Jornath: Blood Axes vs. Salamanders, Road Rage!

Imperial attacks, led by elements of several chapters of Space Marines - Mortifactors, White Scars, Salamanders and Blood Angels - have blunted the initial ork advances on Jornath and eliminated several of their leaders, though not without loss to the marines themselves.  A new ork leader emerges uniting several of the Blood Axe warbands and heads south, striking towards a highway that will lead to rich pickings.  Elements of the Salamanders are dispatched to defend the junction and stop the advancing orks with flame and fury.

The ork warboss, Donald J. Krump whipped his boyz up into a frenzy before sending them out.  "We goin over dere to fight da beakies.  I love da beakies, no one loves da beakies more than I do.  But these are terrible beakies, so we gotta krump em.  Den we get into da oomie cities and get some lootin on.  Da oomies love me, cause I'm gonna give all da oomies jobs buildin what we need to keep krumpin.  We're gonna build da Waaaagh - it's gonna be a bootiful Waaagh - they said we couldn't, so you know what?  Da Waaaagh just got bigger!  We're gonna build da Waaagh, and da Imperium is gonna pay for it!  Weze gonna make Gork n' Mork great again!"

I brought my Blood Axe orks, and faced off against Owen and his new Salamanders.  I'd played with Owen 5 or 6 years ago at the old Hobbytown, but he and some others are getting into/back into 40K and this Jornath campaign is the result.  We played a 1250pt battle, using one of the Angels of Death missions.  Objectives diagonally down the middle, which lined up nicely with  a road, which suggested the narrative.  Only fast attack starts on the table, everything else comes from reserve but most starts making reserve rolls turn one. 

Assault squad and chaplain jet towards one objective, while razorbacks start to roll on in support.  Ork koptas let loose with rokkits at the enemy tanks, letting the main ork force know where the action can be found.

Salamanders advance, coated in the ashes of orks previously slain.

Krump rolls on in his battlewagon and retinue of ard boys, with escorting dreadnought.

Trukk carrying slugga boys comes up the road, koptas manage to take out one razorback.

Swarm of shootas arrives and peppers assault marines, downing two.

Tac marines, assault squad, and razorback (TL heavy flamers) pour fire, and FIRE, into the orks, killing buckets of them.  

Assault squad charges in to finish the job.

Killing most and running down the few survivors, the assault marines secure one objective.

Well, temporarily.  Kans klank over to chase them off.

The chaplain advises that the Codex's teachings in this situation is to hoof it.  

The orks are on the attack against marines that pushed too far up on both flanks.  Here koptas and boys surround another razorback.

The razorback is destroyed, but the marines climbing out of the flaming wreckage are eager to retaliate.

Armed with a power klaw and a belligerent Gitter account, Donald Krump leads his followers into the center of the Salamander line.

Kans catch the assault squad, to their regret.  Power mauls take a heavy toll.

Emboldened, they also trash the dreadnought.  On the other end, the tactical marines take out the boys who wrecked their razorback but struggle to take down the deffkoptas.  In the center Krump and his ard boys finish off the contemptor and devastators.

Splitting off, Krump heads towards one tac squad while ard boys charge towards another.  Trukk covers center objective amid wreckage of the battlewagon, exploded by tac squad's meltagun.

The game goes a hard-fought seven turns, but in the end Krump and the orks secure the highway, allowing a stream or mechanized greenskins to pour south.  Can they be stopped, or will Jornath pay the price?

More pics can be found on another new player Andre's site HERE  .  Andre is getting into 40K and the campaign as well, building up some Star Phantoms to join the fray.