The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

Impatient for the Apocalypse

Had a fun day of enormous battle that I thought I might share.

One of the guys at my local game store challenged me on Wednesday to see how many points of orks I could pull out on short notice, if I'm given VDR and Forgeworld approval and have to stick to force org. I put together a 2,500 list to match his guardsmen. It had 60 models. I find that hilarious. 60 models in a 2,500 point army, guys.

Here's what came along:

1 Warboss (HQ)
Choppa; Power Klaw
'Eavy Armour
Attack Squig
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1 Gargantuan Squiggoth (Heavy Support)
Bolt-on Big Shootas (x5); Zzap Gun (x2); Twin-Linked Rokkit Launcha (x4)

Onboard this squiggoth:

8 Flash Gitz (Elites)
Shoota (x4); Big Shoota (x4)

1 Big Mek (HQ)
Kustom Force Field
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1 Gargantuan Squiggoth (Heavy Support)
Bolt-on Big Shootas (x5); Zzap Gun (x2); Twin-Linked Rokkit Launcha (x4)

Onboard this squiggoth:

9 Tankbustas (Troops)
Slugga & CC Weapon (x6); Rokkit Launcha (x3); Frag Stikkbomz; Tankbusta
Bomz

1 Nob
CC Weapon (x1); Rokkit Launcha; Frag Stikkbomz; Tankbusta Bomz
Ammo Runt [4]
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1 Shielded Super Heavy Walker (890 points)
Structure Points: 3; Front Armour: 14; Side Armour: 14; Rear Armour: 12; Walker; War
Machine; Speed: Agile (Souped-up Engines); Power Fields (x3)
Long-range Blast Kannon
Long-range Blast Zzap Gun
Long-range Blast Zzap Gun
Gattling Twin-Linked Big Shoota
Close Combat Weapon
Close Combat Weapon
Skorcha
Armor Plates
Grot Bomb Launcher Upgrade
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12 Slugga Boyz (Troops)
Slugga & Choppa (x9); Burna (x3)

1 Nob
Choppa (x1); Power Klaw (x1)
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9 Trukk Boyz (Fast Attack)
Slugga & Choppa (x8); Burna (x1)

1 Nob
Choppa (x1); Power Klaw (x1)

1 Trukk
Big Shoota (x1)
5 pt. Armour Plates
Grot Riggers
Turbo Boosta
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9 Trukk Boyz (Fast Attack)
Slugga & Choppa (x8); Burna (x1)

1 Nob
Choppa (x1); Power Klaw (x1)

1 Trukk
Big Shoota (x1)
5 pt. Armour Plates
Grot Riggers
Turbo Boosta
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Models in Army: 60

Total Army Cost: 2499

The Long-range blast zzap guns are particularly insidious, because the blast upgrade gives it a template, while zzap gun rules state that the weapon automatically hits. And it's AP2. So I'll be throwing around auto-hitting random-strength AP2 Blast templates the whole game. I expected my opponents to stick to cover based on that, which is why I brought the burnas along as well.

Anyway, I'm happy to report that despite the ridiculousness of my list, I came out on top in a 3-way, 7,500 point battle - we had a cron player show up at just the right time. Lots of images below, but I'm not writing a batrep, because I don't hate myself that much. I'll try and hit some of the highlights.

 

A look at my full 2,500 points. It's hilarious. I had the smallest army on the table, in terms of models.

 

A look at things post deployment. We didn't feel like figuring things out about who goes where in a 3-way ffa, so we all rolled scatter dice and basically chose somewhere around where the arrows pointed. We were supposed to be equidistant, but the cron player got a little too overeager and deployed way too close to the guard player, honestly. Precision was not our goal. The Guard player was using that big white bitz bin as a stand-in for a Baneblade, while the 'Cron player had his monolith there to represent some ridiculous VDR creation. I felt bad that my dudes weren't painted, compared to the other two, but damnit, at least my models look something like what they're supposed to.

 

The Lith stood for something the dude called a 'Tomb Stalker', which was basically a 'bend horde armies over and have your way with them' machine. It cost, apparently, twelve hundred points. On the first turn, it ponderously floated forward, and proceeded to drop ridiculous amounts of blast templates on everything within range. The guard player lost an enormous amount of casualties in that first round of shooting, and a couple tanks.

Of course, he had packed them so absurdly densely that he deserved it. You have no idea how much the ork tactician in my head squealed at the thought of dropping a few large Strength 8 blast templates on this:

The formation I set up with my orks was pretty damn tight, as well.

It was a big wall of killing death. The Big Mek aboard the middle squiggoth gave everything around him some love - from hull down on the gargant to invuln saves for both the squiggoth he was riding and the one adjacent to him, and the boyz pooled around the squig's feet. Best use of points ever, ever, ever.

On my first turn I realized that the necron warmachine was full of hate and pain and would easily wipe me off the board given the chance, so I began to hammer all of the necrons I could find within reach to try and phase him out. The gargant's blast zzap guns made a right proper mess of the necrons deployed closest, and promptly removed the entire warrior squad and necron lord. (The lord is being proxied; a tau model is in his place.)

Guard also took tremendous losses to squiggy shooting. I had to split the squiggoths up due to terrain, so I sent one brave creature off into the middle of the board to tempt fate while my gargant spent the following turn sprinting up the side of the board making a mess of the stormtroopers in it's way. By this time, the baneblade had managed to put three structure points worth of damage on the VDR'ed cron machine, and it was almost done, so he turned his attentions (and his tanks) to me. Unfortunately for him, by the time he managed to do so, I had used my zzaps to disable both ordnance weapons on the baneblade and prevent it from moving, giving me a wonderful shot at the superheavy's side armor.

 

The downside to the size of the heavy choices I had were that they had to single-file it up the side of the board, so I had to pull one squiggy back. Smarter deployment in future!

In the end, Guard had eaten up the Necron warmachine with ridiculous amounts of lasguns, and I had dropped unheard of amounts of heavy weaponry onto the guard, which thinned them out in a hurry. I also had a great deal of luck with the two trukk boy squads, which spent a large portion of the game running at full-speed towards the melee - I figured I might as well throw them in without any hesitation. One of the nobz actually survived the rest of his squad being destroyed, and proceeded to spend the remainder of the game introducing the human command squad to his power klaw.

My boss was sorely dissapointed. He spent most of the game running just a little bit ahead of the squiggoths. He has requested that in future games he gets a trukk of his own.

I ended up winning by a fair amount, as I detonated the 'cron player was wiped before he could really bring his guns on me, and the guardsmen were too flimsy to get in the way of the heavies. There were a few admirable attempts at wounding the squiggoths - each had three wounds by the end of the game, courtesy of his autocannons - but they both performed amazingly well. The Gargant also survived excellently, as well - of the three structure points and three force fields it had at the outset of the game, it was left with two of those structure points by the end, and had one of it's zzap cannons disabled by a cheeky basilisk shot. The Trukk Boyz took some serious losses, but only after eating up more than double their points in guardsmen.

I think I would have done way better had I been able to keep my 'killin' wall' formation, and actually had range the first few turns to bring all my mean guns to bear. In any case, the list performed admirably! And stuck within Force Org, even, though nobody else did. Very fun, all in all, though I can't help but wonder if this list would even be feasible under Apocalypse rules. A couple strength D weapons would do me in right quick!