[Droofus]

Space Marine Vs. Orks 1500 Points, Annihilation

Space Marine Force

Shrike
Dreadnought
DCCW, Heavy Flamer, Multi-melta
Drop Pod
Dreadnought
Twin linked lascannon, missile launcher
10 tactical marines
Sergeant with power fist
Squad has missile launcher and flamer
Rhino
10 tactical marines
Sergeant has power weapon
Squad has missile launcher and meltagun
Rhino
10 tactical marines
Sergeant has close combat weapon
Squad has missile launcher and meltaguns
Rhino
10 Assault Marines
Sergeant has power fist
Squad has 2 plasma pistols
Whirlwind

Ork Force
Big mek
Kustom Force Field
3 Meganobz
Battlewagon
Riggers, red paint, reinforced ram
10 Lootaz: 150
8 Lootaz: 120
Deff Dread: 110
3 Klaws, skorcha, plates, riggers
30 Slugga Boyz: 220
Nob has power klaw, bosspole
30 Slugga Boyz: 220
Nob has power klaw, bosspole
3 Killa Kanz: 150
Rokkitz
3 Killa Kanz: 150
Rokkitz

Klickinklak grinned wickedly at the pair of shiny alien structures on the field in front of him. He figured they were made by the tinboyz. After all, he’d seen them using the big floating buildings before. His eyes glazed over blissfully as he remembered the dakka that the monoliths produced. Pausing only a moment to consider the lack of necron presence, he shrugged and bawled out the order to advance.

***

High atop a hill less than a mile away, Assault Captain Darius of the Hands of Vengeance 8th company was having a long distance conversation with his Chief Librarian.

“Yes my lord, they are here and there does seem to be a ‘mek’ leading them…”

“Correct my lord. Unless we act, they will take possession of the monoliths…”

“Understood, my lord.” Switching frequencies, he gave out a command to his entire strikeforce.

“We’ve just received orders from the chief librarian. We are to engage and destroy the xenos! Attack pattern seven-two. Smash them!”



Deployment:
My opponent won the roll for first turn and picked the side of the board with a hill on it. He basically arranged his army into two attack wings, one consisting of shrike and his assault marines backed up by a rhino full of tac marines, the other made of the other two tactical squads. The dreadnought and the whirlwind were on fire support duty.

My deployment was more drawn out but less subtle. Huge mobz of boyz sheltering behind a kan-wall on the right and spread out along the left. The battlewagon took position between the boy squads in order to maximize KFF coverage. Lootaz took whatever terrain they could. The rightmost squad (of 10) took refuge in the intact building.




Turn 1:

SM Movement:
The space marines began their attack with the dreadnought pod slamming down into the ground near the loota building on the right. The dread disembarked to flame them. Shrike and the assault marines jumping forward and the dreadnought sliding for better LOS to the dreadmob. The rhinos stayed still.

Shooting:
In the shooting phase, the whirlwind dropped a pie-plate of death on the boyz, killing 6. The three tac squads fired missiles at the dread mobz and managed to stun a Kan on the left and stun the dreadnought. Both were downgraded into shaken. The dreadnought flamed 3 lootaz to death and blew up their building – which killed 2 more and pinned the squad. The explosion also took a slugga boy with it. Shrikes squad fleeted towards the slugga mob on the left.




Close combat :
Shrike and company stormed in, killing 9 boy in total. The boyz struck back and offed a pair of space marines. Two of the boyz made their no-retreat saves, so only 5 died. I removed these casualties from the right side to allow some help to arrive.




Ork Movement:
The left kanz and the meganobz move to put an end to shrike and friends. The mek jumps out of the wagon and joins the sluggaz. The right hand kanz go after the troublesome dreadnought. The sluggaz (now led by the mek) and the dread advance towards the crater field.

Shooting:
The lootaz immobilize the lefthand rhino. The kanz on the right fail to hurt the dread with their rokkitz.



Close combat:
Striking first, Shrike and the assault marines kill a few more orks (leaving around 6 including the nob). The orks, kanz and meganobz finish off the entire squad, leaving a very lonely shrike to pass his leadership test and stay in the fight. Because of lack of room, the meganobz can’t move into base contact with him, meaning they have to consolidate back towards their wagon.

On the right, the dreadnought slams his fist down on an approaching kan, stunning it (downgraded to shaken because of squadron rules). Laughing off this inconvenience, the vengeful grots snip off the dread’s close combat arm and legs (immobilized and weapon destroyed).




Kill points
Orks: 2 (dreadnought and assault squad)
Space Marines: 0

Turn Two:

Space Marine Movement

The left hand squad gets out of their immobilized rhino and surrounds the whirlwind, their auspexes obviously having warned them about the imminent arrival of the black baron. The other rhino squads reposition in the center of the field, getting ready to unleash hell on the horde.

Shooting:

The whirlwind finds out that it has line of sight to the lootaz and fires. However, a mighty 12 is rolled on the scatter, meaning that it goes 8” and off the board. The lootaz rub their hands together gleefully. The dreadnought targets the deff dread again, its powerful weaponry merely shaking the ork machine thanks to the mek’s force field saving a potential penetrating hit (whew!).




Close combat:
Shrike slays two more orks before he is mercilessly snipped apart by the kanz. The kanz consolidate forward, hoping to gain the protection of the meks kustom force field in the next turn. The reduced slugga mob, now down to 4 models, moves to hid behind the monolith. The dreadnought is pulled apart piece by piece by the kanz (another weapon destroyed result and an immobilized = dead dread! Who needs 5+s? The Kanz consolidate around the pod.




Ork Movement:

The black baron, perhaps desiring to mess with the space marines, decides not to show up.

Meganobz remount and move out, leaving a clear path for the lootaz to shoot at the whirlwind, which we now know is visible over the hill. Slugga mob hides full behind the monolith while the full slugga mob moves up to connect with the kanz, who try and get close enough to the mek. The right squad makes it, the left one is left out of KFF range. Uh oh.

Shooting:
Desiring to go out with a blaze of glory, the left hand kanz unleash their rokkitz at the middle lefthand rhino, blowing it sky-high and killing two of the marines within. The Astartes pass their leadership test.

The lootaz make the whirlwind pay for its failure and wreck the machine, despite the cover afforded by the hill. Everything else runs closer.

For the first time in the game there is no close combat.




Kill points
Orks: 5 (dreadnought, assault squad, shrike, rhino, whirlwind)
Space marines: 0

Turn 3:

Space Marine Movement:
None. Everything stays still to unleash hell on the exposed kanz.

Shooting.
Righthand squad fires its missile launcher at the kanz and…. misses. Missile launchers form the middle squads fire and… both miss. Dreadnought fires its twin linked lascannon and… misses… rerolls and… hits! It rolls a penetrating hit and rolls a… 4 on the damage table. A kan keels over, immobilized and the grot abandons its ride. Then the dread fires its missile launcher and… misses.

The space marine player dubs this “the turn of fail”.




Ork Movement:
The black baron again decides against arriving.

The surviving members of the wayward kan mob move closer to the mek, thanking Mork that they survived. Other kanz, dread and mek mob move forward. 4 man slugga mob continues to hide behind the monolith.

Shooting:
Surviving two kanz decide to pay the dreadnought back for the loss of their little brother and stun it with their rokkitz. For lack of a better target, both loota squads concentrate on the drop pod and annihilate it.




Kill points:
Orks: 6 (dreadnought, assault squad, shrike, whirlwind, rhino, drop pod)
Space marine: 0

Turn 4:

Space Marine Movement:
Seeing perhaps their last chance to strike a blow against the orks, the middle tactical squads move into action. The rhino-borne squad scoots forward and dumps out their squad to rapid fire the orks, while the squad in the crater prepares to assault. The squad that had been guarding the whirlwind (which is now dead) moves to help out.

Shooting:
The recently disembarked squad opens up on the orks, killing 6 with their bolters and meltagun. The other squad fleets forward to get closer to assault. The rearward squad also fleets to get closer.



Close Combat:
The fleeting squad charges in and kills 6 more orks. In return the massive mob of orks only manages 2 casualties. The orks lose four more from no retreat saves.



Ork Movement and shooting:
The baron arrives! Hurray! Unfortuantely, he shows up on the right side. I would have loved to go after that easy rhino kill point. Not wanting to give up his kill point to the dread or the rearward squad, I hide him behind the monolith.

On the left, the meganobz decide that if the baron doesn’t want it, they do, and go after the immobilized rhino.

The depleted kan mob skirts the ongoing close combat to get into contact with the fresh rhino-borne squad. The dreadnought moves up, and while he’s not able to assault because of the monolith, he sneaks his flame template through and torches two of the mairnes. The full kan mob targets the dreadnought and blows him sky high.



Close combat
Meganobz just can muster the effort to charge the immobilized rhino (just out of assault range).

The Kanz charge into the fresh tactical squad, who are unable to hurt them with their krak grenades. In reply, the kanz snip 2 in half. The marines make their break check.

Finally the big mob gets rolling and kills off all six of the remaining space marines for the loss of 3 of their own.



Kill points:
Orks: 8 (2 dreadnoughts, rhino, whirlwind, drop pod, assault squad, shrike, tactical squad)
Space Marines: 0

Turn 5:

In a last desperate gasp, the final marine squad moves and fleets to get into combat with the kanz. However, a poor difficult terrain roll and fleet roll means that their sergeant isn’t able to bring his fist to bear. With the krak grenades not doing a thing, the kanz kill two more marines from the damaged squad and break both units. My kanz consolidation is enough to get within 6.

With only two rhinos left unbroken, the space marine player concedes.



Captain Darius crawled weakly over to where the helmet of the assault troop still crackled with frantic comms traffic. From what he could hear, remnants of his command were retreating in good order, shielded by the single remaining APC. The orks seemed content to let them, instead shifting their attention to the strange metal monoliths that dominated the field.

Wiping gore from the helmet-mounted comm-bead, he activated his command numerals, establishing a direct link to the fleet.

“Get me Ashurbanipal” he gasped.

***

Klickinklak was in heaven. Not only had they captured the two tinboy monoliths, but they had also come into position of a bunch of beaky parts for use. Perhaps it was time to stop thinking so small. He was tiring of making kanz and trucks. Even battlewagons and deff dreads had lost the thrill they once gave him. He gave a harsh cackle that caused several nearby sluggas to pausing in their looting. Yes, perhaps it was time to start thinking REALLY big.

[Thor{DoH}]

Nicely done report, enjoy some karma.

I'm not sure what the Marine player was thinking. I would have setup a gun line with two of the Tact squads, at least one of them, to support the Assault unit as it moved in and been aggressive with the Rhinos instead of sitting back hiding in them. He did some damage, don't get me wrong, but he really just threw away the Assault squad and the Dread that drop podded in. It's like he wanted to play aggressively but didn't want to commit the entire army to the cause, which was his downfall.

[Droofus]

Thanks for the Karma!

I'm not sure entirely what he was thinking. Perhaps he was hoping to deal me such a crippling blow with his dropping dread and first turn assault marine wave that I'd be unable to deal with slogging across the board into his gun line. Either way, it didn't work out that well for him.

[Atticus]

Small nitpick: The Black Baron is missing from your army list. Otherwise, great report. I enjoyed the use of the battlefield decorations in VASSAL. Perhaps the Marine player could use a lesson from da Orks on committing to an attack. Also, those kans need more grotzookas! You've got a squad for anti-vehicle fire, now get something to take down hordes and force loads of rolls on Marines.

[Monster Rain]

First of all, hi! Droofus told me he was posting our battle report on your fine forum so I figured I'd come check it out. I would like to point out that I wasn't aware this game was going to be a battle report, I may have made a few different choices.

Originally Posted by Thor{DoH}

I'm not sure what the Marine player was thinking. I would have setup a gun line with two of the Tact squads, at least one of them, to support the Assault unit as it moved in and been aggressive with the Rhinos instead of sitting back hiding in them. He did some damage, don't get me wrong, but he really just threw away the Assault squad and the Dread that drop podded in. It's like he wanted to play aggressively but didn't want to commit the entire army to the cause, which was his downfall.

I'm in complete agreement with you. I really could have put those Heavy Weapons to use to soften up the mob that Shrike and his Squad were charging. If I could have just broken that squad and consolidated into the ruins I would have been in pretty good shape. I totally overestimated Shrike and the Assault Squad and it didn't work out for me very well.

I had the two Rhinos sort of centrally located so they could race out and support where they were most needed, but it didn't really happen that way. And Droofus is an extremely capable opponent, so I can never expect a mistake to go unpunished.

Originally Posted by Atticus

Perhaps the Marine player could use a lesson from da Orks on committing to an attack.

Oh I have learned that lesson, sir. "If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly" I always say.

[scoutfox]

Good report, and nice win. You should sign up for the TO campaign, and have these reports count toward an ork victory.