Adepticon 2011, Part III: Team Tournament, Game 3 vs. Sons of Scotty (SOS)

Well, gents, it was time for the third game of the Team Tournament as it usually happens, after a good round you tend to face bigger challenges. And in our case it was true. I retell this story with a sour taste in my mouth simply because it really wasn't that interesting and yeah, some might say it is because we got utterly trounced. So without further ado, meet the Canadian invaders from team..

Sons of Scotty

Or at least one of the Coalitions..

DAKKADAKKADAKKA!

But before I take you on this very short and painful journey let us observe what this Coaltion from Canada brought on the table. Yes, you got that right. Orkz. *sigh* Orkz: The one army I was 100% we could defeat without a problem just by playing Space Wolves and the army that I really, really wanted to face just so Skarvald the Troll-faced could have a field day feeding his Thunderwolf some xeno fungus. After all, we did practice against a shooty Ork list that was specifically created to face us and while it was tough we won.
I guess with great overconfidence comes great regret, eh?

Mission #3 was Of Steel and Blood!    
Deployment was Dawn of War with the entire game focusing on controlling objectives. 6 points were scored for controlling the opponent's objective markers (located in his deployment zone) and 2 for controlling your own objective markers. Secondary objective was our favorite Annihilation. Extra points were given out for controlling both of your own objectives and for having a Coalition Commander HQ within 3'' of an enemy objective marker at the end of the game. Pretty simple, eh? Command Tokens granted Priority Control, which meant Scoring and if they controlled an objective it could only be contested by other Command Token-bearing units. Neat!

We rolled for sides and deployment and they won. I believe we did a combined roll from each player to see who won. As you can see, Sons of Scotty were playing Orkz of the foot sloggin', mostly shooty kind. There were tons of 20 and 30 Boy Mobz with a combination of Sluggas/Choppas or Shootas but all with maxed out Big Shootas. A total of 3 units of 3 Killa Kanz with different equipment, 2 units with 11 Lootaz and of course TWO Big Meks with Kustom Force Fieldz. We were severely outnumbered and outdakka'd.

"Suffer not the xeno to live!"

During our deployment we realized our misfortune with facing them with our current Coaltion. My friend John was running x3 Grey Hunter Squads in Rhinos, a Rune Priest with Jaws of the World Wolf and Living Lightning, a Vindicator and the usual Long Fang squad. Our other Coaltion was facing Chimera Guard with no Long Fangs whatsoever and had 3 TWC squads. If only we could have switched tables.. While we did have a bunch of scoring units, we only had one Thunderwolf Cavalry squad which obviously was going to be the center of attention and eat tremendous amounts of S5 and S7 shots. Our Long Fang's firepower was largely negated by the KFF and their Lootaz were naturally going to target them first. With so much firepower it's really hard to decide whether you should go towards the mobz of boyz and the lumbering Killa Kanz or stay back and let their guns turn your armor into Swiss Cheese. A big mob of boyz following a Big Mek got the Command Token.

So.. we did the trick with delpoying 8'' with empty Rhinos and failed to seize the initiative. *sigh* Skarvald's unit got the Command Token. Might as well...

Turn 1
As per usual with Dawn of War games, first turn was pretty uneventful. Lootaz, Kanz and tons of boyz walked from the table edge, then ran. Yaaaay!

Our Long Fangs, Thunderwolves, etc all came from the table edge. We had some Living Lightnings that failed to do anything at all. Rhinos are moving around, just trying to get in favorable positions in which we could charge and not get charge. While Counter-Attack is awesome we really wanted to avoid the +1 attack and +1S that orkz get when they charge. The Initiative bonus never matters, really. Oooh, I3 rather than I2, herp derp.

Turn 2
Da Green Tide of Boyz is slowly walking toward us, peppering us with dakka as their troops are covering their own objectives. A unit of Lootas unleashes a torrent of fire on a squad of Long Fangs and after suffering massive casualties they decided to "advance in the opposite direction" and were removed from play.Big Shootas, rokkits and other crap is also slowly damaging us.. Lots of shooting also damages Skarvald's squad, but the brave Wolf Lord is determined to meet his end in combat rather than die by a random shot.

"Plink! Plink! Fzzzap!"

On our turn we try and move the Rhinos as best as we can, trying to get into position. Smoke is popped and all that goodness. Skarvald and his friends are riding into battle as thousands of bullets are ricocheting off their armor and the nearby ruins. The foul orkz are close but not close enough for Skarvald to avoid another deadly salvo. The Long Fangs have their work cut out for them and the Killa Kanz MUST die. The Rune Priests also realize this and after the smoke clears out and the power of the Kustom Force Fields fizzles, there are 3-4 Killa Kanz dead with the help of a pretty good Vindicator shot.

Turn 3
Well, you know what happened. Literally hundreds of shots are fired towards Rhinos with lots of glancing results, even more dakka hits Skarvald and the orkz advance even more. It is a walking lawnmower of a list.. While better than fighting against static I.G, you almost wish you did play against I.G, because you don't have to wait for 100+ models to move and/or run.

 

My father was a Wolf.
I'm a Kinsman of the Slain,
Sworn to rise again!
I will bring salvation, punishment and pain
The hammer of hate is our faith
Power and dominion are taken by the will
By divine right Hail and Kill!

It is now our turn! The Grey Hunter pack in the frontier raises proudly their Wolf Standard mowing down some Shoota Orkz with their bolt guns as they finally cut to the chase in order to cut to the bone! Murderous Hurricane is cast from within a Rhino to punish a squad of slugga and choppa Boyz in case they decide anything at all. The Narwhal Vindicator manages to place a shell directly in the midst of the Lootas killing many and making them flee from the board edge! Long Fangs manage to go through the arcane trickery of the Big Mek and the metal exoskeleton of the Kanz and more Dreadnought-wannabes explode. Skarvald prepares for his last charge. Rimefang is drawn out and the Wolf Lord's single eye is unblinking as his voice silences the battle cries of the Orkz with a battle cry of his own. "FOR RUSS AND THE ALLFATHER, BROTHERS! WOLVES FOR THE WOLF GOD!" It was Skarvald, the Thunder hammer thane and the rider with the Storm Shield that lived long enough to charge into the mob of boyz and while it is an obvious trap the sounds of ripping into ork skin is worth the glorious, impending death! Skarvald manages to kill 5 or 6 Boyz and before the orkz get to swing their "ranks" are missing ~10-11 ladz. The boyz mostly fail with their attacks and the Nob manages to inflict a wound on the Thunder hammer guy while the Storm Shield one absorbs the hit. The Sons of Russ manage to win this one and many more Orkz are slain as there are exactly enough left to still be Fearless.
On the other side of the table the Grey Hunters are not so lucky with their attacks, but they manage to hold the horde while suffering some heavy casualties.

Turn 4
I believe that this is when they call their WAAAAAAAAAGH (and they didn't yell even though we asked them to! Lame.) and the hurting begins. More Boyz assault into Skarvald's final battle, followed by 3 Killa Kanz and while the Thunderwolves manage to reap a great tally, the S10 hits of the Killa Kanz and a lucky failed power klaw hit manage to kill Skarvald and his thanes. Two Killa Kanz assault into the Vindicator, wrecking it. The Boyz in assault with the Grey Hunters managed to mop them up. Everyone then simply starts to walk towards our objectives and there really isn't anything we can do about it.

"FUUUUUUUUUUUU~~"

At this point we are just trying to slow down the game and hope we could score some points if the game stopped at turn 5. Rhinos are moving all over the place, storm bolters are firing.. Of course the KFF's are granting saves left and right. Then my buddy makes a mistake and deloys a unit of Grey Hunters out of his Rhino.. ready to assault into a unit of Killa Kanz.... even though there are no melta bombs or power fists in the unit. /palmface. As Borat would say "Huge pain in my assholes". Some more missile launchers hit the monstrous Killa Kanz..  That was about it. We were hoping to lure them in a little bit more and cause as much damage as possible. Oh, and those Grey Hunters from before? Died a horrible death..

Turn 5
.. and boom goes the dynamite! Don't really remember what happened anymore. Lootas fired at vehicles, the remaining Killa Kanz assaulted a Rhino with guys but failed to wreck it I believe. The big blob of Orkz with the token and the KFF Big Mek were sitting comfortably on our objective and so were some other Boyz on the right.

Well.. it was time to do something. A Rhino was contesting our own objective with Grey Hunters inside, only a few inches away from Killa Kanz. A very well executed Jaws of the World Wolf killed a Big Mek, a Power Klaw Nob and 6 or 7 boyz, eliminating the 5+ cover the Boyz were getting in the open. Then 5 missile launchers and amazing 14 hits from Murderous Hurricane killed a lot more Orkz, moving them away from the objective. It was a pretty impressive round, I dare say! Alas, the Orkz didn't break.

At this point I really don't remember what happened anymore. Did the game end on turn 5 or not.. Didn't really matter.

Results: We got decimated and it was clear who the winner was.. They had both of their objectives, one of ours, killed Skarvald (for which they get moral victory as well), got one of the Tactical Bonuses and had us Kill Points. I did however learn a bunch of new things from this game. So yeah...

LOSS

While I might sound like a sour loser I'd still like to say a few things. Once again it was the poor coalition match up that got us. One side had all the firepower and one side didn't and one of the coalitions just didn't have the "bite" that was needed to go through the horde of Orkz. Now that I think about it we should have played more aggressively and used Jaws of the World Wolf to snipe out the Big Meks as soon as turn 2 to get rid of their Kustom Force Fieldz.. Then again the Killa Kanz were such a nasty threat that I guess we got panicked and focus-fired them as much as we could... which is why you field Killa Kanz for, anyways.
We should have blocked the Lootas' line of sight with Rhinos to protect our Long Fangs on turn 2 and then blasted the crap out of them with small templates.

I blame the lack of practice games. Yeah, that's it.