Thursday 28 May 2009

Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines VS Orks

Went to my usual Wednesday night club again this week. I managed to get a couple of games in, one at 1500 points and a small one at 500 points. My opponent in both was playing Orks, and he was a new player to the club who had just moved to the area, and he was good, and I don't mean good I mean good, like former UK GT winner, played for England at the ETC, that kind of good, but he was a very sporting and fun opponent. I wasn't holding out much hope for a win this game....

The mission was annhilation, with the pitched battle setup. My list was the same old one (fifth time out for it, still needs fixing). His list was roughly:

Warboss on a bike, power klaw, attack squig
4 Nob bikers, one with a boss pole, one with a Waaargh banner, one was a Pain boy (at least they didn't have cybork bodies)
20 slugga boyz
30 shoota boyz
20 shoota boyz
10 lootas
Looted wagon
3 deffkoptas

Clearly from the list, it was going to be difficult for me to kill this many models. He still only had as many kill points as I did, but I had a third of the models.

He won the roll to setup and go first, and chose to do this. He setup his bikes on my right, next to the lootas, with the boyz in the middle and looted wagon on the side. I deployed in my left corner with everything close up, and well away from the the lootas and bikes. I held my terminators in reserve (which was a mistake).

He's something approximate to the table at deployment:
The deffkopta scouted forward in front of the ruins in the face of my army, hoping for an early crack at the vindicator.

In his turn one, everything advanced towards me, the nob bikers and warboss turbo boosted over the hill in the centre. His shooting was pretty ineffective, with the lootas managing to immobilize the rhino and not much else.

My turn one, my defiler scuttled forward towards the deffkoptas looking for an easy kill point, my right most PM unit moved into the ruins. I knew the bikes could pretty much annhilate the whole army, so I threw my daemon prince at them, hoping to hold them up for a turn or two. My shooting was pretty ineffective, with a big scatter on the vindicator. In assault, the defiler charge the deffkoptas and destroyed them. My daemon prince charged the bikes, did one wound and then got ripped apart. Not a great start for him.

Turn two, opened with the looted wagon going crazy and driving forward, ramming into the defiler. I gambled and went for a Death or Glory! attack, which was succesful and managed to take destroy it. Two kill points for the defiler. He called a Waaagh! so his sluggas could fleet into the ruins and engage the defiler. Everything else advanced, including the nob bikes who moved into charge range of one of my PM squads. In the assault phase, the defiler chewed up one Ork for nothing in return. The nobs and warboss took down 3 PMs.

In my turn 2, firstly my terminators didn't show up. My vindicator rolled backward to get away from the advancing boyz, one PM squad moved behind the hill to move towards supporting the defiler, and the other moved and later charged the nob bikers. My vindicator did more damage, taking down 4 Orks. In the assault phase, I caused some wounds, as did he, but I don't think he lost any models due to having 2 wounds and every model having different gear.

Turn 3, he advanced, and blew up my rhino. The defiler and boyz fought on, with several more boyz going down, but the power klaw nob finished off the defiler. The PM/bike combat continue with some bikes actually dieing this time, but I was rapidly running out of plague marines. When this combat finished, he had one nob biker and the warboss left from the squad with a single wound.

In my turn 3, my left most PM squad advanced on the slugga boyz who had killed the defiler, killed one or two from shooting (they were down to about 10 now) and then charged them. They were nearly destroyed, but he rolled a double one for his Ld check, the only roll that would have saved them. The bikers killed off my plague marines, leaving one nob biker alive, and the warboss with one wound.

Turn 4, his nob biker moved towards the defiler, and the warboss moved towards the PM/slugga boyz combat. Shooting was uneventful. In assault, the nob biker destroyed the vindicator, and the warboss charged my plague marines in combat with the sluggas and reduced them down to the single Plague Champion with power fist.

Turn 4 for me, and I had one model on the table. My terminator finally turned up and I DS'ed them in close to the warboss/slugga/PM combat, but they scattered very close to the edge. I ran them in the shooting phase hoping for some cover from the 40+ boyz in range of them. In assault, the warboss killed my Plague Champion but not before losing his last wound.

Turn 5, I had 5 terminators against his entire army. They survived a ridiculous amount of fire (crappy Ork BS, T5, 2+/5+ save helped), but were eventually wiped out. Game over, with a loss for me.

This one was always going to be tough, I simply don't have the amount of firepower to destroy that many Orks. I was pleased with my deployment, it felt like the best tactic to use, but I clearly should not have DS'ed the terminators, as their they would have been more effective on the table for 4 turns. They could have held up the bikes for a turn or two giving me more time to finish of a unit or so of boyz.

An enjoyable game, but it was always going to be a tough one.


We were done early, so we had a kick 500 point game to prepare for the doubles tourney. He ran his Warboss and nob bikes as above, with one deffkopta. I ran my DP with wings and Warptime, 10 CSM with Icon of Chaos Glory and a melta gun, and a vindicator. I did manage to win this, thanks to some lucky rolls. My DP killed his Deffkopta in close combat and his bikes destroyed all my marines in assault. My DP flew over and sorted them out, thanks to warptime and me making 3 invulnerable saves.

I'm going to refine my 500 point list tomorrow following this little test. There's going to be some really cheesy lists coming out at this tournament.

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