I’m pretty proud to say that I was able to get everything done for this tournament. I was thrown a curveball once the rules were posted and I had to change my list quite a bit. But all things considered the minis turned our great.
There’s of course a few things I wish I could have spent more time on but overall I’m really proud of this army. Now to see if I can win a few games.
Game 1
Game 1 was against Will and his Deathguard.
We were able to pick our primary, secondary, and tertiary objectives. We could choose between control of objectives in deployment zones, objectives in no mans land, and kill points.
List
HQ
Daemon Prince of Nurgle with hellforged sword, the suppurating plate, & wings
Daemon Prince of Nurgle with Hellforged sword
Typhus
Troops
10 Chaos Cultists (9 autogun & champion)
10 Chaos Cultists (9 autogun & champion)
5 Plague marines w/ 2 plasma guns & champion w/ plasma gun
5 Plague marines w/ 2 plasma guns & champion w/ plasma gun
5 Plague marines w/ 2 plasma guns & champion w/ plasma gun
Heavy Support
Chaos Predator with all lascannons & havoc launcher
Dedicated Transports
3 Chaos Rhinos
250 reinforcement points
Game
Setup before the game.
This was the first game where my opponent had some psykers and I was able to deny them. This was incredibly powerful.
Unfortunately one thing I can’t counter is the ability to summon daemons. And Typhus used Plague Pact to summon 30 plaguebearers.
These 250 points of plague bearers were able to hold up my Gorkanaut & Morkanaut for a few turns. That -1 to hit when there’s more than 20 of them is a serious detriment. Especially for Ork shooting. You’re cutting it in half.
This was also the first game where DeffKoptas were finally useful. They were able to bomb some plaguemarines and damage units with their rokkits.
Unfortunately in the end I didn’t concentrate their fire enough and I had 1 cultist & 1 deathguard left at the end of the game. Had I spent more effort on one I could have gotten an extra kill point and that would have affected the outcome of the game.
One thing pretty surprising to me was a Nurgle daemon prince the the suppurating plate. It meant a lot of saved wounds were reflected back to me. And my Nobz took some pretty strong damage when attacking the prince. I really wish I had better shooting to take out that daemon prince. On the last turn my Gorkanaut finally took it out.
Note: we accidentally misplayed the suppurating plate. We misread the rules and always assigned a mortal wound when the daemon prince made an armor save instead of on a 4+.
Speaking of the Gorkanaut & Morkanaut I was fixing them all game with my Mek & Big Mek. Those two were essential. They were constantly repairing vehicles so they were always one bracket higher than they would have been – making the vehicles a lot more effective.
And here’s the final scoring.
Game 2
My 2nd game was against Allan Wilger who was by far my funniest opponent. And he played a great looking Nightlords army.
List
HQs
Chaos Lord w/ Mark of Slaanesh, Night Haunter’s Curse, 2 plasma pistols
Chaos Lord w/ Mark of Slaanesh, 2 plasma pistols
Elites
5 Chosen w/ 2 plasma guns, 1 combi-flamer, 1 combi-melta, & mark of slaanesh
5 Chosen w/ 2 plasma guns, 1 combi-flamer, 1 combi-melta, & mark of slaanesh
5 Chosen w/ 2 plasma guns, 1 combi-flamer, 1 combi-melta, & mark of slaanesh
5 Chosen w/ 2 plasma guns, 1 combi-flamer, 1 combi-melta, & mark of slaanesh
Troops
10 Chaos Cultists
5 Chaos Space Marines w/ Mark of Slaanesh
5 Chaos Space Marines w/ Mark of Slaanesh
Fast Attack
Chaos Spawn
Chaos Spawn
Flyer
Helldrake
Helldrake
Dedicated Transports
4x Chaos Rhino w/ Combi-plasma & havok launchers
Game
The mission had 4 objectives, one in each corner. And the way the points were handed out the ones in no-mans land are more valuable. So both of us put minimal troops in our own deployment zone and fought over no-mans land.
This was the best game for my Morkanaut & Gorkanaut. They were able to kill all of the Nightlords on their side of the table.
The only thing they couldn’t kill were the Helldrakes since they fly. Something I need to think about when I add on to this army. They blocked the Gorkanaut at the top of my turn 2 (which is why I charged chaos spawn) and then they proceeded to burn my objective holders.
Note: I totally forgot that Helldrakes fly but they’re not airborne and they can be charged! That would have made a big difference in this game. Thanks for pointing that out Richard D. 🙂
On my other flank I really thought the Meka Dread could hold out against a couple marines. I was wrong. I somehow passed all of my Kustom Forcefield saves against plasma gun shots and failed my boltgun shots miserably.
In most games the Kuston Mega-kannon on the Morkanaut doesn’t do much. It’s D6 plasma cannon shots which sounds great but with ork ballistic skill it usually doesn’t hit. On the last turn I rolled 6 shots, and 5 of the 6 hit. I ended up killing a rhino which would have scored victory points by dealing 10 damage to it. Doing nothing in most games and 10 damage in others seems pretty orky to me.
And while my DeffKoptas did very little damage they at least threatened by opponents home objective and it pulled away resources that could have been used elsewhere.
I also had fantastic luck with psychic powers. In one round I had one smite deal 3 wounds and another deal 6. I can’t believe how cheap Weirdboys and how useful they are. Smite isn’t always useful but it’s a tool you want in your toolbox.
And my opponent has terrible luck with plasma pistols. He blew up his warlord on turn 1 with an overcharge giving me First Strike. Poor Allan. I hope he can practice his next lord practices more with plasma before bringing it to a battle. 😛
Game 3
My last game was against Aaron. He had a nicely painted Black Templar’s marine army. You don’t see too many of those armies because their rules have been pretty lackluster for the last few years. So it’s always nice to see them on the table.
The mission was Escape where there are a few objectives on the table. One of them is a teleporter that let’s you get off of the table. And each turn the board shrinks giving you less and less space to maneuver.
List
HQ
Emperor’s Champion w/ The Black Sword
Captain w/ Burning Blade
Elites
7 Assault Terminators (2 lighting claws & 5 thunder hammers and storm shields)
Venerable Dreadnought w/ Assault cannon
Venerable Dreadnought w/ Assault cannon
Troops
5 Crusaders w/ melta gun & powerfist
5 Crusaders w/ melta gun & powerfist
5 Crusaders
Fast Attack
3 Bikes
Heavy Support
Land Raider Crusader
Dedicated transport
3 Drop pods with Deathwind launchers
Game
The setup was pretty standard. I spread out my forces to claim as many objectives as I could on first turn. And I had some juicy targets in my sights.
The right of the game was very random. Right away I find the teleport objective in my deployment zone. I immediately teleport out 4 units (Mek, Nobs, Deffkoptas, & 1 squad of gretchin). This gives me a big lead in the primary objective and I’m basically guaranteed it. I leave just enough units to fight for secondary & tertiary objectives.
Aaron deep struck some marines to shoot up my gretchin and prevented me from teleporting them off the board. Good move on his part.
More surprising to me was his move to deep strike his terminators in my backfield. Even more surprising was they pulled of the 9″ assault and they rolled well enough that they dealt 18 wounds killing the Morkanaut before it could swing back. Ouch!
And after the passengers disembarked he consolidated into them. At least I can pull out of combat and still use pyschic powers.
I do just that and each psyker uses smite and they each kill a terminator. The rest of my shooting whittles down the terminators and my Gorkanaut avenges the Morkanaut.
By now the Land Raider has moved up and if it gets close to the teleporter could send a lot of units through. I block it by charging my Gorkanaut in and almost kills it in one round.
The Black Templars assault the Gorkanaut with everything and barely scratch it. These things are impervious to most weapons Str 4 or less. The one thing that could really hurt the Gorkanaut (the venerable dreadnought) missed.
On the other side of the field the Meka Dread & ork boys kill templars and block the dreadnoughts from escaping.
I won the primary objective but should have held onto a few units a few turns before teleporting them off. I almost lost both the secondary and tertiary objectives due to that decision and that would have lost me the game.
I finally won a game. 11 to 10.
Overall
The armies were gorgeous. Here’s just a few:
I won Best Sportsman which I’m incredibly proud of. Happy to know I can play competitive games and still be a fun opponent.
I’ve always dreamed of winning the best painted award. I didn’t do so in this tourney. I got 15 our of a possible 23 points. I believe one person got 20 points so that’s what I need to shoot for.
The battalion only detachment made this tournament fun. There weren’t any super heavies so there was not Gulliman, Mortarion, or Magnus. And no crazy detachment shenanigans. Everyone had the same 6 command points. I really like the format and would interested in other tournaments that use it.
Future Army Changes
I found it really challenging for orks to get First Blood because we’re not good at shooting so unless you get lucky with a first turn charge you’re not getting it.
I could add some big guns to my army to add a bit more shooting and I might be able to blow up a transport turn 1. Getting that first blood is almost always an objective in missions.
The Weirdboys were amazing! It’s the first time I’ve used smite and being able to take out terminators (with 3+ invulnerable saves) and knock off 9 wounds on a rhino is incredibly powerful. And in that first game I was able to deny a few psychic powers which undoubtedly saved my army. I’m thinking about adding even more Weirdboys.
13 ork boys don’t do much. But I can see how a mob of 30 could wreck havok. I’ll be upgrading that squad with more boys for sure.
I liked how small my army was. Every game I finished deploying first and got the +1 to go first. I’ll try to keep this as I keep building my army.