Ork Tournament list for the sausagefest

Hey everyone,

So thanks to Old Shatter Hands' prodding, I am going to go and play in the Sausagefest tournament next weekend in Glen Burnie with my orks. I played a game with some friends yesterday, taking on 1850 pts of marines and Tau with an ork list.

I feel a little bad as my friends are pretty new to the game and I was testing out a tournament-style list but it was still a good fight. The dice were good to me at key points in the game and I played effectively to hold the objectives by turns 5-6.

My list was as follows

HQ
Warboss, Power Klaw, Squig, Cybork – 110 pts
Big mek, Kustom Force Field, Eavy Armour – 90 pts

Elites - One nobz as troops because of warboss
8 lootas – 120pts
8 burnas – 120 pts
9 nobz, Painboy, 3 Power Klaws, 2 Bi Choppas, Waagh banner, 9 Cybork bodies – 355
10 nobz, Painboy, 3 Power Klaws, 3 Kombi Weapons, 1xAmmo runt, 10 Cybork bodies – 373


Troops
21 boyz, 2 Big Shootas, Nob, Power Klaw, Bosspole – 176 pts
21 boyz, 2 Big Shootas, Nob, Power Klaw, Bosspole – 176 pts
10 grots, Runtherder – 40 pts
10 grots, Runtherder – 40 pts
Trukk, Red Paint Job - 40pts

Heavy Support
Battlewagon, Red Paint Job, 2 Big Shoota – 105 pts
Battlewagon, Red Paint Job, 2 Big Shoota – 105 pts

Total – 1850 pts



So it was a fun list to play and simple in execution. The vehicles head forward covered by the KFF and drop off the nobz into combat. The burnas ride in the trukk and do drive-by flaming while the boyz and grots move up the field or head for objectives. The lootas give me a bit of long range anti-vehicle.

Overall I like it but I think it will struggle a lot against a mech-heavy list as there is little available to really threaten armour outside of assault. My collection is quite limited and I have only the models above plus six Deffkoptas.

I'm thinking of dropping the warboss, burnas and trukk (270pts even) to add 3 units of 2 TL-rokkit deffkoptas. I think the drive by flaming is fun, but the trukk is very vulnerable to even light AV fire and the warboss is very fun, but not necessary like the KFF mek. Hopefully by being able to throw out some rokkits and scouting for first turn assaults I can mess up the opponents in the tournament.

New List:
HQ
Big mek, Kustom Force Field, Eavy Armour – 90 pts

Elites - One nobz as troops because of warboss
8 lootas – 120pts
9 nobz, Painboy, 3 Power Klaws, 2 Bi Choppas, Waagh banner, 9 Cybork bodies – 355
10 nobz, Painboy, 3 Power Klaws, 3 Kombi Weapons, 1xAmmo runt, 10 Cybork bodies – 373


Troops
21 boyz, 2 Big Shootas, Nob, Power Klaw, Bosspole – 176 pts
21 boyz, 2 Big Shootas, Nob, Power Klaw, Bosspole – 176 pts
10 grots, Runtherder – 40 pts
10 grots, Runtherder – 40 pts

Fast Attack
2 Deffkoptas, Twin-linked rokkits - 90 pts
2 Deffkoptas, Twin-linked rokkits - 90 pts
2 Deffkoptas, Twin-linked rokkits - 90 pts

Heavy Support
Battlewagon, Red Paint Job, 2 Big Shoota – 105 pts
Battlewagon, Red Paint Job, 2 Big Shoota – 105 pts

1850 on the nose.

Thoughts?

Revised 1000pt ork list after speaking to Old Shatter Hands.

Hi all,

So having taken some time to talk tactics with Old Shatter Hands and get his vibe on orks, I've decided to tweak my list. In his experience, ork lists do well when they focus on a certain aspect rather than trying to generalise, especially in smaller point games.

So my list which comes at you piecemeal gives the opponent the chance to deal with each component in turn i.e. shooting out the transports and their contents, then turning attention to the footsloggers coming behind. He thinks it would be better to send everything upfield and into the enemy's face in transports or to keep it all on foot and max out on bodies.

So I've decided to go vehicle heavy and smash face that way. The burnas are out, nobz are tweaked so I can get another battlewagon and two deffkoptas (scouty, sneaky, harassers)

- Big Mek (35) with KFF (50)
- 6 Nobz (120), 3 PK (75), Waagh Banner (15), Big Choppa (5), Painboy (30)
- Trukk (35) with RPJ (5)
- 20 Boyz (120) with, 2 Big shoota (10) Nob (10) PK (25), BP (5)
- 20 Boyz (120) with, 2 Big shoota (10) Nob (10) PK (25), BP (5)
- TL Rokkit Deffkopta (45)
- TL Rokkit Deffkopta (45)
- Battlewagon (90) with RPJ (5) and Big shoota (5)
- Battlewagon (90) with RPJ (5) and Big shoota (5)


Now we will be hitting the enemy lines probably on turn 2 with both boyz mobz and the nobz. Add in some multicharges if possible and I should be able to crush the foe. I'll be using the trukk and battlewagons to block off my opponent's shooting while the assaults go on and can always tank shock them off objectives. Deffkoptas are there to scout on turn 1 and mess with the opponent's starting game, possibly getting side armour shots or assaulting into small heavy weapon squads.

I'm back into 40k and this time I'm green ;-)

After a long absence, I am back into the blogging scene and ready to go.

Lots of things have been going on with me recently that filled up my time but I have been gaming a reasonable amount. Two good friends of mine I met in the last few months both decided to get into 40k and are now a wargaming couple. Since Old Shatter Hands from The Tau of War loaned me his wargaming table and terrain to make way for his new baby I had a great setup to show them how to play on.

Playing and teaching the game to new people got me really excited to get back into things and when OSH decided to offload his small collection of ork sprues onto me, I took the plunge. I've always wanted to make a characterful greenskin mob and turn my AOBR set into something that can really be played at a decent game level.

However I have to do it on the cheap and so the challenge has been laid down. Can I make a fun, tough ork army list that I will enjoy playing without breaking the bank?

So, like any wallet-respecting ork general, my army is coming from the roots of Assault on Black Reach. This set (should you have been under a rock since 5th edition launched) gives you a power-klaw warboss, 5 Nobz, 20 Boyz, 3 deffkoptas and a bevy of marines.

Ignoring the power-armoured forces, you have a nice solid base for an ork force. I have one set of painted AOBR orks and got another set from OSH minus the warboss. To this I decided to add two boxes of the new plastic grots (cheap and fun) and a set of the plastic Nobz. I'm off to England for Christmas and I should be able to inherit another black reach set of orks when there so I will have a veritable horde of green bodies when I'm done.

So far everything has been assembled in a fairly stock way with the exception of the Nobz. For those who haven't read the ork codex, this unit brings a set of 2 wound combat machines who can be customised greatly to fit the task at hand. The problem with AOBR is that you only get the basic slugga & Choppa Nob who, while hitting with 5 S5 attacks on the charge, doesn't really take advantage of the power on offer with wargear.

So out came my clippers, X-acto knife, files, saw, glue and bitz box. Old Shatter Hands recently took on an Ogre Kingdoms (OK) commission painting army and let me root through the remaining sprue pieces for things that could be used. Orky Know Wotz imagination let me get all excited at the chance of kitbashing some neat power claws out of punch daggers and the like. The Ogre hands are pretty much the exact same size as a Nob hand so you can just clip and swap with ease.

After a brief clipping, cutting, snapping, gluing and bodging session, I had my first ork with a power klaw converted from the Black Reach set.
For those who like details I used, one curved OK punch dagger, one small sprue cylinder offcut, two OK knives cut in a curve, a shaving of sprue (as a strap) and a couple of gubbinz to make it look more mechanical. 15 minutes work and we have a free power klaw, another 10 minutes for klaw no.2. Woot.

Soon after this my boxed sets arrived and I contemplated the great variety on offer from the Nobz kit. There is sooo much in this box and I've only used a portion of it so far despite using pieces of it on 11 Nob models.


Here is my Wrecking Krew all kitbashed to Orkish perfection. In this picture (not great, just a camera phone) I have 6 power klaws (3 boxed set klaws, one counts-as buzzsaw from the set, 2 homebrew), 3 big choppas, a twin-linked shoota (far right), 2 kombi weapons and a Waagh banner (from an OK banner).

I'm really happy with these guys. They have such character, are going to be a tough prospect on the battlefield dishing out S7 big choppa hits and S9 power claw hits on the charge while being able to play with wound allocation and survive a lot of fire. I still have leftover bits to use on the next AOBR set I will pick up from England. Plastic is a joy to convert and it simply wouldn't be orky without some 'Mek Adjustin' ;-)

So here's to a greenskin holiday season. I hope life is going great for everyone.

Pete

It's been a while and lots of things have changed but I've got some mojo back

Well thankyou to any readers who actually read this piece as it's been a good 6-7 weeks since I updated anything on the site here. I apologise to everyone and I'm getting back on the horse as far as enjoying my hobbies go.

To sum up for those who haven't followed:

- I separated from my wife just over 2 months ago
- I've had to find a new friend network and try dating for the first time in quite a while(you think tournaments are scary lol)
- I've been spending a lot of time at my new martial arts gym
- I can't really get enthused for Warmachine as I was getting into it when the whole split happened (plus I've grown to dislike metal models)
- Old Shatter Hands has been a great friend and also gotten me having good fun with 40k again so I'm happy about that.
- I've gotten my mojo back for writing and have finally got the last chapter of my current novel on the way to completion after several months of lagging.
- I'm feeling good about life in general and excited to face the opportunities and challenges ahead of me.


Ahem, so with that quick summary out of the way, what's to talk about?

I've been having a great time playing some 40k recently on a smaller scale. Two of my new friends got totally suckered into the game through me and are splitting black reach (husband and wife) so I've played some demo games with them and recently I played a great 750 pt game with OSH.

To be honest I think I could get used to small games quite happily. While I find AOBR games to swing drastically one way or the other they are still quite fun and playing at 750 is a great way to get a good game without too much power on either side. The time investment is a lot lower too, which is important for a busy person like me and a father to a newborn (OSH). I like that we set up and played two full games on a small table in a short time on saturday, where our bigger games suck up a lot more hours than you have free sometimes.

In other news I'm writing at a slow but steady pace on my steampunk/fantasy novel. I'm about 30% through the final chapter and just need to make sure it rounds off appropriately dramatically. I'm excited to finish this one as I have so many more ideas running around in my head, especially now that I've picked up some good novels to get my juices flowing. For steampunk I have Boneshaker and Dreadnought by Cherie Priest along with The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder. For my future dystopian work I picked up the Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood for the princely sum of 81c from my local second hand bookstore.


To sum up my upcoming ideas (all working titles):

- Ghost Stars.
A lone ship sent on a desperate mission to end a war in humanity's favour runs into to trouble when the captain and special military weapon's officer die suspiciously. Alone in the lonely darkness of the Eagle Nebula, the newly promoted 2nd in command must lead his crew through the risky path ahead, all the while wondering if there is a traitor in their midst.

- Voice of God, Voice of the Universe
In the near future, civilisation has collasped in the wake of a global conflict whose exact origins have been kept secret. The Vocare Dei religious group has created the only known semblance of order left. Their domain is central east coast region of the former United States (centred around Washington DC) and they rule it with an iron fist. When Dana Swyler, a lowly cleaner, stumbles across a hidden relic of the war she is chased by the government and an underground resistance force, both looking to further their own ends.

- Most Ancient Deceit
Detectives in (LARGE CITY) are on the trail of a murderous vigilante. Somebody is killing off drug dealers, gang members, mafia and other criminals with gruesome and efficient methods. As the detectives work their case methodically and uncover more evidence, things point towards a killer who is more than human.
***Might do this one as a 2 parter, first half with the police, second half with the killer explaining the other side of things. If you like the C'Tan you might like this idea...... ;-)


Then when talking on a blog the other day about Dystopian steampunk I came up with a new idea. The post was discussing the apparent clash of dystopia and steampunk as the author considered the former to be futuristic and the latter to be historic in setting. To me, the dystopia describes the nature of the setting (decaying, oppressive, negative etc.) rather than anything specific about it's timeframe. I can see future dystopia (40k), fantasy (WFB) and steampunk (Malifaux) setting examples quite easily. In responding to the post I scribbled out an example story idea before realising that I really like it and might use it myself. Just came up with this this morning so it's the least fleshed out in my mind but I like it nonetheless.

- Fillis and his pretties.
The brilliant, but sociopathic, Doctor Fillis breeds a revolutionary strain of bacteria that will allow fusion of the human body with steam-powered machinery, allowing criminals and other undesireables to be remade to serve as a society's labour force. The bacteria spreads too widely though and much of the population is killed or crippled. Those with genetic immunity who survive rebuild society to ensure that they are never threatened by the mechanical-human hybrids the, now-escaped, Fillis created. Breeding is only allowed with other immune people and tight controls are placed on the hybrids. Protagonist comes in and messes with the way things are.



Well that's about all from me now. I'm planning to get some more 40k games in soon, will get my painting back up to speed. I've also got to finish up the Harbinger of Menoth painting and assembly guide I started work on so lots left to do.

Sadly the camera I used for other model pictures was my ex's and now I have to get a new one. To make up for the lack of eye candy in this post, please enjoy the following cosplay sororitas pic ;-)

Picture from Grimdark on DeviantArt.

Battle report vs Old Shatter Hands. Blood Angels against tau.

Hey all,

So I've been lax in reporting on my game last saturday with OSH but I've finally got some energy to get typing. No pictures sadly because I forgot my camera. OSH got some on his phone so if he passes them over I will upload.

EDIT: A photo has come. This shows the critical moment before my Lib Dread got the charge.


So Blood Angels vs Tau. This was a chance for me to try assaulty marines and for OSH to get some field experience on the Multitrackers versus Targeting arrays debate seen here.

OSH took (roughly, this is from memory) the following, based on his 2k list brought down to 1500.

HQ - Shas'El: plasma rifle, missile pod, targeting array, target lock + 2 gun drones
HQ - Shas'El: plasma rifle, missile pod, targeting array, target lock + 2 gun drones

Elites - 3 Crisis suits, 2 fireknives (plas/missile), 1 fireforge (fusion/missile), all with targetting arrays.
Elites - 3 Crisis suits, 2 fireknives (plas/missile), 1 fireforge (fusion/missile), all with targetting arrays

Troops - 6 Fire warriors in devilfish
Troops - 6 Fire warriors
Troops - 10 kroot and 5 kroot hounds

Fast Attack - 8 pathfinders with devilfish
Fast Attack - 2 Fusion Piranhas

Heavy Support - Broadside + 2 shield drones
Heavy Support - Broadside + 2 shield drones


After dealing with the blood angel codex organisation issues discussed here I came up with a list to fight against the Tau.

HQ - Librarian with Blood Lance (4d6" S8 AP1 Lance) and Wings of Sanguinus (move like a jump pack).

Elites - 5 Sanguinary guard with banner, because they are very cool.
Elites - 3 Sanguinary priests to give my troops Feel No Pain and Furious Charge.
Elites - Librarian Dreadnough with the aforementioned Wings of Sanguinius and Might of Ancients (+D3 attacks).

Troops - 5 assault marines with meltagun and power weapon on the sergeant. No jump packs and in a rhino.
Troops - 5 assault marines with meltagun and power weapon on the sergeant. No jump packs and in a rhino.
Troops - 5 assault marines with meltagun and power weapon on the sergeant. No jump packs and in a rhino.

Fast Attack - Baal Predator with twin-linked assault cannons and heavy bolters.
Fast Attack - Baal Predator with twin-linked assault cannons and heavy bolters.
Fast Attack - 3 Land Speeders. Multi-melta and flamer, multi-melta, assault cannon and heavy bolter.

I was trying to play a nasty tournament-style list. It's a long way from what I would usually play but I went with it to give OSH practise for the NOVA open he's going to, where BA will undoubtedly be well represented. I did choose sanguinary guard because they are cool though, and I equipped the landspeeders WYSIWYG rather than just going melta/flamer. A bit more expensive but more characterful in my view.

I will go generally over the game as it's been a few days and I can't remember exactly what happened on what turn.


OSH goes first. My Sang Guard are deep striking, Baals outflanking. His firepower blows up one rhino and knocks the storm bolter from another. In my first turn everybody hustles forwards at high speed (woah, fast marines) with my speeders turbo boosting and my librarian dread jump pack running some 15"+. The foot librarian hits the piranhas with blood lance but no penetration (S8 vs AV11).
OSH proceeds to immobilise my damaged rhino, kill 2 speeders, blow the MM from the third, knock off the dreads DCCW and kill a marine who is on foot. In my turn I get the Sang Guard and pull off a critical move. Thinking like I'm playing warmachine, where clearing a charge lane to the caster can win the game, I jump my lib dread into a small gap between a devilfish, fire warriors and drones. My speeder then comes up and flames the troops, opening a charge gap to the crisis suits behind the drones. The sang guard blow up the devilfish with their inferno pistol and the dread charges into combat. Even with only a S6 force weapon, he wins combat. Doesn't catch the crisis team though, but sadly for OSH, they run from the board. One flank is now collapsed.
OSH retaliates next turn by killing the dread and shooting a couple of sang guard with the piranhas. His broadside also pastes my librarian who'd moved out to get a blood lance shot. Otherwise, he's pretty backed into a corner on the 4x4 board. My turn gets me both Baals, one on each flank. I basically grind forwards with my marines, one squad assaulting and beating the kroot over a couple of turns, the speeder flames out the pathfinders and I move forwards.
OSH keeps fighting and downing marines but he's too hemmed in and my pincer movement ends up having only his crisis team still alive by turn 5 and facing a lot of foes.

Victory for the Blood Angels.



So BA thoughts...

- Blood Angels are fast! Having up to 18" movement on all rhino chassis vehicles is a huge deal and let me clear the board with ease. I was restricted much more by terrain than by distance. Scouting/outflanking Baals are super nasty too.
- Jump pack librarians seem a little unfair, particularly against Tau where they can't damage them in assault.
- Blood Lance is nasty against big tanks but is still a single S8 hit and will roll low on a number of shots. It does better if you can line up multiple units to take a hit. I consider it a powerful but well balanced power.
- Getting furious charge and Feel No Pain is extremely good for assault troops.

Tau thoughts

- I think I'm with OSH on getting +1 BS for crisis suits rather than multitrackers, particularly against MEQ. At range his suits would be almost deathrains (66% hit rate vs 75%) and then when I got into plasma range I'd be hit by BS4 AP2 shots. It is particularly nasty against Blood Angels as I had no wound allocation games to play. If he'd fired missiles too I could have stacked the plasma shots onto particular models and gotten my FNP saves on others. As it was, I had no save at all (see next point) and my marines went down fast.
- Markerlights are great in terrain. OSH got some good hits (5-6) on certain turns and would strip my cover saves as well as boosting his hit rolls. I'm just glad he didn't have any seeker missiles.
- Facing a footslogging Tau army is quite tough as they can put out a lot more firepower than the usual mech force. On a bigger table, I think I would have been a lot more challenged to win. The smaller table and the librarian charge really made it work for me.
- Drones can be used very very effectively as movement and assault blockers. They also carry pinning guns which can be used to penetrate rhino armour. Don't ignore the little guys if they get behind you or you might end up HAVING YOUR BAAL DIE TO TWO LITTLE FLYING TOASTERS WHO GET A PENETRATING REAR ARMOUR SHOT AND ROLL A 6. Ahem, caps lock off. Me and OSH definitely laughed about this one and it was a great comeback moment that weakened my right flank.



We discussed what OSH could have done to change the game and I don't think there were any big failings. The dice and table were kind to me for sure. I suggested that in the tournament he should be willing to break the HQ suit off from the team to take a charge if need be. Had that happened, I would have probably killed the Shas'El but then lost my dread to a full team of Crisis suits with fusion and missiles. Not losing that flank would have let OSH hold me off a lot more effectively.

I look forward to reading about how his tournament goes as at 2k he will have a lot more railguns. We both agreed that heavy tanks should be ignored in favour of rhinos for railguns as a hit will always at least glance and slow the attack.

Thanks for reading and thanks OSH for the game and for loaning me the models.

I'm still alive and I've just bought myself some Warmachine

Much like Old Shatter Hands over at the Tau of War, I have been very busy recently with little or no time for blogging/wargaming stuff. Me and my wife just moved into our new apartment in Frederick, Md and have been busy getting used to life. Of course, we had no sooner got settled than we went back to Bethesda to dogsit for our old neighbours for a bit of extra cash. Now that I've finished at Starbucks (7 day working weeks were too much after 6 months) I have a lot more free time coming up so hopefully there will be more bloggage and more gaming going on.

Now my position in the sales team for clear channel (5 radio stations: Hot 99.5, DC101, 97.1 Wash FM, 98.7 WMZQ and BIG 100.3) is a tough job at times as there are many many thousands of dollars moving around at all times and I have a team of seven salespeople to manage. It's a lot of fun though and I get to meet with some celebrities at times. So far:

- Three Day's Grace
- Shinedown
- Silversun Pickups
- Kellie Pickler
- Sarah Buxton
- Cage The Elephant
- Charice Pempengco
- Vita Chambers

Some of these are big groups, some of them are up and coming but it's all good fun. In any event, I've been lucky to get a little boost in my sales position through the wonder of commission. I'm a salaried employee but a few chances have come up to make some small extra cash on commission for certain voucher sales (http://dcdd.halfoffdeals.com/). I don't make a lot but for the month of march it was nearly $100 on top of my regular pay, yay.

So I bought myself some warmachine...

Since OSH gave me some trollbloods already I didn't buy a lot in the way of models (just one) but I picked up the rulebook Prime Mk2. I'm excited because it's supposed to be a great book as well as having the rules for nearly all of the models in the different Warmachine Factions (excepting a few that came out after the book). Imagine if GW released the 6th edition 40k rulebook with a full colour page on each model/unit for half of the game factions? That would be cool***

So the model I bought is not for playing really but is just for the sheer beauty and joy of painting.

May I present the Harbinger of Menoth




That is some sweet looking model right there. Also, if I never play the Menoth faction in Warmachine, I think it looks far better than the GW model for the Living saint so we might have some Holy-God-Emperor's-Power-Channeling flying saint action as well as Holy-God-of-the-Menites'-Power-Channeling flying warcaster.

All in all I'm pretty happy. Especially because I ordered it this afternoon and the UPS email suggests it might be delivered tomorrow. How's that for service?

Go Warstore :-)


***PS: I should be fair to GW here and say that I'm very impressed with their unit stat summary in the back of AOBR rulebook but it skips over a lot of the special rules.

PPS: Dhinata over at Run'Al is officially the man for helping me out on something that I will blog about if it works. Thankyou good sir.

Warmachine/Hordes, how well can a 'fun' army play it?

Good day to all of you at the beginning of another week. So this weekend was very busy for me as I moved into a new apartment with my wife. We'll now be in Frederick, Md, so a little further in the commute but a lot cheaper on rent and a great town to live in. I need to find a good gaming group there now and when I've got a bit more money, the harcore Frederick Fight club Mixed Martial Arts gymn is calling me.

Thanks go to Old Shatter Hands for pitching in and not only helping us load up the van with furniture, but then driving up in his car with more furniture, helping us unload (including a sofa bed that weighed as much as a real space marine!) and then getting back in time to have a birthday celebration with his wife. You sir are the man and I owe you big time.

In addition, he was good enough to give me a Trollbloods Warpack he had lying around and didn't want.
Trollblood's warpack. Privateer Press' picture

So my future plan is to get into HORDES (and WARMACHINE) and see what I can do to build up a small army. Now I don't have the latest rules yet and I've never played so I am mostly free from the lure of the most powerful or popular units. I've also read than in the transition to Mk2, Privateer Press made sure to tone down the more powerful units from the 1st edition and to add utility to the weaker ones so that no model will ever be completely useless on the table (GW could try doing this with the Tau's own Aun'Va...). So my plan is to just collect the models I think are coolest looking or most fun and see if I can make a good army out of them. Some people say that WarmaHordes is all about power playing so we'll see if I can work around that just with fun and good tactical choices.

So my army starts with the warpack above. That gives me the tragic hero Madrak Ironhide, an albino warlock who took up a cursed axe in order to save his people, a troll axer who gets to smash faces and cut down infantry and two troll impalers who throw ten-foot long spears at anyone who gets in their way. What's next?


Borka Kegslayer is a priest of Dhunia (the troll earth goddess) who likes drinking, fighting and sex. He carries a big club called Trauma that causes brain damage, his special feat is a barroom blitz, he's followed by a pygmy troll with a keg and has a spell called Mosh Pit. If that isn't just too cool for school, I don't know what is :-)


The Dire Troll Blitzer is a massive beast with a WW1-pilot-goggle-wearing pig on its back that is manning a machine gun. Nuff said.


The earthborn dire troll is so adaptive that his fists can take on the power of the enemy's weapons. Flying fist to the face with the strength of your super axe Mr. Butcher of Khadov...yes please!


These Runeshapers are so cool that they can make rocks come swirling up out of the ground. Loving the models and loving the vibe.


Now these Kriel Warriors are pretty neat, not the coolest troll models I've ever seen but they are solid. More importantly they let me take....


A CABER THROWER WHO CHUCKS A CABER MADE OUT OF GRANITE!!! Can't really say more than that. It's just a shame he can only do it once per game.


Speaking of big stones, why not carry a rune-carved magic one into battle that will make your buddies a lot tougher? Works for me :-)


Last of all, let's bring out some tough, hard-fighting champions led by a meanie with a pirate eye-patch.


So that rounds me up to:

- Madrak Ironhide/Borka Kegslayer (not sure on the rules for multiple warlocks)
- 2 Troll Impalers
- Troll Axer
- Dire Troll Blitzer
- Earthborn Dire Troll
- Runeshapers
- Kriel Warriors with a caber tosser.
- Krielstone bearers
- Trollkin champions

I have no idea if this a legal army or whether it is balanced/good/effective but who cares? I will slowly move towards this in my collection of Trollbloods and put up posts as and when I get time to collect, paint and play.

All the best,

Pete

Sometimes the dice just go your way. Battle report vs OSH.

Poor sidestriker. The dice were not kind to him.


So last night was the clash of my new 1850 marine list vs Old Shatter Hand's 1850 list. We played at Dream Wizards among the masses of MTG players and some other 40k/Warmachine folks. I noted the prevalence of Deff-Rollas among the ork players now that the FAQ has ruled that they can hit vehicles ;-)

So my list was a heavy tank-deathstar-hybrid sort of thing.
- Captain with Powerfist
- 5 Terminators with Cyclone Missile Launcher
- Multimelta dreadnought
- TL-Autocannon dreadnought
- 10 Grey Knights with 2 Incinerators
- 10 Tactical Marines with Missile launcher and Meltagun
- 10 Tactical Marines with Missile launcher and flamer
- 5 scouts with bolters
- Land Raider
- Land Raider Redeemer

Old Shatter Hands brought
- Fireknive Shas'El with 2 bodyguards (target arrays, a target lock, 2 drones)
- Fireforge (Fusion/Missile) Shas'El (target array)
- 3 Deathrains
- 10 Kroot with 5 kroot hounds (converted from LOTR Wargs, great idea).
- 9 Fire Warriors in Devilfish
- 9 Fire Warriors in Devilfish
- 3 Piranhas with fusion
- 2 Hammerheads with railguns and SMS
- 3 Broadsides with Target arrays, leader with target lock

We rolled up pitched battle deployment and annihilation as missions. In many ways, this feels like the most original way to play 40k to me. Basically we line up and kill each other.

So the game can be described in two ways and it looks very different based on which way you consider. We have the game result and the tactical part of the game.

Game result: A strong victory to me (7 kill points to 4, with the chance of adding more kill points if we played another turn and not many chances for OSH to get more).

Tactical result: A close fought battle.

So what happened to lead to these divergent results?

Basically OSH deployed with a central firebase of the Deathrains, Broadsides and hammerheads, sent his piranhas out wide and put the rest in reserve. I played cautiously with my Land Raiders by putting them on my far right so that they were out of the way of the railguns in the early turns. In the centre I sent my dreads and Grey Knights with the captain. The tactical marines combat squadded and took supporting positions.
As I advanced up the centre with my Deathstar and went to my right flank with the Land Raiders, Old Shatter Hands swung his forces to the opposite flank and kept up a strong rate of fire. The broadsides stayed as an anchor so that they could fire and also so I would continue to come forwards to assault them as there was a big difficult terrain block to my left that would have left my Grey Knights in the open if they'd tried to change direction.
I responded by continuing my sweeping manouvers and gradually caught up with a battered the Tau forces. Overall it gave me a strong win as I dropped a lot of troops and didn't take too many casualties. Tactically speaking, OSH played well and used the Tau strengths to put me in tough positions over which units I would expose to fire.

On the other hand, the dice completely killed him....

I managed to make roughly 90% of all cover saves on my vehicles (from smoke or terrain), his attacks routinely failed to penetrate (even the broasides rolled 1s vs the dread) and when they did, the damage rolls were weak. I had one dreadnought immobilised and with no autocannons and the other lacking a multimelta but it had taken 5 turns of shooting to get them to that point. The Land Raiders were impervious to the few shots that came their way and if I hadn't immobilised my Redeemer on dangerous terrain then I could have been even more aggressive with my heavy armour. I rolled well on shooting in general, really well on assault attacks against OSH's vehicles and generally had a great game. I even started to feel bad by the end as it seemed so stacked in my favour for this game. Only the kroot did well on their rolls as I tried (in vain) to blast them out of cover and claim another kill point.
I'm sure we'll have a rematch where the opposite will occur and I have to thank OSH for remaining a great opponent even when it was all going wrong.

As far as his list went, I think it is fairly solid. The tournament he's looking at is 2000 pts so we talked about adding pathfinders, dropping one FW devilfish (they can use the PF one) and using the points to add another piranha. This would give him 2 units of 2 fast fusion blasters and the markerlight support he will need to deal with heavy cover saves.
In any case, a great (albeit lucky) game for me and I've already offered to swap sides and take Tau against OSH's blood angels soon.


PS: On a side note I met the local Press Ganger (Warmachine/Hordes intro guy) who has offered to show me some cool Cygnar stuff next week if I make it to DW again. Yay for steampunk walkers.