Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Battle: Crimson Fists vs Orks



Recently, I had the pleasure of having
Jimble's Orks over for a 1500 point battle. It was a standard seize ground mission, with 5(!) objectives. It was Jimble's first game with 1500 points of Orks and my first "serious" game against his orks (I had battled him before in a 500 point combat patrol...but that was with my Tau...and he trounced me!). This time, though, I had marines, so I was prepared...with a hastily-tacked together LRC!.

We had the basic setup of long table edges and I let Jimbles have first turn. Usually I prefer to have first turn, but I didn't want to give the Orks the advantage of knowing where I set up...plus I was debating keeping some of my marines in reserve.

Here's our lists (from memory):
Crimson Fists:
Chapter Master w/ Terminator Armor, Combiflamer
5 Terminators, Sgt w/ Power Sword
x2 Dreadnaughts w/ MMelta, Power Fist, Extra Armor, Hvy Flamers
x2 10 Marine Tacticals w/ Rhino, ML, Flamer
10 Marine Tacticals w/ Power Fist, Plasma Rifle, Heavy Bolter
Land Raider Crusader w/ Extra Armor

Orks:
Warboss w/ 10-12 Nobz w/ Power Claws, 2Hd Axes (choppas?), etc.
Warboss w/ Mecha armow w/ 5 Orks in mechaarmor/powerclaws
Trukk for 2nd Warboss.
Looted Wagon w/ Big Gun and armor.
x2 Ork Boyz w/ ~20 orks+nob+powerclaw+bosspole
Gretchin Squad w/ Herder
Gretchin w/ Barrage gun thing.

Here's a REALLY blurry photo from mid game. It's terribad blurry. It's also missing ~2ft of the table on the bottom and a good amount of my Crimson Fists, but it gives you an idea of where everything went on the first turn. I apologize. I should have taken the shot right after set up and made sure it was nice, but you know how it is. You just want to get playing!

(click the pic for larger version)


Not pictured are the Defcoptas that scout-moved to the middle of the board and then moved some more to blow up a Dreadnaught in the Orks first turn. Red dots are the objectives.

I won't go blow-for-blow as it was a game for fun and learning our armies, but I'll list a couple of things I learned in this game:
  1. Land Raider Crusaders kill Orks. It's almost like that's what they are designed to do...Machine Spirit let's me fire both the melta and the assault cannon up to 6 inches AND the bolters get to fire. It's pretty brutal on those Boyz out in the open.
  2. Defcoptas are more dangerous than they look. The T5, 2W and 4+save makes them tough to bring down. And the TL rokkits make them dangerous! Turboboosting scout moves should give them great targets right from turn one! I'd hate to face squadrons of them!
  3. Terminators with Power Sword kill Orks in Mechasuitz. The ability to strike first meant my Termie Chapter Master killed 3 mechaorks in 1 swipe (1 wounded Ork+5 wounds on 5 attacks= Victory in Assault).
  4. Power Claws kill Dreadnaughts. 3 of them to be exact. Never charge a Nobz squad with power claws.
  5. Orbital Bombardment has failed to impress. I'm 0 for 3 in calling down the pain. I might stop paying those extra 25 points for it and just field captains. Or invest a few more points and get a character.
  6. Extra Armor is kind of meh on Dreadnaughts. I'm finding that the Dreadnaughts either explode when they get hit at OR they simply don't get hit. I've yet to downgrade a stunned. Might be worth paying for Venerables instead.
If you're interested, I put up a simple slideshow of the better shots. Jimble's orks are beautifully painted...so nicely done that I wound up taking a lot of pictures of them! I really love the Ork aesthetic..but with a Tau army, a Dark Angels army and now a Crimson Fists army, I don't think I should be adding another.* I look forward to the next game against Jimb! He's a great guy to game against and a good friend. Check out his blog and encourage him to post more!

*Especially with the Imperial Guard coming out!

4 comments:

The Hammer said...

Nice battle report! I still haven't put my CF in a fight yet. While I don't mind playing AGAINST someone who has unpainted models, I get embarrassed fielding an unpainted force. But the new paint process is making things move a little faster. Welcome to the web, brother!

MasterDarksol said...

I also am not so much a fan of Extra Armour on a Dreadnought. I've found that it's really only useful on Transports or other vehicles where it's more important to me that they can move than fire. With a Dread, it's just not worth the extra points to me; if it were a Rhino, it would mean something that it can continue moving its passengers.

Great run-down! One question, though: who won?

Cawshis Clay said...

The Crimson Fists won, but like I said, the game was for fun, so I think we both won! He had only the nobz and gretchin as scoring units on two objectives by the start of turn 5 and I had seized two objectives and was on my way to killing the nobz with the LRC. So we agreed to stop playing in the interest of time. I credit the overpowered awesomeness that is the Land Raider Crusader for the victory. It really killed its weight in orks and controlled an entire flank by itself.

Next time I won't field one and see how the Fists do against the Green Skins without a LRC!

As for extra armour on dreads, I think you got it. My thought was maybe I could downgrade the hit and at least get away from the eventual charge. But all that happened was my Dreadnaughts blew up. I never even had the chance to downgrade!

Next time I think I'll try for Venerable instead. Better stat line and the ability to force a reroll seems more useful in the long run.

Anonymous said...

Good game! It was the worst I've been beaten since the new ork codex came. But good game nonetheless.

Replying to a few of your points:

I usually build army lists based on what models I like aesthetically. But I am putting some serious thought into what I need to field to deal with LRCs. I think I've only lost two battles in the past year (not that I play all that often) and they both involved a LRC!

Deffkoptas are pretty sweet. I might add some more to my army.

You totally ignored my tank! Half the reason I field that thing is to draw fire. But I think I could have been using it a lot more effectively, thus forcing you to deal with it.