Tastie Pansies: Orks vs Eldar Battle Report

J and I played a 1600 point game last weekend, his Ork mob vs my Eldar.  The battle itself wasn't all that dramatic -- the first 2 turns were pretty uneventful and in the end the Orks had a very decisive victory.  But here's the quick and dirty play by play:

art by hairywookiee

ELDAR LIST

HQ	Karandras, Farseer, Warlocks x2
T	Avengers x 2, Windrider Jetbikes, Rangers
E	Scorpions
FA	Hawks, Spiders
HVY	Nightspinner, Wraithlord, Reapers

ORK LIST

HQ	Warboss
T	Boysx2, Nob bodyguards in Trukk
E	Lootaz
FA	Storm boyz, Defkoptas, Dakkajet
HVY	Killakans, Battlewagons x 2

The game was for kill points and set up "hammer and anvil" meaning long-wise.  There was a lot of terrain, including a big block of impassable jungle right in the middle.

The ork lootaz set-up in a building in the far corner, each battle wagon held 20 boys, and everyone but the lootaz made their way slowly forward.  The warboss and his nobs were in the trukk outflanking (warlord trait) and the dakkajet was in reserve.

The eldar dark reapers and snipers were set up in the opposite corner building, with avenger guards on the ground floor.  Avengers with the farseer and the warlock braintrust were in ruins in the middle of the board edge, and the wraithlord was hiding behind some trees.  Karnadras and his scorpions were about mid-board hiding on this side of the jungle (infiltrated), and the hawks, spiders, bikes, and nightspinner tank were in reserve.  (I held the tank in reserve afraid the lootaz would kill it turn one -- dumb move on my part, as they couldn't reach it and the damn tank didn't come in till turn 4!)

The first two turns were mostly trading a few long-range shots and the orks making their way toward the eldar, who were patiently waiting them out.  The stormboyz and defkoptas were quickest and made it into combat first.  The stormboyz all died to shooting over two turns.  The defkoptas fired some rokkits and dropped an ineffective big bomm and were routed after losing all but 2 models.  Those two rallied to die in turn 4 with dire avenger shurikens in their gullets. Meanwhile, the dark reapers were the first eldar unit wiped out over two turns of shooting and the wraithlord was shot and wounded by the lootas. 

On turn two the ork warboss and his nobs popped onto the board right behind the wraithlord.  WL moved up and flamed the lot of them, the swooping hawks deepstruck, dropping grenades and lasing them with lasblasters, killing maybe 2 nobs in all that.  The farseer threw three maledictions at the warboss's unit and that stubborn bastard denied two of them!  Finally the faseer "dominated" the warboss unit with telepathy and the WL waited rather than assaulted the mob, hoping that the orks would fail to muster the willpower over the farseer's curse to be able to charge on their turn ("dominate" means the target has to pass a LD check to take any actions).  But the orks managed mind over matter, stubborn as they were.  The ork warboss challenged the WL to a fight and the WL failed to hit with any of his attacks!  (I rolled so many 1s and 2s this game it was pathetic.)  So the warboss tore the wraithlord limb from limb with his powerklaw in a dramtic display of brutality.  Big score for the Warboss!

On turn two (or three?) the warboss intitiated his WAAGGHHH! and the battlewagons emptied their 20 boys each onto the eldar half of the field, both on either side of the scorpions' position. 

One mob charged the scorpions. Karandras and his scorpions rolled a lot of failed hits in the first round but still managed to win the combat, taking only one casualty.  In the next round of the combat the scorpion lord and his warriors won and cleaned up with a sweeping advance (go, Krabby, go!).

The second mob of boyz charged across a river and through a ruined wall to reach the farseer and his avengers!  They were determined to eat smart pansy that day!  The avengers lost the combat against (and were pretty much unable to overwatch as they couldn't even see the orks coming).  The farseer was then killed in their sweeping advance. 

This left the poor twin warlocks trapped inside the same ruined building by the vicious orks.  Facing certain doom, the warlocks cursed the orks with Enervate, which reduced them to S2, and then charged the mob, despite being outnumbered about 7 to 1!  This was actually a great move, denying the orks their furious charge and extra attack for assaulting.  The warlocks killed 3 orks and had they made four measley saves they would have held down the big mob all by themselves!  Their wraithbone breastplates were not sturdy enough, however, and died heroic deaths.

The swooping hawks, who were now within reach of the Warboss and his nobs, leaped away with the intent of haywire grenading one of the battle wagons to death.  A thrown grenade did one hullpoint of damage.  They need only make a 5" charge to slap 5 more grenades on it.... Rolled a 4.  No problem, we're fleet.  Reroll was a 3!!  Failed!!!  So much for nimble eldar.  Four of the five hawks would die to shooting attacks.  The last attacked the trukk in the last turn (turn 4) doing 2 hullpoints of damage--not quite enough to wreck it.

The dakka jet flew in from the ramshackle ork airstrip and shot up the scorpions, 2 of the 3 jetbikes, then shot Karandras in the back on turn 4.  The phoenix lord and his scorpions would all be shot down, lastly by boy sluggas, before they could engage another enemy in combat. 

By turn four the orks had a decisive advantage in kill points -- something like 6 to 2.  The eldar had the last go of the game.  (We called it at the end of 4.)  Finally the nightspinner gravtank came in from reserve (the crew must have been fornicating in the background or something) and found the warboss, his remaining nobs, and the surviving boyz all wading in the river trying to wash the sweet perfume of dead space elves off their bodies.  Being in the river, they were all lined up nicely for its template torrent of razor-sharp spiderwebs.  The warboss took 3 hits and the boyz seven, though they collectively made a lot of cover saves.  Then in a last desperate attempt to avenge my lost models, the warp spiders (who had landed in turn 3 and shot up some boyz) jumped in and cast razor webs into the warboss's mob, killing the last of the nobs and wounding the boss.  Then they made a last ditch charge.  The warboss challenged the exarch, who I realize now should have just refused--even if he stood out of the fight, I'd have had more attacks with the rest of the squad than with him alone.  But the dumb exarch's pride got in the way and he died a horrible death.   

The final score, with secondary objectives, was something like 8 to 4 maybe (wasn't much point in keeping exact count at that point).  You know what they say: Orkes never lose in batt'l! 

Looking back, i think my Eldar were too well hidden while they waited for the orks to trudged down the field and lost opportunities for kills (mostly notably the tank hiding in reserve and DAs not getting shots off).  My bad strategy combined with J's great strategy to keep his boyz inside heavily armored transports and outflank with his warboss resulted in a pretty one-sided fight.  The Orks seized a well-deserved victory.  It was a lot of fun and I'm eager for a rematch.

MVP:  It's hard to pick an MVP when no one really did well on my team, but Karandras and his scorpions bravely waited in the middle ground as the orks swarmed in on both sides of them and then engaged nearly 20 boyz on their own (out numbered 3 to 1), and wiped the scruffians out.  So Krabby is my MVP, along with his scorpion disciples.

Boobie Prize: I had a lot of failed rolls and gimpy units in this game.  The two top contenders for boobie prize are: the swift of foot and wing Swooping Hawks who couldn't complete a 5" charge, and the immortal wraithlord who returned from death and accepted a duel with the Initiative 1 warboss and yet failed to hit with any of his four S8, AP2 attacks.  Have to give it to the Wraithlord - you big oaf!

I'm guessing that J would pick his Warboss as his MVP. That dude was a monster.