Monday, 9 February 2015

After Action Report #1: Orks vs. Astra Militarum


Seventh Edition, First Impressions
1000 points, my Orks versus Matt's Traitor Astra Militarum (with summoned Nurgle Deamons). My first game of 7th edition. My first game since the release day of 6th edition, in fact. I lost 14 Victory Points to 8 but it really came down to the last two turns.

I have to say I really like the Strategic Objective cards. We were pulling three per turn and it really adds a level of unpredictability to the game I've always felt was lacking. The constant shifting of priorities was fun, especially in my mad Turn Six dash to equalise as I tried desperately to take out Matt's Warlord (and gain D3 Victory Points) with a one-Deffkopta suicide charge. I almost did it too, winning the combat but Matt passed his morale check and my hopes of running the man down evaporated.

It was a genuinely tense moment.

Matt's fifty man Conscript Platoon led by Ministorum Priest continues its long run as his MVP, especially now he has realised how many shots he can get out of it with Front Rank, Fire! Back Rank, Fire! Seriously, there was one turn where the unit pumped one hundred and ten shots into my Boyz.

Lessons Learnt
I either need bigger Boyz mobs or faster ones, so either expand to thirty Boyz per mob in the 1500 points version or invest in some trucks to get smaller units into combat faster.

I need to remember that Furious Charge exists, as I forgot several times.

I also forgot that Waaagh! existed for almost the entire game and then it was too late to use.

Matt's Wyrdvane Psykers should be a real priority for me. In my defence, I knew this before and took out two of the five in my first Shooting Phase but then he hid them behind sight-blocking cover where they rode out the rest of the game, summoning Plaguebearers and Nurglings in peace. In hindsight I should have sent the Deffkoptas in to finish them off.

Flash Gitz are fantastic: great guns (which have more components than an entire Space Marine, by the way) and they have the combat ability of a Nob. I had my Warboss accompanying one of the Boyz mobs but I'm seriously considering surrounding him with Flash Gitz since Snazzguns are Assault weapons.

I had the Killa Kans figured all wrong, I was using them for shooting but once they entered combat with the Plaguebearers... well, okay, they died but took out a few in return. Really, I should have used them to tie up the Conscripts for a few turns, stop them slightly shifting the outer edges of their enormous unit to leisurely claim objectives.

The Mek Guns didn't get much of a testing. Matt only had two vehicles: a Chimera and an Armageddon-Pattern Armoured Sentinel, the first went down in turn one and the other was on the far side of the board. So my fantastically powerful artillery spent the rest of the game sniping off a Guardsman or two per turn from his flamer-toting Veteran Squad.

Forging a Narrative
Aside from the Deffkopta suicide-charging Matt's Warlord there were no real “cinematic moments” to build epic rivalries around. This might be for the best as Matt and I will be team mates in Dave's campaign. Also, I only won that combat in theory, the victory didn't achieve anything.

Still, one of the Gretchin manning the Mek Guns sprang back to life after we discovered we'd resolved a round of shooting incorrectly.

Conclusions
Good game, better than any game of 40k I've had since the Hallowed Third Edition and I'm much more motivated to get this army painted. 

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