- Day 2 (June 22, 2003)

We started late the second day too, as we enjoyed a nice lunch on the water. I ran into a number of gentlemen from Dakka Dakka; unfortunately they had lost their inter-club battle the night before, but were looking forward to just playing. We had a 1:15 registered game; I headed off to play with the Boyz as Vinnie and Jon faced off against each other on another table as Eldar and Dark Eldar respectfully.

Orks vs imperial guard! And they didn't have any big guns! Hehehehe.

The forces directly under my command included the Stormboyz, 2 killa kanz, and the dreadnought as shown, as well as 5 warbikes. Elsewhere on the table, my fellow orks had two 30 boy shoota squads, a 30 boy slugga squad, gitz, buggies, and another kan.

 
The first turn I hid the bikes behind the woods, and advanced the Stormboyz behind the killer kanz for cover. Turn one found my dreadnought destroyed due to concentrated las cannon fire in the open field. Turn two, the bikes popped out of cover and shot the squad to the right of the right chimera to pieces, forcing them to run. Their effectiveness brought down a lot of firepower on the IG's next turn, wiping out 4 of the 5 bikes.
Keeping the stormboyz behind the killer kans worked; the kanz took hits and lost shooting weapons, but continued to march up the field. Once within range the stormboyz jumped forward and assaulted another squad (as did the remaining warbike), killing the hapless IG in a single assault round. We lost 4 stomboyz to mulitlaser fire from the chimeras the next turn, but here come the kanz!
Our next turn found the kanz in assault range, and you can kiss two chimera's goodbye. Why they didn't move these things the last turn was beyond me, as they were stationary the kanz hit automatically. 3 Strength 10 hits per kan = two very dead chimeras
The remaining stormboyz jumped into combat with another IG squad that had assaulted the hapless gretchin. By turn 4 this was the only IG unit left on my side of the table, and they wouldn't see turn 5. You can see a large mob of shoota boyz veering off to the other side of the table for better pickings.
At he end, the kanz stomp merrily down the idyllic farm lane, looking for more 'umies to crush. At the base of the towers are the stormboyz, We covered a lot of ground!

That was the end of our registered games, so we went looking for some fun. Dumb luck found us at the Thunderhawk Down table just before it started a new battle, and we were able to get in to fight for the Imperium

 Here's the crashed Thunderhawk. The mission was to delivery the STD device to the downed bird to win.
The streets were littered with fallen Dark Angel Space Marines.
Guess who got the charge to deliver the STD device? Yours truly. Jon was on my immediate left with a Dark Angel Tac squad, Vinnie farther down was anchoring a ruined building key to our projected movement path with a Space Wolf unit. Facing us was a myriad of chaos horrors.
Here Jon executes perfectly, moving his squad up so that we can jump in behind him. Unseen on the camera was a wave of aberrations bearing down on us, including an armored column down the main street!
With Jon covering my rear and Vinnie cleaning out the chaos spawn in the building, we continued to move the STD device towards the Thunderhawk. Vinnie eliminated a large squad of spawn, only to find his unit facing three trucks worth of chaos blocking our exit. Due to extremely poor rolling we lost 6 assault marines to difficult terrain rolls!

With the Emperor's blessing, a second Thunder hawk appeared, and dropped 6 more assault marines to assist in transporting the STD. If you look in the entrance to that building you can see one of the Chaos truck mobs that Vinnie was fighting off, but in the end the we got the STD to the second Thunderhawk in time to win the battle! (and by all reports, this was the first time that it was done with the Assault Marines!).

A true group effort, as without Vinnie plowing the road and Jon tying up the rear, we never would have made it - as it was, I only took 1 shot (plasma pistol against a truck for a destroyed vehicle).

That was a lot of fun, as the table was amazing, as were the models. Actually credit goes to the entire Dark Angel side, not just us three.

We shopped a little, and than headed off to see if we could pick up a game at another registered table. It was the last of the day, and there was an ork vs Catchan table that was amazing as far as the scenery that I really wanted to play. Vinnie and Jon went off to see if they could secure a spot on the tank battle table, but to no avail. When they came back over, I was formulating clever orky schemes for victory!

Here's what I got to command - a large stikkbomma squad, and the HQ! A warboss, 3 nobz (one in mega armor), and a couple of sluggaz, all in a truck. Not an accurate retinue, but hey, GW set it up - who's to argue?
Here's the table - sorry that the pictures don't do it justice. It was a true joy to play on. The mission was to occupy the bridges, which were staunchly defended by dug in Catchans.
My clever orky scheme was for the wartrukk to cross the river, head up the hill, and assault the Leman Russ Demolisher from the back. I was hoping to be able to get there and assault by turn two, and than pile back into the truck and smash the bridges defenders.

BUT, like most clever orky schemes, this one went awry from the very start. I failed my difficult terrain roll for the river crossing, and to have fun the GW Staffer had me roll 3d6. I rolled up 17, and that was how far the truck was washed down river, towards town! All of the occupants survived, and the GW Staffer said that if I could make the difficult terrain roll, than we could assault. Well I rolled a 6, so we were in business!

FYI a regular Catchan squad has no business fighting an Ork Warboss and retinue in hand to hand combat.
With the new assault rules and the 3 inch consolidation, after two assault phases the Warboss found himself where he wanted to be to begin with - lined up to take a whack at that Russ!
In one star assault we were able to reach both the Russ and the Sentinel. A few whacks of a choppa on the rear of the russ left it smoldering, and the powerclaw wielding nob reached out and crushed the Sentinel to bitz. We consolidated back up the hill, to await the vicious Ogryns (now commanded by Vinnie, as the other player had to leave) assault. Jon picked up command of troops on the bridge itself.

I was forced to listen to how terrible Ogryns are, blah, blah, blah, but I had faith in Gork and Mork! Vinnie and I bet a beer on the outcome of the close combat, and while I lost 4 regular boyz to shooting, only a single nob fell to the Ogryns hand to hand attack. It's true that Ogryns have 3 wounds, but the Warboss choppered one to death, and finally, can you say PowerClaw? Strength 8 vs toughness 4 = instant kill. In the end, there was only one Ogryn left, and the game ended here.

I think the game victory went to the IG as no ork hit the bridge, but I was not paying attention to rest of the battle!
The GW Staffer who ran our table was both fun and fair. Here he allowed me to use the wrecked truck as a bridge, and ignore the difficult terrain roll! This kind of mitigated playing really adds to the game, You might want to try it sometime yourself - its almost like having a DM.

That was it - the last battle. We went off to meet our ladies at Hooters to relive the battles over beer and wings. Gamesday was a lot of fun, I would recommend it to anyone. Thanks again to Games Workshop for a fun weekend. Being able to show up with nothing and play these games with beautiful models on beautiful tables was a treat.

Back to Intro - Back to Day 1 (June 21, 2003)