Road to Apocalypse: 5. The Meat Grinder
29 January 2022
👉Part 6: Reflections of a Warboss
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| WAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!! |
The WAAAAGH!! energy burned bright, shining out into the void, and it was drawing more greenskins towards it like moths to a lumen bulb. Some of them came without realising what it was that called to them. Others listened to the gibbering insanity of their Weirdboyz and understood that there was some propa fighting to be done. And one Ork, one great green-skinned menace, knew just where he needed to be, because Gork and Mork had told him themselves. Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, the Prophet of the Waaaagh!, the Beast of Armageddon, 'ardest boss in da ooniverse. He heard the call, and he grinned.
Yes, it was time for Ghazghkull to make an appearance!
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| Not dat one, humie... |
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| ...da big one!!!!!! |
I had already used my old skool Ghaz as a Nob with Waaaagh! Banner, and he is bloody glorious, but the new monstrous one had been sitting, unassembled, in a box for a while. It was time to get him on the table. I managed to get him assembled for this battle, but the intention is to make sure he's painted to lead the WAAAAAAGH! properly at Midhurst.
This new Ghaz model is great, super imposing, but I did want to do a few things to him to beef him up a little. I thought the skull on his exhaust pipes was a little piddly, so I replaced it with a Carnifex skull (been looking for the perfect place to use it, so this was spot on). I added a few more skulls elsewhere and had a dead Space Marine for the base. The only question was, what type of Beakie was he going to be? One of our Apocalypse opponents no doubt...
Forces and Deployment
We kept forces really tight for this one, to try and get more than one turn played on a Saturday morning. We had 75 PL each to play with, and we also limited ourselves to a maximum of 2 detachments a piece. I considered doing something half-sensible with troops and stuff, then I thought, "Nah, do a Stompa and Ghazghkull in a Supreme Command Detachment, what could be more fun?!"
Good decision!
Actually, the Supreme Command Detachment is pretty kunnin' as it allows the Stompa to use the Ork army ability of exploding 6's on all attacks (and it has a lot of attacks...). Plus it was filled with frothing Goffs ready to jump out and cause trouble if (when) it got blown up. And when I told Tris about it, he decided to also go the fun route and just bring two Super Heavies to play, which is was Apocalypse is all about!
We were playing Meat Grinder, as a practice for the game at Midhurst - the idea being that anyone getting wiped out early could at least get something back on the table later on and not be left out. Deployment was fairly standard, Stompa in the middle to grind forwards onto objectives and then either left or right to attack whatever was biggest. There were four objective markers to try and hold on to, but the main points come from killing the most units and destroying Super Heavies. Time to rumble!
Turn 1
The Imperium had the Initiative. The Knight Castellan activated first and fired a devastating salvo at the Stompa. Fires sprung up over the huge Ork walker, but it was going to take a lot more than that to stop it!
On the left flank, the Deffskull Dakkajets roared forwards to strafe the Black Templars who were holding one of the objectives. The Black Templar Storm Eagle responded by zooming forwards and taking pot shots at the Stompa, though they were less effective than the Knight's shooting had been.
In the centre of the battlefield, the Deffskullz advanced to a commanding position. They tried softening the Knight up with a bit of shooting, but caused very little damage due to the walker's Ion Shield and thick armour plating. The Gorkanaut then unloaded its big shootas at the Black Templar infantry. With amazing shooting (four 6's!), the rapid firing gun cut down many Space Marines. The Deffstorm Mega Shoota followed up the awesome big shoota firepower, but all there was left to shoot were bodies in the dirt.
The Space Wolves sent their own flier to try and deal with the Dakkajets, which it could do thanks to its air-to-air missiles. Impressed by the speed of the fliers overhead, the Evil Sunz gunned their own engines and sped forwards to threaten the objective in front of the Space Wolves. They unleashed a pulsa rokkit from some hidden emplacement behind their lines, which caused waves of energy to knock Space Marines from their feet and cause the vehicle control systems to go haywire. Their Weirdboy tried to KRUMP a Space Marine pilot, but the genetically enhanced warrior shook off the effects and continued flying.
On the other side of the battlefield, the Helhammer's firing left a little to be desired, not managing to achieve very much - the Astra Militarum gunners lacked the genetic enhancements and decades of training that the Space Marines had. The Black Templars charged forward, shooting at the Deffskullz but not inflicting much damage as they were too busy rushing towards their foe.
Until now, the Great Green Gitkilla had been remarkably stationary, like some huge statue dedicated to Gork. Or was it Mork? Either way, it had seemed to just take some pounding from the Imperial guns and stand, motionless, not reacting. Now something was happening. With a little creak, a hatch in the back opened, and a figure emerged. Wild red eyes and a foaming mouth poked out, just visible beneath a dark cowl. Bozgit the Weirdboy wriggled out of the hatch and flopped down to the ground, giggling where he landed. Now that he was out of the metal monstrosity, the power of the Waaaaagh! felt much stronger. He could sense the build up of psychic energy as the Orks rushed forwards into battle, and he used that energy to thrust the Stompa forwards through the Immaterium. With a loud CRACK, the Stompa disappeared from in front of the Weirdboy, before it crackled into existence right in front of the Helhammer tank. Bozgit just lay back on the grass, panting with exhaustion at the enormity of the Jump that he had just performed. He deserved a little rest now.
There was no rest for the Stompa as it charged in to the Super Heavy tank. The Kaptin was eager to show Ghazghkull just what his machine could do, so he chopped down again and again with the huge chainblade. Soon, there was nothing left of the Helhammer save some scraps of red metal and broken tank tracks.
End of Turn 1
Humies: 3 VP (more objectives secured, more units destroyed)
Orks: 1 VP (super heavy destroyed)
Turn 2
Ghazghkull, Gulskrag and the Meganobz (Gulskrag's Tuffgitz) all leapt out of the Stompa and straight into combat with the Black Templar Space Marines. It was time for them to get to work. They cut through the Marines with brutal efficiency, trying to wrest control of the objective from the Beakies. Having deposited its vicious cargo, the Stompa charged round the rocky bluff, but could not quite reach the Knight Castellan - it would have to settle for chopping up some more Space Marines for now.
With a roar of engines, another Helhammer drove into view behind the Knight. There were always more men of the Astra Militarum, ready to die in the name of the God-Emperor, and the forges that produced His weapons of war were never silent.
The Deffskulls advanced to support the Goff assault, securing one objective as they did so. They weren't able to get close enough to the enemy to get stuck in, but they provided supporting fire. On the right flank, the Evil Sunz were able to hold on to their objective despite the ferocious charge by the Space Wolves. The Orks now held the majority of the strategic points of the battlefield, so things were looking up. For a brief moment, at least.
It was at that point that disaster struck. Both the Stompa and the Gorkanaut went critical at the same time, exploding in huge infernos and scattering debris in a wide radius. Both Super Heavy vehicles were surrounded by numerous Ork infantry, all of whom were damaged by the violent explosions. The Deffskullz in particular took many casualties from the explosions. In one fell swoop, a huge chunk of the Ork army had been obliterated. Could they recover from this setback?
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| The aftermath of exploding Super Heavies |
End of Turn 2
Humies: 7 VP (2 super heavies destroyed, more units destroyed)
Orks: 2 VP (more objectives secured)
Turn 3
Ghazghkull was angry. Ghazghkull was mad. His Stompa had blown up, that had been bad.
To make himself feel better, Ghazghkull decided to go and duff up the Knight Castellan. He did give it quite a good bashing before the towering walker booted him in the face and sent him crashing, dazed, to the ground. It had been worth a go.
Other than that, there was some mopping up to be done. The Evil Sunz killed the Space Marine Warmaster, which was handy, and they managed to hold on to their objective. In fact, the Orks still held the majority of the battlefield, despite the horrendous casualties at the end of the last turn.
But, ultimately, the loss of Ghazghkull and too many of their mates meant that the Ork forces beat a hasty retreat to lick their wounds and repair their vehicles. They hadn't lost, not really, cos they could always come back for annuver go!
End of Turn 3
Humies: 8 VP (Warmaster killed)
Orks: 4 VP (more objectives secured, Warmaster killed)
Aftermath
The scoreboard did not seem to reflect how that game felt when we were playing it! Ending up at half the Victory Points that the Space Marines had, when we had secured most of the objectives for two out of the three turns felt a bit of a let down... and the incredibly disastrous second turn where we lost two Super Heavies (1 VP each for killing them), plus they exploded to rip the heart out of our forces... very harsh.
I think that the Stompa should have jumped more down the middle, and charged the Knight. At the end of the day, the Knight Castellan was much more effective than the Helhammer, so cutting it down to size would have been more beneficial. The Stompa there might have draw some of the Space Wolves over as well, helping out the Evil Sunz, and the Deffskullz on the left would have had an easier run to charge in to the Black Templars (rather than having to stand back and get blown up by their Gorkanaut!). Oh well, it was a tough call when we decided where it was jumping to, and hindsight is 20/20.
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