Battle Report: Grey Knights vs. Orks

We'd like to offer a warm welcome to TSE's newest member, Xerxesian. Xerxesian is a beardy vet of 40K and was a member of TSE: Black at Adepticon this year. His experience in the hobby is extensive, spanning several editions and armies. As for what he plays, I'll let him tell you in his own words: "Just in case you need to know my 2.5k+ armies are: Sisters, Orks, Necrons, IG, Chaos Daemons, Tau. What don't I play? Oh yeah! Space Marines! That will soon be rectified w/ hopefully both a SW and GK army in the future." Welcome Xerxesian. We are glad to have you on the team. Now here is our newest member's first contribution; A hot-off-the-presses Battle Report! Take it away, Xerxesian!

Firstly, I should mention this was a revenge match on the part of my opponent as I had tabled his vanilla SM army the previous evening by the end of turn 3 (lol) w/ a very similar Green Tide army list (I used 13 Lootas on Friday and replaced them w/ 13 Tank Bustas for Saturday's match).  He had actually conceded at end of turn 2 but the other gamers convinced him to play on. I agreed to a rematch since he allowed my Orks a good head bangin.

Orks vs. Shiney Humies (mostly a dull, unprimered grey actually) Game was annihilation, spearhead, Orks win roll for deployment, I elect to go first. Spearhead is not an Orkie favorite btw as I have to cram 160 troops into 1 table quarter and wave at my opponent while Boss Gobsmacka yells "Gots yer any Pie... (plates)? He does. But only 1 so it's not so bad. Btw, in a friendly game I don't ever ask my opponent for a list, trusting they will be honest and liking to be surprised as the battle unfolds. My opponent IS honest :) but sometimes makes some honest mistakes (like packing 13 Terminators into a God Hammer Land Raider Friday night. "Shenanigans" I cried! and made him Deep Strike the 8 too many onto the board lol).

My army consists of Warboss Gobsmacka, 7 Nobs including Painboy, Big Mekk Lugnutz w/ Kustom Force Field, 15 Burna Boyz, 13 Tank Bustas, 3 Deffkoptas, 30 Shoota Boyz w/ 2 big shootas and Nob w/ bosspole (bp) and power-klaw (pk), and 3x 30 Boyz w/ Nob w/ bp + pk) His army was: Grand Master w/ Warding Stave, Troops: T1= 5 Termies: Halberds, 1 psycannon, Justicar has Warding Stave (oh how I learned to love 'em!), T2= 5 Termies, psycannon, Warding Stave, T3= 5 Termies, psycannon, Warding Stave, T4= 5 man Strike Squad w Halberds and 1 Psilencer, T5= 5 man Strike Squad w/ Halberds and 1 Psilencer. Elites: 1 Venerable Dreadnought w/ assault cannon (the only reason he included this is he had the model and wanted to finally play it) Fast Attack: 1 Stormraven w/ no upgrades (he proxied this w/ a Valkyrie so I'm not sure if he did any of the free upgrades) Heavy Support: He does not actually own any Dreadknight models yet but instead proxied them w/ 2 Valkyrie bases. Dreadknight #1 w/ hvy psycannon, teleporter thingie. Dreadknight #2 w/ Great Sword, teleporter thingie.

From left to right (sort of) I cram 30 Boyz, 13 Tankbustas (in cover) 30 Boyz w/ Big Mekk Lugnutz, 30 Shoota Boyz, 3 Deffkoptas, 30 Boys. Immediately behind Tankbustas are Warboss Gobsmacka w/ Nobz and da Burna Boyz are behind the Shoota Boy mob. Why, you might ask, do I have my flamer Boyz in the back? Cuz Burnas count as power weapons in an assault (45 attacks if I charge) as long as I have not fired them as flamers. My opponent deploys two very stealthy Valkyrie bases (his 2 Dreadknights lol) as close to me as possible with an empty Stormraven immediately to their left (from my perspective). Behind them on left are 5 Termies, immediately behind them is the Ven. Dreadnought. At his far back corner are 5 Strikes. Immediately behind DredKnights is a 5 man Termie squad w/ Grand Master, and on the far right are 5 Strikes, immediately behind them are 5 Termies. The terrain includes many walls and barricades, 2 buildings, all which he is behind, I'm expecting his first turn to be a big shoot 'em up deal. On my "half" (it's spearhead but you get the idea) is one piece of terrain on left which is closer to both my board edges (about 8" each way). Farther up the board there is a nice piece of terrain, stairs leading up to a shooting platform, despite stairs, my opponent insists it is difficult terrain, I laugh at him, suggesting not only does he bring the cheeze but now has to cheat as well (smirk). It's ok tho, I intend to move, then run my shoota boyz into that cover. On my far right is another piece of terrain that will be a non factor other than squeezing my Boyz together a bit as I try to avoid it, wanting to make sure I move and run as far as possible. Neither of us has anything in reserve.

He finishes deployment, and despite having witnessed it the previous night, is not happy when A:) I ask him if he forgot to deploy any Servo Skulls and he answers no, he has none and B:) my Deffkoptas Turbo Boost to 12" away from his Stormraven and DKs w/ their Scouts move. "Are you sure you want to do that?" he asks me. His surprise quickly becomes an obvious licking of his lips, he's chomping at the bit to use those DKs and a juicy target has been sighted. "Would you like to roll for stealing?" I ask, nonplussed. He fails it, my Deffkoptas shoot at the Stormraven, I get three hits, 2 pens and... it blows up! Yay Orks!! explodes 1" hitting nothing else but I'm a very happy camper. I know they will die on his turn, but who cares? They've fulfilled their dastardly mission. Everything else in my army moves and runs toward him (it's what Orks do, yawn). Ok, not only is this his first time playing GKs but my opponent, though not new to the game, is not the greatest strategist or tactician. He moves both DKs up within assault range of my Deffkoptas, the 5 Strikes in the rear move up so they can shoot at my Deffkoptas. His 5 Strikes & termies in the center all shoot at the Deffkoptas (i think he causes 1 wound lol) 5 Strikes on far right shoot at Deffkoptas and put 4 wounds on them= 2 dead DeffKoptas and the remaining one has 1 wound on it (2 wound models). He then announces he is going to assault the remaining Deffkopta w/ not 1 but both his DKs. I ask him to pause and look at the board, don't they have pie plates, nasty shooting of some sort? (remember, I have not seen his list and he is proxying these models) Wouldn't 1 of them easily handle the Deffkopta w/ 1 wound left on it? He considers and shoots a pie plate into my swath of Orks. It hits 5 various Boyz but thanks to Big Mekk Lugnutz's Kustom Force Field (5+ cover save) I save 2 of them. He assaults and kills the Deffkopta. Turn 1: 1-1

Turn 2: I Waaagh, (without screaming it for the entire building to hear btw) Boyz on far left move up but are .5" out of assault range with his Termies there. Rokkit Boyz move 4 inches but it is enough, they can't see the Dreadnought so are free to shoot at, DK! 11 Rokkit shots, dice Gods are keen, 5-6 actually find their target and that bad boy takes 2 wounds despite his 2+ save. Shootas did not Waagh and blast away at the other DK but only cause 1 wound. 30 Boyz assault left DK (2 wnds remaining) and 30 Boyz assault the other DK (3 wnds remaining) It's looking very, very good for the Orks. I laugh when what is supposed to be his big bad kick butt new toys only kill 2 boyz each. Now it is my turn to lick my chops. Regular boyz do a zillion hits (116 from each squad to be precise) but then I can't roll sixes to wound, only getting like 5-6 from each squad, and he doesn't roll any ones. OK, no worries, power klaw time, 8 attacks needing 4s... wha? I left my Team Snake Eyes shirt at home but alas, nothing but ones and twos, my PKs totally whif, I lose cc by 4 and promptly fail all my fearless saves, but really, who cares, 12 boyz down, these big humies is going to die!!!!! bottom 2: He moves his center Termies up, but they have to go thru Difficult and don't go far enough to get stuck in. He moves up all squads on far left and right. Dreadnought and Termies lay down a withering fire on my left, felling a good number of Boyz. On the right, his guys have just enough room to see my Burnas and they too assail them with bullets, killing about 8. Burnas pass leadership (whew!). Dks roll and whiff until I ask him, the one w/ the great sword, can't he re-roll like everything under the sun? Oh yeah, he kills 2 Orks. W/o Furios Charge my Orkzes are only S3 (excepting the Nobz w/ pks of course), I rolls 75 To Hit dice needing 4s, now I roll tons of dice needing sixes, get like 4 or 5, my opponent will just not roll a stinking 1!. Same thing happens in the other side. No worries, time to finish them off, power klaw To Hit rolls galore, his goose is surely cooked...1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, GGGAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! On left side, his termies assault and as he's collecting dice I ask him, doesn't every squad have psychic powers? Yes indeed, he forgot. They roll for Hammerhand and get it, thus activating their Force Weapons too, i think. Won't come into play here as my Boyz have 1 wound. He kills tons, I kill a couple, I'm still Fearless and this is actually what hurts me cuz I only roll a couple of saves and another 8 boyz bite the dust. Good thing the Boyz in that squad are all caught up in the fight but I can foresee their impending doom as they are no longer fearless. No worries, Warboss and nobz( who had moved into cover cuz I thought he would be more shooty) are not too far away now to put the hurt on that squad. Game= 1-1

Turn 3: Everything that can moves up. Boss and Nobz still too far to get stuck in, Tank Bustas shoot at Ven. Dreadnought, couple pens, shaken and stunned is all I can do. Shootas double assault DKs. He kills 4 total, DKs are not the CC beast I initially worried they would be, guess I didn't read the stat line all that carefully. Time to die big oval bases with incredibly difficult to wound clearish air base thingies! Um... but... whiff whiff whiff, and NONE of my 4 powerklaws scores a hit (insert sad/angry/perplexed Ork face here) Left DK has 1 wound remaining, right DK has 2- both should have died after 1st initial charge (sigh) His turn, trumpets blare: da ta ta DA! Grand Master to the rescue of his stoopit oval bases lol, his GM and Termies make mince meat of my Big Mekk and one squad. The 2 other Ork squads are still fearless, so despite only taking 2 wounds on 1 squad, 0 on the other, it is one big cc and so each squad loses many more boyz. I did direct 2 Powerklaws the Termies way, and after the dust cleared from a bunch'o'boyz (registered TM) doing oodles'o'wounds (TM pending), 4 Termies die, but then 2++ on this guy and 2++ on the Grand Master, which of course he makes all of them lol. (He is most definitely not allowed into TEAM Snake Eyes!) I finally kill the DK on left. Far left he wipes the remaining squad of boyz ( I have to remind him again to take his psychic tests for these combats. Oh oh oh! For some inexplicable reason he rolled Hammerhand for his DK, rolled double sixes and finally failed a save LOL!) Sole Dk has 1 wound remaining.

Turn 4. Tankbustas shoot at VD, knocking the what had been very deadly Assault Cannon off of it and Immobilizing it. Warboss and Nobz assault Termies on far left. Um... dude? Yeah? You gonna roll for Hammerhand? Oh yeah! (Jeesh) Hmmm... I am dismayed to discover not all of my Nobs have cybork bodies, I'll need to redo that squad since in the last 2 evenings I've seen no less than 5 GK armies being played. I lose 1 or 2, finish off his squad, yes, even the guy w/ the 2++. (18 power klaw attacks :) ).

Turn 5. Far right, 5 Strikes and 5 more Termies move up and assault. GM and Termie are no longer stuck in, and being my turn, my 2 squads finally kill of the remaining DK, 4 Strikes and 1 Terminator. In his turn GM and 1 Termie run toward cover (wha?), oh, then shoot at my Burnas, then, needing a 6, assault them with a roll of six. bye bye Burna Boyz. CC on right: I kill 3 Termies but can't kill the remaining strike (2++) both Ork squads fail leadership, he catches and kills.

Turn 6 TBs shoot at VD but he is far too close for them to actually hit it lol. they assault VD but the 2 tank hammers don't reach him, Warboss + Nobz assault GM/termie. "Um dude? Yeah? Hammerhand? oh yeah!" His GM and Termie kill my meanest, baddest, toughest CC squad (stoopit force weapons, stoopit stoopit measly 5++ save compared to his delectable 2++) Rokkit Boyz knock off the VDs other arm, I actually wreck him but he makes me re-roll it, I roll a, you guessed it, 1.

Turn 7 I killz the VD with 2 Tank hammers, he is too far away to assault my Rokkit Boyz but pours all his shooting at them. Many die but I pass leadership, sparing me being completely wiped from the board. Final result: Humies win 9-4.

In all honesty, I felt like I was in the game for most of it and could have won ( or at least made it closer) had my Power Klaws done anything (just one wound on the charge would have killed a DK in turn 2.) My opponent got extremely lucky as well tho, making saving throw after saving throw w/o EVER rolling a 1! OK, he rolled a couple ones but that's out of like 80+ saving rolls!! Realistically, I was very fortunate to kill the Stormraven in turn 1, and my opponent didn't know his own rules or play it very smart, i.e. teleport out when he could have, to lay down a devastating volley of stormbolter fire- 3 squads shooting at Boyz would easily kill off a squad. I think a more experienced player would smoke a Green Tide list or any Ork list for that matter :( Dreadknights seem to be better used as a fire base or for Assaulting vehicles. Weren't scarey at all in cc tbh. I think Sisters would have ripped his list a new one as aside from his Stormraven, he was footslogging it. If you let Sisters shoot you up piece meal, you will lose. Of course, DKs teleporting could make that difficult to execute. Marine lists will now be maximizing TH/SS termies imo to counter that 2++ everywhere. I know my proposed 2k SW list will struggle vs. a more experienced GK player even with this same list. But... Eldar and Dark Eldar might do ok. And... I am happy to say, we finally have a 2nd army that can put a serious hurt on Nidzilla lists. Tau, Necrons, Chaos Daemons are even more screwed than ever lol. What about IG? Personally, I'd lose the VD and a Strike squad to get a LR-Crusader w/ psybolt ammo to at least have 1 more solid transport. I think most Guard will struggle, but does have a chance. Overall our game was very fun because we got stuck in early and for 2-3 turns it could have gone either way. Once the GM made his grand entrance, I was toast!

Thanks for the report, Xerxesian. I'm sure between the various Grey Knight armies in Team Snake Eyes (three at current count) we'll be weeding through a lot of the new tricks and traps. Feel free to leave comments or share your own experiences with the "shiney humies"!

Edited on 4/12/2011 by Chosen1: added paragraph breaks and italics.  

The Nature of the Beast

Last Saturday Castle Perilous in Carbondale, Il hosted an RTT. It was 1750pts and you were to have a minimum of 40% of those total points (700) as troops, and no more than 25% of them in any other force organization type. Now I'm not a fan of further restrictions on the rules unless special circumstances apply. The tournament organizer believing that "math-hammer" is the root of all evil and needs to be regulated from the local tournament scene does not qualify in my book. I love this game, however, and I love getting together with my lads and rolling some dice and talking some smack. My reservations about the set up were overcome and Aerion (Black Templars), Partho (Orks), Da Goffer (Orks), and me (Salamanders) showed up to represent Team Snake Eyes come hell or high water.

There were 11 players at the event with the following army list breakdown: (4) Orks, (4) Space Marines, (1) Black Templars, (1) Dark Eldar, & (1) Tau. Aerion's Templar list can be found here. The orks were mainly mechanized or hybrid foot/mech lists as were the Tau...I think. The Tau were all based white, so it was hard for me to tell what they truly were since I never played that guy. The marines were: Drop Vulkan, Bikes, "mish-mash" (not really sure what that kid had in mind), and my Salamander list which was: Vulkan, Tac Squad w/ MM, F, CM, PF & Rhino x2, Tac Squad w/LC, F, PF & Assault Cannon Razorback, Dread w/MM & HF x3, Land Speeder w/HF & MM x2, Dakka Predator x2, & Vindicator.

I ended up as overall winner going 2-0-1. Partho & Aerion went 2-1-0 and Da Goffer went 0-1-1 with a bye. I played Partho's Speed Freak Orks in the 1st round (win), a local guy's Hybrid Orks in the 2nd (win), and the Drop Pod Vulkan list in the 3rd (draw). Sportsmanship and painting were also scored and I'm certain that they helped push me into first place, but I don't believe anyone went 3-0 on the day.

Here's the deployment of my first game. It was one of the goofy diagonal ones and Partho's Speed Freaks went first.

It didn't take long for his boyz to get up close and personal but I stayed buttoned up in my tanks. When he hit my lines he did an number on them, but then the Salamanders came out to play...

Point blank flamers & bolt pistols followed up by Vulkan He'Stan's assault and the powerfist armed squads turned the tide. He put a powerful hurt on me, but at the end of turn six, I had tabled him.

Here is my deployment from the second game. I didn't take any pictures since there were 3 battlewagons full of boyz, 2 full mobs on the table, and 2 full mobs in reserve. Not only that, but it was an old school mission with the "traitor" rules...you know the ones where you have to swap an elite model for one of your opponents. Take a look at my list above, and you'll see it has three dreadnoughts in my elite slots. I traded a 115 point dreadnought for a 15 point burna boy. I was not happy. That essentially meant that I was operating a 1650 list vs. an 1850 list. I killed everything but the dregs of his last two mobs in that game, but it was a never ending shootout. I moved up a bit to get good shots and then backed up to my edge with my finger on the trigger the whole time. I assaulted when absolutely necessary (to kill off his two warbosses) but only then.

My last game was boring. No really, it was boring. Don't get me wrong, my opponent was awesome, but he got intimidated by my Vindicator. He made me go first and I knew he had five drop pods in his army. I castled up in a corner and waited for him. He saw my wall of steel and fire and said "Hell no". He dropped his entire army on the opposite corner. He had Telion shoot missles at me for six turns while I shot him up (barely) with autocannons. We went through 6 turns in about 45 minutes and killed a couple hundred points of each other's stuff. No surprise, game ended in a draw.

Aside from some minor issues with the organization of the event, we had a lot of fun. We met some really cool guys who came up from Kentucky and had some good games overall. The next tournament in C'dale is September 25th. Still thinking about that one...

A tip of the hat for my favorite tank movie (see above photo) as well as to honor the passing of Clyde. He kept us all safe from the Chaos Squirrels in Aerion's back yard for many years, and we'll miss him dearly. RIP buddy.

Battle Report: Mission #2 Ard Boyz Playtest - Salamanders vs. Orks

I went over to Da Goffer's house this evening to get a game in because something came up and he wouldn't be able to attend the Ard Boyz event. That "something" looks like this:


A bouncing baby gretchin. I case you're wondering, he's begun indoctrinating his first child in the fine arts of the Imperial Creed "My armor is contempt; My shield is disgust; My Sword is Hatred; In the Emperor's Name; Let none survive." Priceless.

Mission #2 was a simple table quarters setup with victory points. I used my Ard Boyz list detailed here, and Da Goffer had a mixed list with lootas, kommandos, a few lobbas and kannons, some bikes, some koptas, some nobs, some dreads, some kans, very few boyz...etc. This list was all over the place. He was trying a few things out, but they didn't mix well together. I won the roll to go first, and he failed to steal the initiative.


This was essentially our deployment. I centered my line with my Land Raider, Vindicator and Dreads. My Razorbacks and Predators anchored my flanks, and my Rhinos were held in reserve. We lined up as close as we could, but the difference was that his koptas and bikes weren't in a position to get to me for at least two turns. At the time the picture was taken, the fast moving elements of his army moved unsupported along his left flank and were eaten up by my flamers and dreadnought assaults. Da Goffer used Kommandos to good effect against me the last time we played, so I tried to stay away from the board edges and pushed my entire army (except for my scouts) at him. Da Goffer's kommandos didn't come in until turn three, and his Storm Boyz had yet to arrive by the time he conceeded at the top of turn four.

I had a brilliant first turn, killing his Battlewagon and leaving him on foot for the remainder of the game. I'm not a great player, but Da Goffer doesn't get a lot of practice. That, and a Mechanized Vulkan list has a lot of advantages over a disparate mob of boyz on foot. Twin linked flamers, auto-cannons, and my Vindicator exacted a terrible toll on his army. He conceeded at the top of turn four when he only had two grots with a lobba, three kommandos, and a weaponless & immobilized trukk left on the board. I had lost one tactical marine and two terminators along with immobilizing my own land raider on terrain.

Here is what the board looked like when we were done.


It was a fun game for me, and Da Goffer said he enjoyed himself, but it was a lopsided game from the outset. I'm getting better, but I have a long way to go as far as my expectations of using my army as an effective combined arms force.

On an unrelated note, I want to remind my readers that the Blog Chain Give-Away is still ongoing, and you have until Monday, May 17th to enter to win a transport vehicle of your choice! You can only enter (this contest) once, but you can't win if you don't enter!

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.

Battle Report: Salamanders vs. Orks @ 1500pts

Tonight's game was at Da Goffer's house. His leash is much shorter now that he has a brand new baby gretchin (girl) at home. I played my standard 1500 point list detailed here, and he had an absolute buffet of orkish madness. Not sure of the exact make-up, but he had a large mob of boyz on foot, a smaller mob in a truck, some kommandos, 5 lootas, 3 deff coptas, 7 or so bikes, something called a "lobba" with four grots, some storm boyz with their insane character upgrade, that weirdo grot shooting cannon, and Gaz-somethingorother. Clearly, my lack of knowledge about codexes other than the current space marine book and the previous edition of the guard codex is one of my weaknesses. I'm working on it, but it's a work in progress for me.

We played Capture & Control with Dawn of War deployment. Our objectives were on opposite corners, and I won the roll to go first and deployed nothing. He deployed both squads of boyz and his grot shooter cannon thing. I have this nagging feeling that this was an error on my part, but I have no long range shooting and there was night fight in effect...This comedy of errors (mostly mine) was to end in seven turns as a draw.

My first turn was, understandably, short as I moved on my entire army opposite his objective. My goal was to make him commit to my objective and then leave his lightly defended. That's what actually happened, but it was uglier on my end than I would have liked. He moved the large mob towards my objective. and deployed the rest of his stuff midfield.

Turn two saw me move forward with no shooting. He got both of his reserves in and his sneaky kommandos immobilized both my speeders. I love my speeders. I don't have enough of them at the moment, and not have the two I do own in working condition for the entire game hurt considerably.

Turns three through five saw me loose both dreadnoughts, and my terminators while I took out a good chunk of his stuff in return. He still has his Storm Boy character, his large mob held my objective, his lootas were killing at will, his bikes were moving towards his objective (that I claimed with Tac squads) and I still don't know how to use 410 points of tactical marines. I seriously need to work that out so I can actually play with my whole army instead of sitting back with them because I'm too afraid of not being able to claim objectives with them.

In the final two turns, I could have moved my vindicator 24" and tank shocked his large mob and that might have contested my objective. Two caveats: I didn't know I had two turns to work with, and he could very easily have opened up my Vindi with his power klaw. Da Goffer, however, could very easily have moved his bikes close enough to contest the objective I claimed which would have earned him the win. He didn't feel that his bikes could have survived the turn of fire they would have taken, so he moved them more conservatively.

Bottom line? I played (and rolled) poorly. I'm pretty sure I botched my deployment decisions which handicapped me the entire game (especially the early loss of my speeders) and I couldn't roll 2+ saves on my terminators. It wasn't mass fire either, I would need to make four saves, and would fail three. I think I only earned a draw because its hard not to with Capture and Control. Da Goffer certainly played my better than me. Enjoyable game in the end, but it had some frustrating moments.

IG vs. Orks @ 1500pts

I had a great game with the new Imperial Guard codex today against Partho's orks. I showed up with: (3) leman russ tanks, (2) chimera mounted veteran squads, (1) heavy bolter armed vet squad w/ Sgt. Harker, (3) autocannon armed armored sentinels, (1) devil dog, & a chimera mounted company command squad. Partho had an approximation of the following: (2) battlewagons filled with 20 boyz each, a truck w/ Gazgull, a painboy, and 6 nobz, a truck with shoota boyz, and truck with slugga boyz and his ubiquitous biker mob. We played capture & control with spearhead deployment. I won the roll to pick deployment area, but subsequently Partho "siezed the initiative". That was a grim sign of things to come. :)

Partho's Orks are fairly mechanized, and those two battlewagons are able to reliably transport their cargo where they are needed. I, however, have always played drop troop/light infantry guard armies. So, neither Partho nor I knew what the hell I was doing, and the first two turns were relatively uneventful. Partho didn't dismount because he didn't have enough anti-tank at range. I couldn't stop his advance for the same reason. On turn three he moves forward, dismounts and tears me a new ass with his power klaws. I lost two of the LR tanks and my command chimera. What really hurt, was loosing all of my mounted special weapons from the destroyed vehicle. After that, I focused my surviving templates on his (now more vulnerable) infantry,b killing them in large numbers. In the end, it came down to famous Team Snake Eyes rolling (failing leadership, difficult terrain checks, etc.) and some clever tricks on both our parts. Partho ended up with both objectives for a decisive Ork win.

My first thoughts are that in 5th edition the easiest thing to earn is a win or a draw in a capture and control mission...I earned neither. Partho is a skilled warboss, however, and it was my first game with the new codex using an army style (mech) that I am still unfamiliar with. I've got a few ideas on tweaking my list, but I'd like a few more games in with it against some other opponents/missions before I go too crazy with changes. I misused some units, so I can't justify getting rid of them until I learn how to better use my new list. I thoroughly enjoyed the game because even though Partho was the clear winner in the end, it wasn't clear until the VERY end of the game. As always, never give up, remember your objectives, and keep playing.