5/28 Battle Summary

We had a 40K day at my house over the weekend.  It went over really well.  We were able to get in 2 full sets of games on each table, with each game lasting about 2.5-3h at 1500pts.  Our battle historically have taken much longer than that, so that says a lot about collective knowledge of the game rules and mechanics.

Because he had an odd number of players, I sat out the first round and did what I could to help Mike and Jon beat each other up in an Annihilation game, and John and Brent with their cap and control.

But, for the second round I matched up with Jonathan for an Ork vs Ork slugfest.  We rolled cap and control with four control points.  We both fielded very different deployments.  I was fielding a pretty typical Kan Wall, with a couple extras:

• Warboss with PK, BP, and cybork
• Big Mek with KFF and cybork
• 5 Kommandos, 2 burnas, Snikrot with Warboss attached
• 2x 5 Lootas
• 2x 29 boys, Nob, BP, PK
• 10 boys
• 2x Deffkopta, TL Rokkit, Buzzsaw
• 2x 3 Killa Kan with Grotzookas
• 2 Killa Kan with Grotzookas

Jonathan had something like:

• Mek w/ SAG
• 14 grots w/ Runtherd (playing ring around the Big Mek)
• 12 ‘ard boyz w/ Shootas, 1 big shoota, Trukk w/ big shoota
• 20 boy squad, nob, pk
• 20 Storm Boyz, with Zag
• 12 Warbikes
• 3 Killa Kans w/ Rokkits
• 3 Killa Kans w/ Grotzookas

I went first.  I wanted to push my Deffkoptas forward, but there were no good targets.  All Jon left on the board were his SAG Mek (w/ grots) and a boyz squad.  No good targets.  So, I sent one after the Mek with Grots, and got him killed off, easily.  That’s about all that happened turn one.

Turn 2 I got all my reserves.  Which meant that my Snikrot crew got to come in with no good targets.  I ended up going after the SAG.  Popped in right behind them, killed the grots off with the burnas, and then the mek went down in assault.  I also attacked hit 20 boyz squad with grotzookas and some other stuff.  They ended up under 10 boyz, but I could quite get them to break.  If I would have, I would have won in round two.  But, it was not to be…

Jon’s turn started badly with his full squad of Storm Boyz scattering onto my lootas, and then getting lost in the warp.  But got better when, he got his Warbikes and Kans in.  He dropped them right next to my Warboss/Kommandos/Snikrot, and lit them up with rokkits and Grotzookas, killing everything but the Warboss, but laying two wounds on him.  It hurt.

He also pushed forward his Warbikes, and they shot and laid 19 wounds on one of my boyz squads.  And the I rolled boxcars on my leadership roll, so they ran off the board.  That’s a LOT of shootie!  TL Assault 3 is scary.  I guess they’re worth their 25pts each!

So, now the board was much more balanced.  Over the course of the rest of the game, Jon managed to take out one of my kans, and shoot my small 10 boy mob off of the objective.  Jon’s trukk came in and executed my Warboss.  Trukk then parked on the objective and got blown up.  I contested with a turbo boosted Deffkopta, but went on to a subsequent turn.  They killed off the deffkopta, but I managed to break the squad.  They ran, and then regrouped back onto the objective.  One more round of grotzooking got them off of the table for good, I took the victory with one point controlled to his none.

Some things we learned:

• Ork warbikes are VERY shootie.  They’re a bit pricey, but probably well worth fielding.  Landing 24 S5 wounds in a shooting phase will ruin just about anyone’s day.
• Kommandos with Burnas are pretty good.  It was pretty awesome to be able to choose the table ledge, too.  The squad just came in too early to be truly effective.
• Deff Koptas first turn assault was cool, but I didn’t have any good targets.  VS SM’s or CSMs it would have been much, much more useful.  So, in future lists I might just take one, instead of two.
• Killa Kans with Grotzookas are awesome.  As always.  Those things /always/ pay for themselves.
• Deff Koptas are good at turboing in at the last minute to contest an objective while holding a 3+ cover save.
• Lootas work very well in groups of five.  A one roll for shooting sucks, but a 5-6 makes for a real decent volley of S7 wounds.

So, we learned a lot about our units, and had a great time doing it.  Next play date is on the 11th!  I can’t wait.