Tourney Report: Warpcon Game 1

Those wagons sure are pink.

After wandering about the hall for about 15 mins wondering who my opponent would be I was directed to Table 17 where Brian and his Orks were waiting. With Battlewagons. 3 of them. In case I haven't mentioned it before I don't like Battlewagons. I was getting more nervous the more I thought about it.

It turns out my opponent was apprehensive too as the mere mention of Wolves make him die a little inside. Sweet. I might eke out a win here if I can keep the scary stuff in his face I thought to myself. Cue Thunderlord being put up front. I was looking forward to this game as Keaveney had played Brian at Conclave in Limerick in October and told me he was a very good player and a good laugh too.




So Mr. Bristolscale 7 and I rolled off and I won the choice for first turn which I elected to take so that I could use the lack of terrain on the board to my advantage. There was plenty of area terrain for infantry but precious little for Monsters or Vehicles to hide behind so I plumped for the quarter with the least amount of terrain cover so I could get clear LOS to his vehicles and take them out of commission so the Orks would not only be footslogging but also Jaws-bait.


Side and wide pictures show how little LOS-blocking terrain on the board. The Ork deployment is in the picture at the start of this post with my deployment below. Oh yes, lists.

My list was:

ThunderLord with Hammer, Shield, Rune Armour, Wolftooth Necklace, 2 Pets
Rune Priest with Living Lightning, Jaws

4 Wolf Guard: #1-3 with CombiMelta/Fist, #4 with CombiPlasma

7 Grey Hunters with Melta, Wolf Standard (with WG 1)
Rhino
7 Grey Hunters with Melta, Wolf Standard (with WG 2)
Rhino
6 Grey Hunters with Melta, Wolf Standard (with WG 3)
Rhino
5 Grey Hunters with Plasma gun (with WG 4)
Lasplas Razor

Land Speeder with MultiMelta, Heavy Flamer

Land Speeder with MultiMelta, Heavy Flamer

6 Long Fangs with 2 Lascannons, 3 Missile Launchers
6 Long Fangs with 2 Lascannons, 3 Missile Launchers
5 Long Fangs with 4 Missile Launchers

Bri's list was:

Mek with Kustom Force Field

8 Lootas
8 Lootas
5 Lootas

20 Boyz inc Nob with Power Klaw/Bosspole
20 Boyz inc Nob with Power Klaw/Bosspole
19 Boyz inc Nob with Power Klaw/Bosspole
12 Boyz inc Nob with Power Klaw/Bosspole
10 or 15 Grots with Runtherd

3 Warbuggies
Deffkopta with Rokkits, Buzzsaw
Deffkopta with Rokkits, Buzzsaw

Battlewagon with extra shootas, Deathrollas
Battlewagon with extra shootas, Deathrollas
Battlewagon with extra shootas, Deathrollas

Here's a pic of my deployment:

The Long Fangs are hugging the table edge so they can get greater distance between themselves and the Ork firepower aswell as their assault units.

The Razor was parked behind the hill so I could get cover and take my time advancing onto the objective in front the hill (the shiny green thing). The Thunderlord is parked in front of the Rhino to give it a cover save as is the one at the back.


The Rune Priest is in the forward Rhino so I can get to use Jaws asap - that power is game-breaking against Orks as it allows you to snipe the Nobs out of their units and take out the Klaw that will swing most combats against you by 3 or 4 points and make it an uphill struggle for the remainder as they have a harder time hurting you and are twice as likely to break if they lose combat (no Bosspole) and are no longer Fearless due to being reduced to below 11 models (Mob Rule). I placed a Rhino in reserve because having a unit of Troops arriving late is always a good idea. Doubly so if they're a Troops choice like Grey Hunters. The Speeders were joining them. I was hoping Bri would move a Battlewagon with its side armour exposed to my table edge so they could get their points back.

Mr. Mac put the Wagons on his table edge with the Warbuggies in front of them while the Lootas and Grots were packed into the far corner. The Trukk boys went into reserve.

Turn 1

I moved all my stuff forward, including my Long Fangs as I was out of range of most of his army although my limited firepower managed to take out one of his Warbuggies. I wanted to silence them early so they wouldn't be popping Rhinos at inopportune moments with their flukey re-rolled missiles.

One of the Wagons throws a track. Sweet

I moved the Fangs not just to get into range with their guns but also to stop his Outflanking Deffkoptas from tying up too many of my units in case they showed up on my right. This applied doubly for the Fang unit nearest the enemy board edge as I wanted some guns free to shoot at the Trukk if it went for the objective over there.

The Ork pink wall pushed forward although one of the Wagons immobilised itself despite re-rolls when it moved into a wood. Nice one. Bri is now wishing he had paid for Grot Riggers. The Lootas and Grots sprint forward to get their guns into range too.

Turn 2

My second turn sees little movement on my part as my units move just enough to get into midfield and allow the Rune Priest to throw out Lightning and the Razor to shoot its Lascannon. The Lord wasn't posturing as aggressively and decided to wait for Grey Hunter support rather than make himself an easy target so backed off behind the central ruin. The Rhino sans Priest made for the objective on the right on my enemy's side so they would cock-block any Ork attempt to assault the Fangs.

The Speeders arrived and moved up on my left to bag one of the Wagons. I had thought about using one as a reserve to contest in the last turn but figured I'd need 2 Meltas to get through the KFF cover save. The Long Fangs opened up but only stopped the Immobilised one from shooting and took out another Buggy aswell but it got better as the Speeders wrecked the wagon on my left. And yes, I needed both Meltas to do it.

Bri's response was to push the Mek's Wagon into my face and swing the Buggy out to take a pot-shot at one of my Rhinos. Both of the Deffkoptas showed up (one on each flank) and one made for the Speeders while the other dived straight into the Long Fangs with Missiles. His shooting wrecked both Speeders while his Deffkopta won combat against the Fangs by one. That was fine, I figured I'd clean house over there and free up my Rockets next turn.

Deffkopta > Grey Hunters.

Turn 3

My Rhino reserves didn't show so I consolidated in midfield apart from the Rhino on the far right side as they pushed forward to make sure any Power Fists showing up wouldn't auto-hit. The Plasma Hunters hopped out of the Razor and rushed into the Deffkopta. The shooting phase went well as I managed to destroy the Mek's Wagon while some Orks fell over to Frag templates.

I expected much of the same in the combat phase but the Plasma Hunters fled after the Bag o' Dicks Deffkopta made 7 fucking saves with 1 wound left, killed a Long Fang and won combat.

Bri's lone Warbuggy moved forward to take out a Rhino (it didn't) while his Lootas did likewise with the Lord and his wolves (they did - the Wolves that is) and the Rhinos but did lasting damage to the tanks. Bri did something I thought odd - he moved his Mek away from the safety of his boys unit and into base to fix up the Immobilised Wagon leaving him in LOS of my Priest and Fangs. The Deffkopta again won combat by making another save and killing a Fang, who thankfully held.

Turn 4

Here's a wide shot of at the top of the Ork turn:

My Rhino still hadn't shown, although I was happy with this as it gave me a last-gasp unit to win the game with. Figuring that I needed to get rid of the Invinci-Kopta or it would tear into my Fangs anyway I rushed one unit of the veterans into combat with it to get rid of it and free up some guns for the final turn. I moved the Rhino on my right 7" toward the Objective to distract the Trukks which I expected to turn up.

I finally managed to tag the last Warbuggy and gunned down the Mek for his audacity to expose himself while Jaws came into its own as I sent the Nob in the Wagonless unit down a hole. The fecking Deffkopta managed to draw combat again. Bag o' Dicks.

With his Trukkboys showing up on my right Bri made a big push for the objective there by rushing the former Wagon squad over with the Deffkopta near to them in the centre, with the Immobilised Wagon's squad moving toward it too. The Trukkboyz hopped out to rush the Rhino nearby and it was with horror that I realised that a big Waaagh! roll would carry them into the Fangs nearby too.

True to form, a Waaagh! was called but he rolled poorly for the unit and they could only reach the Rhino. Another squad sans Nob managed to make it into the tank aswell and between them managed to repeatedly stun it and tear off the Storm Bolter before the Trukkboy Nob made it explode. It took out a haul of Orks from both units, seriously weakening them while I lost a solitary Grey Hunter and the squad wasn't pinned.

Bri was saying it wasn't looking good for him after that but the Deffkopta again saved face as it again remained in combat. Again.

Turn 5

My Hunter squad showed up and I pushed them onto the Objective on my left being careful to ensure that if their Rhino was wrecked by Lootas the squad wouldn't be exposed. Then I figured it would be better to simply hop them out using the Rhino to block LOS and take S3 hits from an explosion rather than S4 hits. So out they got.

The Rune Priest moved into the central ruins while his Grey Hunters conga-lined to grab two objectives while remaining out of two inches so they could shoot at different targets. The white lines show where 2"+ is while the blue-grey line shows where I needed to ensure unit coherency. This took a while to do so apologies to Mr. Mac for that as we were pressed for time. The Lord made for the central Boyz squad.

The Long Fangs took out the Trukk while the Grey Hunters placed themselves to combi-charge the decimated Ork squads before popping their Wolf Banner to ensure the small squad with the Nob's Klaw all fell down before he could swing. Long story short: they cleaned house and sat on an objective. The Rune Priest again tagged a Nob making life much easier for the Lord while the Conga-Hunters bagged the central Deffkopta. The Lord crashed into combat and won easily tarpitting the unit and stopped himself being shot at. Score. Not so good was the fecking Deffkopta killing off the last of the Long Fangs. 2 units of Fangs and a unit of Grey Hunters and it sauntered throw all of them.

Grey Hunters + Wolf Banner > Ork Boyz.

Bri was now down to last-gasp moves to save the game: he moved his Invici-Kopta to contest one objective, while all of his Lootas poured fire into the unit on my right but only managed to kill one. I reckon he should have sent them into the Rhino to try to explode it and expose the Hunters behind it on my left.

In desperation he threw his unit of Boyz on my left into the Rhino and Hunters on the objective despite the fact I'd popped my Wolf Banner. It didn't go well as the Orks were mauled and fell back in good order giving me the objective. The Wolf Lord finished off the Ork Boyz in the centre for what it was worth at that stage.

We were caught for time and the judge's called it there and as I had captured 3 Objectives while Brian had 1 and contested 1 I was the winner. Having done some major damage to his army I managed to come out with a 17-3 win. That was a good start to the weekend as I had managed to beat one of the better players there and score relatively high into the bargain.

Everything went fairly well apart from that fecking Deffkopta, which I'm sure was protected by Gork himself. The Bag o' Dicks.

Its the same hand that helped Maradona, I'm sure of it.

Had I been in Bri's position I reckoned that I would have been much more aggressive with the Battlewagons and pushed them right down my throat and relied on their AV 14 and KFF save to see them through against the Lascannons as I only had 5 while the Missile's chances of wrecking them are too remote to be reliable. Even if they were wrecked in my lines by Melta I'd have to contend with 60 Orks which I might not have done within the allotted time. This would also have allowed the reserves to hide for a while to get into last-turn objective-grabbing/contesting positions too.

Ah well, isn't hindsight great? Game 2 on the way after a hugely-enjoyable hard-fought game.