line of goods.   Thankfully FW fixed their issues from last year, as they had no bar coding on any items last year, and had to tally items up by hand.    Instead of having to wait 2+ hours for an item, I think we waited 5 minutes and walked away with some goodies, including our own Thunderbolt fighter.  :-)

We made our way to view the Big Game, and than took part in a Mega-Battle of Superheavies and Gargantuan models run by Showcase Comics.   The scenery was immense, and my son Ethan got to run a squadron of Vendetta gunships and a Warhound Titan in a battle against orks.

After that we made sure to get a chance to try out the Remote Control Tanks. Ethan got his hands on a R/C Baneblade and had fun with that.

We made our way past there to the Scenery Make & Take.  I love this event, and we both made a sizable GW building to add to our collection.     After the Make & Take, we helped texture some GW battle boards for another give away.

This one was really nice, and I wish we would have done more with this.   In 5 sessions througout the day, people got to paint and texture complete boards.    Your name got entered into a raffle for each time you helped.    At the end of the day, they raffled off all 3 boards complete with about 8-12 pieces of terrain to go with them.    This event was just an extra donation by GW, and I feel was a great one.   Sadly we didnt' win, but I still think that it was a wonderful concept, and all of the boards looked terrific.

Finally, as Games Day winded to a close, we met up with some of our friends and went to Hard Rock Cafe and enjoyed a great dinner and swapped our tales of our adventures for the day.    Back at our hotel, my son and I ran into a group of fellas from GW and Forge World, including Gav Thorpe!     That just made a wonderful weekend even better.

So, in the end, we are saddened to hear that Games Day will not be in Baltimore next year, but regardless of that, we all agree that this year was by far the BEST Games Day event all of us had attended.

Battle Report: Space Marines vs. Orks

Space Marines vs. Orks:   Strike Force Steel Thunder vs. Blood Axe Mercenaries

Another encounter with the Blood Axes (Orks in training) with my friend Colin. He is still learning how to play orks, an army i've been playing for the past 4 years, and at times, competetively. So, as the Blood Axes are building a Shooty-Style Army of Ork Lootas, I allowed him access to my models and this gave me another chance to field my Space Marines, a new project I have been working on lately.

Our encounter takes us into the Asoria sub-sector, where the Blood Axes at this point, led by the boss Bullet-Bita, have been spearheading an assault into this region under orders from Ork Warlord Krogg Satogg of Krogg's Karnage.

Strike Force Steel Thunder is a unified force of Space Marines from two Chapters. The rebuilding Lamenters 5th Company allong with allies of the Salamanders 6th company. So far this list is still my 1000 point list from our local "Tale of 4 Gamers" in the Berks-PA Gaming Club. My list is pretty standard but has given me some fun options as I continue to complete painting them.

Space Marine Turn 1: Opening up fire into the battle, the Dreadnought Honorable Brother Val'Deez only managed to melt a tree in front of him with his multi-melta. The Whirlwind Hailfire scored a direct hit upon the orks wartrukk, but failed to damage it. All in all, a very ineffective round of shooting for the Space Marines.

Ork turn 1: Wartrukk with Nobs in it races down the Western flank. The Nobs crest the hill and are just barely in range of assaulting the Lamenter's Rhino. On the other side of the field, the Ork's looted wagon with battle cannon ( a looted Vindicator tank) scattered it's shot and it landed directly upon the Salamanders Rhino and a few scouts. The scouts avoided damage thanks to their camo cloaks. The advancing ork Ork Lootas and shoota boyz pumped some rokkit launchas into the Stunned Rhino and subsequently wrecked it, forcing the Salamander tactical squad to disembark.

Space Marine turn 2: The Landspeeder Storm arrived, outflanking from the East, allowing the Assault Scouts to come in behind the Looted Wagon. Shooting was more effective this turn, combined shooting scoring 3 wounds on the Nobs, (unsaved by Feel No Pain). Assault scouts with their transport pur their fire into the Looted Wagon, stunning it and than destroying it with Krak grenades and a melta-bomb from the Sgt. The Lamenters disembarked from their shaken transport, drew bolt pistols and than assaulted the Nobs. They scored 2 wounds, leaving just 3 Nobs left: the Pain-doc, one with a power claw and one other Nob.

Ork turn 2: More Outflanking! Ork Kommandos arrive on the South Eastern flank behind the Dreadnought and near the Whirlwind. The empty Wartrukk moved full speed ahead, attempting to tank-shock the Captain and his tactical 5-man squad. The Lamenters avoid the tank-shock and move aside. More orks advance, now in range of their shootas (18 inches) and start pouring dakka-dakka fire from their slug throwing guns into Space Marine units. They manage to kill 1 marine. Lootas fire their deffguns at the Assault scouts, who manage to avoid injury due to range and cover.

The Warboss calls a "Waaagh!", and rolls a 6 for the closest mob of boyz. They join in the fight with the Lamenters and Nobs and eventually the 5-man squad is finished off as the Warboss joins in the fun. Kommandos assault the dread, hoping to get the Nob with the Powerclaw leading the pack into the fight. He misses. Honorable Brother Val'Deez kills 2 Kommandos with his Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon.

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Space Marine turn 3: As the Warboss and his troops are closing in, Ork teams fire into the squad of shoota boyz in the central objective area of the board. Combined fire takes out half the squad, killing 10 of the 20 orks. Other shooting stuns the Wartrukk. The Assault scouts Manuver around, trying to get an angle near the orks in the center of the battle field. The Battle of the Dreadnought and the Kommandos was still at a stand still.

Ork Turn 3: The Ork Wartrukk was attempting to ram the Whirlwind Hailfire, but it just didn't have enough speed. Still it pulled in close enough to get it's wrecking ball into range, but the deadly weapon missed. The Ork Warboss Bullet-Bita lead his mob closer to Captain Octavious. Their gunfire killed 3 of his Lamenters and the good Captain had the sense to pull his troops back (falling back 8 inches) and taking them out of assault range of the intruding Orks.

As shooting continued, the Salamander tactical squad lost 4 men, including the Sergeant, and they wisely pulled back. The Salamander Dreadnought, Honorable-Brother Val'Deez continued to hold his ground against the ork kommandos, killing another of their number.

Space Marine turn 4: This time the Marines concentrated their efforts on the weakened shoota boy mob in by the central objective towards the North. Shooting from the Landspeeder Storm, the Assault scouts and the surviving Salamanders combined to soften them up. A combined assault of the Scouts and Salamanders saw the orks get wiped out. Salamanders consolodated South, trying to block off the objective while the Assault Scouts claimed the objective.

Scout Snipers and the Whirlwind continued to pour fire into the closing mob of orks, killing a few more. The Dreadnought was still locked in a tied combat with the Kommandos.

Ork turn 4: Ork Lootas managed to shoot and kill one of the assault scouts, who were hunkered down in a copse of trees. The larger ork mob closes in on the Salamanders, shoots and than assaults them, killing a couple but loosing men in return.

The Dreadnought was still holding its ground, despite being shaken up a bit by the Nob with the Power Claw. The Wartrukk continued to try to hit the Whirlwind with its wrecking ball, but still managed to not hit the missle tank.

Space Marine turn 5: Captain Octavious stepped up and left Battle-Brother Heath Gulther, the last man of the 5-man combat squad still standing, who was just behind the Whirlwind and brought his Missle Launcher to bear. The Missle takes out the truck where it was sitting.

Where the Salamanders were tied up in an assault, the Sniper Scouts broke free from the ruined building and join into the assault. They managed to inflict some casualties and take a few of their own, but help hold the combat away from the other objectives.

The Landspeeder Storm zipped away flat out, moving into position to contest the objective where the 3 nobs were still camped out on the hill.

Ork turn 5: The Lootas managed to shoot down the Landspeeder Storm. They claim the Western objective. The large mob of boys finish off the lone Salamander and sniper scouts, and move to claim the southeast objective, but Captain Octavious is there to contest it. In the Center area of the field of battle, the Assault Scouts stand vicotrious on their objective, thus securing a 1-1 tie.

End Game: Objectives count: 1-1. Going to victory points is as follows: Orks: 549 points. Space Marines: 500. As this is in the 10% rule, (100 points in this case), the end result is a solid draw. The Lamenters and Salamanders of Strike Force Steel Thunder hold their ground, but fail to stop the Ork assault into the sector.

This was a very fun game. Colin is learning to play orks (my main army) and I'm helping him at what I call "Kamp Karnage" named after my own ork Army: Krogg's Karnage. His experimentation with a shooty style of ork army is starting to take off. I just heard that he defeated a cagey Space Wolf player recently. I look forward to more games with him as I help him join the WAAAGH!
I'm also enjoying learning how to run my Space Marines too, but I'm an Ork player at heart. :-)