I brought my Orks to their first tournament this past Saturday. It was a 1500 point event. I chose not to take any pictures because with my limited experience with the army and its large numbers of infantry I was worried about having enough time to complete games. In the future I think I'm going to try to take photos in the interest of learning from my mistakes. I ended up finishing fairly poorly, but had a rather good time. It was, if nothing else, an excellent learning experience.
My list consisted of:
Warboss - power klaw, bosspole, cybork body, heavy armour, attack squig, kombi-skorcha
Big Mek - power klaw, kustom force field, cybork body, attack squig
8 lootas
10 grots with runtherd
30 shoota boyz - nob with power klaw and bosspole
30 slugga boyz - nob with power klaw
3 squads of 2 deffkoptas - twin linked rockets and one buzzsaw in each squad
2 squads of 3 killa kans with rocket launchas
My planned strategy was to advance behind the wall of kans that are protected by the KFF on the Mek. Hopefully the cover saves will leave me with enough Orks to get the job done by the times I come to grips with the enemy. The koptas are there to get side shots on vehicles or first turn assaults to reduce incoming enemy fire. I managed to get two practice games in with this army the week before the event, but that really wasn't enough to figure out the ins and outs of the force.
Game 1: Modified Kill Points/Pitched Battle against Imperial Guard
My opponents army consisted of 2 melta veteran squads in chimeras, company command squad with plasma guns and a medic, 30 man infantry blob with autocannons and grenade launchers (no commissar however), a platoon command squad in chimera with 4 flamers, 2 heavy weapon squads, one with lascannons and one with missile launchers, 2 demolishers, and one leman russ. I won the roll off to go first and that's where my opponent panicked and made his largest mistake. He chose to full reserve his army rather than risk the alpha strike from the deffkoptas. This gave me 2 fulls turns to advance before he even started rolling for reserves. He rolled well for reserves, getting all but 2 units in on the second turn, but it wasn't enough. I was already more then halfway across the board and I was able to just wade into his arriving forces and annihilate them before they were able to do much real damage to my army. Result: Massacre.
In my opponents defense he is one best marines players in the area. He has taken his marine army to the 'ard boyz finals for each of the last two years. He's a very good player, but has never played a guard army in his life. He was only in the tourney to even out the number of competitors.
One win down. A win almost purely due to my opponents errors, but a win none the less. I really didn't learn anything from this battle. It's tough to learn new tactics when your opponents army barely shows up to the game.
Game 2: Modified capture and control/dawn of war against Daemons (5 objectives, bonus points for killing all HQs, and the highest cost unit)
From what I can remember of my opponents army he had: keeper of secrets, 2 heralds of tzeentch on chariots with bolt, 2 soul grinders, 1 group of 7 plaguebearers, 3 groups of horrors with bolt, 1 group of horrors with the changeling, and 2 groups of 3 flamers of tzeentch. I was feeling rather confident going into this game. One of my practice games was against this same player piloting the same army, and I'd won that game handily.
Early turns: I chose to let my opponent take the first turn and laughed a bit on the inside when he lost the roll to select which half of his army came in. I'd placed my two squads of boyz on the board along with the Mek with the KFF hoping that whatever he deployed would end up close enough to me that I could do some damage on the early turns. He played very conservatively with his drops and kept well away from my troops. I advanced as much as possible with my boys to go after what daemons were on the table and marched on with most of the rest of my army. During his second turn he kept his drops on his side of the board away from the parts of my army that had just marched on and shot away with the squads of horrors causing a little damage. During my second turn I continued to advance, but was unable to do any meaningful damage. My lootas unloaded 24 shots into one of his chariots causing 8 wounds, but he passed all 8 saves.
Middle turns: During turns 3 and 4 he managed to perform multiple assaults into my squads of boyz with his keeper of secrets thanks to Soporific musk which gives it hit-and-run. I was always wounding on sixes and couldn't deal enough damage to even slow the beast down thanks to the staggering numbers of 4+ saves he was making. Fearless wounds were taking a rather impressive toll on my forces. For my part I'd managed to kill off most of his horrors with my shoota boyz and also to destroy one chariot by assaulting it with 2 groups of deffkoptas. His soul grinders landed on either side of the board and started unloading into my kans and remaining boyz doing a little damage.
Final turns: His flamers managed to destroy my grots and cripple my lootas leaving me with only a handful of unengaged shoota boyz left as troops. I had managed to kill of all of his horrors by the end of turn 5 leaving him with only his single squad of plaguebearers sitting on an objective. At the end of my turn 5 I control one objective and he controls one, but the game doesn't end. During turn 6 he manages to kill off the last of the shoota boyz leaving me with no way to control objectives, he also managed to kill both of my characters with a soulgrinder. For my part I kill of his keeper of secrets and advance my remaining deffkoptas and kans towards his plaguebearers, but can't get within contesting range this turn. If the games goes to turn 7 I'll be able to get into assault range with the kans and wipe out the plaguebearers, but the game ends on turn 6.
Result: 1 objective to 0. Loss. Ouch.
I'd love to blame my loss on my opponent making close to 90% of his 4+ saves, but I really can't. This game was totally my screw up. I did exactly what I warn other people not to. I overextended my forces and didn't play the mission. My boyz ended up far ahead of the rest of my army and I couldn't support them, so they got taken out piecemeal. I should have just walked everything in on the first turn and played only for the 3 objectives closest to me instead of playing to destroy his army. In short, I lost because I was dumb.
Game 3: Modified capture and control/spearhead against Chaos Space Marines
My opponents army consisted of 2 daemon princes with mark of tzeentch, warptime and wings, 3 Obliterators, 10 beserkers in a rhino with champion with power fist, some plague marines in a rhino with plasma guns, and 10 raptors with mark of khorne and champion with power fist.
Early turns: I chose to go first deploying my boyz along with my HQs behind the wall of kans, the lootas were lounging on a hill in my backfield protected by the grots, and my koptas were on either flank hoping to advance and get some early shots in. The first turn went well for me, I was able to kill one of his princes with the lootas and lots of rockets, I also managed to stun the plague marines rhino. He advanced with what he could during his turn, his shooting was totally ineffective. On my turn two I assaulted his raptors with a unit of kans and killed a few. He did no damage in return, but held. I also immobilized his plague marine rhino. On his second turn he assaulted his daemon prince into the ongoing combat between the kans and raptors and killed 2 before they got a chance to swing, the remaining one did another wound. His plague marines got out of their busted ride and advance on the shoota boyz.
Middle turns: I chose not to charge my slugga boyz into the ongoing combat because I didn't want to get charged by the 10 beserkers on his turn, so instead I fell back. The shoota boyz and 2 groups of koptas unloaded into the plague marines doing minimal damage. I fired a set of koptas and the lootas at the berzerker's rhino hoping to get them out on foot where I could assault them but failed to do any damage During my assault phase he wiped out the remaining kan. On his turn he advanced on the shoota boyz with his plague marines firing as they went. He assaulted my slugga boyz with his remaining raptors but was wiped out without doing any real damage. His daemon prince went over and killed the other group of kans that he'd been shooting at with his obliterators all game. On my turn 4 I moved forward with both group of boyz trying to get into a good position to call a waaagh. The shoota boyz were going after the plague marines and the slugga boyz along with the 2 characters were going after the rhino containing the berzerkers. I was hoping to either destroy the rhino so I could assault the guys inside with my mob, or if I failed at that I was hoping to get into assault with the rhino and surround is so the marines inside would be trapped and destroyed. Unfortunately my shooting only succeeded in immobilizing the rhino. The slugga boyz only rolled a 2 on their difficult terrain movement and then got a 1 on their waaagh, so I failed to surround the rhino and a bunch of berzerkers were able to disembark. I killed a few of the plague marines on the charge but there was several left. On his 4th turn he charged into the ongoing combat with the shoota boyz with his obliterators and charged the slugga boyz with both the berzerkers and the daemon prince. I lost a few of the shoota boyz but did some damage in return. The real blow was the other combat. He dealt a total of 15 wounds and I managed to deal only 3 in return even with my 12 power klaw attacks. I lost the combat by 12, but had enough guys left to remain fearless. After all the fearless wounds I was left with only a single wound on my nob. Both my characters were butchered in a single round of combat. To make matters even worse there was still a model from my side in the combat so I was unable to fire on either enemy unit.
Ending turns: During my turn 5 I killed a few more plague marines and obliterators and he killed off my lonely nob with his daemon prince. On his turn 5 he ran his berzerkers towards the central objective, but came up short. In the combat with the plague marines I killed a few more leaving him with only 1 of each. The game ended on turn 5
Result: 0 objectives to 0. draw.
My biggest mistake that game was taking the first turn. I should have chosen to go second, but I failed to play the mission. I was so focused on the deffkoptas being an alpha strike unit that when I finally got the first turn to use them as such, there was nothing to use them against. My opponent had no long range shooting to threaten me with, and so my koptas didn't do what they were supposed to. I should have played a more defensive battle and let my opponent come to me. I never expected to have a shooting advantage in a battle and so failed to capitalize on my advantage.
Conclusions: I really need more practice. I failed to focus on playing the mission and ended up losing because of it. As for the army list I'm really haven't been able to come up with many other options that I can field with the fairly minimal amount of stuff that I currently own. The only change I'm currently considering is dropping the warboss and one group of koptas and replacing them with Ghazghkull. His chance at a 2+ invul save for a turn as well as 4 wounds and eternal warrior make him a rather tempting option. The warboss really has yet to pull his weight and a more powerful option seems like it might be worthwhile.
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