Tuesday, 16 August 2016

Big Guns and Power Armour: A 40k Battle Report (part 1)

For today's post I thought I'd give some much needed love to my 40k Ork army and roll out a battle report. The reason behind this is, for the first time in a long time, I've been able to play a mass battle game with everything on the table fully painted. Combined with the scenery, a great opponent and a few beers I was looking forward to seeing what cinematic moments arose, and whether I could still play Warhammer 40k after a year without.
A big thanks to Mike for letting me take pictures and also a massive thumbs up to his painted Black Templar army. A great paint job that made this battle a joy to play.

MISSION & DEPLOYMENT
With the board set out as a city under bombardment we set about laying our plans for conquest. 6 objective markers were put down, 3 in Mike's deployment area hidden within the ruins, and the other 3 on my half of the board slightly further up the table, 2 in ruins and the other behind a barricade.
With the table set, it was on to deployment.



Mike set up first, but had about half his army arriving via orbital drop pod so his initial set up was pretty quick. 2 ten man squads of marines were deployed close to the objectives in the ruins whilst the third objective was taken by a five man team of scouts with sniper rifles. Mike's General, The Chapter Master was also set up with the central squad of marines.
My deployment was geared around the knowledge I would be going second, but I would also need to play to my strengths i.e. Aggressive as all HELL! With that in mind, I had the Warboss and his rentinue mounted on the Megadoof Wagon set up just left of the centre building with a truck mounted mob of boys close by to act as escort. Plan was to storm up the field as fast as possible and then start causing damage to take the objectives on Mike's half of the bored. A second truck mounted mob took my right flank for the same job and then the Loota boys led by the Big Mek took up firing position in the upper floors of the central building. 3 mobs of gretchin would act as objective holders for the army. Whilst everyone else raced off across the board for a scrap, the gretchin would follow in their wake and hold ground.  I also had reserves coming on the flanks, but they wouldn't appear until later in the game.

A quick rundown on the reserves, Mike would receive 2 drop pod landings in turn 1 and the final pod in turn 2. So I had a fair bit of heavy duty hitter to look forward to in the form of (left to right) 5 man squad of Assault Terminators, 3 Centurions led by the Emperor's Champion and a Venerable Dreadnought.

My own reserves, though not as heavy duty, made up for this in speed and outflanking positions. I wouldn't get the 2 buggy squadrons until turn 2 or later as they would be turning up randomly, but when they did I was looking forward to seeing some wreck marine formations.


OPENING SALVOS(turn1)
Mike's drop pods hit home right in front of my lines, it looked like Mike was going to bring the fight to me, which suited me just fine. The Assault Terminators land just off centre looking to take the barricades and the objective situated there. On my left flank, the drop pod containing the centurions scattered from its intended centre target and landed amongst some other barricades, but ultimately leaving the squad exposed to counter attack.
              

Meanwhile, across the battlefield, the 2 squads of marines advanced away from their claimed objectives with eyes to take the objectives further in to the city. This did leave the central squad dangerously exposed however,  clearly Mike had plans about removing my big guns before I had a chance to use them.

This was not to be.  A severe salvo from the Centurion Grav weaponry crippled the Megadoof Wagon almost instantly, but the band kept playing and the Wagon survived though now it was immobilised so it wasn't going anywhere. Then again, it didn't need to as it had already lined up it's first shot...


Concentrated fire from the snipers and the marine squads attempted to knock out a few Loota boys, but the crafty ork heavy weapon boys were dug in deep. The ample cover provided by the building the orks were in meant that even a direct hit from the Chapter Master's ordered orbital strike didn't kill a single ork.
The orks laughed off the worst of the marines' fire power and now threw their own in response. The truck mob on my right flank hit the nitro and pelted up the street towards the marines' forward position.


Next up were the escort truck boys. Seeing the Megadoof Wagon's suspension crack and drop like 250 ton of armoured brick, the boys decided they didn't want to be anywhere near the Warboss when he got out of there and started looking for someone to blame. Instead the boys leapt off the speeding truck and charged the Assault Terminators. Despite a hailstorm of bullets, broken bottles and low yield explosives, the Terminator squad held their ground, locked shields and took the charge.




Having had his ride crippled, the Warboss was out for blood, even if he had to walk across the street to get it. Bailing out of the Megadoof Wagon, the Warboss and his bodyguard barrelled towards the Centurions for revenge. The Warboss' squad took casualties from incoming fire, but was certain the Centurions never fired a shot. Glaring back, it appeared that the Big Mek was responsible for the freak friendly fire accident.


Despite their unexpected losses, the Brute squad of orks, led by the Warboss, hit home against the Centurions like a meteor. The Warboss brushed past a challenge presented by the Emperor's Champion, thinking the smaller marine unworthy of his time. Savouring the prospect of a bigger kill. Out classed by shear brute force, the Centurions were cut down, but the Champion held his ground against the remaining orks, carving up several of the Brutes and staring down the Warboss.


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