Quick report on my three games at ITB. Turning up with my Feral Orks, list posted earlier in this thread, I was hoping to play against close combat orientated armies to give me the best opportunity to hit back.

General tactics with this list were to use my small boarboy activations to out activate my opponents and then double/march my Orkeosaurus up to engage later in the
game. Steam Gargants were to act as blitz guard and shoot at anything that came close to them. Boarboyz would also be used to try and box the enemy into position so that my slow moving formations were not out manoeuvred.

Game 1 vs Chris and his wonderful Vanaheim. Great. Skimmers, barrage weapons, Vendettas and Maurader Destroyers. I was not looking forward to this as I didn’t think that Chris would give me the opportunity to get my main forces into the game. I set up objectives close together and tried to compress the game to one side of the table. The game was pushed to four turns with the Ferals managing to win through. Chris tried to slide his forces around mine whilst I pushed forward and out finally managing to catch his flank with two of my Orkesaurus and several boarboy mobz.

Very brief reports on games 2 and 3 tomorrow sometime.

Great to see Ferals for the second time this year Tim, I really enjoyed our game and they seem a really fun army both to use and play against. Its just a pity they are prohibitively expensive from GW.

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They can be very frustrating to play with due to the lack of speed of the big hitters.

My ghast was a flabber when I saw your Feral build the other weekend, Tim. So am interested to hear how it did.

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They did well.

Game 2 vs Dave’s Ulthwe

I didn’t take notes so things might go a bit amiss here and I’m sure Dave will put things right if I make a mistake.

So after winning against a mounted skimmer army, I thought that I might have an easier time against my second opponent only to discover that I was facing even more skimmers. Again I tried to compress the table with my objective placement and set about pushing my army into the teeth of my opponent. The first turn was marked by Dave picking on my smaller formations and destroying a couple and breaking some more, whilst I doubled and marched forward. Second turn had our forces much closer together and I was ready to start pushing my Orkeosaurus into combats, this would only be supporting fire as they were still too far away to engage themselves.

Second turn started with Dave winning the initiative and hitting three of my formation with supported assaults, in anything but a large activation hoard army this might have been curtains for me. But as the dust settled it became evident that Dave had not been able to remove enough formations to prevent me hitting back which I did with gusto. Targeting formations which hadn’t activated yet I tried to break these by sending in my boarboyz supported by an Orkeosaurus. Then I followed up as Dave ran out of activations by attacking his formations that had previously activated. Other point to note is that the Steam Gargants had been making their way up the table shooting at anything that they could and increasing my AA cover. End of the turn and I was feeling quite good about things.

Third turn and Dave killed one of my Orkeosaurus, the two nobs who had been riding on it had already jumped out to support some engagements, but the remaining six wildboyz were crushed without knowing what had happened to them. I pushed on breaking more formations but being slowed up by the need to engage instead of doubling or marching. Dave set up a barrier of his ground pounding Guardians and Wraithguard BTS and Rangers to block my access to his blitz. The turn ended and I was advanced, but not able to claim the victory.

Turn four was fairly quick as I consolidated my position and failed to push onto the BTS or Blitz. 2-0 win to the Ferals and a rare victory against Dave.

Game 3 vs Steve’s Biel-Tan (or ‘What do I have to do to face an army without skimmers?’)

Oh, what I would have given to face Marines, Steel Legion or another Ork army, but no my success had pitted me against Steve, another great player, and another skimmer army. Whilst I had not fancied myself against the previous two armies that I had faced Steve threw in an added problem of taking two Void Spinners and a spaceship, apart from an initial Vulture strike from Chris I hadn’t had to worry about any long range artillery, now I had two formations of it.....

As with the previous three games, I tried to compress the table, but Steve through an objective out wide and placed his Void Spinners well away from his blitz. The game started with the Spacecraft casting its shadow over the table. Down came the barrage and caught four formations, two were badly damaged and broken whilst the other two took minor casualties and blast markers. Over the next few activations Steve continued to pound my small formations breaking two more boarboy mobz with his spinners. I continued to push forward across the table knowing that if I delayed I’d be shot to pieces before I could do anything. Both of Steve’s aspect hosts air assaulted taking out a further two activations and we were almost down to parity. Meanwhile I was pushing my steam gargants forward and managed to clip a Falcon formation and flip my template onto the rest managing to break them.

Turn two saw Steve hitting my smaller formations again and me pushing forward. Here I was lucky as Steve had problems activating his aircraft. I had a go against Steve’s Aspects and was able to break his BTS which went running back to his base line. I pushed forward trying to compress the space even more and push for his Blitz.

Turn three and I pushed forward again getting an upper hand as Steve had a terrible time rallying formations, but I couldn’t claim enough objectives to win the game. I did manage to engage one of Steve’s spinners and took it down with a lucky critical.

Moving into turn four Steve threw his remaining Void Spinner forward into my half whilst I tried to get either his BTS or Blitz, but through the loss of formations and Steve blocking off lines of attack I was unable to win the game. With my forces closing in on him I needed us to go into a fifth turn, but the dice failed to come up the same when we rolled off and the game finished with a points victory to me. It was not enough to overhaul Steve at the top of the table but was a very enjoyable game.

My Orkeosaurus were my units of the tournament taking and surviving hit after hit, I only lost one of my three across all three games and they provided the back bone to my army. The boarboyz proved their points in all three games although I was lucky that they were not targeted more & finally apart from Chris’ initial strike against my Steam Gargants they were pretty much ignored during all three games whilst coming up with some vital shooting. If I’d faced Guard with Death Strikes and Shadowswords things might have been different, but I was happy with two wins, a winning draw and second place.

Open War next....

I was just looking at the results for into the breach http://www.epic-uk.co.uk/ukepicachampionship/t3c.php?tid=51

and couldn't help noticing that poor new boy Tom Saunders only got 16 points for his BYE while the others who took BYEs got 26.

Was he cheated out of 10 points and 2 places?

Well.... was he?

Tom arrived so late that the only option was to give him a bye for the first round, (arriving after the late lunch had been eaten). After discussions between the main organizers it was decided that the full 26 points should not be given to Tom. A compromise of 16 points was agreed upon rather than giving him 0.

righto - that explains that then

Some armies+photos from ITB

Stomps templars, one of the best army winners

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Skullrics Valk



Tiny-tims orkeosaurus



MikeTs harridan

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Jez SM



Steve54s eldar



Abyssal terrors TSons


Dptdexys eldar

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MikeTs nids hide





Skullrics Vanaheim advance

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NetEA Chaos + Black Legion Champion