A Mid Week Post!

Whats this? A mid week post... nope my eyes are not deceiving me I have actually found the time at home to sit and write something on my blog! My last post about an Ork Army List got a trial run yesterday. I was facing a friends Space Marine list consisting of... Shrike Assault Chaplin 10 Man Tactical Squad in Rhino 10 Man Tactical Squad in Rhino 10 Man Tactical Squad in Drop Pod 10 Man Assault Squad Vindicator Vindicator Vindicator I played this army twice, the first time was with a previous version of the Ork List... which I knew kinda sucked but wanted to see how it worked. I pretty much ran headlong into a brick wall of death... my death not the Space Marines. Now dont get me wrong I did get some of the Rules wrong... namely Nobz having 2 wounds slipped my mind (Big Oversight). However even had I not forgotten this the game was still a loss. The Orks themselves seem to only have 1 thing going for them... and that is an excessive number of attacks. The transports I took basically got my men there to get the charge on a Vindicator and my Nobz and Warboss into the Drop Podding Marines, both of these combats ended very well for me with next to no losses. However after that the transports themselves were of no further use to me... the battlewagon being immobilised and the only unit that could fit in the Trukk being stuck in combat with Shrike and his goonies. With the frustrations getting the better of me I called it a loss (at this point I had lost 5 Nobz from Shooting, failng all 5 'Eavy Armour Saves and then 5 Feel no pain saves... really shoulda picked up on the 2 wounds thing). We were playing Killpoints and I now had nothing left to damage his Vindicators... my Deffkoptas and Big Mek had the shooting prowess of wet tissues and pretty much everything of his was able to counter charge or stand and flame me. So with a less positive mindset than I started with... but knowing about the 2 wound thingy on the Nobz I used the list printed in the previous list. We did Killpoints again, I won the roll off for the first turn and happily set down my forces. My Opponent then went for stealing the iniative... and for the first time in all my games of 5th Ed he did it.... ah well I thought this could work out better. The marines have to get closer to me which means more first turn charges for the Orks. In the first turn his shooting was not awesome, he blew two of my three two Kopta units out of the Sky... I managed to fail pretty much all of the cover saves. The Drop pod turned up on the left and in tandem with one of the Rhino Tactical Squads they took down one of the Deffkopta units. No Charges so on to my first turn! I did pretty much what any Orky player does (I think) and I raced everything forward and jumped out. The Shooting was less than stealla with only a Flash Git hitting the target... and managing to kill it, but I was less bothered about that than the charges. The Warboss and his Nobz managed to get the charge on Shrike, the Chaplin and 10 Assault Marines (the warboss does have a powerclaw... i made sure i paid for it). The 12 man Ork Boyz unit in the other trukk hit the Drop Podding Marines. This was the combat I did first as I always prefer to leave the interesting ones till later. The Marines were down to 8 men and with their attacks against me they manage to kill two of the Boyz, however our Response was to wipe out 5 of the marines so that they would run away.. of course they were faster than us so we couldnt catch them, but out Consolidation allowed us to make sure we were close enough that they couldnt automatically rally next turn. Then game the big combat. Shrike hit first and managed to take 3 wounds from my Nobz. The Chaplin proved he need his re-rolls not hitting at all ( I am glad they didnt charge) and the Assault Marines caused a whopping two wounds, of which 1 was saved and the other saved by feel no pain. Our turn to hit back. The 10 Nobz between them through out an excessive number of attacks which managed only to see 3 Marines fall, however it was a drawn combat and one which I was happy with at this point. Then my Warboss got to attack... now me being me and in fully under the influence of the Ork Dieties, I decided to take out Shrike... I had 6 attacks, hitting on 4's and wounding on 2's at Strength 10 ignoring his armour save... what could go wrong? Well nothing really went wrong for me... I hit Shrike 3 times, and wounded twice... of course he made both of his Invulnerable saves. Drawn combat overall... not a bad result but winning and with him having 2 less marines (probably more as I would have hit them on 3's) the next turn wouldnt have turned out too badly. At this point things took a turn for the worst... my Battlewagon went Boom... rather impressivly the last of my Deff Koptas (and the chances of taking out any of the 3 Vindicators) went bye bye. My 12 man Ork Boyz unit so happy from the destruction of the Drop Podding Marines ran heading long into one of the units of Rhino Marines and were broken in rapid effect. Combat came and saw my Warboss and Nobz charged by another tactical squad, of which 5 of them got in to combat. Then Shrike and the Chaplin took out another 5 or 6 wounds between them which reduced meant that combat was going from bad to worse. Now I will fully admit, at this point I was very disheartened by the Orks, as I could only see one thing going for them.... lots of attacks... their shooting wasnt worth the points, and against marines their fighting ability seemed to suck... so I threw the towel in the second time ever (that I remember) and that day. This isnt something I normally do, even when it is all going wrong... I might seriously debate it, but I never normally hand my opponent a victory like that. All in all yesterdays games (and this is only 2 of the 3 I had) left me very disheartened, especially with the Orks. They are the first new army I have played in at least 2 years and I can honestly say I find very little that appeals to me to play as them. However! That was yesterday I really dont know when I will make the time to play the Orks again but I think I will (something my regular opponent Tom will be happy to hear). A lot of my problems probably come from the army selections and I will have to try rejigging things around. It will be interesting to see how the Orks perform in another game with a few more tweaks to the army list. In the final analysis I have learnt two very important things from this: 1. Ork armys need more refining than I first gave them credit for 2. Dont be afraid to concede the game. The first of those points is kinda obvious i guess, the second less so. The second point is particulary important if you like me sometimes let yourself get frustrated by the way the game is going, especially if it spills out into Rants or random dice throwing. The game is meant to be fun, and while everyone says it, it seems to me that not many people acknowledge that when it isnt fun just stop... step back and if needs be concede the game. I knew that yesterday I was taking the shine off the inevitable victories that Tom was gonna get, so that is something I need to work on, and if I do work on it and get better then I should certaintly become more entertaining to play against. Anyways thats enough for the whining and complaining side of me. Congratulations to Tom for soundly and comfortably beating my poor Okses into the ground.... it may take them a little time to recover but I am sure they will be back again. After all the Varcan Cluster is a big place.