With the arrival in our household of a Mega-Gargant and his lesser cousin, a Greater Gargant, not to mention the rapid construction of several Warlord titans, we decided to give two of the less ordinary lists a spin.
We wanted to make sure that we had enough monster war engines to play with, so bumped the points up a tad to 4K. Go big or go home, we always say!
Orkimedes Gargant Big Mob, 4000 ptsMega-Gargant Mob 1 x Mega-Gargant BTS 1500
Gargant Mob 1 x Great Gargant 800
Gargant Mob 1 x Gargant 600
Uge Stompa Mob 9 x Stompas 575
Snappa Mob 4 x Dreads, 4 x Killa Kans 240
Big Gunz Mob 5 x Big Gunz 125
4 x Flakwagons 140
Since we had never played with OGBM before and there was a cautionary note attached to the Mega-Gargant (rightfully so, it turned out), we opted to play the Mega at 1500 pts. Unfortunately for the Imperium, the Orks are feeling quite confident and roll maximum shields for the Mega Gargant and the Great Gargant, whilst the Gargant settles with a mere four shields. Not a good deal.
For the Titan Legion list, we decided to go plain vanilla and took the standard versions of the Warlord and Warhound from the EA rules book. So...
Titan Legions, 4000 pts1 x Warlord, Princeps (BTS)
3 x Warlords
2 x Warhounds
The map was dominated by a large hill that covered approximately 40% of the board and rested on the left side. The hill was tall enough to block LOS for normal sized units. The remainder of the board had scattered ruins about along with a fair amount of woods here and there, comprising approximately 25% of the board.
Turn 1
Initiative goes to the Orks.
Rather ominously, the Ork gargants decide to throw caution to the wind and double up to get within potential shooting range next turn. The smaller Ork formations to the left of the Mega, cozy up to the left hand objectives. The TL Warhounds double over to the hill and move within engage range of an objective, should it become necessary. Firing with their plasma guns, one Stompa slows down and begins to burn. The TL Warlords move up, shooting as they go, but deliver very little damage to the Orks, who with their boost of confidence, also manage to rally and remove most of the blast markers on the Mega.
Turn 2
Initiative goes to the Orks...again.
The Orks kick off their turn as only they can do. The Mega fires on W-4, blows down all of it’s shields and delivers 1 DC.W-4,W-3 (sustains) and W-2 (engages with support of W-4), but only drop the Mega down to DC13. W-2 breaks and drives into the Ork side of the table. The Ork Gargant and Great Gargant team up on W-1 and put it in jeopardy by knocking it’s shields down and leaving it with 5DC.
On the left, the Warhound pack fires into the Stompa mob and manages to remove another of the blasphemous mechanical monstrosities. Unfortunately, this does not deter the Stompa mob and they engage the Warhound pack. After two rounds of combat, one Warhound is destroyed and the survivor breaks, driving deep into the Orks backfield towards their Blitz. This also moves the wounded engine out of the Ork fields of fire, potentially allowing it to recover for the next turn. The Stompas consolidate around the objective and as only they can do, stomp their feet in approval of the carnage being wrought in the valley below.
Rally phase: Due to the proximity of the Ork war engines, neither W-2 nor the surviving Warhound rally. W-1 manages to repair shields, but is still vulnerable. This does not bode well for the forces of the Emperor.
The Orks on the other hand do quite well and remove many BMs on the Mega, who though smoking from two fires, manages to put one out and remove several BMs. The Stompa mob is also standing proud with only 1 BM.
Turn 3
Initiative goes to the Orks...yet again!
Wishing to keep the momentum, the Mega engages W-4 and destroys it, but also breaks, now down to DC1. W-3 wastes no time and sustains on the Mega, leaving it a mountainous pile of flames, smoke obscuring the already fading sun. The Gargant engages the broken W-2 and destroys it. The Great Gargant engages W-1, wins and breaks the Princeps own machine. W-1 is down to DC2 and very few if any shields (not exactly sure at this point).
Rally phase: The Princeps machine fails to rally, even after the re-roll, the surviving Warhound also fails to rally, sealing the fate of the Adeptus Mechanicus forces.
Victory Conditions:Titan Legions: 1 (BTS)
OGBM: 1 (TSNP)
We were a bit short of time and so extrapolated a bit, given what remains on the table.
With only one operational Warlord, who is just on the boundary of the TL deployment zone, the Orks hold nearly all the cards. The remaining titan can either contest one objective or the Blitz, but not both. The Orks are going to engage W-1 and destroy it. They will also either secure two objectives on the TL side or grab the blitz. So victory conditions will look like this at the end of Turn 4:
Titan Legions: 1 (BTS)
OGBM: 3 (BTS, TSNP, and either Blitz or Take and Hold)
Aftermath: In spite of the drubbing by the Orks, the two lists were a lot of fun to play and gathered quite a bit of attention…especially the Mega Gargant since it currently wears a yellow coat of paint. Fielding six titans certainly was an attention grabber as well.
What was very evident in this battle is that, even at 1500 points, the Mega was still under-costed. Since this is only one battle, it’s hard to say what the correct price should be, but I really think it is in the neighborhood of 1750 – 2000 pts. The next time we play OGBM, we’ll try it out at 1800 pts. Also, we took standard Warlords. Next time we’ll also work with the variable weapon loads that the AMTL list provides and see if we can get some synergies between shield strippers and more nasty TK weaponry. As it was, there were only four Volcano cannons and rather unbelievably, in all turns only landed hits twice. The volcano’s only rolled above 1 on all their shots, twice in this game, thus extending Niko’s wretched dice rolls from earlier games TL games.
Still it was a lot of fun and we look forward to the next one.
Cheers,
