Fields of Green: Dark Angels vs. Orks

40k Battle
Mission: Capture and Control
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Size: 1,000 points
Forces: Dark Angels vs. Orks

Can you believe it's been since last May since our last 40k battle? Ugh, I can't, and it showed in this week's game because Chri3 and I were like a couple of n00bie rookies flipping through the rulebook all night long. Be that as it may, it was still a blast. How can you not love pushing around little, painted space troopers going 'pew pew' at little, green-skinned baddies? The 40k rules are pretty simplified over many of the other sci-fi rulesets out there, and take a lot of heat because of it, but for pure "fun" and consistency, not to mention a great background (which weighs more heavily than I'd like to admit) then yeah, 40k is it.

Since 40k games have been a somewhat rare sight here among Mik's Minis, I will include all of the pics from the battle, because we all know people love the eye candy when it comes to gaming blogs. I took some notes too of noteworthy events in-game, but for the most part I'll stick in a bunch of fun pics. Playing the game, rusty knowledge of rules not withstanding, was a lot of fun, and I lament the failed campaign we tried. We had talked about a second go-round at a fresh start, and had some new folks on board, but our plates have been so full we haven't mustered too much of an effort to organize it...yet.


Finally, a table full of finished terrain!


The Forces of the Dark Angels

Since I've been reading a bunch of the 'Heresy' books, I was inspired to not only play Marines over my Tau, but I wanted lots of troopers. I took three full tactical squads, an assault terminator squad, my Dreadnought, and Librarian By-Tor. My termies were poorly deployed, and although they were brutally efficient early on, they quickly found themselves too far from the rest of the action. I loved the Dreadnought in there, it was rockin', chewed up a lot of the enemy, and thanks to my brother-in-law, looks fantastic. My Librarian was effective, but never close enough to the Ork Warphead to use his nullifying Psychic Hood, and seemed to always be in melee, so he never used either of his two ranged psychic attacks!

Librarian By-Tor (Smite, Avenger, force weapon): 100pts
Squad Antiquis (flamer, power fist, plasma pistol): 210pts
Squad Primus (missile launcher, plasma rifle): 180pts
Squad Terminus (melta-gun, multi-melta): 175pts
Dreadnought Brother James (twin-linked autocannon, assault cannon): 130pts
Terminator Squad Harbinger (lightning claws, sgt. w/ thunder hammer): 200pts
Total: 995 points


Gazkill's Horde

I like the Orks; the looks, the gameplay, the character of the army...the whole works. Now, I'm not in the place financially or mentally, to start a new army, but if I could wave a magic wand, it'd be for a big ole Ork army. Chri3' horde is shaping up, and slowly but surely getting painted. We talked about splitting a box of Black Reach, so I have a feeling his green-skins (and my Dark Angels, will be growing even more in the future.



Turn One:
The Warlord Gazkill boldly strode out into the open field, bellowing taunts to the armored warriors of the Dark Angels. Brother James, ancient in his entombed suit of Dreadnought armor, twisted his torso cycling his assault cannon and firing a salvo from the autocannon, wounded the Gazkill, but failed to kill him. Meanwhile, the combat squad of Squad Primus defending their home objective from the hill, fired their missile launcher at the Runtherd and his Gretchen. Unfortunately the shot went wide and missed its mark.


Turn Two:
The defending combat squad on the hill were the victims of the Warphead's "FRAZZLED" psychic power, killing one of the marines and pinning the rest of the squad. One of the Gretchen Grots got a lucky shot with his ramshackle pistol, killing a marine from Squad Antiquis to the ire of the rest of the squad. The advancing combat squad of Primus got gunned down by the Ork manning the Big Shoota on the Ork Truk, losing two of their five men. Things continued to go downhill for the marines as the Ork Deff Koptas charged into the combat squad of Terminus, slaughtering four of the marines.

Seeing his men fall to the whirling Koptas, Librarian By-Tor charged into melee with the Ork flying contraptions to support the surviving sergeant. He managed to call on the power of his force weapon, killing an Ork pilot outright. On the comm channel, By-Tor heard Squad Primus prepare for a charge by Ork Nobz, and then the channel went dead...as did the squad itself. On the farside of the field, bottlenecked between the clifface [table edge] and a large hill, the assault terminators cut a bloody swath through the huge Ork mob. Their lightning claws sliced through ten of the boyz initially, but in the ensuing follow up, a grave number of twenty more boyz died at the heels of the terminators. Their effectiveness solidified.


Brother James targets the speeding Ork Truk

Turn Three:
This phase of the battle would see By-Tor, assisted by the surviving sergeant, charge the wounded Gazkill. In the melee, By-Tor plunged his force weapon with hands through the massive ork's midsection, psychic energy crackling down the blade and slaying the warlord. Not worth the kill markings on their bolters, Squad Antiquis opened fire on the Runtherd's Gretchen mob, wiping them out entirely.

The Warphead continued to call on his warp powers unabated, and was able to "ZAP" a defending marine on the hill, burning him out from the inside of his power armor. The stout Nobz that had used the Gretchen as a meat shield charged into the ancient marines of Squad Antiquis. Nobz are brutal, and it showed as they towered above their foe, wiping out five of the MkVI wearing space marines with very little effort.


The Nobz run roughshod over the Marines

Turn Four:
The Nobz continued to show their close combat dominance over the surprised marines who found themselves on the defensive. The assault proved too much, and to a man, the marines went down in a broken heap. The speeding Ork Truk dumped its mob unceremoniously at the base of the hill that obtained the Dark Angel objective. As they charged up the hill, the stalwart marines, three of them left, opened fire and drove the Orks back down the hill. As the Orks retreated, Brother James marched over to the hill and poured round after round into the fleeing Orks, leaving behind nothing of the mob larger than handfruit.


The Ork Truk vomits forth its Boyz Mob


The Dreadnought blows up the Truk, sending it to the top of the hill


Kings of Hill #365


Deff Kopta buzzsaws plow through the Dark Angels


The Dreadnought proved too tough a nut to crack for the fast Koptas


By-Tor stands triumphant atop one of the crushed Koptas


Massacre atop Hill #366


"Bring it you stinkin' 'Umies!"


"Bring it indeed."


Squad Harbinger lives up to their name


What happens to slain Warpheads? Lunch specials for daemons!

Results:
Well, as you can see, I only reported on four turns. Due to being extremely rusty with the rules, and not 100% how every aspect of our own armies worked, we spent a lot of the evening in 'reference' mode. This made for a very drawn out engagement and I'm sure we still did some stuff wrong in the end. Of the Orks, all of their units that had the ability to score had been wiped off the board with the exception of a handful of Nobz (who were about to get charged by a fresh terminator squad. I had taken surprisingly grievous casualties, but still had shreds of scoring units left. Had the game extended past turn five, a victory would've been in the bag, otherwise, I may have squeaked out a win on annihilation alone by the end of the fifth turn. It's hard to say, dice can be fickle. There's definitely call for a rematch!