Rogue Trader in the Modern Age - 40K battle report

Last night Conscripts Greg, Mike F. and Brian came over for a game of 40K sixth edition with a retro flavour - my Orks vs. Greg's Imperial Guard. The retro-ness comes from the models we use - Greg's Guard are the original RT Perry twins plastics with updated weapons, and my Orks are all RT metal models, with a couple of exceptions. We teed up a game at 1500 points... 

Here's what 1500 points of RT Orks looks like in sixth edition...

Dakkajet, Deff Dread, Wartrakk squadron, Trukk (captured Rhino) and at right, a battlewagon from Puppets War. I call this a "conversion" since the gun jutting out over the ram plate is from the Ork boyz boxed plastic sprue ;-)

Ork infantry. Clockwise from centre left: Warboss Thrugg in mega-armour, 5 Meganobs, maob of 20 boyz, mob of 20 boyz, 5 Flash Gitz, 10 Stormboyz with Nob.

We rolled up a random scenario - Crusade - and a deployment mode. Unfortunately for me this meant deploying on the short sides of the table. Five objectives were placed and the game began - here's my initial deployment - the battlewagon is carrying 20 boyz and the Boss and Meganobz are in the Trukk.

Here's what we were facing - ouch. Lots of Chimeras plus a Leman Russ and Basilisk. Valkyries are off-table...

Looking OK so far... this would change shortly...

Stormboyz popped over to take cover behind the Imperial bastion. So far so good.

Chimeras advance...

Wartrakks scream out from the Ork lines and race towards the enemy...

I love this model. So... Orky :-)

Fighta Ace appears on Turn Two to spread Dakka love. Note the distinct lack of Stormboyz behind the bastion. They got lit up by Guard autocannons and lasguns, thought better of their enterprise, and fled the table without firing a shot. The first turn also saw the Meganobs' Trukk immobilized and its weapon destroyed, and the Basilisk landing large templates with unerring accuracy on the mob of boyz in the woods near the Ork lines. First Blood to the Imperium.
 

Now the Guard Valks appear while the battlewagon careens towards the Imperial lines. The Meganobs and Boss are on foot making their way forwards. More large templates land on the boyz in the woods (Hood?). They lose heart and also run away. One wartrakk has been destroyed at lower right (flames just visible in shot).

Battlewagon before the calamity.

It's destroyed by Imperial fire and goes up in a flaming explosion. Several boyz are killed and the rest bail, only to all be killed in a single shooting phase - again without firing a single shot. This was becoming an all-too-familiar pattern...

In the Ork turn, Flash Gits and Wartrakk with twin-linked rokkit launcha makes scrap out of a Chimera. Passengers disembark.

Another Chimera is wrecked by the Meganobs in close combat. Once these guys got stuck in they were unstoppable!

"Woot!"

After more Imperial shooting cleaned off the Flash Gits and Trakks, the only Ork units left were the Meganobs, Warboss, Dakkajet and Deff Dread. So we called a "Waaagh!" and rushed them all forward into close combat. The Dakkajet flensed the Guard command squad (but failed to kill the commander, drat!) and the Meganobs and Boss comprehensively annihilated the Guard heavy weapons squad.

Even the Deff Dread got into the act and wrecked a Chimera.

"Humies all dead. We win, right?"

Well... wrong. Although the Victory Points ended up only 4 to 1 for Greg, the game wasn't that close at all. Greg scored 3 VPs for holding one objective and 1 for "First Blood". The Orks scored 1 for having a unit in Greg's deployment zone ("Linebreaker"). However, the Orks had no Troops left after about turn four, and only three viable units remained in total - one of which was a flyer. Yes, the Orks are hard as f@ck when they get stuck in, but slogging across four feet of table to do it was not ideal. We'll try it again (the spectacle is too cool not to) but I think that next time I'll take more boyz, and maybe try to eliminate pesky Basilisks before they destroy my entire army ;-)  Oh, and the short bus from Puppets War looked totally cool, I think I will create a blog post dedicated to that project with some more photos this weekend.

***BEGIN TRANSMISSION***

***TO__ DATABASE 45324-A CHARADON SECTOR CENTRAL***

***FROM__ IMAGIST SECOND CLASS NYRAN KRUMP***

 

 

 

Thanks to Greg for the fantastic propaganda images!