2024 league - guard vs orks

 So I played another game in the league, the fourth of five games and another victory, just! This was a very close game with the final score being 69 to the guard and 65 to the orks. There were a few mistakes made in the game but I'll come to them later. 

My opponents list was quite scary to look at, as it had a lot of combat punch and his previous game had been against the World Eaters, and had been a resounding victory 78 to 33, so I was really worried. His list included; a beast boss, two beast bosses on Squigosaurs and three warboss' leading two units of beast snagga boyz in kill rigs, two units of squighog boyz and three units of nobz in trukks, plus a unit of Gretchen at the rear.

So lots of mobility and close combat punch, which meant that my plan was to stay back as much as possible and force him to come at me piece meal. 

Take and hold, search and destroy, chilling rain

Mission and terrain layout were rolled for randomly.

Terrain layout 3 

Deployment 

Ork deployment

I didn't get any pictures early game, but during this time.my opponent made, what I think, was his biggest mistake, he held back, worried about my deep striking units. He pushed up with his kill rigs but bottle necked himself in the central terrain pieces. He did manage however to remove my DKoK squad that I had sent up the middle and a cadian squad on the left flank, which had claimed objectives for VP, plus my rough riders that had pushed up the right flank. However, this was over two turns and so the DKoK and Rough Riders returned as Reinforcements. 

By the start of turn 3, the game was still very close, with orls now in my lines, with the majority of my units pinned in my deployment zone. I had forced my opponent to move back by bringing the DKoK in behind him but that was it. My scions were still off the table, along side the rough riders. My knight finally did something this turn and chopped up a squad of Squighog boyz, although he failed to take out the Boss. This also saw the start of the battle between Tank commander and beast Snagga boyz. I lost the other tank to kill rig shooting which was unfortunate.

Looking a bit grim for the guard

Nobz out of position after taking on the flanking DKoK.

At the beginning of turn 4 we were still only separated by a few points and I was struggling to score primary points but doing well on secondary points, my opponent had the opposite problem. The scions had dropped in previously but some poor positioning from me and dropped me some easy primary points this turn. The rough riders also reappeared this turn in the far corner to charge down some trukks but failed the charge, twice. The knight however had no trouble dealing with the kill rig that had charged my infantry squad sitting on my home objective. The scions on the top objective were less lucky and were splattered all over the place, luckily for me another (identical) unit was waiting ready to redeploy! 

Rough riders pinned in by trukks

Turn 5 saw the knight move up and take on the last kill rig and the rough riders hit both the trukks. With both charges successful and the resultant damage enough to destroy all three units, the rest of the firepower from the two squads of scions was directed at the remaining orks and was enough to destroy all by one lone ork warboss. 

There was very little for the orks to do in there turn, having only one model left. They were however able to score a few points. The end result of 65 to 69 for the guard was a pretty fair score for the game, even though I had significantly more units left at the end, although most of these did come from reinforcements.

There are a couple of notes to make though. There were a couple of mistakes made during the game, not just in terms of decisions but also rules wise. 

For the orks, the main mistakes were tactical, with pushing both kill rigs in to the ruins turn 1 bottlenecked himself meaning one has to move back to allow the other to move forward. The second mistake was charging the squidosaurs unit into the knight rather than the squad on my home objective. They did some damage but not enough to take.out the knight, although the knight did fail to take them out in return. The last mistake I think was holding on to bring it down for so long. I think that after the second turn it should have been dropped. However, there is a caveat to this, one that is my mistake. 

I think I only really made two mistakes, one minor one was holding my knight back so much. I think I should have pushed it up further turn 2 but ultimately it worked out as it was. The second mistake was with "big guns never tire". When my tank was charged I checked the rules as I had a feeling there were restrictions about blast weapons. Having a look through the main rule there was no mention about it, just pistols, so I checked a few.other bits but found nothing, even though I was sure that there was something. Anyway we played on and I shot the plasma guns in combat even thought they were blast. I later found the bit I was looking for and confirmed that blast can't shoot in combat (in the rules commentary). Why they can't just add the restriction to the main rules I don't know, they have stuff about pistols after all. Anyway, this would have meant that I would have pulled the Russ out of combat and fired all the infantry in to the unit and probably done more damage, as they didn't shoot that turn anyway. I don't think this would have affected the game either way however, as even if they had scored the points it was only worth 3 points. There are also a couple of points in the game where I missed out on scoring points. The first was when I dropped in my scions. I dropped them in close to the enemy but if I had dropped just a few inches back, I could have claimed an objective during my next turn or two, without having to move, potentially scoring myself up to 10 extra VP. I also had cleanse for one of my cards in the last turn but got carried away with shooting. If I had done cleanse I could have picked up 3 points myself, for one objective and possibly the full 5 if I had dropped the above squad on the objective.

Overall I don't think any of these rules mistakes would have made a difference to the overall result even though it was a close run thing. Some of the tactical decisions would have had a bigger impact on the game overall and could well have changed the overall result. 

Last Ork Standing

Overall this was probably the best game of the league for me so far, not just due to the win but in overall fun and enjoyment and the ork army was very nicely painted as well. I have one last game to try and play but I'm not sure when or even if I will get around to playing it. 

Game 5 Recap - Orks

 So, i had my final game of the league the other week against Orks. It was a fun game even though we only managed to get to the end of turn 4, although turn 5 would have done nothing to the overall score, apart from give both of us a extra few victory points.

This game was one of the games i was hopeful of winning. There were a few big models, such as the deffdread, kill rig and the 40 wounds stompa!! There were lots of other orks but i was confident that if I could remove all these smaller orks, i could just ignore the really big models and just concentrate on objectives. This was slightly complicated by the fact i lost first turn. This was really big and i was worried I would have another repeat of the Eldar game and I would be hemmed in first turn and then not be able to get out of my deployment zone and get going. 

Guard deployment

One thing to note is the split deployment, i had castled up on the left of the board but i places two infantry units and a command squad, supported by a priest and commissar on the right to either move forward and take the objective or to draw some of the ork units across that side of the board and away from my main castle. 

The ork deployment

The orks went all in on their right flank and i though were going to ignore the guard on my right flank. However, with first turn the orks surged forward, pushing up across the board. The Deffkoptas went to take on the guards right flank, as i had hoped but the kill rig and wartrike came streaming down my left flank. All in all the ork turn went as expected, lots of firing but not that much dead. My opponent also made, what I consider to be his first mistake of the game, razing one of his objectives (we were playing “Burn and Raze), top left of the photo below. This netted him 5 points and let him move off the objective but also denied him more points in subsequent turns. 

In my turn I concentrated on the wartrike and kill rig, figuring that these were the most dangerous to me right now. Both were well up the field and the kill rig was loaded with orks. Unfortunately my hellhammer bounced some what, it did damage but not nearly as much as it should. The idea was to crack open the kill rig and then gun down the beast snagga’s inside. However by the end of the shooting phase, the rig was on 2 wounds but at least the trike was dead. So at this point i went for a bit of a Hail Mary and charge with everything i had, hoping to. E able to take the last two wounds in combat and with some good positioning, wrap and trap the model, thus killing the boyz inside. It didn’t quite go to plan however, as I only managed to take it down a single wound! I had to hope that it couldn’t kill enough of my models to form a gap big enough to disembark all the models inside. 

The failed wrap and trap!

Turn 2 started as expected for the orks, lots of noise but not many casualties on my side. There was some luck on my side of things as well. My opponent tried to bring in his deffdread by my castle but with where my models had ended up, there was just not enough space for him to drop in anywhere useful, so he ended up dropping in on the far side of the board, on my right flank to deal with the models there, this i think was his second mistake of the game, as it took the deffdread out of the game. If he had waited a turn longer to bring it in, he probably could have dropped it by my castle and done some damage. 

The three guardsmen in the centre that held up a stompa for TWO turns!

The other lucky break was the remaining guardsmen in the centre blocking the stompa from running through and challenging my hellhammer to a one on one fist fight. They died in a literal blaze of glory when the burna boyz got out of the stompa and toasted them, but they did their job and died gloriously for the emperor. Unfortunately in the fight phase, several addition units were able to get in to combat around the kill rig and with the combined might of the orks, they were able to clear space down one side, which would be big enough for the vast majority of the orks in the kill rig. I was however able top take the last wound off the kill rig in combat and the embarked boyz all managed to scrabble out unharmed in to a space that was literally just the right size! 

Loaded Dice!

At this point in the game i was getting seriously worried about where the dice gods were placing their favours, i was having a pretty terrible time with rolls, not horrendous but not great, my opponent on the other had was having a great time, rolling above (or below when needed) average on pretty much all his dice rolls!

My turn was spent trying to hold on to the castle with the limited models i had left. My hellhammer was down to just 6 wounds at the beginning of the turn and was not going to survive another turn of shooting, the stompa was going to i get it next turn if the deffkopters didn’t. I had lost my right flank by this point, with just a company commander and commissar left, but they moved up to block the stompa again. The hellhammer focused on all the orks directly in front of itself, and alongside the infantry that remained and could destroyed the majority of them. The scions dropped in on the back field, taking my opponent undefended home objective and destroying the boyz sitting on the centre objective. My plane also dropped in this turn, heaving been kept off the board turn 1. 

End of turn 2

The Castle holds

And a new castle is built

Turn 3 and this is the turn that my opponent, in my opinion made his biggest mistake, he turned the stompa around to go after the scions and flyer in his deployment zone, leaving my hellhammer alone. The stompa did do some damage to the scions but not wiping out any single unit and he wasted a lot of firepower on the flyer. The deffkoptas bounced on the hellhammer, chipping a few wounds off, but after the techpriest had repaired it last turn was not destroyed. Choosing to wipe out the commander and commissar in combat rather than charge the hellhammer, also left them open and vulnerable. Although this probably was the better option in terms of gaining victory points from blood and guts. 

In my turn 3 i moved up on to the central objective and positioned myself to take out as much of the remaining orks as i could, taking down the last of the boyz, all but one deffkopta, the deffdread and the stompa, who was still on 36 wounds at this point!

End of turn 3

The remnants of the castle

The new castle digging in!

Turn 4 and due to time it was our last turn. There was not much for my opponent to do by now, the stompa decimated the units in the centre, and the deffkopta moved up to add its firepower and also charged in to try and finish off the unit of DKoK that had dropped out the flyer. At the end of the turn, 4 guardsmen remained out of the 16 or so that had started the turn stood on the objective. The scions 4+ save and take cover order helping to keep them alive a lot longer than they should have. The deffdread by now had moved up on to the objective on my right flank but was completely out of the game now. There was a little scuffle that had been going on for a while between a single ork and some guardsmen and an ogryn at the other end of the table. It had lasted a full turn already and was still going on!

Turn 4 finish

In my turn, i played only to the objectives and cards, pulling back to allow me too finish the deffkopta and claim the objective for the end game, i also raze the objective in my opponent deployment zone, as i wouldn’t need it for turn 5. The final boyz was killed off in combat, it only took 3 rounds of combat for a model to die!

End game

At the end game, the orks had a stompa on around 30 wounds (the dice got knocked and we couldn’t remember) and a deffdread on full wounds hiding in a corner, i had a hellhammer on just 5 wounds, a flyer down just a couple of wounds and about 25 infantry.  While it might look like i had a significant advantage in numbers i really didn’t have the firepower or durability to take the stompa down next turn but given the ork shooting there was little chance of him being able to take out all of my remaining forces. Even though we had to call the game at the end of turn 4, looking a head to turn 5, there would have been little change in the situation. My opponent would have struggled to score many more points, gaining 5 for the primary for holding one objective and looking at they cards he would have drawn, may have managed 5 more from secondaries. However, the complete lack of infantry was hampering him, as i had hoped it would when i targeted them over his other units. In my turn 5 i would have scored 10 for the primary and looking at the cards I would have definitely scored 5 more secondaries, maybe even 10 if i had been lucky with my dice rolls. This would have left the scores about 85 to 60 or there about, not changing the overall result or within the tournament results.

As it was the game finished as a victory to the guard after a hard fought battle. I really did think that i was going to loose this one after turn 1 and the orks charge and even after turn 2 i was not convinced that i was going to be able to pull out a win. I had a really enjoyable game and it was really nice to finish on a high. Ill write up a review of the army list and lesssons i learned, just in time to forget all of them for 10th!

Ork kill team

Back to a kill team for a couple of posts! I haven't posted up about kill team in a few weeks but there has been a bit of work going on getting some more kill teams up and running, probably never to be played with! 

This is the Ork Commandos from the Octarius launch box and initially I was going to sell these on, as I'm not a great lover of orks, however, I was persuaded to keep hold of them by my son and I'm glad that I did. Having spent time painting them up, I have found a liking for them that I didn't realise I had. Now, they are not going to become my favourite faction,  not even one of top 3 really, but I do think that they have a wealth of character and are fun looking models. I have gone with a very basic paint scheme, mostly dry brush with a few highlights of colour and I think it's worked out quite well.

The whole gang.

Spot colours popping quite nicely on some models.

The boss and his minions.

Now, the observant amongst you have probably spotted that fact that the grot is not the correct grot model, ninja grot has gone full ninja and disappeared. I'm pretty sure my youngest has spirited him away some where but as yet I have no idea where he is, so a stand in model has been acquired from said youngest's collection. I really like the squig model, as it's such a fun looking model but still easy to paint. 

The gunz, all da gunz!

Next we have the guns, all the guns! Ok, so maybe not quite but it's the Dakka boy and two normal Boyz. The Dakka boy is as intended and is another great model, all all the commandos are but the Boyz are modified slightly, with both models duel wielding pistols. Although this doesn't actually give you anything in game, I thought it looked a lot cooler and more Orky than holding a knife. One of the things like most about these models is the Dakka boyz hat, very reminiscent of the old WW2 commando hats. 

Getting up close and personal

The short range commandos are up next, with the slasha boy, Comms boy and Breacha boy. There's not masses to say about these three, there built as standard for the most part. The only change for some of these are that all the models have a mask or face covering of some description. I've done this to give them a more specialist, sneaky special forces look, similar to the CQB special forces looks you see. 

Da special boyz

The last three are the specialists, the Burna boy, Rokkit boy and Snipa boy. All of these three are built as instructed, so very little to say again. I did add some extras here and there, as with all the models, just to add some flavour.

I really like these models and even with the simple paint job they look good. The red spot colours on they symbols and such also really pop nicely and add some colour to the otherwise quite dull colours. When these guys get played or not is another matter, as I haven't had a game of kill team in ages! I've another team that I've painted up to showcase here then it's on to other projects, mainly my Deathwatch but also AdMech.

Finished terrain

So my plans for getting the kids to paint up my terrain for me sort of worked, they did Paint up some of them but I had to finish them off. Well I say had to, I didn't have to, I just wanted to actually get them finished in a reasonable amount of time. 

The barricades, 

These are painted very simply, as is most of the parts I painted. Dry brush boltgun metal (or lead belcher as it's called these days) over black primer, with some red highlights, mostly the Ork plane parts.

Planes and lightbulbs. Thought about OSL, then decided I'm not that skilled \ bothered

Rubble piles, with a couple of extra colours for details

Nice, simple but effective.

The platforms and rubble pile.

The platforms are a bit useless in my view but easy enough to build and paint. The rubble pile.was painted by my daughter with some addition by myself, mainly painting the tools in the tool box silver, as I though it looked better that way. This is the only bit that I have changed on all the models that they painted.

Ok, now for the Ork's amongst you, there are building in the next two pictures, it's just there very camouflaged.

Honestly, my daughter painted these purple, not because of any desire to make sneaky Ork building but because she likes purple. The red is there because her brother told her she needed to paint the Ork symbols red. 

My oil Derek, basic paint scheme again but with the red Ork symbols and a bit of bronze in there for some details. You can't see very clearly in the pictures but the lights in they eyes of the big Ork symbols is actually painted yellow to look like a proper light.

These were painted up by son and are very shiny, so classically Orkish as well. Again red symbols and even a few little details such as pipe work.

 One thing I forgot to photograph or mention, are the small bridge sections. I painted these up as well and you can just see them on the edges of the photos of the fort sections. Both fairly simple but with some basic wood effect on the planks that make up the middle sections. I'd doesn't look very good i the pictures but it's quite nice in hand.