Belial Gets Revenge

[Droma]

Getting word of an ork assault on a nearby imperial world Belial along with a compliment of deathwing terminators lead an assault to cut off the head of this Waaagh!! Teleporting down to the planet 4 squads of deathwing terminators secure a vital imperial installation against a massive ork assault while Belial leading another group of terminators seek to reclaim a defense installation from ork control. They know the ork warboss is going to arrive at one of those locations and the deathwing's mission is to secure both installations while simultaneously depriving the orks of leadership making them easy pickings for the imperial guard now making landing on the planet to drive the xenos invaders from this world.

 

I just faced off against foot orks in an 1850 game. It was pitched battle deployment and capture and control mission.(12" deployment from board edge and 1 objective in each deployment zone)

 

I was using Belial+apoth+banner and 7 DW squads.

 

3x TH/SH 1x TLLC 3x Shooty all with CML's.

 

I had Belial attached to a TH/SH squad along with the banner and apoth. The 3 TH/SH squads deployed on my left side to go after his objective and my objective was on the right guarded by 3 shooty squads and the lightning claw squad.

 

His list was

warboss+nobs+painboy in a trukk

1x lootas

3x 20 slugga/choppa boys on foot with a wierdboy attached to one of those.

30 grots w/ grot handlers

3 death coptas

3 killakans in a squadron

5 warbikers

 

I deployed the 3 shooty squads and the lighting claw squad to guard my objective on the right side of the board. He got 1st turn raced his deathcoptas up the board to shoot at my terminators while the rest of his army moved up. His wierdboy managed to get ere we go and teleported his guys right infront of my objective. I blew the coptas out of the sky with one squad and the rest of my guys thinned out his boys squads with frag missiles.

 

Turn 2 saw his bikers charging my lighting claw guys and promptly saw those same bikers riding away as fast as they could after having two cut down. My bottom of two I shot more boys squads and his weirdboy+squad failed a leadership check under half strength and ran away the rest of the game.

 

Turn 3 was more shooting on both sides and his diminished boys squad plush warboss and the nobs in the trukk charged my lightning claw terminators. The lightning claw terminators took some out but went down to all those attacks.

Now it was bottom of 3 and I had 3 tactical terminator squads unload into nobs unit and one tactical squad charged them and the nobs broke and ran.

Turn 4 he charged his remaining boys onto my objective and lost combat but he passed his leadership check and stayed in combat. Bottom of 4 I charged the unengaged tactical squads into the boys and they were wiped out. My objective was now safe.

 

On the other side of the board my 3 TH/SH squads marched down the field and shot the lootas off the board. Belials squad took out the killakans in close combat and it ended up taking the grots out in CC as well while my 3rd TH/SH squad claimed the objective. One of my TH/SH squads died to the combined firepower of the lootas/kans/grots but not before they managed to get all the way across the board and were 1 round enemy shooting away from charging into the grots before finally being wiped out.

 

The game was tied at the end of 5 because of the TH/SH squad that was killed so couldn't contest while Belials squad and the other TH/SH squad were still 1 turn away from getting into contesting range. Turn 6 won me the game even though he still had the grots on the board my guys were contesting and I claimed my objective. We actually rolled and got turn 7 at which point all his stuff finished running off the board and I destroyed the grots in assault.

 

End result I claimed both objectives and tabled him. He managed to kill 1 TH/SH squad after 5 turns of shooting and his other kill point was my lightning claw squad that was taken out by the combined might of FNP nobs+warboss+10 boys.

 

 

Thoughts: This wasn't the best ork list in the world but I'd say its pretty average for what you'd see outside of a tournament setting. He could have done better to get cover saves because concentrated fire from frag missiles and bolter shots was just eating his boys squads as they got to me without him really being able to retaliate. He could have probably tied if he sent the nobs in the direction of the 3 TH/SH squads but then again he may not have. I know he wasn't expecting me to put all my terminators on the table at the beginning of the game but I wanted to use the range on my cyclones to best advantage. If I deepstriked they'd only get 1 turn of shooting off before being assaulted and this way I got max use out of my missiles. In this type of list at most I'd only consider deepstriking a max of one squad but even then it'd have to be for a good reason.

[skink]

I like how effectively just a few lines of text turns a 'Oh, I rolled a 3 or 4' into a story; it took me a minute to realise you weren't describing a special scenario!! Thanks for taking the time to set the scene.

 

One of my favourite battles of late has been against an enormous Ork horde, it's brilliant to see the few facing off against the many, hoping you can thin them out before they break on your lines. Well done on the win! How did it feel playing with just Terminators? Did you miss maneuverability, or an armoured presence?

[Brother Kovash]

Well done brother, you show those dirty orks who's boss!

 

I played against my friend last night with his Sisters of Battle, and I know the pain of having one of your precious squads get shot at by 3+ units and die due to the sheer amount of firepower. Last night one of my shooting squads got lit up by 4 squads of Sisters and only the sergeant remained at the end.

[Droma]

Thanks guys.

 

@skink

The lack of armor wasn't an issue really. The only real probably with a pure terminator list is a lack of mobility when trying to claim objectives as getting stuck in combat or difficult terrain can really slow you down and give the enemy more of a chance than they really had. This is one of the reasons I normally include some bikes but in this case I decided to try out pure infantry. I think it'd do just fine in seize ground as there are more objectives and I know it does well in kill point games.

[Xyon]

I have found, that you can deepstrike a unit to alleviate that problem, but don't deepstrike turn 1, just decide to keep it in reserve and roll for it as normal after the first turn. That way at least your squad isnt being shot by all the stuff close to it after it arrived turn 1.

[krewl]

I usually fix mobilty issues by dropping Belial and his FnP friends with TH&SS's and a supporting squad up closer and thus I have a 3rd squad in reserve. This is offcourse only inn games where this looks like a good idea, but Belial and another squad up closer take a lot firepower to down, while the rest of the army supports them with ranged firepower from my missiles.

 

Usually this helps with objectives quite a bit as it gives you a free set of movement upfield. In other games i start everything on the board and Belial and crew walk up front, with FnP and a 3++ save covering the rest who then have a 4+ cover save. That combined with the 3++ saves I have in each squad on 2 models means I can actually take a lot of heavy fire and live. Then just ignore cover for the rest of the game and walk up moving your 6" each turn.

 

Propper deployment and 5x6"movement means that you can reach everything you need to in a game, if not you can always keep a speeder hidden to turboboost&contest while you keep your own objective(s) secured.

 

So that 6" move is not as bad as it would seem once you shake loose from the "must be in cover" mindset you usually have in 40k and you master deployement and when to stat moving. (Protip: Usually T2 or the objectives have to be really close.)