Batrep: Orks vs. Guard (1500)

Shep and I decided to put play a quick 1500 point game recently. He used his Vostroyans. I brought Orks. I decided to go Mek today. The list is here.

Shep played the following Imperial Guard list:

Vostroyan Glass Cannon (1500)

HQ

CCS (Melta x3, Astropath) w Chimera (Heavy Flamer)

Troops

Veteran x10 (Plasma x2) w Chimera (Heavy Flamer)
Veteran x10 (Plasma x2) w Chimera (Heavy Flamer)
Veteran x10 (Plasma x2) w Chimera (Heavy Flamer)

Heavy

Manticore (Heavy Flamer)
Manticore (Heavy Flamer)
Manticore (Heavy Flamer)

Fast Attack

Vendetta
Vendetta
Vendetta

We obviously play for keeps around here.

My experience with guard is that I have a chance if I can go first. We ended up with a pitched / annihilation game. I won the roll. I was happy about that but not thrilled with the mission since that meant I had to move towards him while he just had a turkey shoot from whatever edge he wanted.

I set up like this:

From 40k pics

From 40k pics

I had to put my lootas in area terrain to avoid the manticore indirect fire bypassing all cover saves. I did the same with kannonz. The wagons were placed in the middle with buggies trailing behind.

Turn 1

Shep decided to just reserve everything. He outflanked with his vendettas. This is wise since he knows my list is capable of just blowing out almost all his firepower in a single turn if the rolls go my way.

Turn 2

With nothing to shoot at I just reposition some of my infantry and move the wagons into the middle of the table.

From 40k pics

Shep rolled his reserves. He gets all 3 Vendettas, 1 Manticore and 2 Vet Chimeras.

From 40k pics

The Vendettas shoot into side armor on the nob wagon and stun it, another one picks off a buggy. The Manticore blasts the closest loota unit and kills a couple of them. A multi-laser kills a third. They fail morale and run off the table.

Turn 3

Finally the Orks have something to shoot at. One loota unit only has LOS to a chimera. They take a shot and destroy it. A second loota unit wiffs on a vendetta but the kannon unit blows it up instead. The buggy takes a rockitt shot at a vendetta and misses.

Guard comes back with shooting. From reserve the second manticore, a veteran squad and CCS show up. A vendetta immobilizes the Nob Wagon and then the second Stuns the KFF Wagon. A Manticore blasts the kannonz and kills all the artillery, the grots run for it. Multilaser blows up a buggy rockitt rendering it useless.

From 40k pics

Turn 4

Remaining Lootas have a shot on a second manticore and miss. The second Loota unit wrecks another vendetta. The broken weapon buggy attempts to run away to not yield another kill point. A functioning buggy fires at a manticore and also misses.

The last Manticore arrives from reserve and then all three send barrages at the orks. One wagon is blown up and 4 orks die in the explosion along with a nearby buggy. The running buggy is killed by a vendetta. More manticore fire shoots at the two remaining wagons and fail to hit or wound.

Turn 5

The remaining mobile Battlewagon moves forward 13" and the Ork's debark in a desperate attempt to charge the vehicles and guardsmen in the blasted chimera. The other Boy unit from the blown up wagon moves forward 3" through difficult terrain in an effort to assault the nearby Manticore. The Boyz waagh and the first unit moves 2" and the second unit 1". Not good. The full unit still manages to assault a manticore and a chimera. The Manticore gets stunned and weapon destroyed. The chimera suffers no damage at all.

From 40k pics

From 40k pics

With a failed assault and terrible run roll the remaining chimeras line up and template the Boyz into oblivion. The remaining infantry fail a morale test at LD 8, then fail the bosspole attempt and run away.

From 40k pics

The Deffrolla wagon has a chance to do some damage here on the following turn with a ram. Unfortunately the game ends and the Orks are down 7 kill points to 3.

So my Orks lose pretty handily. I'm not sure how I could have improved the outcome. He reserved which hurt my shooting, and then I had to deal with too much vendetta fire early slowing down my ability to get into his lines. My Nob wagon was pretty much out of the fight the entire game. I considered just moving them out of their wagon but I figured they'd just get blasted with Manticore fire so I stayed put and didn't give up the KP. The game was pretty close up until the last turn when he got 3 kill points. A less than terrible run roll on my Waagh! could have made the game much closer.

I'm going to stick with this list and chalk up my loss to a poor matchup. I'm sure there were some generalship errors somewhere in there too but nothing that was obvious to me. I can't beat every army in every game. I'll just keep testing with it and hope it can achieve better outcomes in different missions or against different army types.