Battle Report: Gaming ETC Tournament Game 3: Orks

Game 3.  Orks on the menu?

After 2 rounds there are 3 people with max points I think.  Myself, Alex Fennel and my third round opponent Ryan Sinnot(brother to my first round opponent) and his horde of gangly green men.

Mission 3: Vanguard deployment and kill points.  There was some sort of alternate way to play kill points too, but it kinda hurts my head and since neither my opponent nor I chose it I wont go into details.

Ryan's List:

Big Mek - kustom force field

30 boys - nob with boss pole and power claw

30 boys - nob with boss pole and power claw

30 shoota boys - nob with boss pole and power claw

10 Gretchin

10 Gretchin

15 Lootas

15 Lootas

14 Lootas

3 lobbas

3 lobbas

3 lobbas

deffcopta

skyshield

My list again:

Eldrad

Spiritseer

3 Jetbikes

3 Jetbikes

7 Warpspiders

7 Warpspiders

Wraithknight

Wraithknight

Vect

15 Warriors - splinter cannon, Sybarite

5 Beast Masters - 20 Kymerra, 2 Razorwing Flocks

I roll all of eldrads powers on telepathy, and get  dominate, hallucinate, mental fortitude and puppet master, first roll for spiritseer nets me terrify which is what I wanted and so roll up conceal on the warlock table.  I win the roll to go first and thinking more about my bladder than anything else I have Ryan deploy first so I can go to the bathroom and not have to watch him deploy hundreds of models.  Nightfight was in effect.

Ryan deploys a unit of lootas and 3 units of lobbas on top of the skyshield.  One unit of lootas on each end of his flanks, and 3 units of boys underneath with the big mek in the back middle.  Defkopta and gretchin in reserve.

I deploy a unit of spyders on the edge of the right board outside 36" of the lootas.  Beasts central with some cover from the hill.  Both wraithknights I deploy on the left across from the orks.  Jetbikes and warriors are in reserve, second unit of spyders are deepstriking.

 Then I seize... cus thats what vect does.  Spyders skirt up the right board edge and jump into that ruin there getting a wall to keep them safe from ork shooting.  Wraithknights move and run towards the orks.  Beasts cast conceal and just move and run onto the hill in the center.

 Ryan's turn 1 and his shooting elements hold still.  One unit of choppa boys moves down the left side to set up a charge on a wraithknight.  Another squad moves up right middle to shoot or charge the beasts.  He fires all the lootas into one wraithknight and does 2 wounds, then charges it with boys and the nob does one more.  His other shooting does some scattered wounds to a beast member or 2 in the rear with lobbas, and then the shoota boys kill a few more up front making their charge a bit too far to take.

 My turn 2 and the only reserves I get are a unit of jetbikes who I put in the deep corner to keep them safe.  I terrify the shoota boys in the middle of the board and hallucinate the ones in combat with the wraithknight to no effect.  I move my mobile wraithknight up in front of the shoota boys.  I spread the beast out to assault into both units of boys.  Spyders move up and shoot at some lootas who go to groud and only lost a few, then  run and assault move back behind their wall... with one guy not having enough movement to get to safety.  Multi charge works out great, vect kills a few in the middle squad by fighting from behind the wraithknights huge footprint, most of the orks have to pile into the wraithknight limiting their attacks back, nob does one wound to it.

 Then the beasts do a large amount of wounds to the already engaged ork unit and win combat by a bunch.  The terrified orks in the middle are cut down by the wraithknight there and consolidates.  Beasts pile in to the diminished squad at the bottom.

 Ryan's turn 2 and the orks are coming.

 Deffkopta and both units of gretchin come in and hide behind the rest of his army.  Choppa boys and big mek move south to engage the beasts.  Shooting nets him max shots on all three loota squads, about 126 str 7 shots at the unengaged wraithknight... who lives but barely with 1 wound left.  Combat goes much better with the furious charging orks killing a good half the beasts, but beasts still kill a greater number of orks, before they can strike so the previously engaged squad is once again cut down by a wraithknight.

 My turn 3 and the good reserves arrive.  Warriors walk on and spyders deepstrike in behind the lootas on the left, right near the landing pad.  I dominate those lootas, terrify a unit of lobbas who runs off the skyshield and hallucinate the lootas as well which does nothing.  The wraithknights jump up on the skyshield and the one with only 3 wounds lines up to charge the lootas, while the one with only 1 wound remaining charges a unit of lobbas.  Shooting from warriors and spyders cuts the lootas down to 7 models and they flee.  Wraithknight 1 kills some gunners and they actually manage to run away from him.  Wraithknight 2 only kills 1 loota and they stay in combat.  Beasts kill almost all the orks in combat and cut down the rest.  Spyders assault move on top of the skyshield.

 Ryan's lobbas and lootas both regroup, while the other unit of lobbas flees off the board edge.  He shoots and kills the wounded wraithknight that had been pestering... his first kill point.  Then charges the deffkopta into the warp spyders and wins combat by 1, then I tell him I am going to hit and run and he concedes.

Orks are tough because of the horde of t4 bodies can sometimes bog you down.  Terrify is the key power against them.  With it you can set up great multi charges and just do work against half the orks and let the other half die to your high initiative at the end.  Without terrify I would have gotten bogged down in that initial assault phase with nearly 20 more bodies to have to cut through.  With more terrify I could have even relied on just wraithknights to charge in and wipe out whole boy squads, but with only 1 I engaged the boys with the beasts.  I think ryans mistake was not multi charging both knights with a single squad turn 1, and also shooting the beasts turn 1 instead of charging them.  He needed to push me back and then let his bodies pick me up, with stealth shrouded turn 1 I had a 2+ save, versus just a 4+ in combat, and I was spread out.  Once the beasts could move easy and charge they reached critical mass, and the weight of attacks from the kymerra ended the orks day.