First Kill Team game - Dark Angels vs Orks

The Welwyn Wargamers Monday night session seemed like an ideal time for Rich to unbox his Kill Team. He had hastily put together the scenery and constructed his Ork team during the weekend, whereas I had simply bought the rulebook and painted up my Dark Angel Kill Team after briefly looking at the core rules and playing about with BattleScribe.

My first impression was that the rulebook was quite neatly put together - A bit of fluff at the front, the core rules and a game/sequence walk through, and then an A-Z of stats for each race/type available. However, we wanted to see how easy it was in practise by taking the stereo-typical bloke approach of half reading the rules and just seeing how we get on.

Both of us had prepared our teams, keeping to 100 points. As you may have guessed from my other blog post, I took an Intercessor Sergeant with Power Sword, an Intercessor Gunner with Comms (for the one-off  +1 to-hit roll), a Tactical Marine Gunner with Heavy Bolter (you can see where I was going with this), a plain Intercessor, a Scout Sergeant with Chainsword and two Tactical Marines.
At time of writing, this is just a 'standard' space marine spec, as there isn't a specific Dark Angel ruleset.

From memory, Rich took an Ork Boy Boss Nob, two Burna Boys (1x combat, 1x Zealot), 1x Loota Spanner (Heavy Big Shoota), and 9x Ork Boyz with Sluggas and Choppas.

Scenery
Rich unfolded the board and set it down on the table. "Right then" he said, "Scenery... scenery... um...<some more bemused flicking through the rulebook>... er..." - Yep, we couldn't find anything to say how to put the scenery down. We simply rolled a dice, and the highest put the first piece down, then alternated until we'd run out. Things weren't getting off to a good start.

Killzone
Next, page 44, was the Killzones environment table. We rolled '2' - Abandoned Munitions - one extra model in each kill team can shoot with a grenade weapon that they are armed with in each battle round. Neither of us were armed with an additional grenade weapon. We didn't see this as applying to us.

Mission
We rolled for the Mission (Matched Play) and chose 'Take Prisoners' - This turned out to be very important for Rich and his Orks as the victory conditions were Capture the enemy by 'taking them out of action' whilst it is 1" from a model of your kill team, with 3VP for the leader, and 1VP for each normal member. Basically it meant I couldn't shoot from range any Orks and gain VP's because I wouldn't have anyone nearby... and if they were 1" away then they would be classed as in hand to hand combat... and you can't have friendly fire risks as per the rules.

Scouting Phase
We secretly chose a strategy and revealed them simultaneously. I chose 'Eliminate Sentries' thinking that the Orks would take the 'Take Forward Position' strategy to move 20% of his team forward first... and then I could shoot at them. But no. The sneaky Ork commander chose 'Scout Out Terrain' so he could move freely through certain terrain pieces without penalty. Curses! In my mind's eye I could already see an unstoppable green wave rolling towards me...

Deployment
Taking the higher initiative roll and I choose one corner/quarter, with Rich setting up in the opposite quarter. 

My plan was to lay down an arc of covering fire while frankly standing firm and 'Readying' my team so they could shoot first in the shooting phase. The Orks set up to flank the space marines on both sides. In hindsight I should have stayed as far back as possible. The Ork ballistic skill should have proved to be pretty poor generally, needing a 5+ on a D6 in the open (and 6 if the target was in cover - which I intended to be).

How did the game pan out?
For the Dark Angels? - Pretty badly. Rich remarked "I've never seen so many skulls"... [I was using a set of Dark Angel dice I had bought when their 40K codex had been released... it was their first outing... with Skulls for 1, the chapter symbol for 6, and 2-5 sword motifs for the numbers - Normally I see a lot of skulls in Blood Bowl... but this was something else!]. Even with 3 shots at 2+ using Comms with the Heavy Bolter, and plenty of rapid fire shots from his brother marines, the only thing we could intially do was put a couple of flesh wounds on one exposed Ork Boy. Frankly my shooting phases were awful, with the 'Readied' team members missing. With a Ballistic Skill of 3+ we usually needed 4+ to hit, and with the Orks having Toughness 4 it was 4+ to wound - so a 25% chance of getting to the Flesh Wound/Out of Action roll...

The Orks in the meantime couldn't hit me either, but did take out my rather foolish Scout who had tried to close the gap on the Orks and hit first... he died(OoA) in a hail of Dakka-Dakka. A good move Rich made was to pour around the cover of the...well... I don't know what it is - the circular contraption with aerials on it - which meant be couldn't see them to shoot them. They bunched up and charged. One of them got into base to base contact, but, importantly, as I couldn't see them, I couldn't Overwatch them (needing a 6). The Orks tied up my Heavy Bolter, and all engaged meaning I couldn't shoot the couple that had engaged in hand to hand combat.

Importantly, unlike 40K, the Orks that had failed to charge were still allowed to move the distance rolled, which just meant they were queuing up to charge next turn - and I couldn't shoot them easily as the engaged models acted as cover.

We started using the various markers supplied with the game, but it was easy enough for us both to follow the action so we didn't really rely on them - we knew who had charged or remained ready etc. Only the flesh wound markers were truly useful.

On the other side, my sergeant charged in an effort to stop being toasted by the Burna Boys with their auto-hit weapons. He swung his power sword in despair, tickling the Ork armour.

Both sides were taking flesh wounds too, but no-one was shaken... In fact, we noted that it wasn't clear from the rules how someone became shaken in the first place... Fortunately Google saved the day.

At this point we remembered that we could shoot pistols whilst in hand to hand combat. Gradually the Space Marines were thinning out... with 3 of each race now Out of Action and Rich piling up the Victory Points. We shook hands

There was one heroic note to make... a tactical marine (pictured far right below) took on 4 Ork Boyz for at least a couple of rounds and survived! He was deserving of those Terminator Honours after all!

Rich and I packed up and considered what had just unfolded. Clearly, I wasn't going to win anything unless you take out the enemy with some half-decent shooting, and had I shaken a few of the greenskins I might have had a chance with engaging in hand to hand combat and earning a few VPs myself. But the simple Ork tactics, good use of cover, and tough Boyz simply meant the mission played into Rich's hands.

I think the game itself was a healthy combination of Necromunda and 40K... but we probably need to look again at Flesh Wounds and Reactions etc... For example there wasn't a Necromunda equivalent of 'Pinned' that we could see. The arena itself felt small, and in my biased opinion seemed to favour a 'zerg' style kill team, especially as failed charges could still move. I should imagine Genestealers or Harlequins will be quite deadly.

We will retire to the firing range and return better prepared for the rematch! Thanks to Rich. We picked our way through... but we both need to look over the rulebook again now that we've gone through this first tester just to see what of the many things we missed!