Warhammer 40k game: Orks vs Death Guard 1650pts

Report and story: Jakub Polkowski and Jarosław Westermark


We are using folding table and mats from Urbanmatz


Story

— Report! Sensorium! A full scan of surrounding space! Engines! Full power! Shields and fire stations to be ready IMMEDIATELY!!! Typhus grunted and slowly leaned back on the throne, which made a squirmed and clung to his ancient armour like a living organism as soon as it touched its surface.

The cursed, plague warship Terminus Est has just translated into a system near the planet Jarnax. Through the tear in reality, the immaterium poured into the void like pus oozing from an open wound. The ancient engines came into life and the ship sped up rapidly, dragging a wake of pure madness behind it.

— Looo-orddd, no signs of activiiiity within thh-ee sensor range. Hissed the creature that had once been a proud naval officer. Now, its legless body consisted mostly of ulcers, pimples, and wounds that never healed. The creature's eyes were gouged out many centuries ago, and in their place implants connected directly to the ship's cogitators were installed. Its hands met a similar fate. The fact that it was still alive (if such an existence may be considered life at all) despite this mutilation was a gift from Nurgle. The rest of the command bridge crew looked just as grotesque, but Typhus paid them no attention. All that mattered was that they obeyed his orders.

Minutes passed. The Manreaper stirred in the hands of the Death Guard, making ghastly noises as if the air itself was dying on contact with the foul blade. Typhus was weary of the hunt for the Betrayer. He has spent the last months in an endless pursuit, always being a step behind. The Betrayer and his followers left behind only worlds drowned in blood, which had been their hallmark since the time of the Horus heresy. Was this how Nurgle wanted to test the stubbornness and steadfast will of his champion? Typhus was doubtful.

— Coo-ontact. Deeee-teection of a single aano-ooomaly on the surface.

— All data on my display! The commander's screen was flooded with a stream of raw data. Typhus absorbed data and analyzed it effortlessly.

— Repeat the scan! One more such mistake and the sensorium would have a new officer. The being whimpered as it read the threat.

— Siii-irrr, scan done. Sendi-iii...

The Traveller assimilated and processed new data in a few milliseconds. They were inconsistent and contradictory just like the previous ones. The officer's skull exploded in the red fog before he finished his sentence. Smoke was rising from the barrel of Typhus's bolt pistol. The noise on the bridge died down. Everyone knew the commander's explosive nature and knew it was better to remain invisible at a time like this.

— Find a replacement for this loser. Helm! Take up a geostationary position over the anomaly. Armoury! Prepare for landing. We go to the surface. All positions are to be on full alert. Typhus rose rapidly from his throne and went alone to his quarters.

Clouds of dust began to descend slowly to the surface of the planet Jarnax after demonic vehicles that were once elegant Stormbirds took off.

Death Guard legionaries stood silently around their commander, watching the area vigilantly. Their mere presence on the ground was starting to ruin the planet's ecosystem. The surrounding lichen rotted in the blink of an eye, and the small rodents living in the burrows of the sun-cracked soil were clawing at the cancerous growths which had sprouted on their bodies.

Poisonous fumes spilt from the chimney-like growths on Typhus's back, and from the cracks in his armour, fly-like creatures slowly emerged, carrying a disease worse than death. Yes. This world was already dead. Like thousands before it. However, something was wrong. Uncertainty lurked in the far part of Typhus' being. A feeling he has not known in millennia. It came to the surface every time he focused his gaze on the deserted city in front of him. Exactly where the anomaly was.

Typhus shook his head to ward off the feeling. No matter what's in there. Whether it's the traitor or not, they will find the source of the anomaly and destroy it.

— Forward! He ordered through the vox, and his companions followed him. Their rotten armour, covered in boils and various growths, made sounds like dying animals while they were moving.

The troops entered the ruins of the city, covering each other - in a manner their legion had followed since they had served the Emperor of Terra.

Typhus sensed the threat. He knew that the enemy was lurking nearby, but some mighty veil prevented him from using his powers and fully taking in the situation.

Suddenly the air exploded and turned from utter silence to an overwhelming clatter. The roar of a thousand throats was heard in the air, but one voice overwhelmed the others.

The ranks of the Death Guard were flooded with bullets and missiles of various calibres, though the vast majority of the projectiles missed the targets, or bounced off their ancient armour. Clouds of black, oil-thick smoke from starting vehicles appeared on the horizon. The roars of primitive engines hitting high revs added to the cacophony.

Typhus couldn't believe it. He let himself be surprised and ambushed. By the orks. Anger and disgust overwhelmed him immediately.

— KILL THEM ALL! LET NONE SURVIVE!

His brothers responded in the only possible way - shooting and killing their opponents by the dozen as they pressed forward. Never backing down.

story-01

Armies

Death Guards

Death Guard

The antagonists have always been closer to my heart, so for today's game, I took with me the Chaos Space Marines. The entire army is in the colours of my favourite Death Guard legion from the Horus Heresy era.

Unfortunately, this will only be my second game in the 4th edition of Warhammer 40k and I hope I will not make any stupid mistakes during the game. Overall, it is going to be a long leafing through the pages of the rulebook and codexes… hehehe
I will play using the codex that came out at the very end of the 4th edition and was “current” for the whole 5th edition. Although it is a very simplified form compared to the previous one, I want to give it one more chance.

With the selection of the army, I was very limited by the number of painted models that I have in my collection because everyone knows that unpainted figures do not fight and do not shoot 😉
Despite this fact, I am satisfied with what I was able to field.

HQ:
Typhus is probably the most obvious choice because my whole rotten warband cannot be led by anyone other than him. The demon prince, Nugel's herald, will be supported on the battlefield by the foul creatures inhabiting the abyss of the warp.

Troops:
Plague Marines packed in a Rhino in the magical number of 7 models.
So a backbone that you can never go to war without. They're tough, bad and ugly, do you need anything more from an infantry? 😉

Plaguebearers of course also in the magical number of 7 models.
I cannot imagine the Demon without the company of his smaller festering brothers.

Chaos Space Marines packed in a Rhino.
A unit was selected to satisfy the force organization rules. They will be replaced by the second Plague Marines unit in the near future.

Elite:
The Dreadnought is the essence of Warhammer and, for me, one of the most beautiful models in the CSM army. I don't even take into account its randomness during the game, it just has to be in the list. End of story.

Chaos Space Marines Terminators is another unit that is a must-have in the army. If only for the fluff.

Heavy Support:
Obliterators are a walking arsenal of virtually all heavy weaponry available to the Chaos army, and I want to take advantage of their unrivalled range and flexibility of weapon selection for any given situation.

Predator armed with 4 lascannons to take out heavy equipment of the enemy.

Unfortunately, my army is not very numerous and each loss of a model will be costly and painful. To make it even more difficult, I will face a horde of orks who will strive for a quick engagement. So I will try to stretch a battle line and thin this green mass a lot with the help of flamethrowers and area spells.
I hope it will make it much easier for me to break through in hand-to-hand combat with the rest of the guys who will reach me.
Let Papa Nurgle protect us all 😉

Orks

Orks

Hello again!

It is hard to believe that the last battle report was published almost 3 years ago. The covid19 affected all of us really hard when it comes to wargaming. In the meantime the 9th edition changed so many times that I have lost track of how to play it - new points, codex power creep, new missions, updates and erratas made me miss the old, simpler days. When You had one FOC, your army, the enemy in front of You and a mission to complete. Without all those combos of auras, traits, relicts and strategems.
That is why the battle-reports team discussed what to do, and we are going to try to reactivate wh40k 4th edition. I wanted 3rd but was in the minority. So 4th it be! (but 3rd will be also present ;) ). For me personally, it will be quite a challenge - I think in the past I played 2 games of the 4th edition in total, so after all those years it will be a brand new game for me.

Is there any better army to fight against to celebrate the end of the pandemic break than to fight against the followers of Papa Nurgle - the infamous Death Guard? I also think that this is a perfect choice :)
I have totally zero experience about how to fight them or what units to expect(besides I know that Typhus will be the HQ), so I will simply build a Waaagh that will look nice on the table. Also, I have zero valid experience with the 4th edition orks as well :)

So, let's start with the HQ. The choice is simple - it has to start with Ghazkull himself. Who else might stand a chance to take down the Traveler, the favoured champion of Decay? 40k is fluff and mood and for me and it means fielding named characters. This epic duel has to take place! One thing is bothering me here - the 4th edition Ghaz model sucks in my opinion. This meant to be the biggest and the meanest ork in da galaxy??? The kromlech mega-armoured warboss dwarfed this little fella that was not even funny. The good thing is that the model was updated for the 8th edition and it looks AMAZING. Even luckier - I have just painted him and this incarnation I will be using in this battle report.

My second HQ will be a mek with a shokk attack gun. Why? I have painted him quite recently and wanted to try him. I am almost sure that he will do nothing, but hey! Maybe he will actually win the battle for me?

From the Troops section, I opted for 3 units of 26 boyz with nobz armed with power klaws and bosspoles. One unit will have shootas and two others will be armed with choppas and sluggas. I hope to have enough bodies to drown those stinky boyz in blood - mine and theirs.
I have added also 11 ‘ard boyz in a trukk with klaw nob as well - so I could grab objectives or neutralize heavy stuff quickly as possible.

In the Elite section I picked 4 meganobz in a trukk - the idea is to push them as fast as possible into close combat when I hope they will do some damage or buy me time to main units of boyz to catch up.

Heavy support is packed with grot units - 3 killa kans with rokkits and 3 kannon batteries with 2 ammo runts. It is good to have some anti-tank weapons and it is the cheapest way how to do it. I was thinking about dropping the kans for the lootas but the rule of the cool ultimately won over.

For fast attack, I opted for 2 deffkoptas with rokkits - a nice and cheap utility unit that hopefully won’t die on turn one and maybe will finally kill someone…
All in all army was 1649 points that looks nice on the battlefield and is really orky!
My battle plan is easy - get into close combat and chop the enemy!
WAAAAGH!!!!


Pre battle

Mission: Seek and destroy Alpha level

Deployment:

Death Guard won roll-offs for side selection and for the first turn and decided to begin turn 1.

Deffkopta on the left flank used its scout move to leap forward.

deployment-1 deployment-2 deployment-3 deployment-4 deployment-5 deployment-6 deployment-7 deployment-8 deployment-9 deployment-10 deployment-11

Battle

Death Guard turn 1

The Dreadnought passed its crazed test and moved forward 5 inches. Both Rhinos moved only 3 inches. The rest of the army remained stationary.

The Predator opened the shooting phase - powerful beams of energy struck the Killa kans - and one of the walkers was destroyed.

The Rhino next to the bunker shot his pile-mounted bolter at the Boyz next to the Killa kans and managed to kill a single ork boy. The rest of the army was out of range so the turn ended.


Orks turn 1

Except for the Mek with shokk attack gun and the grot artillery everything pushed forward. The Trukk with Meganobz hid behind a building so the Predator wouldn’t be able to shoot it. The second trukk with the ‘ard boyz parked in front of the Dreadnought blocking his way.

The demon-infested Predator was cooling its lascannons after its first devastating salvo into the closing orks. Its target priorities were clear - the towering, crude walkers were the biggest threat and needed to be eliminated. Soleb was sweeping the greenskins battleline and shooting the hull-mounted combi bolter when he saw a potential new threat.

— Brother Hakoss, the orks seem to have brought up some scrap artillery. Do we care?

Hakoss was generously bestowed by Father Nurgle's gifts. His legs and arms were transformed into multiple dripping tendrils that were permeating the whole tank like the nervous system. He was fused with the machine spirit of the vehicle. He was the tank.
The inbuild vocalizer screeched:

— Original target remains. Those grots are not able to hit us from that distance.

Soleb vox-clicked confirmation and resumed firing at the closest orks. The last thing he heard in his millenia-long life was the sound of triple explosions in the distance and the screams of a scorched Hakoss a few seconds later.

Grot kanons targeted the predator. All of them hit(one after using an ammo runt) and then 2 were converted into glancing hits and one was a penetrating hit, which resulted in “Vehicle destroyed”!

The remaining two killa kans shot at the rhino next to the bunker and one of the rockets found the weak spot in the transport armour also causing a “Vehicle destroyed” result as well.

The shokk attack gun sucked one of the grots and aimed at marines in the bunker. The strength was 9 but the ordnance scattered 4 inches. Still - it managed to kill one of the marines.

The rest of the shooting did not cause any damage.


Death Guard turn 2

Once again the crazed dreadnought managed to control itself.
Next, three demon-possessed Obliterators materialised next to Typhus.
The Plague Marines took position next to the ruins. The Demon Prince and Typhus hid behind the mechanicum silos.
The only operational Rhino inched forward.

The Dreadnought moved toward the doomed orks in the Trukk.

The ancient machine fired at the Trukk with every weapon. The lascanon managed to hit the engine immobilizing the transport and a heavy flamer stunned the crew.

Budrom pushed the acceleration pedal to the floor. The engine wailed loudly hitting the revs and thick black smoke flew out of the exhaustion chimneys and the trukk rushed forward. His vision narrowed into a small tunnel surrounded by yellow and blue. He screamed with joy. He lived for speed. Budrom heard the metal sound of the clunky Nobz armours collide in the back when the truck's wheel dropped into the hole and made the whole vehicle slide to the left.

— WOTCH ‘UT! U DAMB GIT! DE’R SHOTIN UZ! - Zragbozz, the meganobz boss yelled at him.

— Wot? - the driver screamed back. Then he saw it. Out of nowhere, the 3 huge figures appeared on the right. He managed to lock one axis and overcharge the second one and pushed the trukk into a semi-controlled slip but it was too late. One las shot went wide but the other two energy beams hit the machine and ignited the fuel tanks. The trukk with its’ crew and passengers were obliterated in the torrential explosion.

The Obliterators transformed into living lascanons and managed to hit the Trukk twice. Hits penetrated the scrap armour. As a result both the transport and its passengers were destroyed.

Other units did much worse. The Plague marines tried to eliminate the Deffkopta but failed to cause even a single wound. The remaining Rhino also failed to kill anybody. The same happened to the Chaos Space marines in the bunker - no orks killed but at least the plasma gunner survived after his weapon overheated and vented superheated gas straight into his helmet("1" to hit and "1" to wound!).

Then the Dreadnought, roaring with hatred, charged the Trukk.

All attacks were auto-hits due to the vehicle being immobile. It was shredded into pieces and exploded killing all its passengers outright. The blast wiped out two Shoota boyz as well.


Orks turn 2

The orks pushed forward across the board. The Deffkopta flew behind the ruin to avoid shooting from the Obliterators.

In the shooting phase, the Killa kans shot at the Dreadnought. One of the missiles hit the target but failed to penetrate the ancient sarcophagus. Next, the kannons shot at the same target and 1 shell managed to destroy a close combat weapon.

The rest of the shooting was ineffective. The Shokk attack gun aimed at the Chaos space marines in the bunker. It generated a strength of 7 but scattered missing the target completely.

The Shoota boyz charged the damaged Dreadnought.

Without its close combat weapon it managed to slay a single ork. In return, the power klaw wielding Nob chopped off its second arm.


Death Guard turn 3

The Rhino rushed forward to block the Slugga boyz and Ghazkull. The Demon Prince and Typhus moved backwards. The Plague Marines moved closer to the Deffkopta to be able to shoot it down.

The Obliterators transformed their arms into lascannons and shot at the Killa kans and one of the rusty walkers was destroyed.

The Rhino managed to kill a single ork with its bolter.

The plasma gun-wielding Plague marine caused a wound on the Deffkopta. The Chaos Space marines for sure must have had betrayed the Father Nurgle as bolters did no damage to the closing Slugga boyz, and the plasma gunner once more rolled "1" to hit but "1" to wound.

The dreadnought tried to fend off the surrounding orks but only one of the assailants was too slow to avoid being smashed by his foot. The Nob destroyed its power generator immobilizing and stunning it.


Orks turn 3

The Rhino rush slowed the Ghazkull and the boyz in the center. But still, they moved forward.
The Deffkopta on the left flank fly away from the Plague marines. The one in the middle of the battlefield jumped to get to a better shooting position.

The SAG opened the shooting phase. It was a direct hit at Chaos space marines occuping the bunker. With S3... It was not enough to cause a single wound...

Then the Grot artillery fired their guns aiming at the Rhino. Once again - their aim was true and three hits resulted with two penetrations and one glancing hit! One of the results was "Vehicle destroyed". What kanon-snipers!

The Deffkopta in the centre of the board shot his missiles at an Obliterator, but demon-infested armour saved him from harm.

The second Deffkopta hit one of the Plague Marines. Armour cracked and flesh burned but the sons of Mortarion are well known for their resilience to pain.

The Dreadnought was stilled stunned and could not attack. The Nob continued to mutilate it - he caused two penetrating hits but failed to finish it off.


Death Guard turn 4

Terminators Squad teleported next to its master. The Plague marines moved closer to finally kill the annoying ork rusty flyer.

The pilot of the Deffkopta managed to jink fire from the Plague marines but then the Terminators unleashed a hail of fire from their bolters and managed to convert it into a fireball.

The Obliterators concentrated on finishing off the last of the Killa kans. This time the laser beams managed only to shake the grot inside.
The Chaos space marines in the bunker tried to kill the thing with its plasma gun but even though the superheated gas hit the target it did not manage to penetrate the scrap armour of the walker.

Tozdrax Killsnappa was doused in liquids squirting out of the Spikey Dreadnought. Other gits tried to penetrate its’ armour but it was too thick and all the cables and pipes were hidden in the adamantium sarcophagus of the machine. It was almost dead - immobilized and its’ both arms were reduced to pathetic stumps. The dreadnought roared with anger trying to fend off the swarming mob swinging them like a club but it was not enough.
Nob howled at his kin to make him room so he could deal the killing blow. He jumped at the back of the machine and stabbed it with the power klaw. He felt the stench of the long dead body inside. The ancient machine fell to the ground. Cheering orks jumped on its’ back shooting the dreadnought occupant with shootas at point-blank range and hitting him with the butts of the guns to make sure he was dead.
Then the final gift from the broken son of Barbarus happened - the machine ended its self-destruct protocol and exploded, taking many of the assailants with it in the storm of fire.

The almost dead Dreadnought with the last sparks of willpower managed to kill a single ork. Then the Nob with a single glancing hit made it explode. The blast consumed ten more orks.


Orks turn 4

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka spread his arms wide and loud as thunderstrike warcry rolled over the battlefield. The Waaagh! was declared.

Using the Fleet rule boyz rushed forward.
The shooting phase began with the two of Grot kannons shooting the Terminators. One projectile managed to hit, but thick armour saved its bearer.
The Shoota boyz with 26 shots managed to kill a single Chaos space marine in the bunker. The Shokk attack gun aimed at the Deamon Prince. The crazed grot sucked into the machine and generated an S8 direct hit. It caused a single wound on a Demon Prince, one on Obliterator and killed a single Terminator.
The last Deffkopta failed to hit the Plague marines. Then the Ghazkull shot his kustom shoota and managed to wound 3 times the Plague marines, but only one of them failed their armour save.

In close combat, the Chaos Space marines in the bunker attacked first killing 3 of the orks, but then 84 attacks were enough to kill 4 of them. The last one was gutted by the power klaw wielding Nob.

The fight between boyz and Obliterators was a disaster - 3 orks fall dead and only 1 wound was caused on the Obliterator, which was enough to finish a single demon-possessed marine.


Death Guard turn 5

The Plaguebearers materialised next to the Demon Prince. The rest of the army remained stationary.

The Plague marines were in rapid fire range, so they fire everything they got into Ghazkull. One of the bolter shots managed to hit the exposed flesh and caused a wound.
As a target, the Terminators selected another Deffkopta. The combi-melta shot the white-hot beam that struck and damaged the machine. This caused an uncontrolled spin that allowed the heavy flamer to scorch the pilot.

Typhus cast Nurgle's rot and 3 boyz fell to the ground with their bodies falling apart. Then the Demon Prince used the same power and 8 more lay dead.

Typhus, Demon Prince and the Plaguebearers charged into the boyz.

The Demon struck first, causing only 1 wound. Which was saved. Then Typhus tried to attack, but the demon living in his Manreaper screamed and attacked him. He was wounded by the cursed weapon. The Plaguebearers were next and from 14 attacks they managed to cause a single wound, that was unsaved. In return, the boyz killed two Nurgle demons. The Obliterators smashed one more ork and the Nob with the power klaw caused one wound on the Obliterators. In the end, Orks caused 3 wounds to two caused by the Chaos and surprisingly won the combat.


Orks turn 5

The Killa kan and the Shoota boyz decided to back off.

Ghazkull moved towards the Plague Marines.

The boyz that purged the bunker moved closer to join the fray in the centre.

Both Mek with Shokk attack gun and grot artillery had no targets to shot at so there was no other shooting.

The boyz charged the Plaguebearers and Ghazkull the Plague marines.

The Demon Prince was first to attack - killing three ork boyz outright. Typhus once more was unable to controll the ether-born entity living in his blade and lost one more wound. The Plaguebearers attacked the newly arrived boyz and managed to kill one of them. The rest of their attacks was allocated at the orks already in the fight and one more was killed. Next the charging orks attacked the Plaguebearers and caused six wounds and 5 of them were saved on a 5+! The power klaw wielding nob killed one more Plaguebearer. The locked unit of boyz did nothing to the deamons. The Obliterators killed 2 more orks and the Nob caused another wound on Obliterators with his power klaw.
The combat ultimately resulted in a draw.

For over 10 000 years there were 7 of them. The sacred number of their Patron, who gave them almost as much as he took away. And it all changed on that blasted desert planet. Suddenly the air around them was thick with high calibre projectiles. One of them struck Garstos in his breastplate and cracked it into pieces like an eggshell hit by the sledgehammer.

—New threat! - bawled Festus, squad champion.
Festus felt the roar of the running beast in his guts - like there was no power armour on his body at all. Auto senses of his armour tried to mute the thunder-like sound when the beast's feet were hitting the ground but it was failing badly. Then he saw it.

His brothers were emptying their bolters clips at a frightening pace but still - this huge mountain of muscles and armour plates was closing.

Festus was holding his bolter in one hand aiming at the cable connector that seemed to deliver power to the beasts' armour. His second arm was clad in a power fist, which was already buzzing due to the overcharging. The monstrous ork was almost at them.

The Plague Marines' champion pulled the trigger and his aim was true. For a second the ork lost his balance. Festus didn’t need more - he hit the metal panels laying on the ground in front of him and suddenly the ork succumbed into the abyss below. At the last moment before his descent, he managed to extend his arm and snap his power klaw, cleaving Rahox and Darrus into meat and ceramite pulp. Then he was gone.

Festus heard that the gargantuan ork was wounded badly but alive. However, by the time he returned to the surfave, the battle would be long over.

—Covering fire! Move on! - Festus yelled. There were 4 of them now. And nothing would be the same again.

The regular Plague marines did nothing to the Ghazkull and then both - the Warboss and the Nurgle champion struck simuntanesly. The Chaos champion had three atacks, which all hit, all wounded and none of them were saved. Ghazkull was dead! However, he simultaneously managed to kill two Plague marines. The rest of the unit consolidated into the ruins.


Death Guard turn 6

The terminators moved to be able to charge in.
There was no shooting.

The Demon Prince cast Nurgle's rot killing 5 orks. Typhus managed to add 6 more to the tally.

In close combat, the Demon Prince killed 3 orks. Typhus rolled “6” for his demon blade and with 9 attacks he managed to finish off the first mob. The Plaguebearers killed another 2 orks. The remaining orks did nothing to the Plaguebearers due to some nice invulnerable saves rolls. On the other hand, they wounded the Demon Prince once, and he failed his armour save.

This time orks failed the morale and ran away from combat.


Orks turn 6

In the orks' turn nothing could be shot at and there was no close combat so we ended the game here.


Epilogue

Typhus breathed heavily. His hands were burning with the etheric power released by the demon inhabiting his weapon. What was left of his soul was bleeding as well. Almost. The demon almost took control of him. He was filled with rage. The Traveller noticed that one of the orks laying on the ground was still breathing. He walked to the creature and smashed his head with his armoured foot. For a second he felt better. Wurdulak the Rotting Maggot, elevated to demonhood was looking at him. Typhus could swear that he was smiling. Another issue he would have to solve - and soon. But not now. Now he was vulnerable and what is more, he needed to know what was causing this warp anomaly. When he would master it, he would be ready to reclaim what was rightfully his.

Ghazkull roared like a mad bull. He was deprived of a propa fight by these cowards. Just before he fell into this pit he saw his true target. The scythe-wielding spikey boy, just like the warpy pointy-choppa had promised. He needed to reach the surface and rejoin with his boyz before the 'oomie gitz could flee. Ghazkull already had a new GUD PLAN. He laughed. He truly was a Prophet of the Waaagh as the orks is never beaten!


FINAL SCORE

Death Guard 3 : 1 Orks


Post game

Death Guard

I would like to thank Kuba again for playing together and having a nice time in the tumult of the bolter fire and the atmosphere heated by flamethrowers ;)

The scenario we drew was not very convenient for me, especially with the small number of scoring units that I had on my army list, and bearing in mind that I will have to sacrifice some of them to slow down the speeding orks.

Our game was more like a chess duel than a merry firefight between two opponents. Still, there were some exciting twists and it was some real action happening on the battlefield.
I spread my force across the entire width of the table in order not to concentrate all my forces in one place and made my opponent divide his attacks in more directions. It was the easiest part of the plan, and I was anxiously waiting to see which one of us would win the first round. I succeeded, so I had one more round of shooting and making any corrections in setting up the units. Unfortunately, Kuba hid the Deffkoptas very wisely and even using their special extra move rule before the battle, they were not in my field of view. The only thing I managed to shoot with the heavy weapon was the rusty Killa kan : /

On the other hand, the first round of orks shooting ended with an explosion of my Predator. This was the heaviest vehicle in my roster and this caused my fighting spirit to drop significantly. After this unpleasant incident, I came to the conclusion that the vehicles in this edition are just an interesting addition to what the infantry and artillery do on the table.

Somehow I did not manage to thin the green horde before the melee clashes. Also I must admit that having infantry in light transports was a big risk from Kuba and my only shooting success;)
The fate of our battle was resolved in close combat. Unfortunately, Typhus fought with a rebellious demon in his weapon for two turns, stabbing himself 2 wounds, which did not fill me with a surge of enthusiasm.
Fortunately, with the support of the Demon Prince and a few summoned demons, the scales of victory began to tip towards me.

The biggest surprise of our battle was a squad of Plague Marines who bravely survived the duel with Ghazghkull himself and, to our surprise, managed to kill him in one round. This feat will be remembered for a long time, and Power Fist for Champions in infantry units is something hellishly strong ;)
Another nice surprise is the Obliterators unit. The models really are worth their points. On the other hand, landing somewhere behind the enemy lines with a random spread of 2d6 inches on the table with a large number of terrains is not worth the risk.

I think that I managed to create a fairly universal army and for the next duel I will definitely have two Plague Marines squads as the Troops choice. A squad of regular Chaos Marines is not worth its points and is not very climatic to have them in the Death Guard army. For sure in the next battle, I would like to test a new heavy toy in the form of the Chaos Defiler.

Orks

Well, that was a KO from the stinky boyz! The battle seemed to go quite nicely till turn 2 when I lost both Meganobz and ‘ard boyz. I knew it will be very tough to pull out even the draw. Then the Dreadnought blew out taking 10 boyz with him and the Shoota boyz stopped being a scoring unit… I had only 2 options left: fall back and secure my 2 scoring units and hope that I will be able to shoot 1 out of 3 units: Plague Marines, Terminator or Obliterators. Option number 2 - push forward, without caring about the final result and give some propa fight in the name of Gork and Mork.
Of course, I chose the second option!!!

On the other hand, Kuba played very well - the timing and placement of the Obliterators was top notch(exactly the same as the rolls to hit afterwards…). Keeping his heroes and backbone outside of artillery range was also very smart. In a sentence - the execution of his battle plan worked. The durability of the Death Guard was enough, even though his rolls in close combat were bad. But it was all just enough to beat the greenskinz this time!
My army worked mostly as expected - the main failing was me. I should have read the rules for transports more closely - then I would have known, that I could travel 11 inches and disembark units, which could charge the same turn. Lesson learned!
The biggest disappointment for me was for sure the Ghazkull himself. I am used to his “performance level” from the 8/9th edition and it is quite unimaginable that a regular unit champion with a power fist could kill him in one round of close combat. Also, him killing only 2 Plague marines with his 7 attacks on the charge… I really would like to forget that close combat ever happened…
The Mek with the shokk attack gun was also not worth the points invested in him - but this was kind of clear before the battle. The boyz were like always - they deliver some punch but in this edition, they struggle against enemies with good armour. And the Death Guard is the toughest enemy out there - with power armour and feel no pain. Deffkoptas took some firepower and were a distraction, but I was hoping for some kills and they failed here. Still, I think that they are a must in the ork army.
On the other scale of performance was the grot artillery. It was fantastic - they fired their first salvo and the predator went down. Second salvo? Dreadnought close combat arm shredded. Third? The Rhino destroyed. Not bad for a 66pts unit that also counts as a scoring unit! The kans are too fragile and don’t have enough shots, to be honest. It is the second game in a row when I think those points could be spent better elsewhere. The models look amazing and it is the strongest point of that unit. Will they be found in my next army list? Can’t tell yet.

All in all - it was a great game and frankly, I cannot wait for the rematch in August!