Drillteef Batrep - Dirty Goblin Team Tournament: March 2014

As usual, I had a truly wonderful time at the Dirty Goblin Team Tournament.  I went in with the plan to try out my Adepticon team list, but I ended up teaming up with Jacob who was bringing his nasty Chaos bike unit with the Juggerlord.  We decided that, since I was bringing the Nob Boar Riderz to try them out, I'd go all in.

And I did!

Behold! The Thousand Sons of the ApOrkalypse!

1000 Pts - Codex: Orks Roster - Team Nob Bikerz

1 Mad Dok Grotsnik, 160 pts

1 Warboss, 130 pts (Cybork Body; Warbike; Power Klaw; Warlord)

1 Nob Bikers, 630 pts (Count as Troop Troops; Cybork Body; Stikkbombs; Warbike)
   1 Painboy (Cybork Body; Stikkbombs; Warbike)
   1 Nobz (Warbike; Cybork Body; Stikkbombs; Waaagh! Banner; Power Klaw)
   1 Nobz (Warbike; Bosspole; Cybork Body; Stikkbombs; Power Klaw; Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon)
   4 Nobz (Warbike; Cybork Body; Stikkbombs)
   3 Nobz (Warbike; Cybork Body; Stikkbombs; Big Choppa)

10 Gretchin, 40 pts
   1 Runtherd

10 Gretchin, 40 pts
   1 Runtherd

Jacob brought the Juggerlord, a squad of bikes, 2 Obliterators, 1 Obliterator, 2 squads of Cultists, and 2 Heldrakes with auto... aut... PHHA! Just kidding. Baleflamers.

Anyways, this team has no business winning games.  Seriously.

Game 1

Deployment: Dawn of War
Primary Mission:  Purge the Alien
Secondary Mission:  the Emperor's Will
Opponents:  Tau suits and Salamanders in drop pods

The Tau/Space Marine deployment zone is looking pretty sparse.

Bikes fill the ApOrkalypse deployment zone.

And a pair of Obliterators.

The first pods drop in.

The Tau spray a little fire into the Orks and the Nobz zoom forward.  Of course,  Mad Doc's drag coefficient is quite limiting on the maneuverability of the Nobz!

The Chaos bikes prove a bit less durable, though they did suffer a bit of Melta love.

Farsight & Friends drop in...

...and eat some bacon.

A Heldrake moves in to support the Nobz and the Nobz pour bike shots into the Tau.

The Gretchin and some Cultists move in.  The Gretchin actually manage to kill three marines with shooting! Go, Grots!

Somehow, the Orks not only survive assaulting Farsight, but completely destroy the unit and consolidate towards the ruin full of Fire Warriors and Scouts.

Vulkan and his men cause quite a stir on our right flank!

Another drop pod, this one full of Melta punches more holes in the Boar-Riders.

Vulkan stands alone against an unruly mob of Cultists!

A single Marine and a Runtherder fight a single combat near the ApOrkalypse objective.

The Orks push towards their nearest foe after the other combat squad of Sternguard is annihilated by a Heldrake.

A Heldrake makes every attempt against the remaining Fire Warriors on the building.

Mad Doc, the Warboss, and the remaining Nob assault the Sternguard!

Oh the humanity!  Poor Gretchin!

And we go for the Drop Pod.

What's a Drop Pod?

The Juggerlord and Vulkan square off!

Poor Vulkan.  It should have been mutual destruction, but instead, the Juggerlord is able to pass saves!

While the Nob squad has been a demon with its saves and Feel No Pain all game, a crater proves deadly for the Warboss!

Riptides aren't dangerous!

WAAAAAAGH!

In the end....

.... not much was left.

Result:
Chaos/Orks - 9
Tau/Salamanders - 2

Game 2

Deployment: Vanguard Strike
Primary Mission:  Big Guns Never Tire
Secondary Mission:  Purge the Alien
Opponents:  White Scars on bikes and Chaos Daemons with heavy support and Plaguebearers

I failed to take a photo of our deployment, but I exposed the Nobz while Jacob tried to hide his Chaos bikes. Again, a lot of the quality shooting was directed at Jacob early in the game on the right flank. The Orks weathered a lot of shooting from our left flank.

I moved towards the bikes which had scouted forward to shoot me.  Using assault shenanigans, I was able to walk the enormous bike bases across the table to multi-assault.  I used the farther back models to create a barrier of models so I would have to go for the other unit while maintaining unit cohesion.

Sadly,  overwatch dashed Jacob's hopes of assault.

A good shot of our opponents' backfield during the assault phase.

Another shot of the Juggerlord, very lonely behind the center terrain.

At the end of the first turn combat, one squad of Bikes was dead and I was locked with the other.

That combat didn't last long.  The number of Dangerous Terrain tests was epic during this combat.

The Gretchin have no hope!

The Heldrakes even the score with Khan's squad after they kill the Juggerlord in shooting.

The Orks move towards the Skull Cannon of Khorne.  More Dangerous Terrain Checks! Yay!

Krumpin' managed, boss!

The anti-aircraft tank is obliterated by the.... well... you know....

The Gretchin do some business against the bloodletters!

But not enough.

The remaining reserves arrive and dare Khan to harm them.

Khan strikes out at the Cultists. 

Now a real challenge! The Soul Grinder.

There aren't anymore Space Marine Bikes and the Bloodletter problem is handled tidily.

The Plague Bearers are able to hold off the Obliterator.

Cultists!

Oh no!  Poor Khan!

After several Nobz fall to Strength 10 swings (and theWarboss taking a few for the team), the Soulgrinder and the Plague bearers holding the Objective on their left flank fall to the unstoppable Nob menace!

And we press on to their right flank where the Plague Bearers fall to the weight of fire and assault from the Heldrakes and the Nobz.  The Warboss tried several times to kill himself with dangerous terrain.

Result:
Chaos/Orks - 10
Tau/Salamanders - 0

Game 3

Deployment: Hammer & Anvil
Primary Mission:  Marked for Death
Secondary Mission:  Crusade
Opponents:  Sisters of Battle and Iron Hands on bikes

Marked for Death is an awesome mission for team games.  It's a modified Purge the Alien where each player picks one opposing player.  Kill points only count if you made the killing blow against the player you picked. This creates interesting tactical decisions like throwing yourself against an opponent which can't score points for killing you.

Look at how awesome the light-up cathedral looks.  Love it.  Here you'll see how we used Princepts of Deceit to get the Orks onto the other side of the board in order to go after the correct opponent.

This is what our opponent's left flank looks like after our first turn!  Yeah, Turbo Boost!

And their right flank.

The poor Juggerlord's unit takes the brunt of the shooting again, but his opponent fails to assault him.

I assault in with the Nobz.  I remain here for pretty much the remainder of the game.

The Obliterators arrive and perform poorly against the Exorcists.

Scrum.

An Obliterator survives a full turn of shooting from the entire backfield.

More nonsense. I am able to wipe out the bike unit, but am stuck with the Chapter Master in a challenge with my Painboy.  I try several times to intervene with my Warboss, but fail to do so until it is too late.

The Saint uses Hit and Run.

What a mess!

The Legion make some hay against one of the Cultist squads while the Gretchin attempt to destroy the elite unit.

The blob of Sisters seal the fate of the Nobz by assault into combat with their fearless Priest in tow.  

We are stuck while the Chapter Master safely breaks out of combat thanks to And They Shall Know No Fear.

The Sisters press the harrying assault on our backfield.  

Saint Celestine gets up!

I kill everything else in that combat. Unfortunately, none of it granted me a kill point.  I was very close to assaulting the Chapter Master and the Legion of the Damned, but time had been called and it was Turn 5 anyways.

Results:
Sisters of Battle/Space Marines - 9
Chaos/Orks - 2

Lessons Learned

Another "duh" moment.... Nob Bikerz are amazingly durable.  They're certainly not unkillable. Not everybody gets 2++ re-rollable saves after all.  In the past, I had trouble with Nob Bikerz due to Leadership issues.   I didn't always run them with a Warboss on a Bike and it has helped a lot to be able to throw a Str 10 wound or two to him in order to save a Nob from instant death.  Mad Doc makes the Nob Bikerz far more viable and vice-versa.  It's a tough nut to crack made even tougher by the fact that it's fearless all the time.  It can't be checked off the board nor can it be swept.  It is a monstrosity.  Sure, the Doc holds 'em back a little bit, but not as bad as you'd think with those huge bases.

I really like playing with Jacob.  We make a good team.   We have a similar viewpoint on how the game is played and we get along nicely.  I look forward to the next time we team up.

LOOT!

I bought a Dwarf Gyrocopter.  That thing was expensive as hell.  Like, seriously bonkers wouldn't-buy-it-if-I-didn't-have-prize-support-to-pay-for-it expensive. Combined with some Trukk and Basilisk bitz, I'm gonna build a Chinork Warkopta the next chance I get.  Or soon if it ends up in my Adepticon Team Tournament list. We'll see.