The Purging of Landing Pad 6

After last week's hiatus the Boyz went back into action today.

A 1500 point game against Dark Eldar.

My list was Big Mek, 2*3 Kanz, Dred, 2*6 Lootas, 3 20ish mobz of Boyz, 3 Koptas, and 5 Nobz with the Mek in a Truk.

Having never played against Dark Eldar and reading that they are the meta game changing force, I was a little nervous going into the game.

The Dark Eldar had 4 Raiders, a Ravenger, 1 unit of witches, Incubi, 3 units of warriors, and a unit of jetbikes.

The mission was capture and control, with pitched battle deployment.

The DE deployed first, lining up his skimmers across the width of the board with the jetbikes away on my left. I responded by deploying most of my troops on my right, with a unit Lootas in a derelict building in the centre and the Koptas on the left. As my objective was deployed behind a building housing my other Lootas, I decided to hold back the Dred (which was a troop choice due to the Mek) and the Mek/Nobz in the Trukk to guard the objective, whilst sending the Kanz and Boyz to get the DE objective.

The Koptas scouted forward.

With everything ready to start, I tried to steal the iniative, rolled a 6 and got iniative.

The Orks surged forward.

And so it came to the first round of shooting.

Now I know the common wisdom is that Orks can't shoot, and I realise that DE are AV10, but by the end of the shooting phase 2 of the Raiders were immobilised, 1 was a smoking wreck and the other had exploded, taking half the squad of warriors inside with it. The Lootas picked off a few more warriors.

Not a bad first turn all considered.

The DE piled out of the Raiders and ran for cover. The shooting phase saw the Ravenger kill an Ork or two, as well as knocking the Grotzooka off a Kan - the jetbikes surged forward and downed a Kopta but the KFF did it's job.

Turn 2 saw the Orks continue to run towards the enemy. The rokkit fire was less effective this turn either missing or fialing to damage. The Lootas in the centre fired 18 shoots into the jetbikes and killed 4 of them.

I pondered risking a Waargh but decided against it as I wasn't sure I could get the charge. Which as it turned out was perhaps over cautious and cost me the next turn, as the DE gathered their wits and decided to take the battle to the Orks.

When my opponent started reading out the witches special rules, my heart sank, and I admit I probably had a touch of 'the Face'. And that gloom continued when the dice began to roll for the combats. Suffice to say that the Orks were rocked, bloodied and one unit only stayed in the fight because the boy clubbed a waiverer over the head.

However the Boyz had proven the resilience of Orks, and turn 3 meant the DE were going to pay for their inability to break the line.

The remaining unit of Boyz jumped off the landing pad and into the warriors guarding the Incubi's flank, and the Trukk moved up to deposit the Nobz to help the Boyz against the Witches. Whilst the Kanz piled forward to take on the Ravenger and the immobiled raider on the right flank and the Ravenger.

The shooting destoyed the remaining immobilised raider, and killed a couple of the warriors hiding in cover on the left.

Which meant it came down to a feat of arms.

And as it turned out the Boyz won out - 7-4 - it was a close run thing. The witches broke and were run down by the Nobz. The Incubi successfully fled with the Boyz rolling a double '1' for their prusuit.

My 'Face' subsided, as it became clear that barring a miracle I had won the game.

The incubi rallied and managed to shoot a unit down to a single Nob, who managed to stay in the game only by stabbing himself in the leg with his bosspole.

And so it came to the last stand of the DE.

The Incubi withstood the shooting phase, and managed to see of 2/3rds of the attacks - 60 - of the Boyz attacks - rolled in batches of 30 - but finally Archon's shield failed and he was trampled into the ground.

The Lootas had taken down the remaining jet bike in the shooting phase, and the final combat would be between five warriors and 4 Nobz - 1 with a PowerKlaw.

And even if they survived that, the Warriors would have to take on a largely undamaged Ork force that was by now sitting on the DE objective.

So the Orks win again.

It was an enjoyable game and I thought my opponent was very sporting - and I apologise to him for getting 'the face' when the witches piled in.

Personally I think the two events that swung the battle for me was grabbing the iniative and the DE going to ground when they were shot out of their transports. Had they gone straight into HtH the psychological advantage might have swung away from the Orks, and they would certainly have had slightly more troops - as it was they underwent an extra turn of shooting, which whilst only chipping away their numbers... chip away it did.

Of course the arguement against it is that perhaps they might not have been in charge range at the time, and seeking cover was perhaps the sensible thing to do... rather than risk all on a gamble.

peace:)