Battle Report: Mission #1 Ard Boyz Playtest - Salamanders vs. Orks

I went into the local game store today and had a game with a buddy of mine from my "old days" in the hobby. A guy who, appropriately, goes by the moniker of 'Snake Eyes' threw his 2500 points of Orks on the table and we gave mission #1 a try. Mission #1 isn't anything special with a diagonal deployment, 5 objectives, and a hard limit of 6 turns. Snake Eyes brought 2 20 boy mobs on foot with rokkits, 3 battle wagons loaded with 20 boyz each, 2 units of 12 lootas, a big unit of storm boyz, and two warbosses on bikes. My list can be found here.

I won the roll to go first, and wisely took it. The above picture is at the bottom of turn 1 where the only thing I advanced was my Land Raider Crusader. Deployment wasn't anything complicated. I held the two tactical squads with rhinos in reserve. Snake Eyes failed to seize the initiative and I proceeded to embarrass the Emperor with a pathetic shooting phase...I killed three boyz. His return fire (from the lootas) broke my scouts, but they remained on the board.

I expected to have three battle wagons in my face unloading 60 boyz and ruining my day. What happened was that Snake Eyes focused on the objectives too early (3 of which were in his deployment zone) and didn't advance very aggressively. This allowed me to pop his transports and then flame his dismounted infantry. He had reserved his two unmounted mobs and they didn't come in until later in the game. This allowed my twin linked flamers and bolters to work on one mob at a time. His warboss bikers were accounted for by my dreadnoughts in assault while the rest of the army was taken out with the flamer/bolter combo. Unlike some of my other engagements with Orks, I was able to dictate the pace of today's game to my advantage. Here's some of the lads taking refuge (and claiming that nearby objective) from the rokkits in the wreckage of two battle wagons, & those would be "in progress" deff rollas they're standing on.


The game went ugly for Snake Eyes on turn 2 and stayed that way. I had killed most of his army by turn 4 and was focused on clean-up on the final two turns. His army was tabled via assault in turn 6. I lost my librarian, 2 terminators, 2 scouts, both speeders, and 6 or so tactical marines, mostly to random assaults. Here's a taste of Snake Eyes' luck: He certainly earned his nickname today.


All in all, game #1 won't be that complicated, but keep in mind that there is a reduced amount of real estate for deployment and the tournament's time limit. Remember your objectives, but not to the exclusion of eliminating the enemy. For me, Vulkan was absolutely worth it. Those re-rolls helped out in spades. I did manage to get some mileage out of my tactical squads this game as well. I used them a bit more aggressively than I have previously, and it helped. They're clearly not super units, but the extra guns and boots give me the extra capability that I've been misusing in the past.

EDIT#1: I totally forgot to add that Snake Eyes is a fun opponent to play, and he maintained his composure even when things looked their worst. I could use some of that restraint when things go ploin-shapped for me. ;-)

EDIT#2: Egads, I just realized how much more work my infantry need in the painting department. You know what? Maybe that's why they haven't been performing as well as I'd like them to. Finish painting your models kids, let this be a lesson to you.