War of Attrition

Why hello there!

This Wednesday I had the good fortune to stumble across the opportunity to flex my tabletop muscles in a game of 40k at Portal during their Christmas party evening. I don't get to play as many games as I would like as getting back from work in time to go down and get a game sorted is a lot of effort so I really enjoy the moments when I can get down and play a good game!

Now this was a 2000pts game where I was using my Heresy Mechanicum list against Ben Newman's orks. Now I don't believe I have played against orks with this army before and whilst I was reasonably confident what with my Mechanicum not having lost since Massacre was released I was still slightly nervous at the amount of Meganobz he was fielding in battlewagons!

For those interested here was the list that I took:

Archmagos Prime - 205pts
Ordinator
Cortex Controller
Machinator array

Magos Dominus - 90pts
Machinator array

5 Thallax Cohort - 240pts
Photon Thruster

5 Thallax Cohort - 240pts
Photon Thruster

3 Castellax Battle Automata - 315pts
Enhanced targeting array

Flamer

3 Castellax Battle Automata - 315pts
Enhanced targeting array

Flamer

Thanatar Class Seige Automata - 240pts

5 Myrmidon Destructors - 365pts
Conversion beamer

2000pts

We played the maelstrom mission "The Spoils of War" which I always enjoy the maelstrom missions as they add an interesting dynamic to the game and make it more fluid rather than units just sitting on objectives doing nothing else.

The Orks got the first turn and did what most Ork armies do in the first turn....ran straight at me as fast as they could to give me as little time as possible. This involved literally every vehicle he had going flat out which was I believe a grand total of 6 transports coming my way.

He did have some fire support at the back however, a line of Flash Gitz was in place to try and deal some damage to soften me up before the hammer of his main Ork force hit me like a tonne of bricks! Unfortunately for him his range let him down so could not fire at me this turn *phew* so I suffered very little damage from his force this turn (but oh would this change throughout the course of the game!)






Now it was my turn to retaliate, My army is quite well known for the damage it can dish out from it's shooting, and it really needed to come through for me in this one as I would have very few chances I feared before it was combat time. Fortunately, whilst the turn could have been infinitely better, some things went well. Firstly my Myrmidon squad in the rafters dealt with his pesky summoned daemons (yes there was a Wyrdboy summoning daemons) by causing I believe somewhere in the region of 29 wounds (conversion beamers are so damn good!). Alongside this my first Castellax unit butchered a Battlewagon and killed one of the Meganobz inside as a cheeky bonus!

Now for the stuff that didn't go so well, my Thanatar managed to successfully kill..... nothing....even with the Thanatar getting boosted to fire it's mortar twice it still managed to fail to bring down a single Battlewagon, even the Archmagos failed to dent the damn things with an orbital bombardment! The Thallax faired equally miserably in destroying Wartrukks even though they should strip the things in seconds, my left flank was dangerously on the verge of being overrun if a combat went badly.

Though the middle was a little better, the Castellax managed to shred one of the trucks and through the lovely new rules for flamers against open topped transports, managed to brutally damage the Ork Sluggas inside. Remember this area of the battle folks, the objective in the middle became the most hard fought and sought after markers in the whole game. Whilst I was relatively confident my Castellax unit could not only hold but beat down the Orks in combat, my fears were realized when they managed to fluff all the combat rolls and only killed a single Ork in combat, whilst in return the power klaw wielding Ork Nob cracked a few wounds off my first Castellax.

Now the turn that all Ork players love and all opponents fear, turn 2! The turn when the main Ork force hits combat with as many units as they can. My poor Thanatar was charged by Meganobz led by his Warboss and whilst my Thanatar survived the initial attacks he only killed one back in return, likely meaning it's demise in my combat which protected them from my shooting. The combat in the centre raged on with the second Ork mob slamming into my Castellax in a tandem David/Goliath showdown. They were carving through my robots like butter which was spelling disaster for me as my combat rolls were continuing to suck tremendously. The Ork turn hurt a lot, and whilst his shooting was very ineffective against my robots, his combat wasn't.

My second turn had some unexpected results in places, one that wasn't unexpected was my Myrmidons continued dominance of the board. Their next victim was a unit of Flash Gitz who got brutally slaughtered whilst trying to run out for an objective. The Thallax units also managed to do some damage this turn by destroying his Killer Kan and picking some wounds off a second Flash Gitz mob to whittle them down. After a boost of 3 attacks by my Magos the Thanatar gallantly dispatched a full 4 Meganobz as a defiant strike before the Warboss tore it to pieces. My Castellax in the centre continued to do terribly and got reduced to a single robot whilst the Orks stayed strong.

The third Ork turn provided me little comfort in the fact the Warboss and his remaining Meganob bodyguard teamed with another full sized unit of Meganobs to completely decimate my first Thallax Cohort. The Ork mobz in the centre managed to finally kill off the first Castellax unit in the centre though the objective was still contested by my second Thallax unit in combat with a unit of Plaguebearers (the Wyrdboy at this point poofed out of existence to the confusion of all around him). The only saving grace for this turn was my Castellax on the right flank finished off the Meganobz and sent the Mekboy fleeing for his life as they turned their attention to the centre of the board.



My third turn was actually starting to look positive! It started with the act of brave Sir Magos bravely running away from the Warboss chasing him down, ensuring he didn't get his precious Slay the Warlord point along with one of his objective cards, The myrmidons, by this point clearly my MVPs, continued to do me proud by slaying the fully sized Meganob unit left, leaving only two models with that pesky 2+ save on the board. The Thallax dispatched the Plaguebearers in combat and turned to face the Ork mobz that have been pestering me this entire game, the final battle for the centre objective was about to begin!


Turns were speeding up now, with the Warboss hot on the trail of my Archmagos there was little else happening in the game outside of combats. The Flash Gitz that remained were frantically running around trying to capture objectives as the score currently was 2-2, but the main objective was the centre marker which if taken would have given either of us enough points to seal this game off completely. The remaining Ork Boyz ran into the Thallax, hoping that the luck they had against their larger counterparts would continue on into this combat. Luckily my Thallax were apparently aware of this and managed to assassinate one of the Ork Nobz before he could strike, ending the fight in a tie. The Warboss attempted to charge the Archmagos who in turn snap-fired his inferno pistol killing the Meganob!

My turn 4 was equally quick with the Myrmidons finishing off the second unit of Flash Gitz and frankly doing all the legwork for this army at this point. The Castellax unit that was untouched after their victory against the Meganobz came in and through some Cyberthurgy help blitzed the Ork unit left in the middle to ensure my capture of the elusive central objective!!

What would now be the last turn of the game and the Warboss was left with a tattered remains of his once mighty army. Though his line was broken and army scattered, he would not be denied his prize of the Archmagos' head. Finally using his WAAAGH! The Warboss crashed into the terrified Archmagos as the two Warlords engaged in a final combat that could still swing the game in the Orks favour. The Archmagos did his best to damage the frenzied Warboss it was to no avail as his attacks bounced miserably, the Warboss however was not so unfortunate as he reduced the Archmagos to a single wound. Things were looking dire for our intrepid hero...

The last turn was upon me and my Myrmidons were left with a decision, they could either destroy a remaining Wartrukk and deny my opponent line breaker, or they could jump into the combat and at the very least avenge my soon to be fallen Warlord. After pondering this for a moment I decided the Warboss needed to die so they ran in to take out the oversized greenskin to end the conflict once and for all. With this being the only thing left in the game that mattered we went into it with great anticipation. The Archmagos started first and again showed why a Magos shouldn't bring a power sword to a Klaw fight. The Warboss went next to what we all assumed would be the final blow that extinguished this Magos' spark...but it was not to be. The Warboss flailed and managed to cause two wounds which both were saved by the Protectiva meaning his survival! Furthermore the Myrmidons showed off by now beating down a now fully disheartened Warboss into submission ensuring the slay the warlord point was for me and me alone.

So that was the game folks, the end result was 5-3 in my favour. It was a thoroughly enjoyable game by both myself and my opponent and was great to have such a hard fought and close game with my Mechanicum. I don't know about you but I have yet to ever play a game either using or playing against Orks and not enjoyed myself. They are so much fun for everyone and whilst they can still pack a good punch and overrun armies they are never considered broken or cheesy and people always seem to have a good time, I know I do. Obviously the MVP unit was the Myrmidon Destructors, they killed a unit every turn of the game and ensured my victory. Conversion beamers are simply insane and can do so much damage especially if they get given the range to get the high strength and AP, in addition they are often overlooked due to people focusing too much on the robots on the board to notice them until it's too late.

I hope you have enjoyed this report and let me know whether you would like to see more of these in the future. This was a test to see how it was doing a written one as opposed to the video one I did on my vlog which I will link here:


Enjoy and I will talk to you all soon! Take care everybody.