40K Friday - Dusting off the Goffs

I run them as battlewagons because the forgeworld rules for squiggoths and giant squiggoths are just a mess,

So after all the time spent looking through, rearranging, and plotting upgrades for my space marines, both loyalist and traitor, when Blaster and I had a chance to play a game last weekend what did I take? Blood Angels? Ravenwing? Nope, I ended up running Orks.

Why would I do this? Well I did make up a list for some of the marine armies but my Dark angels are still largely in pieces as they are easier to paint that way. Same thing with my Blood Angels - bodies on bases but no arms or guns right now. I did make a decent Crimson Fists list and we may play another game this weekend (though the ice storm has probably taken care of that) but I was looking at the china cabinet/miniatures storage and realized I've barely played my Orks at all for 6th edition and I really wanted to give them a run.

Blaster has been wanting to play his Eldar lately and had a game against Red's Orks the day before and discussing the outcome of that game had me wanting to give it a try myself. So Blaster kept almost the same 1500 point list as he had used for that game while I wrote up an all-mechanized ork army. This was not particularly optimized, I just wanted to get all 4 of my "battlewagons" on the table:

1500 Pts  -   Orks Army

1 Warboss (HQ) @ 455 Pts
     'Eavy Armour; Cybork Body; Power Klaw; Shoota / Skorcha; Stikkbombz;Warlord

     9 Nobz (Troops) @ [350] Pts
          'Eavy Armour (x8); Choppa (x9); Slugga (x9)

          1 Battlewagon @ [130] Pts
               Grot Riggers; Wreckin' Ball; Big Shoota (x2); Zzap Gun

1 Big Mek (HQ) @ 125 Pts
     'Eavy Armour; #Mek's Tools; Cybork Body; Power Klaw; Kustom Force Field;Stikkbombz

19 Ork Boyz (Troops) @ 155 Pts
     Slugga (x19); Choppa (x19)

     1 Nob @ [41] Pts
          Power Klaw; Slugga

19 Ork Boyz (Troops) @ 155 Pts
     Slugga (x19); Choppa (x19)

     1 Nob @ [41] Pts
          Power Klaw; Slugga

19 Shoota Boyz (Ork Boyz) @ 114 Pts
     Shoota (x19)

1 Warbuggy (Fast Attack) @ 105 Pts
     Twin-linked Rokkit Launcha (x1); Vehicle Squadron

     1 Warbuggy #1 @ [35] Pts
          Twin-linked Rokkit Launcha (x1)

     1 Warbuggy #2 @ [35] Pts
          Twin-linked Rokkit Launcha (x1)

1 Battlewagon (Heavy Support) @ 130 Pts
     Grot Riggers; Wreckin' Ball; Big Shoota (x2); Zzap Gun

1 Battlewagon (Heavy Support) @ 130 Pts
     Grot Riggers; Wreckin' Ball; Big Shoota (x2); Zzap Gun

1 Battlewagon (Heavy Support) @ 130 Pts
     Grot Riggers; Wreckin' Ball; Big Shoota (x2); Zzap Gun

Models in Army: 77
Total Army Cost: 1499

So it's a pretty melee-heavy force. I went with the warlord + nobz because I haven't tried them in 6E before. Two mobs of sluggas because they're finished and complete. I'm experimenting with Nob loadouts but I stayed with the Klaw for now and skipped the armor. The unit of 19 shoota boyz went with the Mek. The rokkit buggies are there because they're cheap, fast, and usually pretty effective at shooting up tanks.

Blaster went with a "footdar" list which is a little weird because he has plenty of vehicles to go mobile if he chooses. he went with Asurmen and a Farseer as his HQ, 2 units of Guardians and a unit of Dire Avengers as troops, a unit of Harlequins as elites, a unit of Dark Reapers and a Wraithlord as his heavy support.

The white discs on stands are the objective markers. There are two in the ruins on the left, 2 in the woods in the center, and 2 in the open on the right.

We ended up with that still-annoying diagonal setup and the mission with 6 objectives. We did the full random setup for once and it was ... ok, if a little tedious. We prefer the  "one guy sets up, the other guy picks which side to take" approach. I ended up with setup first and move first. Warlord traits are iffy for Orks, I'm hoping their eventual new codex gives them some interesting choices. I took the "Turn 1 is nightfighting" result figuring it might protect my wagons for the opening turn. Asurmen gains 3 warlord rolls and Blaster took the incredibly annoying "re-roll saves of 1" for his special character with the 2+ armor save. Yeah, it really sucks to be on the wrong end of that, especially with Ork ballistic skill.

My goal was to grab two 3-4 point objectives and push the space elfs off of the nearest one to those to ensure a win for the greenside. I lined up and headed for the circular ruins with the 4-point objective, figured I would hold one of the wooded objectives, and kick him out of the other ruins. So I lined up like a football team on my diagonal starting line, ready to go.

Blaster's harlies and one guardian squad went for the same round-ruins objective I was eyeballing, his dark reapers and the other guardian squad went into the other ruined building - alright that just got a little tougher. His wave serpent (hauling Asurmen, the farseer, and the dire avengers) and the wraithlord went after the objective at the other end of the woods.

End of turn 1

Pushing forward, the first mob of slugga boyz ran into a harlequin buzzsaw and were wiped out in two rounds. Shooting broke the combat clowns and sent them running. The sluggas and the nobz battlewagons were both blown up (reapers, guardian platforms, the wave serpent, and the wraithlord all had some good turns here) earning first blood for the Eldar, while the big mek managed to immobilize his wagon in the woods, so he and the shootas jumped out too. They managed to blow away half of the other guardian squad when they left the safety of the red ruined building.

The impromptu Eldar death star moved into the woods to hold that objective. It didn;t stop them from shooting at things.

I think this is turn 3

The nobz and the shoota boyz went after the ruins - with the harelquins out of the way there was just a guardian squad holding them. The other unit of slugga boys went over to keep the "deathstar" busy, assisted by the buggies who were targeting the wraithlord.

Turn 4

The nobz move in and clear out the guardians, taking the big 4-point objective. The shoota boyz though are blown all over (despite the presence of the KFF) by reapers, the wave serpent, and the guardian platform in the red ruins. Blaster likes his missile launchers and they did well in this game. I lost the Mek and was down to 3 boyz by the end of this.

Over in the woods over the course of turns 3 & 4 the slugga boyz get wiped out by the combination of Asurmen and the wraithlord. They do manage to eliminate the dire avengers, so there will be no objective taken here. The wraithlord then blows up the battlewagon for good measure. Let's call it a draw...

Turn 5

On the potential last turn of the game the warboss and his few remaining nobz go to ground in the ruins to try and weather the ferocious storm of missiles from the dark reapers, especially once the Farseer starts putting "Doom" on me and "Guide" on his Reapers. The harlequins finally recover from their earlier morale failure and realize that the shoota boy remnants have moved into position to claim linebraker ...

The confrontation ...

The shootas wipe out 2 of the 3 remaining harlies. On the Eldar turn the lone battle-joker charges and ... is killed by overwatch fire from the boyz!

At the end of the turn the roll to continue is high, meaning we will go to turn 6.

As turn 6 begins the Orks stand at 4 VP's for the objective plus 1 more for linebreaker. The Eldar have 3 VP's for their objective, plus 1 for first blood. If I can just hold ...

The wave serpent jumps across the table for linebreaker. Great - we're tied.

Then a final volley of missiles from the reapers blasts into the ruins and ... finishes off my warboss. Shoot.

Eldar win 6-5 in a very bloody confrontation. At the end I have one battlewagon, 3 nobz, 3 shoota boyz, and 2 rokkit buggies left. He has Asurmen, the Farseer, a wounded wraithlord, the wave serpent, about 5 guardians, and 5 dark reapers left.

Post-Game thoughts: 

• I immobilized the one wagon on Turn 2 when he tried to move out of the woods. I then forgot to use his grot riggers for the next 3 turns and I ended up just turning him to have better protection from the wraithlord's missile shots. He did stay alive for the whole game though.
• Wrecking balls are useless - 2" range is just not enough to be useful. If I was going to run up and "melee" my vehicles I would use deffrollas. Zap guns did nothing the whole game. I like having some AP2 guns in the army but they just were not effective.  Next time I'm taking more big shootas, maybe one with all rokkits. 
• Shoota boyz are great and I need more of them. I used my old 2E Kommandos for them in this game and completely forgot about their big shootas the entire game because they aren't modeled that way. I can fix that.
• The shredding of the slugga boyz and then the shoota boyz meant that I wasn't able to go after the reapers and guardians in the red ruins. If either one of those units survives then I have a chance to take it to that firebase. 
• The decline of the Kustom Force Field from a 4+ save to a 5+ save is significant and I'm wondering if it's truly needed anymore.
• Doomed Nobz being fired on by Guided Dark Reapers are easy meat. I need to look into Mega nobz for next time. Or I just need to send the nobz after the reapers directly.
• Despite mistakes and some poor decisions it all came down to the last phase of the last turn of the game which is a pretty close fight and one we were both happy to have.

Units I already have that moved up the to-do list after this: Shoota Boyz

Units I do not have that I think would make a difference: Nob Bikers

It was a fun game and we're going to make it a priority again to get in more games as everyone's interest levels are back up again. Now if I could just get them to paint more...