Breaking my 40k Fast

I had an awesome game of 40k with Jason tonight. With being so incredibly busy lately and the weather being atrocious, I haven't been able to get up to the game store in weeks and haven't had a proper game of 40k in the house for ages. I was glad that Jason could make it down for our game tonight.

We didn't play to any amazing narrative or anything this time. Jason was trying out his Highlander list for the upcoming Goldensprue Cup tournament I'm running up at Grimfoe this March. I also wanted some personal experience with the missions since I've been relying on others to try them out until now.

Scenario

We rolled a random tournament Scenario, though I wanted to specify it had to use the Tactical Objectives mission so that I could try that out specifically. We haven't used this specific method in a tournament yet, so it bore testing. We rolled Scenario 2.

Scenario 2 - Emperor’s Will
Objectives: 2
Special Mission Rules:  In Cumulative Objectives, holding the Objective in your Opponent’s Deployment Zone scores 2 Victory Points instead of 1.
Missions:
Hold Objectives - 11pts
Tactical Objectives*- 8pts
Linebreaker - 2pts
Slay the Warlord 2pts
Big Game Hunter 2pts

You could check out the mission packet to see what this stuff means, but I'll repeat it here:

Hold Objectives: The player holding the most Objectives at the end of the game wins this mission.

Tactical Objectives: Starting on Turn 2, at the end of each of your player turns, score 1 Victory Point for each Objective you’re holding and each unit you killed (during your turn).  The player with the most Victory Points for this mission at the end of the game wins this mission.  It is suggested you use cards or tokens to keep track of this number.

Linebreaker: As per the core rulebook.

Slay the Warlord: As per the core rulebook.

Big Game Hunter:  The player wins this mission if, among all the units killed by both players, they killed the one which was worth the most points.  Note that any unit destroyed counts as having been killed by the opponent.  Note that this means it is highly unlikely players will tie this Mission unless they both kill a unit of the same points value.

Special Bonus Points:  Some units or Warlord Traits allow you to earn bonus Victory Points such as the Ork Tankbustas' Glory Hogs ability.  The mission in which you will score these points is listed with an asterisk *.

Emperor's Will encourages aggressive play and should result in carnage on both sides of the table with the smoking wreckage of turbo-boosting vehicles and bikes littering the no-man's-land in between.

Lists

If these lists look strange for Highlander, feel free to read our format. We allow extra dedicated transports in our tournaments.

Jason brought his Blood Ravens which are using the White Scars Chapter Tactics for the tournament. He's using the tough-as-nails Chapter Master on Bike as his mobile anchor and an Imperial Knight for heavy duty harrying.

1500 Pts - Space Marines - highlander

• Combined Arms Detachment (White Scars Chapter Tactics)
• 1 Chapter Master, 250pts (Artificer Armour; Thunder Hammer (x1); The Shield Eternal; Space Marine Bike; Warlord)
• 4 Command Squad, 180pts (Space Marine Bikes; Grav-gun (x2))
• 1 Apothecary
• 1 Librarian, 170pts (Force Sword; Increase Mastery Level (x1); The Armour Indomitus, Space Marine Bike)
• 5 Legion of the Damned, 155pts (Meltagun; Multi-melta, Combi-Meltagun)
• 5 Tactical Squad, 70pts
• 1 Ironclad Dreadnought, 185pts (Heavy Flamer; Chainfist; Hurricane Bolter)
• Drop Pod (Deathwind Missile Launcher)
• 5 Tactical Squad, 115pts (Combi-Meltagun)
• Rhino
• Imperial Knights Detachment
• Knight Paladin, 375pts

My goal with this list was to bring enough punch to take out Land Raiders and Knights while being able to zoom around the board capturing objectives and deleting anything smaller than a deathstar.  The Lobbas were put in to deal with summoning lists and snipe characters and flamers out of squads if possible.

1500 Pts - Codex: Orks Roster - Highlander 1500 March

• Combined Arms Detachment (99#, 1500 pts)
• 20 Stormboyz, 180 pts
• 1 Boss Zagstruk, 65 pts (Warlord; Bellowing Tyrant)
• 11 Boyz, 147 pts (Slugga)
• 1 Boss Nob (Bosspole; Power Klaw)
• 1 Trukk (Rokkit Launcha; Reinforced Ram)
• 11 Boyz, 147 pts (Slugga)
• 1 Boss Nob (Bosspole; Power Klaw)
• 1 Trukk (Rokkit Launcha; Reinforced Ram)
• 10 Boyz, 111 pts (Slugga)
• 1 Boss Nob (Bosspole)
• 1 Trukk
• 4 Meganobz, 200 pts (Bosspole)
• 1 Trukk (Rokkit Launcha; Reinforced Ram)
• 1 Mek, 15 pts
• 14 Tankbustas, 235 pts (Bomb Squig x1)
• 1 Boss Nob (Bosspole; Big Choppa)
• 1 Mad Dok Grotsnik, 160 pts
• 1 Battlewagon, 120 pts (Rokkit Launcha x1; Reinforced Ram)
• 5 Mek Gunz (5x Lobbas, 5x Ammo Runts), 105 pts
• 1 Mek, 15 pts

We brought a variety of terrain from the back room.  It's a little light for a Goldensprue Cup match, but we made do.

I centrally located my Tankbustas and Lobbas, then stacked most of my army on the side of the board opposite Jason's Objective. I knew scoring early and often would be very important in this game. You can barely make out one trukk on my left flank ready to answer to any threat over there.

Okay, well, my definition of "any" needs adjustment. Jason loads his right flank with the titan and the Command Squad of Doom.

The Tactical Squads guard his objective.

The Legion and the Dreadnought await in reserves.

I race forward with three of my Trukks: two Boyz units and the Meganobz.  My Stormboyz make their way over as well, but they hang back enough to lend support to the Lobbas and Trukk holding my objective.

I face the Imperial Knight in the hopes that its Ordnance won't be enough to hit my AV14.

The dreadnought drops in, kills a few Boyz with its Heavy Flamer, destroys the Trukk with its Hurricane Bolter, then the Nob beats a few Boyz senseless when they try to hit the deck.

The Battlewagon is stripped of two hull points and is immobilized by the bikes' Grav Guns. Mad Doc and the Tankbustas have a momentary thought about getting out of the Battlewagon, but they think better of it and start shooting at the bikes instead.

With enough bodies on my right flank to handle the Tactical Marines, a squad of Wrekkin Krew Boyz and the Stormboyz race to the aid of Boyz holding the Objective against the Dreadnought.  Unfortunately, Zagstruk doesn't make it in time for his Hammer of Wrath attack and the Orange Boyz do not even make it into combat.

The Meganobz fail their assault against the Tactical Squad when they roll a pair of twos and don't change their luck on the re-roll.  Meanwhile, the Trukk and its crew are ordered to hold and score the enemy Objective.

With a great charge roll, the Old Boyz are able to wrap the Rhino.

The Rhino is wrecked and the Old Boyz chop to death all the Marines inside as they attempt escape from the burning wreck.

The Knight sets its sights on the Lobbas who have been picking off one bike at a time.

Mek Gunz don't like Battle Cannons.

The Wrekkin Krew Boyz take a great deal of fire from the enemy and their Trukk is wrecked by the freshly-arrived Legion of the Damned.

The Chapter Master's unit makes short work of them.

After a single model is slain by the Dreadnought, the Stormboyz attempt to use "Our Weapons are Useless".  They fail to regroup on the Ork turn and flee the battle zone.

Mad Doc finally orders his Tankbustas to disembark and assault their enemy.

The Chapter Master's unit sustains some casualties  (as do the Tankbustas), but they use Hit and Run to bounce out of combat all cheaty-like!

The Meganobz leave the Tactical Squad to be dealt with by the Boyz and zoom towards the Legion of the Damned, two of whom they kill with their Twin-Linked Shootas.

The Old Boyz want to slaughter more Tactical Marines.

Power armor is so 'ard!!!  Well, at least nobody died.

The Boyz continue to fight valiantly, scoring the Objective they've been ordered to hold and even manage to rattle the venerated warrior with a good Klaw to da FACE!

The Chapter Master decides to rescue the Dreadnought and stop the Boyz from scoring the Objective they are fighting over.

The Knight tries in vain to blast the Trukk capping the Space Marine Objective, but the woods bear the brunt of its onslaught!

The Chapter Master successfully breaks the Dreadnought from the combat he's stuck in, slaughtering the Boyz who'd held him there. The Dreadnought glowers hungrily at the Gretchin from the Mek Gunz squad.

The Tankbustas and Mad Doc are ready for the final push.  The Chapter Master's squad weathers crippling Rokkit fire with ease.

The Meganobz boost out of their ride to stop the Legion of the Damned from molesting the poor Trukk holding the Objective!

They tear into combat with the single remaining Legionnaire.

The Tankbustas only manage to strip 2 hull points from the pod! They also kill the Librarian.

The Legion (and the Tactical Squad) on Jason's left flank are totally destroyed and I hold the area uncontested.

Mad Doc and the Chapter Master get stuck in!  

Aftermath

We had to call the game there so that Jason could get home in a timely manner seeing as how he travelled 45 minutes to come play with me.  At this point, things could have gone either way.  I was sitting on a LOT of Tactical Objective points for scoring both Objectives for some time and also killing all of Jason's smaller units on my turn.  However, Jason had every opportunity to bounce back with kill points of his own with the Grot artillery about to be assaulted by the Dreadnought and Mad Doc's squad deep in contention versus Jason's squad. I had a great opportunity, too, holding Jason's objective and also clearly being able to kill his Apothecary with Mad Doc while throwing away my Nob into challenge with Jason's Chapter Master. 

So, we decided to settle it by having Mad Doc and the Chapter Master fight it out to see who would come out on top.  Mad Doc rolled a lot of 1s and got gooshed.  Game over!

The Scenario

I believe the scenario works great. I was concerned about Tactical Objectives tied with Emperor's Will. My first instinct had been to do Purge with Emperor's will instead, but that pretty much just makes it a Kill Points game.  This scenario is a brutal slug-fest pushing both players to be very aggressive while simultaneously trying to protect their own assets. This scenario is a BLOODBATH!