This week I have played 2 great games against other Ork players.
For the first one Wiggy wanted to play 1500 points. Luckily, I found my son's old Black Reach army from when he briefly got into the hobby a few years back. He had more figures than I thought! In fact there was enough for me to field the Warband formation and another Horde detachment. This allowed me to give a weirdboy a try, as I could fit in more HQs.
We rolled Big Guns with 2 objectives each, so my Battlewagon would be worth 1 VP. Wiggy had a Gorkanaut and a unit of Lootas.
During deployment I put most of my army on the right flank opposite his two Units of Boyz on Trukks, with 3 units of Gretchin as a meatshield across the whole front and the rest of my Boyz and my Wierdboy spread out behind.
Wiggy went first and it was an eventful turn for the psykers. His weirdboy rolled Perils straight off and his Lootas then shot up my weirdboy's unit and they promptly ran off the board for first blood (note to self- make sure you get bosspoles!) So much for testing the psyker... My battlewagon was also immobilised before it could do much.
On my first turn the right flank started a sequence of charge and counter-charge, as Wiggy had put a Trukk in range. My bikes were sent fleeing (again no bosspole..) but the combined charge of Nobz and Boyz was too much for his Boyz.
During Turn 2 he advanced his Gorkanaut and disembarked the Burnas inside to threaten my right flank. Instead of the obvious charge with my Nobz I called what I hoped was my first Waagh of the game then sacrificed a unit of gretchin to soak up the wall of death from the burnas before the stormboyz overwhelmed them with 52 attacks. I then charged my Warboss and his Nobz into the Gorkanaut with support from another unit of Boyz with my only Power Klaw. This was enough to kill the big walker and score me a VP, however the combat and resultant explosion saw the end of the Warboss too. A VP conceded too and no more Waaghs. However I knew my only way of dealing with armour was in combat I had little choice.
With our most threatening units gone the rest of the game became a war of attrition, although his big unit of shootas with weirdboy and warboss were still a worry.
Moving all the boyz around certainly takes longer than with marines, but I am sure I will speed up. In the end we just had time to get to the end of turn 5. A couple of my units were down to 2 models, but there were too many targets for Wiggy to finish them off. As I had the last turn I was able to use my last biker and my fast trukk to contest both of his objectives whilst I still held mine. The final score was 7-3 to me, but the result may well have been different if the game had continued.
The second game was a quick 800 pts played on the 4'x4' board at GW Newbury. I took my core force and swapped in 2 power klaws in my nobz unit. I played against Nick, who was mainly using shootas as well as more lootas. With the smaller board, more of my army was in range of his guns, so he won 8-3. The craziest moment came when my 20 boys failed a 5" charge into woods against his lone warboss before killing him with sluggas on the next turn.
So what have been the lessons from these games?
1. Gretchin are great nuisance units for soaking up overwatch, clinging onto objectives, distraction etc.
2. I probably need more power klaws and certainly need more dakka! Ranged anti-armour would also help. Lootas are next on my list.
3. The warband formation is no good if the warboss dies in the first wave. Maybe get another warboss to hang back and call the Waaghs?
4. Orks are fun!
