Game 2

This was the second game that I played a few weeks back and I forgot to say that these games were 1250 point games in preparation for Northern Invasion tournament. While I didn't attend due to family and work commitments, I did have several games against people who were going, mostly just to give them some practice.

The game itself was one of the missions from the Chapter Approved 2019 book and although I can't remember the name now, it's the one with the objective on the middle that you score points for when your within a certain range. Now, mistakes were made, big ones at that. The main one really was the Null Zone rule was missed and so the big blob of Boyz in the middle with the nob(?) With a kustom force field shouldn't have been getting the 5++ save. Anyway, we didn't pick up that one until the 3rd turn, by which point it was pointless changing the rules.

Anyway, let's talk about the game and I'll mention the other mistakes as we go.

Deployment

The guard, screen to the front and heavies to the back, plus a few units strung out to stop anyone da jumping in to my back field.

The orks, blobbed up around the mech(??) With the kustom force field. There's some Gretchen strung outs around the place to stop my deep striking units as well.

A closer shot of the mass of Orks

The orks did what was expected turn 1 and charged forward and as expected a big squad of 30 Boyz da jumped forward smashing a sentinel to bits and then, thanks to an. 11 inch initial charge, consolidate in to my lines, where mistake number 3 happens (I'll go back to mistake 2 shortly) my opponent payed 2cp to fight again, wiping out 2 squads of guardsmen, mauling a third and then consolidating in to my hellhound. Now, this shouldn't have happened and was actually picked up by my opponent after the game because as the guardsmen we're not targets of the charge, the couldn't have been targets for the second attack. Yes they could have been consolidated in to but not attacked. That would have left my right flank almost intact instead of badly mauled

The Boyz swarming the lines

Mistake 2, if you can see, there are 4 guns in the centre building. They are vehicles and that's a ruin, so they can't be set up there, so they should have been on the ground and out of cover, plus there lines of sight would have been a lot more restricted.

The fight back 

After the initial hit the guard fought back, managing to clear the lines of the initial Ork attack but this left much of the middle untouched. As a result the orks took the points in the first turn, plus first blood, putting them up 2-0.

The Orks at the end of turn 1

Turn 2 started as turn 1 did, the Orks advanced. There was a bit of shooting, mostly from the cannons, with the tractor cannons doing most of the heavy lifting, destroying one of my wyverns and somewhere along the line my hellhound also went pop. By this point I had taken a battering with the orks being relatively untouched.

The advance

I was running out of options at this point, so gambled and dropped in my scions on the flank, hoping to take out some of the orks and more importantly some of the characters. While it didn't take out any of the characters, it did cause the Boyz in the centre to pivot and came across the board to take them out, this along with a very brave platoon commanders charging up the middle did cause some issue for the Orks. Unfortunately they were dealt with pretty easily.

The brave and soon to be very dead platoon commander.

By now things were pretty dire. I was down 3 to 0 and with only 1 point per turn for the objective and only slay the warlord and line breaker on offer I would have to perform miracles to win. Any thought of miracles went out the window when my opponent played the stratagem that let him bring one of the Boyz squads back at full strength (endless green tide I think). So a squad that was down to about 4 or 5, went back to 30 and my second wyvern, while still alive, was wounded badly.

Lots of Orks, not many guard.

I did what I could in my turn but it really wasn't enough. The big group of Boyz on the flank we're still locked up with the last member of the scions, so couldn't be targeted, the KFF was doing a Sterling job keeping everyone safe in the middle and my dice were horrible. My opponents dice were on fire however!

The final stand

He's in there somewhere! Mines the grey one in the middle of the ring on the right hand side!

So at the end of turn 3 I was 4 - 0 down and time was definitely running out for the guard. Turn 4 was the final straw, as the remaining Orks or rather the Gretchen went to work on the remaining guard squads, removing over half of those that remained and claiming the centre objective for a 4th turn.

The few remaining guard.

Lots of orks

At this point I conceded as I was running out of units and we were also running out of time. At this point I was 5 to 0 and was looking at that going to at least 6, but likely 7 to 0 with line breaker. If I was really unlucky, then they might have got warlord for the full house and an 8 - 0 score line.

As I said at the beginning though, mistakes were made. Without the KFF and the 5++ save it gave, then a lot more orks would have died. The case in point was when a boy took a melta gun to the face and survived. Knowing the Null Zone was in effect would have changed a lot, including how my opponent set up, thus, how the how game played out. Not having my right flank wiped out by a charge that shouldn't have happened would also have changed the game. I lost nearly 3 whole squads and my hellhound got shut down. With 3d6 auto hits on the flames and the -1ap, quite a few orks would have been BBQ'd, plus all the extra lasguns and flamers that were in there would have taken down some more, freeing up at least one wyvern, or possibly both, to go after the other squad of Boyz, who probably wouldn't have been under the KFF. Finally, without the artillery being in the ruin, they probably wouldn't have been able to see the wyverns without being open and exposed and more vulnerable to the wyverns as well. Of course, you can never tell what the dice will do but the game would have been very different and who know maybe the guard would even have won!

I would like to add that I know my opponent was not cheating or being dishonest in any way, shape or form during this game. It was a new army and he was learning g the rules, if I had picked up on any of the errors during the game, they would have been rectified with no argument and so also accept that part of the blame for these errors lies with me. Hopefully we'll get time for a rematch sometime soon.

Game 1

This is the first of three games that I played a few weeks ago. The yearly local tournament is coming up shortly. This tournament is a 1250 point tournament and although there are few restrictions the key one is that there is only lord of war option allowed. this was due to last years tournament when a knight army (at 1500 points) wiped the table in all three games and took the trophy with little difficulty. While there was nothing wrong with the list, it wasn't very much fun for everyone else by the sound of it.

Anyway on to the game, we played a Maelstrom of war game at the above mentioned 1250 points of guard against Space Wolves. My opponent was running a fairly heavy list with three dreads, including one redemptor.

There was little was really bothered about in the list apart from the blood claws in the drop pod.

The three dreads.

The guard lines.

Turn 1 was as expected with the drop pod coming in and the blood claws charging the guard lines.

The charge

The wolves did as they were expected and tore into the lines taking out several squads of guard.

The result.

All of the rest of the wolves either stood still.and shot or advanced forwards.

In my first turn the primary goal was to clear my lines, which ianaged to do, although some mistakes were made, such as leaving the hellhound until last, meaning most of the targets were out of range!

The fight back starts.

The guard rally

At the end of turn 1 things weren't really going my way, with my opponent t scoring all 3 of his cards (21,33 and 52) and first blood and me scoring nothing (cards 11, 51 and 52, discarded 11). This out me 5-0 down already

End of the turn 1

Turn 2 started much slower, with the dreads reaching my lines, while much of the rest stayed back. The plasma long fangs did some damage to one of the wyverns but the guard survived fairly intact.

Dreads in the line

A better view of the danger.

The big thing to happen this turn was the charge of the dreads. Despite what it looks like in the pictures, the dreads went a different way and the right dread charged the hellhound and the left dread charged the units in front of the right hand dread. The left hand dread made it's charge and went chop chop through a number of guardsmen but failed to do enough damage to kill them and consolidate on to the wyvern. The other dread, well we've no idea if it would have made it's charge as the hellhound barbequed it before it had a chance, granted it was already wounded, down to a handful of wounds but still.

Reinforcements arrive

Slightly out of order but it's a pain to reorder pictures on mobile, the final result of the dreads charges.

During my turn, I dropped in my scions, only for one lot to get wiped out by the redemptor using a stratagem. The others did there job, taking down a number of long fangs and grey hunters between the two remaining squads. The rest of the army dealt the other dread, clearing the lines once more.

By now the scores had even out, with my opponent scoring nothing (cards 26, 36 and 46, he discarded 46). I on the other hand did pretty well, scoring all of mine (21, 51 and 52) plus stealing his card (26), to give a score of 5-4.

Turn 3 was unfortunately the last turn due to time constraints. I didn't as many pictures as we were busy trying to get the turn done. The wolves we're lacking in numbers by now but still managed to put a take down the majority of my reserves.

Two SW characters charge in, the result of which can be seen in the back of the picture below.

While the wolves struggles to really dent the remaining guard, the guard also struggled to dent the remaining wolves.

Somehow the sentinel survived a round of combat with a redemptor, it didn't survive two though.

At the end of turn three things weren't as I had expected. My opponent had managed to score 2 points from his cards ( 64 and 65 but not 46) and I had not managed to score any of mine (34, 35 and 41). Once we had taken line breaker in to account the scores were 8-4 in favour of the wolves, despite how few of there units remained on the table. At the end of turn 3, the wolves had the redemptor, an injured iron priest (who was also the warlord), one plasma cannon long fangs and a couple of grey hunters (I can't remember exactly how many but it was only 2 or 3) where as the guard had both wyverns, a hellhound, 3 incomplete squads of guard, several characters and a couple of scions. At this point we did some quick and rough mathhammer and we look at the cards we would have drawn. I cat remember what cards we drew but with what was on the table and looking at the cards it was looking like the guard would have been able to take victory should the game go on. The big issue was the redemptor as I was rapidly running out of things to damage it, however, there was little in my army that it could not damage in return.

So the final score went down as a 8 to 4 loss for the guard, which should have been an 8 to 5 if I'd actually though a little at the end and ran a model in to my opponents deployment zone. Oh well. So, although it was a loss for the guard, I really don't think I didn't anything wrong or would change anything to much, as if the game had gone 5 turns I think I would have been able to pull in to the lead as I had the bodies left to get to objectives and claim points.