The Orks Devour the Dark Angels

40k Battle
Mission: Annihilation
Deployment: Spearhead
Size: 1,000 points
Forces: Dark Angels vs. Orks

Got in another game of 40k this week, and it was fun! We didn't spent quite so much time thumbing through the rules, and the battle went fairly well with little interruption. The mission called for a straight up 'duke it out' kinda fight, and it went brutally for my Marines. After the BoLS article calling to "quit playing linear 40k" I decided to follow their advice and try some different approaches, this absolutely killed me.


I can't tell you Chri3' army list, I just know it was a lot of Boyz upgraded to 'ard Boyz with a strong mob Nob unit on the flank. His HQ units included a Warphead and a big, ole warboss (Gazkill, who showed up first partially painted last May). Oh, he also had a trio of Mortality Impaired Gyroscopic Flyers, err, also known as "Deffkoptas".


You know, it's funny but about a year ago I was complaining that the most recent Dark Angels codex really [was lacking] compared to the newly released (back then) Marine codex. Well now that the new Space Wolf codex is out, it looks like everybody using the Wolf 'dex to represent everything from homemade chapters to Ultramarines!

Because of this recent trend I decided to get back to my roots and field an "official" Dark Angels force and stick to their incredibly boring codex where scouts count as elite troops and tactical squads have either five or ten troops period. Really, unless you're playing one of the 'wing' armies, the old codex doesn't do a whole lot for ya. I took a thunder hammer armed Belial as my HQ, which allowed me to take a unit of storm bolter termies as a troops choice. A single ten-man and a five-man tactical squad filled up two more troop choices. I took a full squad of ten scouts, half snipers, half shotguns, and finally took five assault marines.

Because of pushing "non-linear 40k!" I put the assault marines in reserve and was going to deepstrike the termies. Both these moves were severely lacking. For the most part I got my teeth kicked in by the Orcs. Looking back I handedly won the last game, but man did the pendulum swing against me this time. Here's a brief rundown.


A scout sniper with a 'target-rich' environment...

I stuck my snipers up in a ruined tower, and ran my shotgun scouts along the flank. The rest of the marines formed a static line across the middle, and the five man squad was making for a barricade to take cover behind. Belial surveyed the line just behind the squad sergeant. The Orks characteristically mobbed up and advanced as a seething, green wall. The hulking Gazkill himself advanced at the front of the boyz, leading the way.


Guess who failed their deep strike warp mishap roll?

Feeling a little lucky, a little daring, my termies 'Deathwing dropped' on turn one danger close to the mass of Ork Boyz...a little too danger close however. Their target was about six inches behind the main Ork hordes. Of course, had they landed successfully, they would've torn into the greenskin backsides to a (hopefully) devastating effect. Their teleport scattered however, and they ended up on top of the Orks, so I rolled on the "mishap" chart, of course I rolled a 'one'. My 260pt terminator squad was lost in the warp.


Belial took his frustration of losing his brethren out on the Deffkoptas...


...then turns his attention on the mass of Ork warriors


Belial and Gazkill meet in the center of the field...

Normally for my 40k batreps I take decent notes from turn to turn so I can write them up, so many details get forgotten afterwards. Games of 40k play more with a 'tourney' feel to them, so listing each turn in order fits. Games of SBH on the other hand get a little lavish treatment in the fluff department, since those rules lend to more of a narrative. For this batrep however there's not much substance to it. We set up, marched forward, Chri3' Orks rolled an insane amount of attack dice in melee, and my marines, as stalwart as they were, eventually succumbed to the onslaught of cheap, ten point melee monsters.


I liked the terrain set up for the game, and we got to use some barricades too, though they never really came into play. We also used my four-story ruined tower, which is a fave of mine as well. Too much terrain however might have spelled doom for my teleporting Deathwing. Also, by turn three my assault squad was ready to deep strike in. Again, my squad landed errant of their mark, way errant, and the roll on the mishap chart meant my opponent got to place them. Chri3 shrewdly put them in the middle of difficult terrain, luckily they passed their 'landing' check and on the next turn passed again to leave the uneven ground. They were pretty far from their original target though, and had to double time it to get somewhere useful, in the end it wasn't enough and it was another squad of wasted points.


Knuckles, boots, elbows, and knives...


The hand-to-hand fighting was intense...


The Nobz mob, supported by hordes of ammo runts, finally closed in on the five-man tactical squad. Let me tell ya, tricked out Nobz on a charge are scary, I was surprised at just how effective they were at closing in on my Marines.


My only chance to save a little face was to get my assault squad over to the Nobz and seek a little retribution. That's when the Warphead struck, rolling a "frazzle" power at a most opportune time, zapping three marines dead and suppressing (pinning) the rest. Stunned and reduced to just two figs, the assault marines were then charged by the rampaging Nobz. Ugh. Their fate was sealed the moment they rolled on the mishap chart.

Did I have fun? Of course I did, even though it was mostly a one-sided battle how can you not go wrong pushing around space troopers going "pew pew" and hanging out. I would have liked to had a better showing mind you, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. I felt good about taking a Dark Angels 'official list' too, I don't know why, and it makes me feel silly for making a big deal about the new marine codex in the first place.

We're still awful with the rules, and it took us the better part of the evening to crank out a thousand point game, but that's okay too, we weren't on a time schedule or anything. It does make me lament not being in a 40k campaign setting anymore however. I think some of the time we did on Trucidos was incredibly cool and terribly underplayed. I would very much like another shot at an extended play 40k campaign.