Who's Da Boss Now?

 24th Orktober 2020

The ladz at the gaming club have been arguing about which klan is the best.

Some Deffskullz have managed to get hold of Ghazghkull after his recent repair job (needed after his run-in with Ragnar Blackmane) and painted his armour blue while he was out cold. Without meaning to, this threw down a gauntlet for all the other orks in the sector and particularly pissed off Ghazghkull’s own klan, the Goffs. 

Warboss Gulskrag and his Goff boyz followed Ghazghkull to Armageddon during the most recent invasion of the planet, even taking the moniker ‘Thraka’ for himself – either in admiration of the great Prophet of Gork and Mork or, if Gulskrag is to be believed, because it was bestowed on him personally by Ghazghkull himself. Gulskrag was not happy to be left behind on the planet when Ghazghkull left, and now that he’s heard Ghazghkull is acting like a Deffskull he’s got to find out what’s going on. Maybe if Gulskrag can knock the Deffskullz about a bit and duff over the Evil Sunz Kult of Speed that he’s heard revving around, he can prove himself to be the best boss and lead his own Waaaaagh!

Big Boss Gulskrag stomped around the deck of his kroozer, kicking at a grot that was too slow to get out the way. He’d been in a foul mood since Gork’s Grin had split the sky above his boyz on Armageddon and the crazy daemonic legions had started appearing, getting right in the way of the fun he was having kicking the humies around the planet. Although, actually, the fun had started to go out of the humie-kicking since Ghazghkull had left the planet. Gulskrag had enjoyed leading his own mobs alongside the biggest, strongest Ork there was – it felt right, it felt good, to be part of the greatest Waaagh! he had known. But then Ghazghkull had another one of his ‘visions’ and buggered off to start a new Waaagh! across the galaxy – but he’d left most of the boyz down on the planet. Sure, he’d left enough humies to kill for a while, but it didn’t feel the same anymore. Gulskrag heard that Snikrot was still sneaking about in the jungle, planning on taking over the planet some day, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with that sneaky Blood Axe bastard. So he just kept his boyz fighting, scrapping away, but the joy of squishing humies was ebbing away for him. Then the daemons had appeared and all hell was let loose, literally. The daemons started killing off the humies, spoiling his fun, and the landscape was changing to a mutated mess that made his head hurt. Gulskrag figured it was time to leave and find a better scrap somewhere else, maybe even join up with Ghazghkull’s mighty Waaagh! again, so he took his boyz and boarded a kroozer. They’d been gunning through the stars for weeks without anything to hit, and Gulskrag’s mood had been getting worse all the time.

“’ere, Boss, dere’s sumfink you should know” said Dagrat, the gnarled Skarboy.

“Wot?” snarled Gulskrag, turning from the grot paste he had just left under his boot.

“Well, we just ‘eard dat Ghazghkull is close.”

A toothy grin replaced the snarling frown of the warboss – there wasn’t much difference. “Dat’s good, let’s go, ‘e always knows where da best fighting is for a propa Goff!”

“Well, dat’s da fing…” started Dagrat. “Sumfing isn’t right. Dey’re saying on da speaking tubes dat ‘e’s gone funny inna head.”

“’e’s always been funny inna head Dagrat, dat’s how Gork and Mork tells ‘im wot to do!”

“Yeah, but dis time ‘e’s painted ‘is armour blue and he’s hanging around wiv some Deffskull gitz,” remarked Dagrat with trepidation, not sure from Gulskrag’s expression whether he was going to burst into laughter or destroy the bridge of the kill kroozer.

After a few seconds of silence, the warboss quietly growled, just above a whisper, “Deffskullz? Thieving, lying, cheating, runty Deffskullz? Da biggest boss inna ooniverse leaves for da biggest Waaagh! inna ooniverse and ‘e isn’t even a propa Goff?”

Then, with a sudden roar of “DEFFSKULLZ!!!! I HATE DEFFSKULLZ!!!” Gulskrag snapped his enormous power klaw in the air and turned to Dagrat and the other Nobz. “Right. We’s gonna go find out wot’s goin’ on. If Ghazghkull is leading runts den ‘e is a runt, and we’s gonna show ‘im who da real biggest boss is. I’m da Thraka now! We’ll show dose weedy Deffskullz wot propa Orks is. Goffs is da biggest, Goffs is da best, let’s give dem a slap and get back to da WAAAAAAAGH!”

“WAAAAAAAAGH!” responded the orks around him, brandishing their weapons and stamping on the floor. “’ere we go, ‘ere we go, ‘ere we go…”

The Goff Horde assembles

Deffskulls rev their engines

Turn One

After realising that the sneaky Deffskulls had deployed just slightly outside of punching distance, the Goffs opened up with a blistering hail of fire, wiping out 6 of the warbikes. The Warphead, Bozgit, summoned the energies of the Waaagh! to infuse the Skarboyz with Warpath power, but his attempt to Jump them closer to the enemy fizzled into green sparks. He cuffed a nearby gretchin with his staff in frustration, knowing that if those weedy greenskins had been a bit bigger and meaner they could have given him the power needed to get the boyz moving in to slap the grin off those Deffskulls.

Meanwhile, the slugga boyz on the right were so encouraged by vicious kicks from Boss Badfang that they managed to run headlong into the enemy battlewagon. The Deffskull driver was so surprised at the charge that he’d forgotten to turn the deffrolla on and so the boyz started clambering all over his vehicle, whacking it with their axes! He finally got the rolla going and squished a couple of boyz, but that just made the rest angry and they renewed their attack, managing to cut the fuel lines and blow the wagon up in a mighty explosion! The fireball engulfed a few boyz on both sides of the fight, incinerated a grot (causing the runtherd to have to set his squighound on the runts to stop them running off), and singed the paintwork on the nearby Gorkanaut.

First blood to the Goffs in quite spectacular fashion!

The shoota boyz and dreads had moved towards the pylon in the open to the left, meaning that combined with the forceful push through the centre and the fighting on the right flank, the Goffs were engaging on all fronts and making Ghazghkull quake in his boots (so they liked to think…)

The Deffskulls finally got moving. They had been a little shaken up when they heard the iron-shod boots of the Goffs marching towards them, which had only been made worse when Ghazghkull’s lucky skull fell off his armour – that had to be a bad sign from Mork. Or possibly Gork. Either way, the boyz didn’t like it, and they hadn’t been too sure just how happy Ghaz was going to be when he came to his senses and realised they’d painted his armour blue when they found him unconscious… The slugga boyz surrounded the enormous boss, holding him back from the frontline – they hoped that if them and their mates could show the big boss the Deffskulls could be just as ‘ard as Goffs then maybe he would stay blue and take them as his vanguard in his Waaagh! across the stars! Imagine the loot they could get then!

Unfortunately, luck wasn’t with them. The Deffkilla Trike opened up with everything it had, barely scratching the paint of the meganobz. After witnessing the destruction of the warbikes caused by the Goff gunwagon, the Deffskull one opened up with it’s Boomer kannon, laying a hail of shots down at the meganobz. But when the dust had cleared, they were all still standing there laughing at the boyz in blue. Finally, the Gorkanaut shot 5 slugga boyz into paste in frustration at also failing to kill the meganobz.

After their lacklustre shooting, the Deffskullz decided to try and out-Goff the Goffs, so charged in across the battlefield. The Gorkanaut and Wartrike charged the meganobz (though the Gorkanaut pilot was surprised at the damage he took from overwatch fire as his Orkymatic pistons threw his machine forwards into the enemy). Between them, they finally started to erode the meganobz unit down, killing three of the scarred veterans and forcing Warboss Gulskrag to give the remaining nobz a slap to keep them in order. Meanwhile, the slugga boyz from the battlewagon as well as Ghazghkull’s ‘protekshun detayl’ charged into the Goff slugga boyz and chopped them down to an ork. The Deffskullz were getting stuck in but they weren’t dominating enough of the battlefield yet. 

The meganobz finally start taking casualties, with Gulskrag just out of range to help... for now!

After their destruction of the battlewagon, the celebrating Goff boyz are mobbed by blue armoured ladz and wiped out

Turn Two

 

Now the Goffs were in a better position to get stuck in. First off, the boyz decided it was time to start getting Ghazghkull’s attention and so rokkits and shells started flying at the hulking ork. Most pattered harmlessly off his mega armour, but a few shots managed to cause the great boss to bellow with rage. The nearby Deffskullz looked at the big boss nervously as he started to become aware of what was going on around him…

While Grimdakka and his rokkit boyz aimed at Ghazghkull, the rest of the shoota boyz and the nearby dreads all fired on the final two warbikes. They took out the final boy and injured the nob, but through either insane bravery or an inability to see his mates getting gunned down through all the acrid exhaust smoke, the ork stayed sitting on his rumbling bike, revving the engine and thinking about the wind blowing through his hair squig.

Da Amayzin’ Bozgit again struggled to muster enough Waaagh! energy for all his abilities, but did cause some damage to the Wartrike with a vengeful Smite. Meanwhile, Boss Gulskrag charged into the Gorkanaut with Old Ghaz and his little banna waver alongside him. The deff dreads all charged, but the pistons on Grimgob’s legs seized up and he just staggered forward looking like a snotling who had drunk too much fungus beer. Dagrat’s Skarboyz and Da Rekkin Krew also charged in, following Boss Badfang’s lead to exact revenge on the Deffskull slugga boyz.

Gulskrag duffed the damaged Gorkanaut with a few blows of his mighty power klaw, ripping the huge machine into scrap metal and roaring at Ghazghkull to witness his might. The huge warboss still hadn’t moved much and Gulskrag wondered what was going on with him. More than that, he wondered if maybe this did mean that he could be the new Prophet of Gork and Mork himself… now, that would be something. The Tuffgitz skragged the Deffkilla Wartrike, leaving the Deffskullz effectively leaderless, especially without Ghazghkull getting involved in much of the fighting.  

After Badfang led his ladz in a charge against the Deffskull slugga boyz, they were in for a surprise when the blue boyz, fresh from their slaughter of Skarfist and his Choppaz, started hacking at them first. This surprising counter-offensive managed to kill two of Da Rekkin Krew and several of the Skarboyz, but it wasn’t enough. The brutal Skarboyz waded into the fight, putting their superior strength to good use and laying the smaller orks to waste with their choppas. Nearby, Gitslasha’s dread klaws started snapping and his saws started revving, and he began to work his way slowly through the boyz squad in front of him, limbs and gore flying everywhere.

The Deffskullz Big Mek looked around. His Deffkilla warlord was gone, the Goffs dominated the pylons that he had been hoping to use to power his mekboy workshop and Ghazghkull wasn’t looking happy. Worse than that, he’d lost his prize Gorkanaut and battlewagon! He figured it was definitely time to go, so he got the few remaining boyz to try and encourage Ghazghkull to depart the field of battle. Maybe they could get him back to a painboy who could do some rewiring in his skull to make him like the colour blue… The mek just hoped the Goffs would be too busy celebrating their victory to start chasing him down too soon, at least not until he’d gone lootin’ and built a few replacement war machines. He’d get revenge on those grod-loving Goffs!  

Gulskrag threw the blue armour plating to one side and kicked his way through the wreckage of the huge Gorkanaut. It had come down to his level easy enough when he sliced through the leg pistons with his power klaw, close enough for him to ‘edbutt the huge face on top of the machine. A large dent the shape of Gulskrag’s forehead was clearly visible in the thick sheet metal.

He turned to Ghazghkull, firing his shoota into the air and snapping his power klaw, roaring “What do you fink of dat den Ghazghkull? Dis is wot a propa Goff does when youse is skulking like a weedy little GROT!!!”

There was no response from Ghazghkull, as the Deffskull boyz surrounding him started to push him back past the gunwagon behind him.

“Where are you going?” screamed Gulskrag. “If you ain’t gonna fight me den I’m da boss!”

If Ghazghkull heard him, he didn’t show it. The blue armoured giant ponderously walked off, the Deffskullz mekaniak running over to him and fiddling with his kustom force field, making the air shimmer around them and the nearby boyz. It was alright though, thought Gulskrag, it was better to have Ghazghkull out there to fight annuver day. This scrap with the Deffskullz had cheered him up from his black mood on the kroozer. He knew word of it would bring more orks flocking to the planet – giving him the chance to duff over more gitz from other klans and maybe start another Waaaagh! Whether Ghazghkull came to his senses again or if Gulskrag beat the other klans into submission himself didn’t really matter, things were gonna get interesting.

The Warboss grinned, flashing his tusks as he turned to survey his boyz as they formed back up into their mobs again amid the destruction of the battlefield. Today was a good day to be an ork.      

Aftermath

 

We ran out of time to really finish the game unfortunately – the cleaning before and after cut into the gaming time and 2,000 points of orks takes a while to move around the table! The Goffs certainly had the upper hand by the end of their second turn, but Ghazghkull hadn’t really got involved yet, and taking him out of action would have taken a while with his special rule of only taking 4 wounds per phase. He could have done a lot of damage in that time…

Both of us would also have been able to use the ‘Unstoppable Green Tide’ stratagem on our large mobs in the next turn or two, bringing in some reinforcements.

The Goffs were winning on points, controlling more pylons for the primary objective and threatening three quarters of the battlefield (probably charging into the Deffskull deployment zone next turn). They had also killed the warlord. Both sides were doing well on kill points for Thin Their Ranks, though taking out the battlewagon and Gorkanaut gave the Goffs 10 kill points a piece and edged them ahead. 

For now, the Goffs are dominating, but like all good orks the Deffskullz haven’t lost cos dey can always come back for annuver go!

 

WAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!