League Game: Space Sharks vs. Orks!

Had a game vs. Leonard's Orks today to break in the 1500pts, and final, level of our 40K league at Gaming Underground.  We rolled up the Big Guns Never Tire mission, making my Whirlwind and his Looted Wagon scoring and worth a VP if destroyed, and Hammer and Anvil (short edges) deployment.


I had debated going full 6th ed and incorporating some IG allies and fortifications into the list, but ended up deciding to just stick with the units I had planned from the very start of the army.

So, I had:

Captain on Bike plus bike squad
2xTac squads in Rhinos
Assault Squad
Landspeeder Typhoon
Ironclad Dread in Drop Pod
Whirlwind

Leonard took:

Warboss
Nob squad with Trukk
2x30 Slugga mobs
2xLoota squads (1x9, 1x6)
Blitza-bomma
Looted wagon with boomgun

Orks win first turn and deploy:

I was a bit curious about his objective placement.  With his force and scoring units poised to come forward, why keep his objectives so far back?  He might have had a better shot at them by sticking them towards the middle.  Maybe he figured that he would just overrun mine, and by keeping his so far back he would keep me from getting to them.  I certainly didn't this game.

Space Sharks deploy above.  Podding dread and assault squad in Reserve.  I told myself that I wasn't going to throw the bike squad pell-mell forward this game where they'd just get annihilated and would try to coordinate things better.

Turn 1: Orks surge forward.  I rejigger deployment a bit and manage to pop the Nobs' Trukk and strip a hull point from the looted wagon, but the shooting was not as impressive as I'd hoped.  Whirlwind sniping also managed to take a wound from the painboy.  Meanwhile in the backfield the Brother-Ancient Spielberg lands and flamers one unit of lootas, killing three but the rest hold firm.

Orks keep swarming towards the Space Sharks.  Boomgun hits the bikers but the captain's 2+ save manages to take the hits like a champ.  Blitza-bomma enters and sizes up the battlefield.

Marines dance about again, popping shots at the Orks.  The looted wagon explodes, taking a handful of boyz with it.  Bikers hang out controlling the objective that makes charging them more difficult and pepper bolter shots at the oncoming horde.

Bomma moves up and supashootas 'splode the Rhino in between the speeder and bikers.  In the back, the Ironclad has finished off one squad of lootas but the other squad takes a hull point off of him with sustained deffgun fire.  Orks Waaagh but don't manage to get to grips yet, but get some better Run rolls and more aircraft shots as a result.

Waaagghhh!

Assault squad deep strikes in on the left, and marines whittle down the mobs.

Bommer gets set for its divebomb run.

It looked a lot more dangerous before we realized it should use the small blast marker!

After the run.  The bomma managed not to kill itself, and the bomb even managed to take out the attack bike.

Tactical squad moves to shoot up one mob with flamer & bolters, while bikers and others whittle down other mob in prep for biker charge.  After casualties the five inches rolled for the charge aren't enough!

The Orks shoot up the bikers in prep for their charge.  The few remaining bikers would almost certainly be wiped out, or worse, tie up the Orks in my subsequent shooting phase, so I try using Combat Tactics to have the bikes fall back out of assault range.  At 10" fallback I'd be safe, but roll 11" and fall off the table.  At least the Orks are stuck!

On the other side, the boys have better luck and make contact with the tactical marines, starting a fight that would prove to linger on and on.

I manage to shoot up the boys squad in the open down to one boy.  Thankfully I didn't kill them all, and redirected remaining shooting at other targets so that the assault squad that had flamered them could still charge.  They declare against both the boy and the nob squad, and with a roll of 12 manage to get all over both units. 

And here the assault marines fight like true heroes!  The sergeant challenges the warboss, who eagerly accepts.  Though krumped himself, with a string of great rolls on my part and bad ones on Leonard's, the sarge manages to kill the warboss too!  I win the combat, and without the warboss' Ld9 and bosspole the nobz break and try to run but are cut down.  That string of luck really changes the momentum of the game!

Fresh from their victory, the assault squad jets over to help out the remaining tactical marine.  I win combat by four, but the Orks make their Ld check of 3 and hang on!  Meanwhile the bomma tried to pull up, but in the ensuing loop the grot tailgunner and his ammo load fell onto the Whirlwind, detonating them both in a massive fireball.  The Ork pilot made a note to pick up another big shoota and grot next time he set down.  (Leonard tried to bomb the Whirlwind, and rolled the result where both the plane and target take a S9 hit - whirlie exploded, while bomma took a weapon destroyed result)

Game ends, with me holding one objective to the Orks' zero.  I also had all three secondaries, while he had two (warlord and linebreaker).  We each had a bonus point for killing the others' heavy support.  Major victory for the Sharks!

Here's some other pics of other models and games from the day:

Marines and Chaos square off

Fuzzy pic of some Thousand Son terminators.  Obviously caught mid-teleport!

McCoy's upright defiler

Jim Bowen's awesome Eldar/Dark Eldar.  Wonder what he's going to add with the league prize money?

Daemon Princes and traitor Marbo surround some Necrons

We had a few other folks getting into 40K and/or Fantasy around today too, hope to see them back!  The miniature community there around GU is really starting to grow.  They have a strong card scene, and a number of those folks have been warming up to miniatures.  Who knows, if I hang around there long enough, maybe I'll get back into Magic or into Pokemon!