Welcome to the first FTW Field Report.
This month, we decided that Rick's Deathguard would face off against Seth's Orks at 1500 points. The mission was a simple, but made up one... capture "The Dude" and get him off the table edge.
Rick deployed first (since Nurgle is obviously slower than Orks) and he took the side of the table closest to him (read lazy). This gave Seth's Orks the other side of the table.Rick strategicly deployed a couple units close to the edge (out of fear) and kept some in reserve. If he had a plan, it didn't look like it.
Seth on the other hand, deployed everything and "expanded" his deployment zone as he saw fit. I think the original "gentleman's agreement" might have been a 12 inch deployment zone but that went out the window when the first Battlewagon hit the table. To be fair to all parties involved, it was a little difficult since we decided not to use rulers for the game.
The Dude was held up in some ruins in the middle of the board naturally.
Well the Orks wasted no time in reaching The Dude despite the considerable distance they had to cover. Seth politely informed us that "Orks go fast."The Deathguard responded to this massive rush by bringing in a pair of loaded Rhinos from reserve right off the bat to meet a huge mob of Orks charging up their left flank. A couple other units he "needed" came on as well, but scattered slightly for dramatic effect.
Even though the Rhinos travelled over halfway up the board, the situation was grave and Rick decided that they "should be able to fire everything." So he did, and fortunately for the Orks, he failed to do any real damage.
No sooner had the Rhinos arrived on the left flank, the Orks piled out of their trukks in the center of the table and grabbed The Dude. There was lots of wild firing in the air but they didn't hit a single thing despite the few hundred rounds they fired off.
Keeping their momentum going, a trukkload of Orks assaulted a small Deathguard squad on the right flank but grossly underestimated how tough those guys really are.After promptly losing combat, Seth decided he didn't feel like having his Orks run and they were going to stay and fight (there were just too many to take off the board). He ended up suffering a few more wounds for his impromptu command decision.
Faced with a pair of Rhinos still bearing down on them back on the left flank, the Orks were determined to do something about those things being there. Even though just out of reach, an assault was ordered. Problem was, the only Ork with a powerclaw was at the back of the mob. So Seth moved him to the front, problem solved.
With the powerclaw failing to even scratch the paint on the Rhino, it put the hammer down and plowed right through the mob killing the very Ork with the claw. Yep, even his last attempt was more Death than Glory.
A hard lesson learned for the boyz.
Back on the right flank, there was some confusion with blight grenades and the number of attacks that the Orks would have in one of the assaults. After some civil discussion (read yelling and screaming), a compromise was reached and it was decided that they would each get 2 1/2 attacks a piece.
Still fearing the left flank was going to fall, the closest Battlewagon cut a hard turn and attempted to ram a nearby Rhino in hopes of demolishing it into a thousand tiny pieces and running over the troops inside.Now the Orks were getting somehwere, time to crash some vehicles.
After figuring out who had what armour, the dice were rolled...
First ram attempt: FAIL
No problem, just back up and try again right?
Second ram attempt: FAIL
Third attempt using the ordnance rule?: FAIL
It was not looking good for the greenskins now.
Seth did have a cunning plan in his back pocket. That and a little forethough found his coptas in position to take down Rick's Defiler with a couple of shot's to it's pathetic rear armour.Trouble is, the Defiler was tied up in hand to hand with one of Seth's trukks and none of us could remember if it was still a viable target or not. Rick allowed Seth to take the shots on one condition.
Any shots that missed the Defiler hit Seth's trukk.
Sounded fair enough to the desperate Ork Commander. Even though one shot hit the Defiler and one hit the Trukk, nothing came of either one.
Seeing an opportunity (when Rick left for a minute), Seth moved a key Deathguard squad out of cover and into Ork charge range. This should seal the Deathguard's fate for sure he thought.
Rick caught on quick to these Ork "games" and in the face of a few hundred powerclaw attacks, decided he needed to have a cover save while in hand to hand combat. This quickly turned into a knock-down-drag-out fight with most of the powerclaws then magically becoming "master crafted" in hopes of getting the upper edge. Nobody was going easy now. The Deathguard dug in their heels and the Orks pushed forward.Having just survied being rammed by a Battlewagon (3 times at that), the Deathguard troops inside the Rhino disembarked and decided to say a warmfelt thanks with their metla guns.
Realising this would most likely spell complete and utter disaster for the Battlewagon, Seth quickly backed it up behind a building before a single melta could be fired leaving the Deathguard wide out in the open.
But the Seth had a bigger problem, after pulling Rick's Deathguard out of cover for the charge and then not being able to finish them off, he wasn't sure what to do. The decision was made to just keep fighting until there was only one man standing (he was betting on it being an Ork).
There were so many attacks going on that in order to speed up the process, attacks were done by "weight." You just picked up enough dice until it felt like you had the right number in your hand and rolled those.
It took about 3 or 4 consecutive rounds of brutal hand to hand combat when the Ork Warboss finally had enough, turned tail and ran. He'd taken a beating and just barely managed to escape!
But back on the left flank, the battle raged on. With Seth positioning a Battlewagon to support the stalled mob and Rick moving it back away when he went to the bathroom, the Orks and Deathguard were fighting to the bitter end.
It was then that Rick decided to bring forth the Greater Unclean One. Instead of taking Aspiring Champion though, he choose a regular troop for the honor (apparently the Champ had the only powerfist in the squad). This looked like the end of the greenskins for sure.With their one powerclaw guy having been run over by the Rhino a mere moment before, the Orks were faced with with hand to hand combat against a Daemon and had absolutely no way to take it down.
The mob was quickly shrinking with each round of combat. With no hope of being able to take the monster down, the boyz opted to make a run for it and hope for the best.
And they did just that, not wanting to get caught up with that thing again, they headed for the other side of the battlefield.
Realising the tide of battle had turned, the Warboss tried one last ditch maneouver to grab The Dude from the power of Nurgle and steal victory for himself.
Finding a barely useable trukk, he embarked, took it halfway across the table, disembarked and charged into the squad of Plague bearers who were preoccupied with dragging The Dude away to his untimely death.But it was too little too late, the power of Nurlge was too much for the Warboss and he succumbed to a flurry of plague swords.
So the win goes to Rick's Deathguard this week. It's obvious that Deathguard are far superior to any Ork force out there.
Let's see what the two Commanders had to say about the game.
Deathguard Commander (Rick):
Hahaha........my pustulent ones are victorious! I do believe I must give credit for the win to my squad of Deathguard that made the sacrafice and summoned the GUO. Without the GUO, I fear the squads Aspiring Champion (armed with a powerfist) would not have been able to defeat Seth's "green tide of Orks" that were pushing hard into my left flank...
Ork Warboss 'Eadrippa (Seth):
In all I had a really great time playing this style of game, I know its not for everyone and it could get totally abused if you think competitively. This was meant to be just fun and have alot of laughs at the same time.
" fose stinky marinez were 'arder fan I fouf, in all that cova made fen damn 'ard to get out of fere, next time um bringing the the big gunz!, Waaagh!!!"
