Ork Affliction Cured

[Ming]

As another preview of the upcoming Fratris Salutem event at Crossroad Games in Maine - we bring you a battle report - Orks vs Ultramarines

1500 Points
Vengeance (see Creative Twilight website for this and other pre-constructed special scenarios)
[modified KPs, D3+2 objectives, table quarters, bonus points]
Pitched Battle Deployment

 

Librarian Arcadius was near exhaustion.  Since defeating the Word Bearer's incursion a few days ago, his focus had been on getting his small reaction force back to battle condition.  And now he was boarding the teleport platform of the Cruiser Calth's Revenge again with 3rd Squad of the 1st Company, as the leader of the Calth Reaction Force.  With grim but exhausted determination, he reviewed the information that had been sent to him via Chief Librarian Tigurius.  Arcadius was leading a quick reaction force of 1st Company and 3rd Company assets.  Their task this time was to interdict a Orc warlord and his biker mob and eliminate them to forestall development of a Waaaagh!  The platform glowed, and then in a wash of bright light, the teleportation began. Arcadius sighed. 

 

OPFOR (more or less):
Ork Warlord on Bike, Power Claw (special character from Forgeworld)
Ork Warloard on Bike, Big Choppa, Banna
Ork painboy on Bike
10+/- Ork Nobz on bikes, all Power Clawz
12 Ork Bikers
Ork Aircraft

Calth Reaction Force:
Librarian Arcadius, TDA, SS, Staff, Gate, Avenger
10 Tactical Terminators, 2 CMLs, 1 Psword, 1 Chainfist, 8 PFs.
10 Sternguard, 3 CMGs, 2 CPGs, PG, LClaw, Pod
10 Tactical marines, PG, MM, PSword, Pod (Tac Squad Alpha)
10 Tactical marines, FL, ML, Pod (Tac Squad Bravo)
Stormtalon, TLAC, SHMs

 

Well, lets get to it.

Deployment

The ork player placed two objectives and the Ultramarines placed one.  The objectives becam clustered in a rough triangle - coordinates #1 at 2.5,2; #2 at 4,2; #3 at 3,3 (all roughly 12 to 18 inches apart, all on the ork half of the table).  The Ultramarines Librarian and terminator squad deployed in the center of their zone, and everything elses was in pods/reserved.  The orks deployed their warlords and nob bikers all together near objective #3, and their regular bikers mob was placed far to the right.

 

Orks did not seize.  We forgot to roll warlord traits.  It was not dark.

 

The idea of Vengeance is that units that kill other units become forth 1 KP greater for every unit they finish off.  So as these units become worth more, they classically become the opponents next target to recover the lost KPs, which then causes the opponent to focus on them...

Turn 1

On turn 1, the Sternguard and Alpha squads podded in, directy near objective #2 and the nobz mob, dismounting as full squads.  Alpha had dropped into a wooded area terrain, and stayed in the wods line.  The Ultramarine terminators decided not to gate this turn and instead moved forward and right a bit to get fire on the nobs mob.  With all 30-ish marines firing on the nobz, only one nob biker plus or minus a few wounds were taken (all with 4+ cover saves, T5, 5+ FNP).  Note - the Sternguard used their bolters rather than combiweapons just to get more dice on the orks.  Since the Nobz were T5, 4+cover, 5+ FNP, theey could not be ID'd by combimeltas or combiplasmas.  The special ammo would simply hit on a 3, wound on a 2...did not matter much with 4+ and 5+ saves...multi-wound models...

 

The ork nobz then moved forward and prepared to shoot and assault the sternguard squad.  Which they did.  Wiping out the sternguard and leaving their pod standing.   

 

KP Score: 0 - 1
 

Turn 2

On turn 2, squad Bravo arrives, and deploys immediately in from of the Nobz mob again.  The librarian gates the terminators about 18 inches forward to line up shots on the nobz, but deviates 11 inches back the way they'd came! The Stormtalon arrives and flies up to Bravo's pod. In shooting, several nob bikers go down or are wounded.  The nobz roll for morale and stay on task.

 

The ork biker boyz advance towards the terminators, and the nobz mob aligns for a combined assault on alpha and bravo.  In shooting, I lose 2 terminators to snakeyes.  The combined assault goes off, and the orks win the assault (with bad rolling); alpha and bravo wisely decide to fall back, and manage to do so. 

 

KP Score: 0 - 1

 

Turn 3
On turn 3, Squad bravo's missile goes errant and kills Alphas' plasma gunner.  The stormtalon moves off to focus on the boyz biker mob, as does the terminators. Several nobz and boyz bikers are dispatched, both groups pass moral. 

The nobz mob again decides to combine assault alpha and bravo, and in the melee (and a challenge) the lesser warlord and painboy are killed.  The nobz are knocked down to three or so remaining nobz and the forgeworld special character warlord (their unit becomes T6....). Even with this, the orks win combat, and Alpha and bravo (decimated as they were) fall back again.  Bravo is down to just their sargeant!!! Boyz also had fired on the zooming Stormtalon and glanced it.

 

KP Score: 2 - 1

 

Turn 4

On turn 4, the Stormtalon goes to hover mode and gets behind the boyz bikers, that and with the shooting from the drop pods and terminators, kills off all but three of the boyz bikers.  Shooting at the remaining nobz/warlord is inneffective.  Bravo's sargeant runs back further.

 

The Ork warlord bikes off to run down Bravo's sargeant, while the other nob zooms off towards Objective #1 and turns to fire on Alpha.  The Ork flyer also coves on to fire on the stormtalon.  The remaining boyz zoom off to Objective #3 to also fire on Alpha.  With all that firing, Alpha only loses a single marine.  Bravo is gone. The stormtalon becomes a wreck.

KP Score: 2 - 3

 

Turn 5 and Turn 6

In turn 5, the orks are winning on several metrics. The Ultramarines move Alpha to contest Objective 3, joined by the librarian.  The terminators move towards the Nobz.  The boyz mob is wiped out eventually in assault by the librarian.  The other nob survives. 

 

The remaining nob(z) are joined again by the warlord. Not much else happens this turn, as the ork flyer has to zoom past Objective #3.  The orks are winning through turn 6, but the game continues.

 

The End

The game eventually ends turn 7, with the terminators finishing off the Nobz and warlord in an assault.  The Ultramarines win on modified kill points, having an objective (and only living scoring unit), table quarters, and the orks having only their flyer remaining in play.  

 

In modified Kill Points, the score was something like 8 to 3 at game's end.  As for KPs remaining on the table, my terminators were worth 4 KPs and still standing, Alpha was worth 2 KPs, and the Librarian was worth 2 KPs. The ork flyer was worth 2 KPs. Pods were still a single KP each.    Overall, if the Orks had won the assault vs the terminators, the Orks could have won the game (tied on objectives, more KPs, tied on quarters, and bonus for a 3+ KP unit surviving.  Not to mention the orks were winning at the end of turns 5 and 6....

The Ultramarines finished the game with just 3 terminators, 4 survivors for squad Alpha, the librarian, and 2 drop pods remaining on the table. 

 

For those who know me...ths was probably the first time I'd won agains orks in probably 2 years....

For the orks, a few things happened badly.  Firstly, their flyer did not arrive from reserves until turn 4.  Second, was that once I realized the boyz were easier to kill, I sent my deathstar terminators after them. It might have been better for the orks to just focus on my terminators with both mobz.  Also, something that cost them was having the T6 warlord break off to chase down a sargeant (and later a drop pod or vice versa), when he could have zoomed off to join the Boyz mob instead or just worked to assault and finish off Alpha. There were other strategic issues that could have made the game go either way. 

Overall, it was fun, and I look forward to the three games tomorrow at the Fratris event!!!

[greatcrusade08]

excellent, nice rep.. i love facing orks myself, always makes for interesting games