Tuesday, February 26, 2013

SVDM GT Recap!

Greets,


I was unable to finish my ork posts due to preparation for the Saint Valentines Day Massacre GT over the last weekend. I'll resume them after this post. We went up semi-collectively as a group in the form of Andrew G, Eric H, Matt S and myself.

Below is a recap of my games and photos of others.

Each mission was worth a maximum of 18 battle points. A win  on the primary mission scored 10 points, a tie 5, and a loss 0. Each mission had 5 extra objective markers placed around the board by the players which could be captured by scoring units. In addition, line breaker, slay the warlord, and first blood were all worth 1 point.

I wasn't quite to sure on the particulars of the awards, I was finishing out a game when the ceremony started but I think Andrew G won best Imperial Player, Eric H won best overall xenos player, and Matt D won best overall. There were two other generalship awards which I didn't catch the names of the guys for. Plus a paint award for Luke I believe.

I'll post game recaps first with photos, then below that army photos.

My army list

Typhus
Juggy Lord w/ Axe, meltabomb, sigil

3x10 plague zombies

1x5 spawn
1x5 nurgle spawn
1x1 baleflamer dragon

1x1 maulerfield w/ magma cutter

Allies - Orks

Big Mek w/ KFF, Burna, Cybork

2x20 Shoota Boyz w/ 2 big shootas + pk bp nob
1x3 meganobz, 3x komi-skorcha

2x deffrolla bigshoota battlewagon



GAME 1 - Vs. Necrons.  Kill Points primary, vanguard, no night fight



For this mission my opponent Marcus had first go. We set up as shown left. As the Maulerfiend always seems to soak up a lot of fire turn 1/2 and die, I located it in the ruin in order to facilitate it's living with a better save.









 Another first turn shot
 Marcus moved forward with his wraiths in order to set up a nice wall / threat bubble. He also moved his spyders closer by deep striking them close to midfield. The annihilation barges moved around to the side and tried to shoot down the maulerfiend.

I reciprocated in turn 1 by advancing forward, but not taking the bait to get the boyz out of the bwagons and try to charge just yet. He had enough dakka to mow them down still comfortably hidden behind wraiths. I did however crash my spawn into one of his wraith squads results in lots of death.. for the wraiths =). On his turn 2 his flyer came in and that with the barges nuked the maulerfiend.. (poor guy). Then his tomb spyders with lord charged typhus and company. My turn 2 I tank shocked the other wraith squad. In addition my meganobz hopped out to assault them. My boyz squad on foot moved towards the middle to spray some shots down field, but mostly to go for the middle objective. On the bottom of turn 2, typhus kills the lord with the spyders for good. He gains the FnP power... Anyways the khorne lord and company destroy the wraith squad they are with and consolidate into the ruins.







Turn 3 - The nightscythe blitzs forward to blast some zombies lurking in the ruins. All the annihilation barges and guns available on the board blast at the khorne lord and his spawn. They wreck all of the spawn and put a wound or two on the lord. Nurgle and crew finally break combat in the middle of turn 3, leaving them free to consolidate into the ruins to assault the remaining warrior block in the bottom of 3. Orks hop out of their battlewagons to assault the immortals squad along with the Juggy lord. Both squads wipe their opposition in assault. The remaining zombies and orks foot slog forward for objective taking.



 

The rest of the game consisted of clean up. Netting me with a score of 16 for this game. 4 bonus objectives, linebreaker and slay the warlord.

I must say Marcus took this game very well, and was a good sport! His comment after the game was he under-estimated the spawn's assault capability.








GAME 2 - Vs. Necrons.  King of the hill primary, dawn of war, no night fight









If this army looks the same, that's because it is. Painted by the same painter that is =0. This apparently was the cousin to Marcus's army. This one was played by Joe, but was fairly close in composition.

Joe had first go in this game, and as it was king of the hill I decided to deploy all but one unit of zombies on the board to start off.













I forgot to take the top of 2 pic, instead the pic to the left is at the bottom of 2 during the assault phase right before I declared a charge into the barge with the orks on the left. I immobilized both battlewagons on the terrain as I got prepared to assault. So instead I had a squad of boyz run backwards and take out a pesky barge that had snuck in behind me


The net result is the maulerfiend got shot to pieces, I lost some spawn from both squads, meganobz charged a giant warrior squad and tied them down in combat, Typhus and company charged some tomb spyders with a lord. The juggy lord solo charged some wraiths and killed one or two and held them down for a few rounds of combat.

The pic to the left is the middle of turn 3. . The rest of my army started consolidating towards the center. As did Joe.

My meganobz decided to run rampant in Joes backline and proceeded to obliterate two of his troop squads before being charged by his other lord. This lord had a 3+ invuln. They basically just tied eachother down from that point forward.

After killing the juggy lord, Joe's wraiths joined the combat with the tomb spyders in the middle. I recipricated by bringing in cultists to beat on the wraiths from behind. Shockingly, the zombies did more damage to the wraiths throughout the fight than typhus and spawn did.

This game ended due to time with about 15 boyz, 2 squads of zombie cultists, typhus, and a single boy standing around the hill in the center, being contested by a single immortal.






GAME 3 - Vs. Chaos SM & Necron Allies  Victory Points primary, dawn of war,  night fight



This game I had to play against the much acclaimed and feared triple helldrake list. But that wasn't all! Included also were two night scythes and a doomscythe.
I had first go. I set up directly dead center and hoped for the best. Turn 1 I moved everything as fast as I could across the board (as shown left).  I ran all the squads and moved the battlewagons flat out. He shot me a bunch killing a few spawn but that was about it.
Turn 2
I assaulted all of my guys into all of his guys, resulting in a glorious combat and cleaned his army off the table in the following round. This left me in first place for the start of day 2 (this doesn't include paint score)
 
 
 






GAME 4- Vs. Eldar & IG Capture and Control Primary, dawn of war,  no night fight


I gave Matt first go, We set up as seen left.

I set up just out of range of his guns, and then moved forward as fast as possible turn 1.









At the start of turn 2, the board looked like this. Then Matt caught me off guard by terrifying Typhus and his spawn, and then multi charging typhus and company + bwagons. He penn'd the b-wagons enough to result in typhus's squad having to pass leadership on snake eyes, which they failed and were run down. His demolisher's also killed the maulerfiend.

On my Turn 2, I counter charged the seer council as shown. My orks on foot followed in order to join the assault on the following turn. I threw a squad of plague zombies into the combat to ensure there was no chance of being run down if he used terrify again (as he couldn't do it to both squads).


After these results the game went very downhill for me. The orks on foot never made it into assault, having failed charges two turns in a row they were torched by the seer council when they finally broke free. I charged the spawn + juggy lord into the  blob squads where they were promptly chopped down by paxe sarges.  The meganobz were forced to run and became part of the ork torches when the seer council broke free.








GAME 5- Vs. Necron - The Relic primary, Hammer and Anvil,  night fight









 
Deployment as such. I think I had first go.

This game zombies started on the board and just walked up and grabbed the relic. Meanwhile the rest of my army ran forward as fast as possible and hung out in assault with the necrons the rest of the game.

We got to the bottom of turn 3 when time was called. My opponent (Kevin) asked If I would like to keep playing after the awards. I agreed, as we were in the middle of a good game and no real reason to stop. We recorded the game as a tie and (7-7 each) and kept on trucking after the awards. This resulted in an eventual win on turn 5 for me, with all the necrons destroyed except for one annihilation barge.

Net results of my games from a points perspective..

16 - 7 - 17 - 0 - 7(15) and 15 points for paint score out of a possible 30.

This placed me in 12th, though if we had finished game 5 I would have made 7th, darn = (

I had a lot of fun at the event though, it was really worth the money, which isn't always something you can say for GT's.  Mike ran a good show and it is an event I would definately recommend going to. I know I'll be lining up to attend next year.


Everyone left with either a skull hill or a green relic as a prize. It  was a nice touch.








The store Saturday morning.

My army in all it's glory

More of my Army

Matt S, JetSeer

Andrew G, Dark Angels and IG

Scooters win big or go home Flyer spam. 


pretty nifty eldar terrain



 








 
 

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Tactica: Why orks in 6th Ed take your lunch money. Part 2.

Good Morning All!

So, following up from yesterdays post on Orks, here is some more on ORKS!

WAAAAAAAAGGGGHHH!!!

This post is going to be a review unit by unit, explaining their good and bad points and some uses. If you've read my previous blog posts, you'll know I have a significant preference towards all-comers units and as an extension of that, all-comers armies. In general I focus on assault as a primary tool for winning games. So keep that lense of focus in mind while reading this. If you don't know what I'm referencing, have a quick scroll back through previous posts to see what I'm talking about.

There will be a follow up tomorrow discussing ork tactics. (It's important to know the units before the tactics I think!)

I'm going to be refering to balanced - all comers - type units as "multi-tools". These are going to be units that can handle most roles comfortably, especially once you learn how to use them.

What roles should we expect from a multi-tool (note this goes for all armies, not just the orks)

  • Decent Shooting
  • Decent Assault
  • Ability to destroy AV13 and less vehicles (either via assault or shooting).
  • Ability to hold or contest an objective, preferably holding, but at least contesting. Under this category would be special rules that help with this, fearless, ATSKNF, Re-roll leaderships, ect.
By decent shooting and assault, I mean that the unit, possibly (or likely) combined with other squads of the same type, should be able to eliminate almost any other type of unit with few exceptions. This doesn't mean you don't suffer heavy casualties, or don't end up with your sarg sitting on the sidelines sulking having been challenged out. It just means they as a collective whole, when applied properly can get the job done. I want to also specify that this does not necessarily apply to handling fliers, it can include them, but as its a necessity of the game to have a "ground presence", its important to have units which provide that.


Sorry for the wall of text on that, I felt it deserved a recap. The units I suggest running will be highlighted in red.

UNIT REVIEW - COMMENCE!

                                               HQ

Ghazghkull Thraka - What was once arguably an auto-take HQ is no longer.
For 125 extra points above the mega-armored warboss, he brings to the table: eternal warrior, 4 wounds instead of the normal 3, WS6, a default cybork upgrade, default bosspole, an autorun of 6 inches on his waaugh, turn his own save into an invuln save for a game turn, and the ability to make the entire army fearless for a turn.

Previously in 5th being able to fleet 6 inches then charge was a huge boost. Now you can run 6 inches still.. but not not charge. His making squads fearless for a turn is good, but in general as an ork player you should be running larger squads which are probably fearless anyways.. so why bother? The turn you'll be waaughing in general is 2/3 which is before the majority of your boys have evaporated. His having a 2+ invulnv save is nice but his best benefit is that he has eternal warrior. But is it worth the extra points over a regular mega-armored warboss?   After consideration I tend to vote no unless I really have points lying around.

Mad Dok Grotsnik - I generally don't even give this guy a second look. Being able to cybork your entire army for 5 points a model isn't awful, and you can make some really silly lists based on it. (30 boyz attached to Grotsnik, 5+,5+ is funny). But unfortunately in tournament play, his must chase down the nearest enemy as fast as possible rule can easily be turned against you. It's not worth the risk, and its an expensive upgrade that ultimately results in little gain.

Wazdakka Gutsmek - Not a bad HQ, if you have the points he makes an excellent attachment to a Boyz squad to escort across the board, then charge free and rip things up with his PK. Don't bother using warbikes as troops, its bad and expensive. His shooty is decently good for an ork. I would run him if I was playing a footslogging army, but not otherwise.

Old Zogwort - An improved warphead with the nice ability to squig your opponent on a dice off within 18". The prime benefit of running zogwort is the his slightly better leadership and extra wound (in case you perils!). If you combine with three dakkajets, it can be really nasty getting all the waaughs off for extra shots. Unfortunately its rather random, in both the dakkajets coming in from reserves, and the waaugh, so it's not dependable.

Warboss - A cheap HQ that can be upgraded fairly decently. Unfortunately the points for upgrades don't make a lot of a sense, so to get a power klaw warboss with a t-shirt save its 85 points, but a mega-armored warboss (2+ save), with a PK is 100... So... I don't recommend running a warboss as anything other than a Mega-Armored Warboss. He's dirt cheap and handy for almost anything you want to do combat wise. It's worth throwing on cybork and the boss pole.

Keep in mind as people get better with the edition, character sniping will be more prevelant. You don't want your T-shirt save warboss getting sniped out of a squad (quite possible). Take the 2+.

Some of you may be going, what about the warboss on a bike? A T6 4+ PK warboss is never a bad deal. You'll scoot fast and rip stuff up. The real problem beyond the points expense? You will die very quickly if you are ever exposed to dakka. It's annoying to wound T6 creatures, but not THAT annoying. With only a 4 up, it doesn't take that many shots to kill. If you take the warboss on a bike, hide him in a blob squad and then break him off as soon as a good target comes available.

I love the idea of nob bikers zooming around w/ a warboss, its fluffy and hilarious, but if you want to win in tournies. You're really playing a rock hammer scizzors game. Most armies have the dakka to take that down within a turn. (assuming the player is a good general and plays right).

Big Mek-  Still very useful with a KFF. Don't bother with a shock attack gun. Super useful when it works, super facepalm when it doesn't. I think one of these guys is still an auto-take. There are far to many flat deserts in our 40k universe. A 5+ is better than a no up. Don't forget you can cheekily string boyz out in a long congo line, as long as one boy is within 6 inches, the whole line gets a cover save. It is quite possible to snake long lines of 30 boyz forward much like some sort of manga monster. Don't forget if your squads are not fearless, you can go to ground with a kff and get a 4+ instead of a 5+. Might sometimes be useful.

If you have a few points to spare, throw a burna and cybork on him. You won't regret it. This lets you "tank" challenges better for those times you don't want your heavy hitter stuck or hiding. The burna gives you an AP3 CC weapon. All and all not a bad deal for 115 pts.

Weirdboy -  at 55 points, these guys are cheap, unfortunately this is a case where you get what you pay for. They die easily and you can't control what they do very well. If you want to take one, it should be an auto-upgrade to warphead. You'll have semi-decent control of the powers then.


                                                                         Elites

As a side note, I consider all Nobz to be flamethrower wielders. If you take a nob, take a combi-skorcha for that nob, no matter what type of nob it is. This makes the nobz multi-tools for dealing with situations. Combi-skorchas are perhaps one of the finest upgrades in the ork codex and a serious redeeming / saving grace. Take combi-skorchas, you won't regret it.

At this point, meganobz are better than normal nobz. Few reasons - Hold up better in CC. Previously you could count on the enemy having shitty to poor CC w/ few CC related upgrades. Now with infantry increases, so have combat abilities. Your t-shirt save nobz will die. Meganobz on the other hand bend the enemy in general over the metaphorical barrel. Cheaper than PK t-shirt nobz too. 40pts meganobz (2+ / PK ) vs. 45 pt t-shirt save PK nob. So you get a better deal. Slow and purposeful is not that bad. You also are less likely to lose a meganob if his transport dies (which it will).

Nobz - IMO nobz are best run in small squads. Give them all combi-skorchas and big choppas (since they are losing their bonus attack because of the skorcha anyways). You can keep one without a Combi-skorcha if you want, but generally the flamethrowers are more valuable long run. Don't recommend bothering with 'eavy armor or bosspoles ect unless you plan on making them big beatface squads. At that point you're talking about 30 to 35 points a model, and its questionable why you don't take meganobz instead. I usually run them in 3 man squads w/ battlewagon + deffrolla + big shoota dedicated transports. Big choppas are a good take so you can multicharge and still have a relatively high S.

Meganobz - Same as above, except obviously you have pk's. Run them in small 3 or 4 man squads w/ skorchas and b-wagons w/ deffrolla + big shoota. If you really want to be annoying, take a 4 man squad and make them troops with a warboss. Always take combi-skorcha upgrade since you REALLY have nothing to lose. These guys are great, you'll weather all sorts of firepower. Power weapons bounce off of them now, and you don't have to worry about people challenging out your warboss since your still going to wreck whatever they smash into. These guys make a great core assault unit surrounded by lots of boyz.

Burna boyz - Bad, awful, overpriced, bad. Anyone who lets you hit them with these guys is a bad player or you failed to explain what they are. These guys are also a bit pricey. In order to get anywhere you'll need to take a b-wagon and if that goes boom you'll lose half the squad. You are losing valuable body count points for this.

Tankbustas - Not as bad as they were due to new changes in how they have to move. but still not worth their points. The lack of vehicles on the board in this edition is painful for their cause. While it is nice to have super strong t-shirt save orks running around though.

Lootas - I used to spit on these guys with great gusto in 5th and always took rokkit buggies + kanz instead. Now in 6th I have joined as cheermaster of the squad. A few notes, these guys are still pricey. Run them in 5-7 man squads. Don't bother with larger. You make them a real threat priority to your opponent if they are larger. They start to heavily affect your ability to field enough bodies on the board. Its also harder to hide bigger squads. 

On that note, don't take an Aegis line. It's stupid. Yes, you get a 4+ or 2+. You are investing into a squad that can't take objectives, or satisfy most mission requirements, again taking away from viability of winning games and body count. Not to mention, these guys have a 48' range, its not that hard to find cover and still have a good firing point. Accept you'll have to stand around for a 5/3+ instead of a 4/2+ on occassion.

If you are taking an Aegis line, throw it 12  to 18 in front of your line, and use it as a cover save as you run forward. Not to hide lootas.

Lots of people are going to recommend you take large 10 to 15 man blocks for extra shooty dakka. Those same people are the ones who laugh gleefully as they blow your blocks of lootas off the board. They are not that hard to kill, and you are sinking a lot of points into one basket. Take multiple small squads, lurk at max range rinse and repeat. In an ideal world, your small lootas units don't get shot at anyways, as you are providing adequate threats elsewhere that people feel more pressured to contain with the points you saved not getting the bigger squads!

Kommandos - No longer good EXCEPT you might want to give two burna's for a super sneaky offensive. But they'll die. So don't bother.


                                               Troops


Note on ork troops. Ork's are one of the few armies where your main offensive punch, involves the use/loss of the models you use to capture 90% of mission objectives. You need lots and lots and lots and lots of bodies to cover this and win. I think at a bare minimum you would want 80 boyz on the table, preferably far more.

Ork Boyz - Take shoota boyz. Slugga/choppa are bad. Why are they bad? They are less swiss army knife than shoota boyz. Shoota boyz can stand and fire and unleash the gates of hell torrent wise. Slugga choppa? Not so much so. Shoota boyz give you more options and the ability to widdle down squads before assaulting them. Their overwatch can also be devastating.

Take as many big shootas as you can. It helps if the squad is camping an objective by adding a few shots of dakka at a good range. There are times when the S5 is useful (MC hunting or shooting at flyers). Take them.

People are now advising not to take PK/BP nobz, those are the same people who tell you to take huge blocks of lootas. Don't listen, take the BP/PK nob. Yes, he might get sniped, but he's not that expensive. You need as many PK's as you can get. A squad without a PK is a squad defanged. That PK represents the ability to multi-tool your boyz squad.

 Take your boyz squads in groups of 20, or 30. 30 for on foot, 20 for in a b-wagon. In this edition, they simply lack the durability to be run in smaller groups.

Gretchin - I usually take one squad as a backfielding element. As mentioned above, a lot of ork heavy hitting is done by the troops used to win games. It is very helpful to have a cheap backfielder to capture an objective / quarter. It lets you throw the entire rest of your army forward to take on the enemy. If you half-ass your offensive punch by holding back with orks. Good game, you lost.

Trukks - I've heard a lot of opinions on trukks from people who havn't been playing orks in 6th which kind of makes me a bit annoyed.. Usually positive in nature about how great they are as cheap transports ect. I see them as unecessarly easy KP's for your enemy combined with small squad sizes that are super easy to dakka. I would strongly suggest NOT using trukks in this edition, full stop.
 The one exception be using a trukk to transport meganobz 24" knowing it'll die. The meganobz won't care about the vehicle blowing up, and they'll have a good chance to survive follow up torrent of fire.

A real issue with them, their intended transport target - squads of boyz or nobz. Die super fast to the level of torrent we are seeing in the current meta. So combination of super easy to kill vehicle with super to easy kill squad is bad.


                                          Fast Attack

Clear Champion - Dakkajets. Always take at least one. I take two. They excel at nocking out other fliers and backfield harassment. Very useful at nocking out other infantry. Everyone should know how good they or so I'll stop there.

Stormboyz. - I could see them as useful in large blocks of 20. Their primary drawbacks? Slightly overpriced, possability of being dakka'd off in a single turn, and not all great at anything but hitting weaker units. I would probably take a smaller squad with boss zagstruk just on the offchance I can assault with my deep strike in. ( I think this is still legal?). That might be lolzy, but random and most likely not worth the points.

Warbuggies - 40 pts for a rolling skorcha. They are overpriced and to me a serious no. If you want to run 3x3 of them.. fine but you'll lose them fast.. The thing can be killed super easily and is to expensive. Hull points for the lose. If you want to take these guys, take Killa-kanz with grotzookas. At least they'll be AV11, and you'll def get to shoot with their 18' range. (and probably do more damage too) The other question is, why would you take this when you could take a dakkajet?

Warbikers - guns are good, price is bad. don't use

Deffkoptas - I tried to make these work. If you have a few points and a slot to spare, they can be useful in the same way guardian jetbikes are useful, except for contesting not taking.


                                        Heavy Support

Battlewagons - B-wagons have grown better and worse at the same time. The inclusion of hullpoints and always being able to be hit on a 3+ in CC really hurts their durability. However- B-wagons are now vastly faster and much harder to stunlock.

B-wagons played right will keep an AV14 wall between your boyz and enemy guns. This means more boyz live to do what they do best. Not to mention, if you leave these guys open topped, you can scoot around 12inches, pivot to maximize armor, then dakka from them with stuff inside.(snap firing),

Battlewagons keep orks viable in the current meta. They let you put pressure on the opponent from the start. You can turn 2 charge almost anyone if you really want to (with the 18" move) + next turn of 6+ 6+ 12(avg of 7) (so 30 inches of movement + charge distance). Being able to apply that kind of tension and pressure to your opponents decision making is a good thing. Deff-rollas are still a must take. It might also be useful to maximize as many big gunz as you can on them. 4x3 shots at S5 isn't anything to sneeze at. I will note you need to learn to move well in order to maximize these guys. Consider fire arks, how to minimize people getting side armor shots. How close you can get without being charged by effective CC/anti vehicle units. ect. So this is going to require a bit of finesse. If nothing else, b-wagons let you play a faster game since you can have a majority of your models starting in them if you really wanted.

Tank shocking is still an epic tactic. Just follow it up with some shooting =0

Deff dread - Generally not fast or durable enough to get across the board sucessfully. Also a bit overpriced, not worth it.

Killa kanz - squads of 3x kanz are not awful. They will die super fast to shooting though. So lurk behind the boyz and take grotzookas. They make a very effective counter charge. Most people are iffy about shooting at them due to their low point cost, so they'll live unaturally longer than you think they should.

Flash Gitz - Shootiest of the shooty nobz. Fancy and have pirate iconography. What's not to love? I want these guys to be good so badly it hurts. Unfortunately their points just don't justify it. Your opponent will look at them, go, "that squad does what?", and then you'll be boxing them up the next turn. In order to make them good, you have to pay an arm and a leg for all their upgrades. Once upgraded, they are fairly decent, but will die fast.

Big gunz - Everyones new favorite sweetheart right now. Let me be the first to singe the dirge of its death. Big gunz are bad. Bad. Bad. If you have 75 pts left over you can't fit in somewhere else more useful? ok. Fine.
So what's good about big gunz? T7, 3+ saves on guns, with 2 wounds. Sniping out characters with barrage lobbas.

What's bad? Super super super low leadership. Ever had your big gunz run off the board by a savy player who realizes that a few potshots will force a leadership and they'll most likely fail on their 5? I have. Ever had your squads pinned by people who realize that a single good pinning shot will cause an entire squad to go to ground where they can't fire effectively (or at all with lobbas)? I have. Yes, you could take a Runtherd for an extra amount of points, and the re-roll for more. But now you are making what is supposed to be a cheap unit expensive.

Lobbas work when there is total LOS blocking terrain and you can fit your lobbas behind it. That will keep them from getting sniped. As people get more savy and get pooped on by lobbas more, they'll realize quick movement and some wounding will cause your guys to run or get pinned and that will be the end of them.

 My thoughts? Don't waste your points on what is effectively a tactic of catching people off guard. Any player who knows what they are doing is going to negate your lobbas fast, by good deployments / movement, or by pinning / forcing a run.


Looted wagons - bad for the same reason trukks are bad, but cost even more and are less manueverable. You can stick a large blast S8 AP3 gun on them, but due to their low armor value they'll tend to get sniped out fast and are to many points to justify losing so quickly.


            Some thoughts vs. common meta atm.

Daemons w/ screamers / flamers.

If you have B-wagons (which hopefully you should!) button up inside, make sure you leave adequate spacing to disembark where you want to in case you get wrecked. Reserve deploy anything you possibly can that can't go in a transport. Best bet on this is to form a triangle of sorts so they can't land inside but you can still get out inside if needed. Let the daemons player come in. The only thing that can hurt the b-wagons on the turn they come in are flamers. A squad of them should only be able to hit a b-wagon with 3-4 templates due to placement when you deepstrike.(circling). 3 is really at most, 4 is a serious stretch. They'll only glance your b-wagon on a 4+. So effectively 3 squads of flamers MIGHT drop a b-wagon or two. Screamers can't hurt you the turn they arrive unless your guys are out. If you pposition properly you should have a cover save in the off chance you get nailed by screamers. Once their alpha strike is complete, Focus fire and start eliminating squads.

You can get out and charge if desired. Using smaller squads like gretchin to remove overwatch on flamers, followed up by assaulting with a larger squad is useful. Flamers are bad in CC. Screamers I would suggest not getting into CC with if you can avoid it, or unless you have overwhelming numbers. It's better to just shoot them to death.

 Remember the rule of thumb, always charge 2 squads where you think one will do. Go for total wipeouts, not tying up. Combi-skorhcas are perfect here. Most likely your opponents squads are going to be tightely grouped. FLAME THEM

IG Blob.

IG blobs have always been a bit of a push over to orks. Provided you get into CC with it appropriately, you'll almost definitely win. Just remember to try and get in an equal number of boyz as they have models in the blob, or you might actually lose (cause they'll hit first and your t-shirt saves are crap). You can roll forward, dakka from b-wagons. Assault when you feel things are piecemeal enough. Or my favorite, TANK SHOCKKKK =0 Again combi-skorchas come in useful here. Ever wanted ot see an IG player have to pick up models like you pick up boyz? heres your chance!

Paladins

- When dealing with paladins, the key is power klaws. You have to hit a critical mass of power klaws in assault to kill them. I'd say you want 1 per every 2 paladins in the combat. This includes the massive number of boyz you also throw in as a general wound soak. So 2x20 boyz w/ pk/BP nob + 3 meganobz + PK warboss squad should be able to say, to wipe out dragio and 10 paladins. Be sure to challenge draigo with the warboss for extra lolz (if its a megaarmored warboss). Unless you roll a 1 for your armor save, his weapon lolzy bounces off of you. If they have a techmarine grenade caddy with them or coteaz, it does become a lot more dicey. If Coteaz is there, be sure to hit with another squad of boyz than outlined above. (good to absorb overwatch on boyz too). If grenade caddy is there, well.. you're in a heap of trouble. Try and stand back and dakka + tank shock till the squads a bit more manageable then charge. Or think like an ork, go "fuck it!" and charge everything you got into it. You'll probably win.. maybe.
Combi-skorchas again are important here. You'll do a lot of wounds with them. Shooting with shoota boyz will too. You will most likely kill a one or two with that kind of torrent before the charge.

Noise Marines - Giggle from atop your mighty b-wagon

MEQ of most types - Shoota boys dakkaing usually will remove offending units or make them bite sized enough that the boyz can handle them on the charge

Land Raiders - Charge with PK's, rinse and repeat. Or deffrolla I guess.. that's cool too right?



I did mention B-wagons make orks more viable right?


Feel free to post a question or a "how would you handle xyz?"





Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Tactica: Why orks in 6th Ed take your lunch money

The Orks.

Cunning but brutal, or brutal but cunning. Depends on if you love Gork or Mork more.

I'm going to lay it out flatly, Orks in 6th are still a top tier codex. If you disagree, I'm going to propose to you that either your current ork opponents have yet to master the edition, or you have not played any orks recently!

Here's what changed for orks in 6th for the worse

- Random charge distances
- Disordered Charge
- Not being able to hop out of or get into a vehicle which has performed, or is going to perform a tank shock
- Cover Saves on Deffrollas for models in area terrain (yes this was an FAQ thing, it's retarded)
- Snikrot getting nerfed hard
- no assault from reserves
- No more moving 12 inches, hopping out 3, then assaulting 6 (essentially guaranteed distances for charging)
- No more shooting flame templates out of vehicles that moved 12 inches
- S4 booms in vehicles instead of S3

Here is what's changed for the better for orks in 6th

- Much larger potential charge ranges on any given turn without the waaugh fleet, with the waaugh, similar charge range to previous editions waaugh charge
- Battlewagons keep moving more often without glances stopping them cold
- Flat out moving for vehicles
- Power weapons no longer eat through SV2
- Not being able to assault out of vehicles which do not have the assault vehicle rule
- Snap Fire
- being able to rally even if enemies are within 6"
- no more fearless wounds
- range of fire from guns (big shootas) means shootas can have a better kill range than some opponents (storm bolters)
- Leadership tests at full LD for rally unless below 25%.


Some of these "better" items, don't necessarily have anything to do with orks as an army per se, but they do affect how well your opponent can react to things you do.

Example: If you deff-rolla a rhino full of guys forcing them to get out, you now know that squad can't turn around and assault you in their next turn. They have to stand there, hoping their shooting is going to do something meaningful.

Grey Hunters, which are the bane of any self respecting boyz, are no longer able to shelter in their rhino's safe from gunfire. To get into assault to mutilate they boyz, they need to start on foot or be out of their rhino's for at least a turn (don't forget this if it boomed too!). That means plenty of opportunity to soften them up with some gunfire.


So why orks in this edition? In the coming days I am going to post a unit by unit breakdown of the goods and bad's of the ork codex to explain just that.

To give you the short answer now, Orks still have all the tools to handle any threat which comes at them. Boyz are cheap and plentiful, giving you lots of bodies on the board, with fearlessness or re-rolling leadership if you equip them properly, they tend to stick around. Meganobz are back with a vengeance, their 2+'s now make a mockery of most armies, and power klaws are as good as ever.

Battlewagons provide cheap armor walls that can stop the massive levels of anti-infantry torrent we see these days. They also move very fast, there are very few armies that can avoid turn 2 charges from Bwagon spam lists now.

Dakkajets and lootas provide great fire support for both ground and flier targets.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Lists for SVDM and Painting Update

Good Morning All!

I hope everyone in the U.S enjoyed that glorious three day weekend, I know I did! I even managed to bully my way into being on the 11th company podcast! So enjoy hearing my mistakes or saying things best left not said! Suckers! bwahhaha! or .. something.

So some updates on painting. Eric came by most of the day Saturday after he overslept like a boss and we worked (or I should say, HE worked, I was on baby duty) on trying to finish our display boards for Adepticon. This year we designed a board that can be broken into two separate boards, that way after the event we can both go run our separate ways with them. Right now they have some glaring issues due to the hazards of cutting pink foam in straight lines... But some fixes with putty should put them right.

Our theme, as previous mentioned is the Siege of Vrakks, so we envisioned a ww1 looking landscape with craters and trenches, and the giant wall the defenders of Vrakks used... So that's what we made!


Board needs the gap fixed and dry brushing for the trench
So on the left are the two boards. They need some more dry brushing, the gap in the middle needs to be fixed up a bit, and the trench walls need some work. Luckily we have two months to do them.. These are already a far shot better than last years, lets do it the night before attempt though, so I'm happy.










also two separate squads, one squad is red/black, the other is black/green
On the left here are two of my cultists. You'll note the base of the left one is chipped and not a solid brown. I had to go through my entire army and repaint the base edges to clean it up.











Here is the entire mess all in one go, excluding the helldrake. In case it's not obvious, they are on paper towels to keep the table from getting messed up from painting the edges brown. In my box of "to do", I still have another 15 marines, 20 cultists, 1 slaughterfiend and 3 hellbrutes. I know hellbrutes are not so great, I just love the models.





Then I was "forced" to go on a rather pleasant outdoor excursion, to the place on the left. (HISS SUNLINGHT) I just thought I'd post it because it looks rather nice.









So what else is news? I was beat by Matt's Jetseer in a game of big guns never tire. Game ended on turn 5 with tied objectives, but he won on the kill heavy's, warlord and first blood. Jetseer for anyone who hasn't played against it, can easily be one of the most aggravating lists in the world to play against. That is, if you play how I do. I.e. Charge in full of steam and ready for blood.

Side note, First blood, is the worst freaking game design in the world.

If you ever have to play against it, my best advise to you, spread out, play cagey, kill the enemy's troops, and only commit later in the game (turn 3 on). Spagghetti Monster help you should your opponent get the warlord trait to make his HQ a scoring unit.

That is unless you are Daemons, or triple helldrake, or space wolves w/ rune priests.

So SVDM Lists (2k), 'ere we go! I'm contemplating four different lists for SVDM, three of which I'll post here. One of which came to me last night after a suggestion from Neil, but is still in the crafting stage so I'll hold off posting it just yet.

List, the First.

Typhus
Chaos lord w/ khorne, juggy, axe, gift of mutation, sigil of corruption

2x 10 Plague Zombies
1x 10 cultists

1x5 nurgle spawn
1x5 spawn
1x1 bale flamer dragon

1x1 maulerfiend (magmacutter)
2x1 nurgle oblits

The Masque

2x5 Plaguebearers
1x9 Screamers
1x8 Flamers


List, the Second.

Typhus
Chaos lord w/ khorne, juggy, axe, gift of mutation, sigil of corruption

3x 10 Plague Zombies
1x 10 Cultists
1x 7 Plague Marines, 2 plasma guns, Meltabomb
        Rhino, Dirgecaster
1x7 Plague Marines, 2 Meltaguns, Meltabomb
        Rhino, Dirgecaster

1x5 Nurgle Spawn
1x5 Spawn
1x1 Baleflamer dragon

2x1 Maulerfiends
1x2 nurgle oblits


List, the Third.

Mega-armoured Warboss, Cybork, Boss Pole
Big Mek, KFF, Cybork, Burna

4x20 Shoota Boyz, PK/BP Nob, 2 Big Shootas
1x4 Meganobz, 4 combi-skorchas
        Battlewagon, Deffrolla, Big Shoota
1x11 Gretchin

3x1 Battlewagon, DeffRolla, Big Shoota

2x1 Dakkajet, Fighta Ace, TL supa Shoota (x3)

2x5 Lootas




I think all the lists are really good, I'm just struggling to determine which to take.







Saturday, February 16, 2013

Painting and more Painting! Chaos SM

Greets,

Even though Adepticon is well on two months away, my team and I have been working hard on painting our models well in advance so as to ensure we are ready in time. Although we are still working out the final details of our lists, we are no longer bumping around in the dark. So we've been working on painting models which are most likely included into the final product.

I know I haven't mentioned running plague marines personally except for my last post, but I have been painting up a squad of chaos SM to use as "counts as anything" marines. I've been using mostly the models from the dark vengeance set. They actually have a really nice look and dynamic feel and I'm really happy with them.

To paint I've been basing black, then doing bases colors for red, gold, silver and bone. This is followed by a wash of ogryn / fleshcolor wash.  The model is then drybrushed all over with a very dark grey, mechanicus I think. The bone is drybrushed with rotting flesh. Afterwards I start highlighting with a bright gold, red and silver. Then do touchups with a watered down black.

For Adepticon we are using two different chaos SM armies, one is based on The Purge the other is based on Black Brethern of Ayreas.

My half (the brethren) of the army is at the "clean up and highlights" point, except for a few chaos rhinos we need to strip and repaint, for the glory of chaos!



I really like the dynamic posing of the models

Typhus, badass, once tried to get the better of the Lion. Failed horrifically of course, but still tried.

I tried to do some "heroic" posing not sure how that's working out. This is a much earlier in the process shot, note the guys are not even on their bases yet.

most of the crew lined up for a "progress" portrait

even unbased, typhus is a badass

I love the Chaos Icons, so cool

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Thoughts on Chaos SM continued


Greetings all,

It's been a while since I've updated, for which I must apologize.

So moving right along.

I changed up my list to practice a bit with other models in the Chaos SM codex and see how they'd perform.

I made an 1850 list that went a little like this...

Typhus
Juggy lord w/ axe and all the goodies

3x 10 plague zombies
2x 7 nurgle marines. 1 squad with melta, 1 squad with plasma. Both squads meltabombs
w/ rhinos with dirge casters.

1x5 Nurgle Spawn
1x5 Spawn
1x Baleflamer dragon

1x mauler fiend w/ lasher tendrils
2x1 nurgle oblits

So I was actually pretty pleased with the outcome. Sticking the plague zombies in reserve for backfield objectives meant I had fearless troops that wouldn't get shot off and run away. Typhus added new tricks to the army and yet another glorious S6AP2 daemon weapon. The plague marines provided a little resilient firepower and forward objective taking. I've played about 5 games with it now, I have yet to lose all of the plague marines though I've come close. It was nice to see they easily go toe to toe with grey hunters (though obviously costing way more, they should be able to!).

I will say I miss my daemon allies quite a bit, but I had to figure out a way to run pure chaos eventually.

So much like my DA list, is it perfect? no. But it felt good and gave me plenty of options.

Typhus - So I've only used his destroyer hive once thus far, in a challenge, with him and 9 enemy models, and it was utter face palm. I'll try it again sometime but still... Other than that he's proved every bit as scary in CC as the juggy lord, though striking last sucks a bit. I guess I'm spoiled because of the juggy lord. What I REALLY like about Typhus though, is the utility he add's to an army. He's not just a baller close combat lord. He's a sorcerer, and his tricks are pretty solid. In this heavily shooty focused meta we exist in currently, weapon virus is a dream come true. Gets hot FTW. Contagion is pretty good too.

Plague Marines - I feel about these guys like I do about the oblits. They feel like they under perform on damage output and die more often than they should. On the other hand they are pretty decent in CC and I feel comfortable when both squads are closely supporting each other that they can handle most threats.

Rhinos - With a dirgecaster I feel like these guys are going to make a pretty good comeback. They've been holding up about as long as I would have expected them to in 5th ed so far. So not disappointing really.


So these three new components, combined with the standard fare of my older stuff felt pretty solid. Good scoring units, good assault, and increased utility from the psyker end. Is it as much fun as pavaning people off of buildings or into turn 1 combats? No of course not, but it's also less dependent on random rolls.

The Juggy lord combo's really well with Typhus. No squad in the game wants to mess with both of them together, especially with their spawn meatshields. If I could figure out some way to get the juggy lord to have T6 escorts, I think I'd be able to call it a day right then and there. As it stands, losing all of your t5 spawn in a devastating single round of manticore shooting makes you very sad. So I may be forced to retire this squad.

I attempted to use a Nurgle jump pack lord w/ black mace after hearing how great he was from Eric. He seems semi-decent, this may be a way to run a solid daemon weapon with a second T6 nurgle spawn squad. The lack of AP2 though seriously hurts.