Emperor's Children vs Orks: 1500 points battle report

Welcome everyone to the rematch between the Emperor's Children and the Orks of Vincent, who came back with a bigger waaaagh then before.

And boy do those boyz pack a punch, I admit I severly underestimated them after my previous win over them.

We didn`t play with Tactical Objective cards this time round, just a rather standard "6 objectives to be grabbed" mission with the usual victory points additions like killing the warlord etc.

My army was the same as last time versus the Imperial Guard, as I didn`t have time to make a list, while his consisted of a LOT of Boyz, spread over two units of 30 and one of 10 (which, in his first turn, merged with the other one to make a large 40 ork blob... ouch).  A unit of Bikers, a big cannon, am even bigger dreadnought, a unit of rocket launchers, a bunch of lootas, and a mob of Nobz where his other units.  Leading this waaagh was the warlord, a painboy and a mek on a bike with a forcefield generator.

My force deployed with a solid firebase in the centre, a small controlling force on it`s right flank and a daemon princess and support on the left, while the Warlord, Terminators and Raptors stayed in reserve.  His line spread over the whole table... but most of the weight was over on my right, not good...

Turn one saw my Terminators, Warlord and Raptors appear, and tactical placing with some good charges and pushing back enemies actually securing three objectives (okay, so there was no-one near the one the Warlord snatched, so that was tactical zero), while a squad of Marines and of cultists secured the two near my deployment zone.  My shooting had been so-so, putting down some boyz left and right, but close combat pushed back units and I ended as such in a 0 - 5 lead at the end of my first turn.

And this sounds lame, but the game was won at that point.  He could only get back 4 points of all the remaining victory point conditions, and it really is recommended to play with Tactical Objective cards in the future, as those can generate far more conditions to grab points.  Now, the game was over before he had a chance to even move a single figure, and that pulled the tension out of the game, and made me far less thoughtfull of how I used my units.  It didn`t matter if he slaughtered them all after all now, so I used it as a good learning exercise for my own army units that didn`t got to do much in previous games.

His first turn had a large mass of mobs, formed from two seperate units with the Mob Up stratagem, get together and thunder onto the Raptors.  On the other side, mobs, the mekboy, and nobz ganged up on the Terminators, and boy do they pack a punch.  I also wonder where they store all that wargear of choppas, big choppas and more, as they usually only wear a loincloth and a shoulder pad...

His shooting also took out my Rapier, after the rather traumatizing experience he had with that little machine the previous time we met on the battlefield.

His bikers charged my Warlord, but that didn`t go as they planned...

But after that, it went downwards for the Pink Phalanx as Willie tends to call them.  The Orks just surged over the battlefield, slaughtering all my not really for combat equipped squads one by one.  My Daemon Princess went down unceremoniously to the brutal assault of 30+ boyz, that is a LOT of dice they throw out and no way that you can keep saving them all.

Same story for my Marine squad on the right.  A single lone trooper lived to tell the tale after the charge of the 1 wound remaining dreadnought and the mekboy when they where finally taken down.  But right about then, the next green wave arrived and he was torn to pieces.

Next to him, the Cultists didn`t fare much better, ripped to pieces by boyz who then consolidated into the Havocs next to them, and they underwent the same fate before the last two of them disengaged and where ignored in favour of juicier targets.  Both Ork units, being the Boyz and the Nobz, then consolidated into the other Havoc squad and by the end of the battle they where butchered as well.

In the meantime, the Havocs and the Marines in the centre had combined their firepower to shoot down the Warlord, but after the Warlord fell to the not so large Boyz mob, the Marines where caught by them and all slaughtered except the Aspiring Champion... who with seeing 8 of his brothers fell decided it was time to go home.  But the 40 man mob had been reduced to a single Nob, and he bottled out as well... only took me like a gazillion shots to bring that tide down.

The battle ended there, and on morality points, I was soundly trashed, having only an aspiring champion and a plasmagun left from a Havoc squad, while boys and nobs ran around in my deployment zone, covered by untouched rocket troops and lootas.  But the harsh reality of victory points told a different story: 6 - 4 to the Emperor's Children.

Now, as I said above, if the game hadn`t virtually ended in turn one, I would have done things left and right differently.  The best example being that I never cast the Delightful Agonies, a bit my favorite power, to bail out troops in impeding trouble of being charged.  Nor did I go around with my highly mobile princess to snipe enemies with Smite, instead tossing her into the middle of a fight she wouldn`t be able to win anyways.  I don`t claim that might have made a difference, but it would have been a whole other game instead of the toss them forward now and don`t look back I tried out.

But it was a great game, and a fun opponent and evening, which after all is the most important thing of the whole affair!