With a crash of high powered weaponry, the Dark Reapers stationed atop the Monkeigh fortification sent a volley at the barbarian forces across the square. A smaller explosion wracked the Scorpion unit below, as behind them their wave serpent burned, a victim of primitive but effective powder weapons.. A quick glance by the Exarch confirmed that the Scorpions were arming their haywire grenades, and Banrath hissed a warning of preparation to the Striking Scorpions under his command as the roar of engines approached.
The vehicle emerged around the corner of a building at reckless speed, its occupants clutching on with one hand and firing their weapons wildly with the other. In a split second it was upon them, and the Scorpions struck; each Scorpion trying to attach their haywire grenades to the vehicle's exterior. Banrath leapt as well, his Scorpion's Claw poised to tear metal and flesh. To his dismay the truck's speed was greater than anticipated, both the grenades and his Claw failing to find their mark as the war truck screamed past, its driver over revving the engine.
A loud metallic clang spun Banrath around, as a humongous vehicle lumbered to a stop and its front ramp crashed to the pavement. Ork after Ork poured from the vehicle and with a mighty war cry, the hoarde crashed into the Scorpions Banrath saw two go down as they charged in, victims to the mandiblasters of the Striking Scorpions, and as the Orks leapt to battle the Scorpions struck out with their swords, striking but failing to kill. Banrath noted to himself never to underestimate primitives again, as these seemed clever enough to have created effective if rudely constructed body armor, although it was no match for his Scorpion's Claw.
He felled another ork, and stepped over the body, only to find himself facing a true brute, this one was bigger than the other orks, which experience mean it was a leader of some sort. Banrath watched with horror as the large ork ripped the head off of one Scorpion with a hydraulic snap; the large claw on it's hand a crude version of his own elegant device. Not content with the one, the ork deftly blocked another blow, and returned with another killing stroke on a Scorpion. Banrath leapt in fury towards the brute, and was amazed to find, as his arm was separated from his body, that the monster was faster. As he spun to the ground, his life blood spilling out, he came to the dim realization that not a Scorpion was still standing, and with his last breath he prayed that the Craftworld would be saved from these savages.
My friend Vinnie popped into town from Baltimore, and we went down to Dakka Dakka for quick 1850 point battle. He didn't have his own army, so he used my Eldar while I tried out a new list (and a couple of new models) for my orks. We rolled up a random mission from the Dakka league book, and we ended up playing a bunker/table quarters mission. Another random dice roll put us on a heavily urban table.
I won turn choice, and I decided to go second; I find in the case of table quarters missions this is preferable, especially with a fast army like the Speed Freaks. The table actually turned out to be a good one for me, providing a lot of cover from the Eldar guns. My plan was to wait until turn four, and than explode into action.
The mission also had a preliminary bombardment for each side, and while I did kill two Dire Avengers, I lost three out of four warbike outriders! Not good. In the end, the orks triumphed, clearly owning two table quarters and contesting the two others. Vinnie did have one tactic that could have worked really well, he had his warpspiders deep strike turn 6 onto one table quarter, fortunately Bob was right there and was able to charge in and kill enough to bring them down to less than 50% - otherwise that would have been a contested quarter.
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Initial deployment - this table, with all the buildings, provided good initial cover against the shooty Eldar. This was a table quarters mission, and our idea was to split our forces into two, with a small mobile reserve (trukkboyz) |
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The Eldar centered their defense around this bunker, Dire Avengers and a Farseer inside, and Dark Reapers on the roof! |
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Thanks to the trees in the square, his avenues of fire were limited, aiding in Ork survival. |
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The eldar advanced on this side of the table to secure a table quarter early. |
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Which my loan warbike tried to put a stop to. He did manage to take out one vyper in the assault phase, but he got shot up the next turn. |
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Here the battle barge has swung around the corner, and spent the next two turns firing all guns. The trukks are poised for a rapid assault. |
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In the bottom of this picture you can see truckboyz! They screamed in at 25 inches of movement, and the truck miraculously survived both shooting and assault by the Scorpions The battle wagon also took full movement, going 13 inches and unloading it's package of 16 'Ard Boyz. One close combat phase led to the Scorpions being annihilated. |