Cian's Boy's Nob

Well this isn't a long time coming at all...

So only 2 months after I played this game I finally commit it to blog. I do have excuses though but you don't need to hear that (Cork did win though :D), so its on with the show.

Despite the childish title I am not showing photos of Cian's tackle but of his Orks, which are very nice. The ones that are done at any rate. He's got like 7 layers on the skin blended together which takes him AGES to get his stuff done.

As a result there are various cameo appearances by Blood Angel bikes and tubs of peanut butter to proxy as stuff. I know, shocking, but at least I have been labouring hard to get my stuff up to scratch in the past few weeks and most of it will be painted by Gaelcon this weekend, even if Iggy can't go. Your boss owes you big time lad. BIG TIME.

I'll go through this game before I show how my list has evolved over time to what I'm currently using and hope to bring to the Pale.


Here's the terrain side and wide.

This is what the terrain set-up looked like, with plenty of small bits of cover. The mission was Spearhead Annihilation with my lads moving first.

My list was:

ThunderLord with Hammer, Storm Shield, Bear, Rune Armour, 2 Pet Wolves, Necklace, Talisman

Rune Priest with LL, Jaws

5 Scouts with Melta

4 x Wolf Guard with CMelta, Fist

4 Wolf Guard with CMelta
Pod

2 x 5 Grey Hunters in Rhinos
Melta, Wolf Standard, Wulfen, Power Weapon

5 Grey Hunters in Rhino
Melta, Wolf Standard, Wulfen

5 Grey Hunters in Lasback
Flamer

2 x 5 Long Fangs
4 Rockets

1 Lasback

Cian's list (from memory):

El Jefe
Warboss with Fist, Cybork, Bike, other stuff

El Chupalibre
Mek with KFF

5 Meganobs
Shootas, Skorcha, Rokkits

5 Nob Bikers
2 Fists, Painboy, Waaagh Banner, Uge Choppa x 2

2 x 10 Trukk Boys with Nob with Klaw, Bosspole

3 x 2 Rokkit Buggies

10 Grots

2 x 5 Lootas

Battlewagon with Deff Rolla

My deployment from L to R was:

GH in Lasback, Long Fangs in Ruins, Empty Lasback, GH in Rhino, GH in Rhino, ThunderLord, Rune Priest + GH in Rhino and Long Fangs in forest.

Cian's abomination from my L to R:
Lootas, Rocketbuggies, Trukk, Battlewagon with Meganobs and Mek, Trukk, Trukk, Rocketbuggies, Nob Warbikes with Warboss, Rocketbuggies in front of them and 5 Lootas on my far right. There were some Grots in reserve.

Turn 1

This picture was taken at the end of Ork Turn 1. In the top-right corner (cunningly hiding most of the blue/brown peanut butter tub) you can see a pile of Orks rushing some Marines. Those 3 Marines had Podded down behind the Mek's Battlewagon and popped it with their Meltas despite deviating away from it.

My Long Fangs and Lasbacks had also managed to bag the Lootas on my left and all of his Trukks with ranged firepower. That was my plan - deploy far away and remove his mobility so I could deal with his units one at a time. The Red bikers in the centre pic are all Rokkit Buggies (oh the shame) while the grey blobs in the centre-foreground are the Biker Nobs shielded by more buggies.

The Orks made short work of the 3 Marines while everything else powered forward toward my lines. The Ork fire managed to stun the Rhino on my left and immobilise the one on my right.

Turn 2

In my turn Lord and Rhinos moved up to get into assault range for my men next turn I managed to bag 2 Nobs, 1 with Jaws the other with Rockets and stunned a couple of the Buggies. That was it really.

The Orks in turn made straight for my lines, causing the Rhinos to wobble a bit while the bikers went for the bait in the woods shooting and then assaulting my Long Fangs. Cian had managed to get a Rokkit shot at the rear of my RP's Rhino. Cue Lols.



Annoyingly the last Long Fang held his ground as Cian fluffed his attacks leaving him alive which meant I couldn't drop Jaws or other firepower into them. At least the ThunderLord could get stuck in...

Turn 3
My Rhino squads rushed forward as I felt that the Lord could take care of the Nobs himself while one of the Rhino squads disembarked and climbed higher to pour fire into the Meganobs or Rocketbuggies as needed.

Turns out they were to fire their Meltas at the Warbuggies. You see the gap between the Warbuggies? There was a 5-man Meganob mob with Mek there a few moments before but they were all killed off by a combination of Jaws, Lascannon and Melta fire. 

The ThunderLord rushed into combat, taking a wound from the Nobs although the Warboss was confined to lashing out at a Fenris Wolf and the last Long Fang. I managed to win the combat and chased down the remains of the unit. That's what happens to unpainted models.

Cian was playing for pride at this stage already and he knew it as he was reduced to a handful of foot-slogging Orks and Rocketbuggies that couldn't scratch the paint on my Rhinos. It was pretty hilarious - all he could do was take Weapons off or shake them so he backed away trying to keep his guys alive.

Turn 4
My Wolf Scouts show up and bumrush his Lootas while the Lord starts to chase Rocketbuggies. Everything else lays the smackdown by taking out a few more Rocketbuggies.

Cian's Grots arrive (the Necromunda gangers) while the Wolf Scouts are charged by the remnants of a Trukk squad who are then reduced to a solitary Nob although they mangle 3 of the Scouts with the Wolf Guard fluffing his attacks.

Turn 5
My Grey Hunters have all moved into midfield at this stage and begin the mop-up by hunting down the Rocketbuggies. Pretty aren't they? More Damage result-based highjinks.

Cian moves more of his stuff away to keep the Kill Points total down, apart from rushing another Trukk boy squad into the Scouts and taking them out. We rolled to see if Cian would be put out of his misery but it was not to be...

Turn 6

My Lord has crossed the field at this stage and arrives too late to help the Scouts so charges into the melee anyway to avenge them. He ends up getting himself killed, taking one wound from the boys and another from the Nobs klaw before collapsing taking 5 of his enemies with him. Those Boys were his army's best performers by actually managing to make it to combat and take out more than 1 unit.

Here they are in all their glory:

Shitbags. Nicely painted, but still Shitbags.

I must admit I'm beginning to grow tired of my Lord failing his 3+ invulnerable saves. He does that a *lot* more than he should.

Post-game Stuff
If Eamonn Dunphy were to comment on this he'd probably say something about Cian not being Roy Keane and being weak at the back. We agreed that his deployment let him down because his Battlewagon's paper armour was left exposed to the Melta squad even after scattering eight inches.

Had he packed a Trukk or Buggy squadron behind it then I would have been forced to drop further back and would have deviated out of half range with the Meltas. As it was I was able to reduce his mobility and protection greatly and ignore half of his army until I dealt with more pressing matters like the Warboss.

The other thing he did was not to focus fire on my Rhinos to get the Marines on foot and reduce my mobility but in fairness, he had pretty crap rolling when he did dare to shoot at them. I reckon he should have pushed them all down one side and pummeled a few tanks to allow the Warboss to seperate from the bikers and attack the small Grey Hunter squads as they fell out presenting me with a dilemma about who to target with the Lord.

List changes
I've since changed my list to get rid of the certain stuff that wasn't contributing much.

1. I've lost the Meltacide Drop Pod as it is too gimmicky - its useless after Turn 1 and if its Dawn of War and nothing's deployed it gets gunned down too easily.

2. The Grey Hunters have lost their Power Weapons. This was something I was toing and froing about but in the end I felt it better to have an extra warm body instead of fancy gear. The main thing I noticed was that when tanks exploded and I suffered lots of wounds I was dreading rolling armour saves as each guy had something valuable. Dropping the Power Weapon means that I get an extra body to soak up damage and it gives me more shots and attacks when I get stuck into combat. I could pack all the gear onto 1 or 2 guys by giving the Melta the Mark also (and even the Banner if I want to) but that feels like I'm putting all my eggs in one basket.

3. Reliability over Random. I've only got one 'random' squad in the army in the form of the Scouts. I would actually prefer a pair of Speeders or else have my GH buffed up with gear and have another Rune Priest but they are useful in Kill Points by deploying ahead and can still terrify people when Outflanking (which hasn't really paid off up to now). I can always have them jack a ride if they need to and they're almost as much a threat as another Grey Hunter squad as they have 2 Meltas and a Fist.

That's enough for one night. I'll go into my list changes later and hopefully I'll have some pics of the army when its done. If its done...