The Orks Crash Through To Victory…

…well, maybe not crash so much as scrape?

We'd been building up to this first 7th Edition game of 40k for a while. A 1500 point opener to get us up to speed with the new rules and get a narrative going. Bull has given the Ork side of things on his blog.

From the Iron Warrior perspective I had a bit of a problem in that the models I own are based around my tournament lists from 10 years ago. Alas the game has changed so much that most of the things I have aren't very effective these days. Bull on the other hand has a massive Ork collection so could almost choose anything from the new Ork codex, knowing he had the models somewhere.

I decided to take the Warpsmith as my HQ for the simple reason he was a character that had been developed as part of the narrative build up. The idea was that this was a communications outpost a little cut off from the rest of the chaos forces so only had a basic contingent to defend the comms dish. I was struggling to compose a list that stood the slightest chance against the Orks, so ended up building and 'painting' half a dozen flamer models the night before. I had a basic plan in mind but little did I know – because I hadn't read the minutia of rules in 7th Ed – that it was flawed before I left the house.

The basic premise was that I would take a defensive line with tank traps to ensure the Orks couldn't roll up to my doorstep in their vehicles – they'd have to get out and walk – and this proved a good decision. The flaw was that I also purchased a Quad Gun with the idea that my Warpsmith (with his superior ballistic skill) would man the gun and cause devastation. Alas what I didn't know was that the Quad Gun is primarily anti-aircraft so can only hit ground-based target on a 6 – ignoring the ballistic skill completely.

Fate would throw us another curve ball as we rolled for deployment – length ways was the result and so our carefully placed terrain created a mass of narrow fire lanes and blocked vision. I struggled to place my defensive line and my guns were struggling to see anything clearly. My plan was truly in the toilet at this point – I'd have to wing it.

Bull went first and he decided to go balls-out in the Psychic Phase, teleporting his Wierdboy and unit into my backyard. The dice gods were with him and the arrived unscathed mere inches from the Comms dish. Another zap of Psychic energy and one of my Obliterators dropped dead. There would have to be some kind of backlash – impertinent greenskin!

The reply was devastating and within minutes there was nothing left of the Wierdboy or his unit. It had distracted my guns from the approaching vehicles though.

The following turn more Orks turned up in my deployment zone, this time with jet packs.

Again, the response was devastating as they too were (almost) wiped out.

By turn 3 it was time for the Ork Waaagh, Bull's Warboss and retinue barrelled into my defensive line – that was a lot of Orks.

On my left, the Bezerkers, Sorcerer and Warpsmith (who had been taking pot shots at a large group of Boyz and a unit of Meganobz) finally saw combat. The Boyz charged in (the Meganobz ran away) but the counter-attack was devastating and the greenskins were wiped out.

The triumphant Bezerkers ran back to aid the defenders on the line, but got hit by a large blast on the way back. The sorcerer and a couple of Bezerkers died, which was very annoying. The Noise marines who had taken the initial charge were gone but the Orks were surrounded by multiple guns.

The shooting all but wiped out the Orks, only a Painboy and the Warboss remained. The Obliterators charged in to finish them off but the combat stagnated for several rounds. Then the Chaos forces made a fatal mistake.

Just like all the bad guys in every film you've ever seen, we grasped failure from the jaws of victory…

With the Warboss down a wound I decided to charge the two supporting units into the combat to 'take it over the top'. Alas, my champions have to make a challenge (most stupid rule ever) and Bull chose the Painboy to step up. He managed to kill my Champion and the Warboss finally killed the Obliterators. The rest of the Iron Warriors only managed to take a single wound off the Warboss (thanks to all his re-rolls). The following turn, the rest of the marines were killed or ran away – disaster – though the Painboy finally dropped. Had I not rushed in, the marines could have executed the Warboss and Painboy with a volume of Bolter shots once the Obliterators had died and melee combat ended.

Despite shooting every gun I had available the Warboss held onto his last wound. Now supported by a another unit of Orks (who were subsequently reduced to half strength by my Predators) he was sitting untouchable it seemed. My final roll of the dice was to get my Warpsmith into combat with the Orks to reduce their number further, but the dice gods weren't listening and he didn't make it.

Though technically I owned more of the objectives than Bull (yay Rhinos!), he had his hands on the Comms dish which had been the point of the exercise. I only had the Warpsmith, two Rhinos and two Predators left.

It was time for the Warpsmith to make a sharp exit…