500 Point Orks vs. Iron Hands, SabotageThis is the first battle of an escalation campaign for myself and Mccomas. You can read more about the campaign
here. It doesn't have the Ork/Iron Hand or Ork/Imperial Guard missions yet though.
Iron Hand ForcesTechmarine on Bike
Dreadnought
10 Tactical Marines
Rhino
Orks ForcesWarboss w/ Headwhoppa's Killchoppa, Shoota & Attack Squig (Warlord w/ Tenacious Survivor)
Weirdboy w/ Da Jump
24 Shoota Boys w/ Boss Nob w/ Power Klaw
24 Shoota Boys w/ Boss Nob w/ Power Klaw
10 Shoota Boyz w/ Boss Nob (Sentries)
MissionThe Iron Hands on Orthos IV are doing recon into Ork Territory to attempt to find what Tech Heresy the Ad Mech are after. They are attempting to Sabotage a facility to cover their recon attempts.
Scenario: Sabotage
Deployment: Mission Specific
DeploymentThis is a narrative game we are playing as matched play. The Iron Hands have to attempt as many sabotage attempts on a single objective within 12" of the center of the board. I shoose the orange crate at the base of the landing structure. I have to set up half my sentries within 12" of the center of the board and the others anywhere else. The Iron Hands deploy within 12" of the end of their board. My opponent uses 1 CP to reduce the range the Dreadnought can be seen by the Ork sentries.
Top of Turn 1This is a quick turn, the Iron Hands move and advance up the left flank. They end their move a little bit outside of the sight range of one ork sentry.
Creeping closer to their objective
Bottom of Turn 1Since the Iron Hands haven't sounded the alarm, my movement is randomly determined. My opponent and I roll off against each other and whoever has the highest result can move the sentry in any direction up to the result of the die roll. Ties mean the sentry doesn't move. My opponent pointed out that you can tell who won the roll of by the facing of the ork. Towards the Iron hands if I won or away from them if he won. The only roll that mattered was for the sentry closest to the marines. I won, but the sentry didn't move enough to see the Iron Hands.
Ork eyesight is very poor, so is their hearing.
Top of Turn 2The Iron Hands continue their advance up the left flank. The Iron Hands all finish movement just outside sight range of the sentry. The techmarine charges and kills the sentry on combat, keeping it from sounding the alarm.
Ready to assault a sentry
Sentry SilencedBottom of Turn 2Since the Iron Hands took out a sentry silently, my boyz still move randomly. None of the orks end up in range to see the Iron Hands so we move on to turn 3.
More Random Patroling, Just like You'd expect from Orks.
Top of Turn 3The Iron Hand kepp moving up the flank. The Rhino and Dreadnought turn toward the objective and the techmarine rides to take out another sentry. He manages to make his charge roll with a free re-roll from his Warlord trait. Another sentry evaporates under a flurry of servo-arm augmented attacks.
Another Sentry in sight
Another Dead SentryBottom of Turn 3You can probably guess what happened here. More random movement, no orks get in visual range of the Iron Hands to sound the alarm.
The end of turn 3.
Top of Turn 4The dreadnought and rhino continue towards the objective. The techmarine rides up and charges the sentry at the objective. He finishes the ork off but ends up within 3" of the objective, completing one sabotage attempt and sounding the alarm.
Iron Hands start their sabotage and sound the alarm.
Bottom of Turn 4With the alarm sounding, I can roll to bring in my reinforcements. The weirdboy and one group of boyz arrive, ready to rock. I forget to move my sentries this round, but they really wouldn't make much of a difference int his battle. In the psychic phase I smite the dreadnought and strip off 5 wounds. I use the new Dakka! Dakka! Dakka! stratagem against the Dreadnought. I get 12 more shots from it and end up with 35 hits on 60 shots, I get 15 wounds and the Rhino fails enough saves to be destroyed. The boyz then assault the Rhino and take off 4 wounds.
The reinforcements arrive
No more Dreadnought!Surround the Rhino!Top of Turn 5The Tactical Marines disembark from the Rhino and split into two 5 man squads for a CP. This will let each one make a sabotage attempt this turn. Using another point the techmarine makes a second sabotage attempt, bringing the total to 4. The Rhino falls back and the marines open fire on the boyz. We were both expecting the boyz to evaporate under the marine shooting but I only ended up losing 9 boyz.
The Rhino Falls Back to let his brothers fire upon the orks
I thought Ork Shooting was supposed to be badBottom of Turn 5The Warboss and second group of boyz arrive from reinforcements. They aren't able to do much this turn. I smite the Rhino for 2 wounds in the Psychic phase. I use Dakka! stratagem again, to less satisfying results and only manage to take 1 wound off the techmarine in the shooting phase. In assault I charge the rhino and the techmarine with the first group of boyz and the rhino with one of the sentries. I take 2 wounds off the Rhino with the nobs' power klaw. The other boyz do nothing to the techmarine.
More reinforcements arrive
Ork Multiple AssaultTop of Turn 6My opponent rolls and the game continues. The marines circle up around the objective. In the shooting phase they eliminate all the sentries, hoping to keep them away from the objective so I can't use a CP at the end of the game to lower his sabotage counter. In Assault the Iron Hands manage to kill enough orks to force a morale test, I roll and lose three of the four remaining boyz, leaving the nob all alone. I manage to kill the Rhino in my part of the fight phase.
Iron Hands Circle up to Defend themselves from all sides
Assault the OrksThe Nob stands aloneBottom of Turn 6The Nob has one group of marines tied up. I move my Warboss up to threaten the rear marines. The boyz move up to threaten the marines in combat with the Nob. The Weirdboy positions himself so he can smite the tech marine. With a CP I'm able to smite the Techmarine so he dies. The boyz shoot the open Iron hands and kill 3 of them. The Warboss charges the back group of marines just so I can try Headwhoppa's Killchoppa, which does okay. I use my last CP to reduce my opponents sabotage counter from 4 to 3.
Per the mission rules, at the end of the game my opponent rolls a d6 and adds the number of sabotage attempts and if it's 7+ the sabotage is a success and the Iron Hands win. He rolls a 3 and the Iron Hands don't succeed in their sabotage distraction.
It's all about positioning
End of game, wots dat tickin sound?Post MortemThis was a different type of game than the usual matched play missions or maelstrom. The sentry rules are a fun little mini-game before the alarm is sounded in this mission. I think it was a good game for such a small point total. In the end, it does only come down to a single die roll, which was 50/50 for my opponent to make.
As for me, I should have picked Warpath for my Weirdboy. I think I was going to be further away from from my opponent when reinforcements arrived. But even if I took it, Smite was such a good power, taking off 8 mortal wounds in 3 rounds. I can see why they are making multiple smites in a turn harder now. The reduced cost of Power Klaws in CA was a help too, they really helped against the Rhino. Also, the Dakka stratagem from CA is kind of fun.
Anyway, thanks for reading and thanks, as always, to my opponent!
