Facing Orks

[Mammon]

One of my best friends is also an avid Ork Boy. He loves nothing more than to bring everything he has got to the field in one huge fracas So our battles are usually around 2500 points normally unless time is an issue. I have only played one battle so far and it was a shameful debacle. He had 2+ kill points against me and another D3 because Bjorn fell and I was not within 3" of his remains. Tonight I am playing him again to reclaim Bjorn before the greenskin's dismantle him for parts. So the battle is just as much for honor as it is for revenge...mostly revenge. Also to try and redeem myself for my failure before.

 

He always plays with the same setup: 90+ Boys (30 'ard boys, 30 Slugga Boys and 30 Shoota boys), 2 looted wagons, 2 trukks with a warboss and nob squad in each, 6 bikers, 3 killa kans, 3 deffkopters, and 4 meganobs.

 

I faced him with

 

Njal in PA with 4x Termie WG each with Pfists and SBs aside fromthe one who I upgraded to Arjac.

Ulrik joined a squad of 13 BCs with their WC armed WG in TDA aboard their own LRC

Bjorn covered one flank with a GH squad and their TDA WG who had a AC and Pfist.

The Long Fangs supported Bjorn with their pair of HBs/MLs/PCs

A regular dreadnought anchored the opposite flank. He had an AC and SB with Extra Armor.

I also had 4 speeders, two typhoons and two tornadoes.

there were two squads of scouts, one team had two PP, a MG, and a PW. The other had two PP, a PG, and a PW.

I think that is all I had.

 

I wrote up the list in a few minutes. the notion was that the flank with Bjorn on it would just grind the orks down so an assault could punch through lead by Ulrik and Bjorn. The other flank was to be harassed by the speeders, the dreadnought, and Njal. I deployed first so he went with a heavy infantry setup on the flanks. the center was area terrain so I could launch an armored assault up the middle. I had terrible luck with the dice. His was amazing on the other hand (for instance. I assault one of his mobs and deal a total of 19 wounds he saved 15 of the 19 saved on a 5+) That was how my luck went. My Long Fangs apparently found a keg of the good stuff because their shooting was terrible. They only managed to knock the ordnance gun off one of the wagons and take down three bikers. the BCs were the MVPs claiming a unit of meganobs (who assaulted me!) a Nob squad (one survivor who had unnatural luck) and tied up a unit of shoota boyz.

 

I made several stupid moves including but not limited to forgetting to shoot with almost half of my army (I rolled a Difficult Terrain test on my scouts for their assault phase as soon as the dice left my hand I screamed in horror at my own folly - I was miffed with the scouts. Both teams had side shots on the Trukks and somehow managed to fail to hit with anything in both shooting and assault phase). One of my dreadnoughts got stuck in a forest and missed most of the game...until a warboss assaulted him. I let my speeders get assaulted by the Kans (who survived no less than 20 hits with ACs, PCs, and MLs). I'd love to blame my dice but my friend rolled 5's and 6's with them to hit my wolves so either he has some sort of ability to later the course of dice mid-flight or he is the luckiest man to ever hold the dice. Regardless, I am facing him again and this time vow to add his warboss' heads to those trophies decorating my dreadnought.

 

What would you guys advise in terms of army composition and strategy this time around?

[Grey Mage]

Well for one thing, Id inform him that youd like to play some small battles to get the hang of your forces. Throwing down large battles can be a heck of alot of fun, but it can also be a pain to learn from with sooo many variables being thrown about.

 

And if it was your first battle, why was he going to hold that difficult terrain roll against you?

 

I think Im missing something here.

[Mammon]

Because it was technically made in the assault phase. I accidentally skipped over all of my shoots that would have come after the scouts. In this case Njal - Land Raider, Speeders, and his Terminator WGs. It was a newb error.

[Grey Mage]

Because it was technically made in the assault phase. I accidentally skipped over all of my shoots that would have come after the scouts. In this case Njal - Land Raider, Speeders, and his Terminator WGs. It was a newb error.

Thats right... and from what you told us in the above post it was your first battle.

 

Thus, your a newbie. A newbie with alot of models.... but a newbie.

 

Or did you mean something else by "it was my first battle".

 

Because if this is your first time playing 40k, this guy should be a little more understanding.

[SkullBob]

You really don't have enough boots on the ground or hard stuff to really hurt his army. Some smaller games will help you learn this. A whirlwind or some vindicators to really pound on his army would really help you. With 90 boyz I jsut don't see you killing enough of them to prevent him from reaching your lines and overrunning you. A shoot and move tactic might work best.

 

Try to take out his smaller forces first. Shoot the deffkoptas and warbikes because if you kill just one you will force a leadership test. With the ork low leadership of 7 there is a good chance the remaining orks will run away. The looted wagons and trukks have thin armor so if you can hit them with anything relative strong they should pop. SO shoot his fast elements first.

 

Keep Njal out of combat as much as possible so that he can cast murderous hurricane on the big blocks of boyz. This will take out several boyz but also make them take difficlt and dangerous terrain test.

 

Mega nobs walking and killa kans shoot them do not assualt them unless there is nothing better to do. They die quickly to massed fire but they are really good in assualt.

 

Good luck

[Mammon]

I should have explained myself a little better: It had been my first battle with the 5th Ed Wolves, the 5th Ed Book, and the real battle in almost a year. Rusty does not even begin to cover it. I had only played about 3 games with Guard in that time. I didn't have a rulebook so it was sort of my re-entrance into the hobby again.

 

Our rematch was last night.

 

We did not look at each others lists prior to the fight.

 

We bumped the points down to 1500. He kept his infantry line the same, only removing the ML from his boyz and taking away all his trukks, Koptas, Bikerz, wagons, and killakans. That left him with 90 boyz, same configuration, and two warboss both with four man nobz.

 

I dropped named characters and used 2 HQs with a Master of Runes (JotwW and LL) in TDA and a Stock WP with WTN. I had LF in a RB with a pair each of HBs and MLs a PC and an LC (which actually was used to snipe at the Nobs for KOs got 3 of em). I had two GH packs: One mounted in a rhino with a PW, Flamer and WS. They were accompanied by a WG with a PW. The footsloggers ran with the RP and had two PG a PW and a WG with PW. I went with a LRR for my heavy choice and transport for my BC's who packed in their with the WP and a WG with paired WC.

 

The map had changed somewhat from the last game. Lots of small stands of trees with a few scattered hills with small foliage that awarded a 5+. There were two rivers that bisected the map and gave Difficult Terrain tests to infantry but vehicles were big enough to just roll through. Bjorn was the single objective (thematic battle mind you) on a small hill in the maps center.

 

The battle went almost as I predicted initially: He just kept running towards us. He ignored Bjorn for the most part and opted for just smashing into my Wolves. The LF killed almost 20 shoota boyz and at least two nobs before the orks got close. My RP sent one warboss on a one way journey to the center of the earth via JofwW and hammered his nobs with LL. since the river was close to Bjorn, enough so that I could fire on units near him from the water, I opted to set up my gun line there and used my rhino to funnel the slugga boyz into my GH arc of fire. Dropped nearly thirty more boyz before they hit the line. His second warboss failed his Difficult Terrain test and was hit by and AC and Firestorm Cannon while the Machine Spirit sent the other gout of flame over the mobs of boyz further ruining their day. My BCs and WP assaulted the warboss from the Raider and cut the Boss and Nobs down in a single turn. The GHs suffered terribly in CC however. One squad broke and ran and the other was reduced to just the RP, the WG, and the one GH with a PW by the time the BC managed to enter the melee and finish off the boyz. My LF got assaulted by the Shoota Boyz after my one GH pack broke and were nearly destroyed. It came down to a PL with BP and CCW versus Nob with PC (somehow we found a keg o' ale and my friend and I concluded we were fighting over it. he underestimated our love of ale!), on the final turn we gunned down his remaining nob squad and my PL reduced the Nob leader to a pile of ground beef. While no Wolves were within' 3" of Bjorn (since a LR doesn't count) we did wipe out the orks before game's end.

[Toasterfree]

against orks, templates, templates and bolt guns. HBs are awesome, so are AC (both kind). and thing rapid firing that gives no saves and kills en masse.