Stomping All-Comers! (Sons of Behemat vs. Forces of Order AOS Battle Report)

Blackhole Wargamers, 04 June 2022

3,000pt Age of Sigmar game

Dan – Sons of Behemat, Stomper Tribe

vs.

Tris (Idoneth Deepkin), Tom (Stormcast Eternals) & Phil (Kharadron Overlords and Gotrek Gurnisson)

Battleplan – Feral Foray (General’s Handbook 2021)

Previous - Stormcast Eternals try to stop Mighty Magbragog!

 

It is almost exactly one year (to the day!) that the giants last stomped forth to battle the Stormcast Eternals. I'm not sure what they've been doing in the interlude, but the Tribe's ranks have swelled - doubled in size, in fact! 

We decided it would be fun to put a load of giants on the table (3,000 pts worth) and see if a combined force of 3 players could take them out... so far, the Sons of Behemat, led my Warstomper Magbragog Maneater, have stomped all before them - starting with some Kharadron Overlords in their flying machines, followed up by tasty Beastmen snacks, and most recently the Stormcast Eternals. They seem to be fairly unstoppable, but I'm sure they will come up against something that will test them. One day. For this game, Phil had said that he would bring Gotrek Gurnisson - he actually claimed that Gotrek could take all the giants on single-handed, but just in case they decided to bring some back-up. You know, in case Gotrek was a bit hungover or something. 

I brought along everything from the tribe that was assembled - unfortunately not all painted. I do have a Bonegrinder and one more Mancrusher to assemble, which will bring the entire tribe up to around 3,600 points... a real trouble-causing tribe of enormous monsters to make the ground tremble! For now, we kept it to 3,000 points, which would hopefully be manageable on a Saturday morning. 

I also brought along my temple terrain to give us something exciting to fight over, as bringing that many giants clearly wasn't enough to carry! I also had one of my Deep Cut Studios gaming mats to play on - this one is generic enough to work for a whole bunch of game systems, I really like them. Element Games stocks these mats (check them out here), which is good as the shipping from Europe can be a bit expensive buying them direct.     

Magbragog’s Stomper Tribe (2,905 pts)

Footsloggers Core Battalion  

Magbragog Maneater

(Warstomper Mega-Gargant, General, Monstrously Tough & Ironweld Cestus – 470pts)

The Stompy Brothers – Fat Glurg, Dronk Stonty-Stomper & Grumbog Aleguzzler

(Mancrusher Gargants, Battleline – 475pts)

Wanderers of Albion – Bruinen the Wise, Cachtorr & Bologs One-eye

(Mancrusher Gargants, Battleline – 475pts)

Bosses of the Stomp Core Battalion  

Tarbag Dragon-Smasher

(Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant – 525pts)

Odler the Colossus

(Kraken-Eater Mega-Gargant, The Arcane Tome – 490pts)

Hrothgar Icebreath

(Warstomper Mega-Gargant – 470pts) 

Prelude 

Magbragog bellowed at the tribe, getting them moving forwards. The flashy lightning king and his merry followers had been taking far too many liberties, encroaching on territory that by rights belonged to the Sons of Behemat and scaring off the beasts that he and his brethren fed on. This would not stand. Magbragog Maneater was a mighty Warstomper, a Mega-Gargant of incredible size and voracious appetite. He would lead the other gargants in an orgy of slaughter and take back their land from the occupiers. He licked his lips as he saw the opposing army. Fortunately, this time it wasn't just Stormcast - that was good news, there wasn't any proper eating in those tin cans. He saw some armoured stunties and some pointy eared elves riding on fish. Odler the Colossus, the Kraken-Eater who had recently joined the tribe, stank of fish. It wasn't most appealing to Magbragog, but he would make do with a seafood meal this time. 

The Battle

The Battleplan 'Feral Foray' encourages moving up to destroy the opponent's objectives, while protecting your own from their attempts to take them. Moving forwards to smash things? Yes, that feels right. Hanging back to protect parts of the battlefield from the pipsqueaks? Not so much. But, with a huge wall of flesh stomping forwards, I was fairly confident that the combined forces of Order would struggle to get past my lads to cause trouble anyway. Besides, my Sons of Behemat were far more concerned with pulping the enemy than doing anything so pedestrian as 'tactics'. 

The opposing forces of Order and Destruction

The Sons of Behemat deployed as far forwards
as possible, eager to get to grips with their
lunch. I mean, opposition 

Magbragog and Bruinen looking across the battlefield

The Idoneth deploy behind some standing
stones - like that's going to protect them! 

Calm before the storm

The game was a lot of fun. I didn't manage to record a blow-by-blow account as there were too many giants with too many things to hit, I couldn't keep up! On the left flank, the three towering Mega Gargants (Tarbag, Odler and Hrothgar) were too much for the Kharadron to deal with, but they ended up in a titanic battle with Gotrek, son of Gurni, famed slayer from the World That Was. He really was a total beast in combat (rightly so!). Ultimately, he couldn't stand up to three enormous giants, but he gave it a good shot - it would have been an epic Doom to record, if only Felix Jaegar was still around to do so.  

On the other flank, Magbragog led his Mancrushers against the Idoneth Deepkin and Stormcast Eternals. The Stormcast had some success with their big burly hammer boys, but ultimately they couldn't do enough damage to take the giants down before they were jumping up and down all over their bloodied corpses. Sheer brutality and strength won the day. The gargants probably took some of the objectives too, but that was almost as an afterthought! 

Aftermath

Magbragog pulled another spear from his side, wincing as he did so. Those little pipsqueaks had poked and prodded him relentlessly - it had really started to get irritating. He glared down at the mashed armour of a Stormcast Eternal on the ground beside him and pummelled it with the flat of his hand a few times, grinding it into the dirt for good measure before picking the corpse up and flinging it away into the distance. That made him feel a bit more cheerful. 

Dronk Stunty-Stomper was still moaning about not being able to fight the flying stunties because Odler, Tarbag and Hrothgar had already killed them all. 

"Shut up wiv your belly-aching!" yelled Magbragog as he shoved the smaller giant backwards, causing him to fall into one of the ancient pillars and knock it to the ground where it smashed into rubble. Dronk picked himself up as the other Mancrushers guffawed loudly. 

It had been a pretty good fight, and at least now there was plenty to eat. Odler was stuffing his face with the fishy mounts the pale elves had been riding on, the Kraken Eater clearly enjoying himself. Magbragog was more keen on the taste of dwarf, so stomped over to where Tarbag and Hrothgar were poking through the ruins of the Kharadron Skyfleet. It turned out they were looking for a little orange haired pipsqueak who had caused them all sorts of trouble with his magic axe, but they couldn't find his body anywhere. Magbragog had heard Odler complaining about how painful that axe had been, between mouthfuls of elvish calamari, so he was interested in seeing this dwarf as well. But he was nowhere to be found. Strange. Surely he couldn't have survived all three gargants jumping on him? Well, if he had, it would certainly be interesting to find him again, maybe he would be able to give Magbragog a good fight one of these days. For now, he let the Tribe pick over the spoils of battle. There would be more pipsqueaks to fight another day. There always were.    

Badtusks on Tour!

Warhammer 40,000 Ork Crusade

We’ve started a Crusade campaign at the club (well, it’s sort of started, been a bit slow kicking off properly but there have been a few games now). I had been debating about using Imperial Knights or Orks for the Crusade. I did play one game with the Knights, but starting with low PL limits meant I could only fit 2 Questoris Knights in my list, so it was no good for securing objectives… I figured I could get away with ignoring objectives and killing the enemy, but it was against Tyranids and their ridiculously overpowered rules that meant they were basically unkillable, so that was it for that game!

So I stuck with the good old Greenskins. Which was just as well as we’re basing the Crusade on the Octarius campaign, centred on the Ork-held world of Badsquig, so it feels right to be using my Orks. I decided to base my force on Beast Snaggas, hopefully getting some time to get the new models painted up.

For Honour, Duty and Death - Warhammer 40K Battle Report

For Honour, Duty and Death

Warhammer 40,000 Battle Report
16^th July 2022
1,500 pts – Imperial Knights (Dan) vs. Chaos Knights (Tom H)
War Zone Nephilim: Secure Missing Artefacts

Tom had recently started collecting a Chaos Knight force, which he was looking at playing in a Crusade Campaign at the club (Black Hole Wargamers). I had played one Crusade game with my Knights (it didn't go so well... just two Questoris Knights at 50 PL is a bit tough, especially against the currently massively overpowered Tyranids!). I keep meaning to come back and complete this army but other things get in the way... I have some painting to finish off on these models, and a few more knights to assemble. I'll get them done one day, I love building these things! 

For this game, we agreed on a 1,500 point limit and planned to use the War Zone Nephilim book for a mission. I liked the sound of the changes to CP in that book, reining in the shenanigans that can go on. I think strategems in 40K are a bit of a double-edged sword - they can give some nice flavour to an army, but they do add a whole extra element to think about which slows the game down and can eclipse the tactical considerations on the table. Anyway, with the CPs reduced a bit from Turn 1 that should help reduce them being too powerful. 

The Nephilim book also removes the restriction of only taking a single faction-specific Secondary Objective – we both took advantage of this change by choosing 3 faction-specific objectives. I like this change as it feels good from a narrative point of view (I still think the narrative of a game is important in matched play games), and I don’t think the faction-specific ones are necessarily auto-includes for all armies / scenarios. They certainly felt right in this game though, pushing us towards honour or infernal notoriety and rewarding us for smiting the opposing war engines. Which was all good! 

I mustered my Knights, the noble Scions of House von Ulrich. They swear fealty to Forge World Metalica and the titans of the Legio Metalica (bonus points for spotting the references). I will be assembling an Adeptus Titanicus force from Metalica at some point, and plan to represent these Knights at that smaller scale as well. Anyway, here is my 1,500 pt list: 

 

Knights of House von Ulrich, The Harvesters of Sorrow
	Questor Allegiance:	Questor Mechanicus
	House:	Fealty to the Cog (House Krast)
	Oaths:	Defend the Realm Refuse No Challenge
Dominus Pupulorum	Knight Warden (Warlord)	Warlord Trait: Blessed by the Sacristans (1CP) Relic: Endless Fury (1CP) Order of Companions (1CP)   Avenger Gatling Cannon (Endless Fury), Heavy Flamer, Meltagun, Stormspear Rocket Pod, Thunderstrike Gauntlet
Indago Perdo	Knight Errant	Thermal Cannon, Meltagun, Reaper Chainsword
Cupam Urceum	Armiger Helverin	2x Armiger Autocannon, Cognis Heavy Stubber
Wandering Freeblade Hero
	Questor Allegiance:	Questor Imperialis
	Martial Tradition:	Hunter of Beasts
Ferro Brutum	Knight Paladin – Freeblade	Rapid-Fire Battle Cannon, 2x Ironhail Heavy Stubber, Reaper Chainsword
		1,490 pts 3 CP

versus

Chaos Knights of the Infernal House Vextrix

Knight Desecrator, Knight Rampager, Knight Abominant and War Dog 

Road to Apocalypse: 10. Where Next?

Road to Apocalypse: 10. Where Next?

13 February 2022

👈 Part 9: The Final Battle

Da Boss lookin' fer da next skrap

So this was it, the final battle. It had all been leading up to this for the last few months - all the painting and practice battles. The Modelling Exhibition at Midhurst, the final showdown between the forces of the Imperium and the WAAAAAAGH! that had been steadily growing. Of course, the Orks won in the end - they always do! And if they don't then they can always come back for annuver go, so it doesn't count... or, if they're dead then they're dead, so that doesn't count neither. But this time they did win and soon there'll be a tide of Greenskins invading planet after planet - good job boyz! 

The question is, what's next? I've got a tonne of old Orks that need painting up. This sort of game is a great way to get enthusiasm and inspiration to get things painted up, and playing that massive game with fully painted armies looked fantastic. So, I definitely want to keep some momentum going and paint the rest of my Orks (though there are a few other games taking my eye at the moment as well...). In addition to that, I would definitely like to play more Apocalypse games, and I have some plans for some more large vehicles to add. The Big Meks will be busy on Midhurstian Prime for a while building these engines of destruction!

I got this Micro Machines fire and rescue plane, which I think is going to look great as a large Bommer (just look at it compared to my Dakkajet!). There's no rules for a massive bomber, but I'm sure something could be worked up. Perhaps modify a Marauder bomber's stats... Anyway, it should be cool. 

I've seen a couple of great conversions using different AT-AT models. My vision for this one will be to make a mechanical Gargantuan Squiggoth. The only problem with that is using it in regular 40K, because they seem to have nerfed the big Squig and taken away most of its guns... in that case it could possibly be another Stompa. The nice thing about Orks is just building things and making them work as SOMETHING!  

Talking of Stompas, I've wanted to scratch-build another one for ages. This one is going to be a Kustom Stompa (or Mekboy Stompa) with a Lifta-Droppa arm and a big Belly Gun. I'm going to model it largely after the old Great Gargants in Epic, but it won't be much taller than the 'normal' Stompa.   

Finally, there's something I've been keen on doing for a long time. Tom managed to get his Battle Fortress assembled from a Baneblade for the Midhurst battle, and it looked great. It didn't perform particularly well, though it did soak up a lot of firepower. Perhaps it needs to be used more like the Stompas, grinding forwards with a load of Orks inside? Because it has so many guns, the temptation is to sit it on Aimed Fire orders all game, but as with most Ork shooting it can often be lacklustre. But, with a decent transport capacity, that might be the way forwards... Anyway, I'll be using bits from this kit on the other conversions, and turning this into something that hopefully looks good.   

I definitely need a bit of a break from Apocalypse and some time playing something else. But I'm looking forward to playing it again. There are many aspects I like, and I think it will be a good way to play smaller games too - just to get models on the table and keep things simple (playing with some other friends like Robert, who has a lot of Space Marine tanks that will be perfect for this sort of game). It will be worth trying out One Page Rules as well, that is getting a lot of traction at the club right now. They have a regular 40K game as well as an Apocalypse-equivalent. 

A good goal would be to try and get more of my boyz painted up, some of these conversions, then play a big game with me controlling all the detachments! Maybe taking on Dave's pointy-eared Eldar some time down the line... that would be interesting! 

FIN  

Road to Apocalypse: 8. Goff Aggression

Road to Apocalypse: 8. Goff Aggression

12 February 2022

👈 Part 7: Job's a Good 'Un

👉Part 9: The Final Battle

Brother Lytharus groaned in pain as he looked towards the horizon. Belching black smoke told him that the Orks were in pursuit. The rest of his Deathwatch Kill Team had been eliminated by the foul Greenskins, and now it was down to him to try and relay what he had found out to his superiors in the Ordo Xenos. Unfortunately, something about the strange technology the Orks were using was causing trouble with his long-range vox transmitter, so he had been unable to send the data packet off-world. He just hoped that his distress beacon could still be located - not for his own benefit, but to accomplish his mission. He had seen the gathering Ork forces, and this was no ordinary invasion. More than one of their degenerate 'Klans' were present on the planet, a sure sign that a particularly dangerous Warboss was leading the Orks - it was the only way that the animosity between them could be kept in check. Yes, this was the beginnings of a true WAAAAGH!, and there could be dire consequences for this whole sub-sector if it wasn't dealt with quickly enough. 

The Deathwatch Marine coughed up blood into his helmet. He could go no further. As he slipped in and out of consciousness, he said a prayer to the Emperor to ask for forgiveness for failing in his mission. Greenskins were coming to finish the job, and he had not the strength to resist... but, what was that? The unmistakable trails of drop pods in the sky. Could it be? Yes, the blessed Emperor had answered his prayers - his brother Astartes had located him! Lytharus tried to stand but could not. He would have to wait right here and hope that his rescuers got to him before the Orks did... 

Road to Apocalypse: 6. Reflections of a Warboss

Road to Apocalypse: 6. Reflections of a Warboss

👈 Part 5: The Meat Grinder

👉Part 7: Job's a Good 'Un

I'm FINKING!!!!!!

That Meat Grinder mission felt brutal.... our Council of Warbosses discussed it afterward, and we all felt like the battle was going pretty well. The Orks were largely in control of the objectives, we'd killed off a fair number of the enemy. We probably weren't going to win after our Super Heavies exploded and took out most of the Deffskullz, but for the score to end up as 8-4 didn't really seem to reflect how we felt the battle had gone. It felt like a draw or a narrow loss, rather than the Marines getting double our score! So what went wrong?

I think that Orks have a really tough match-up against Space Marines in Apocalypse. The Marine shooting is so effective compared to ours - everything on base 3+ to hit, easily boosted to 2+ on Aimed Fire orders (which is possible from Turn 1 because everything is starting within 24"). And on top of that they have plenty of characters buffing them with re-rolling 1's or re-rolling misses. They can start pouring highly effective fire onto our troops straight away, whereas we have to be quite kunnin' to pull off a first turn charge - either through lucky Stompa deployment or picking Da Jump psychic power. All the time they are pouring accurate firepower onto the Orks, they have a chance of putting a few blast markers on here and there, even with low strength weapons. 

Then that leads to the next Ork problem - morale. All it takes is one or two blast markers on a unit in the first turn, and the Orks are likely to fail their leadership test and take additional damage from morale. Conversely, I don't remember the Marines failing a single morale check in all the Apocalypse games we've been playing. Yeah, that's good and fluffy as they are the Emperor's Chosen and all that, but it does seem pretty tough on the Orks to have no way to avoid your units just bleeding away. 

Of course, we have the numbers. Who cares if that unit of weedy Grots runs away, we've always got more of them, and here comes some Meganobz too! That's great, it's the Ork way - life is cheap, there's always more, why send one Dredd when three would do. We can choke the objectives with bodies and still give the enemy a good kicking when they get close enough. But that doesn't work in Meat Grinder. Because it is counted in 'number of units destroyed', it is easy for the Marines to kill off some chaff units that don't matter, but end up killing more units in the turn so getting the points for that. And, in this mission, they get 2 VP per turn for doing that. It's quite brutal when controlling the objectives only gives 1 VP. 

In this particular game, 1 VP is also awarded per Super Heavy that is destroyed. To my surprise, Gorkanauts and Morkanauts are 'Super Heavy'... some other units that are just as big don't seem to have the same keyword. Likewise, the Impulsor Primaris Tank doesn't have the Super Heavy keyword, but the firepower it can dish out is obscene, and definitely comparable to some Super Heavy vehicles. It wouldn't matter, but because of the VPs awarded for destroying Super Heavies, the Space Marines have an opportunity to get a few more points by focusing their fire on our walkers - and the Gorkanaut isn't particularly survivable (and also suffers from the morale issues mentioned above). It almost feels like including the Super Heavies in this sort of mission is giving the Marines more targets to get VPs from... but what is Apocalypse without huge vehicles? 

Funnily enough, in the previous mission against Tris (4. Junkyard Brawl), my use of big walkers really worked well for me. He struggled to deal with them. Perhaps he would have done better to focus some of his small arms fire on the smaller walkers, as just a few blast markers on a Deff Dredd can take it out. But that game did feel a bit like he had brought a knife to a gun fight, particularly once the Stompa had chopped up his Hellhammer. I think he felt that game was pretty unbalanced and an uphill struggle for him due to our list choices. I guess it has felt a bit the other way in the larger games we've played so far, where the Orks are always on the back foot and struggling to deal with the Marines. Perhaps in the smaller game, it accentuated the Rock, Paper, Scissors aspect because we both had smaller forces. If Tris used the force he had against an infantry-heavy Ork army, he would have come out on top quite easily. Alternatively, if he had a vehicle-heavy Marine force that was dedicated to killing armour, he could have wiped out my Dredd Mob. In the bigger games, we've had a much wider selection, and the shooting ability of the Marines has really come to the fore. 

In the Meat Grinder, things were much more even apart from when it came to the score. It struck me that there should be a better reward for holding the objectives - perhaps boosting the score for holding most objectives to 2 VP a turn would redress the balance and make it more worthwhile to chase board control? If that had been the case in this game then the Marines still would have won, but only just! 

The other weird thing with objectives in this game was the fact there were only 4, and the Defender gained the points in the case of a tie. That makes no sense to me. The Defender is the force with the lower PL total, which could just be 1 or 2 PL - not enough to make any difference to the force balance, but gives a big advantage when working out victory points. Having a fifth objective to allow a proper majority would be good. I also think that it would be better to have some fixed locations for objectives, rather than placing them wherever you want. I think it's supposed to encourage moving into the centre of the table and having a proper fight, but the Marines were able to just sit tight on their objectives in their deployment zone and let us get to them - I mean, yeah of course we wanted to get to them for some proper fighting, but in terms of game balance it makes things feel like an uphill struggle to advance into the teeth of all that shooting to try and steal the objectives. 

I know that Apocalypse is based on the old Epic 40K ruleset. I wonder if it would work better at that smaller scale because there would be more movement involved, rather than just sitting and putting Aimed Fire orders on detachments from Turn 1 (which is a bit boring!). But I do love the opportunity to get some big models on the table! There are many things in the Apocalypse ruleset that I like (alternative detachment activation, the blast marker mechanics so everything gets to activate, the streamlined rules compared to normal 40K), but there are some things that I think could be tweaked to make it feel a bit more fair. It's all just about fun, moving big models around and chucking dice, but it is better when it feels that both sides have the opportunity to win with a bit of luck and kunnin'. I'll definitely be looking to play more Apocalypse in the future, possibly giving the One Page Rules version a shot at some point. The even more simplified rules might make it more possible to finish a game - the most we've managed so far is 3 turns. I do wonder if the Meat Grinder mission might have ended differently if we had finished all 5 turns... if we could have kept our stranglehold on the objectives, returned a detachment or two to the table (bringing back Ghazghkull and the Stompa!), perhaps we would have been able to get the win. The length of time to play these games is pretty prohibitive, it would be brilliant to play somewhere where it could be set up all weekend to come back to the following day. We're doing better now we're more familiar with the rules, but it is still quite a long process to get through the Damage and Morale phases and get any more than three turns out of the game. 

It really has been good to get locked into one game for a while and focus on it so much, learning how it works and being inspired to get more things painted up that have been sitting in boxes for a long time. I think the final battle at Midhurst should be quite a spectacle! 

👉Part 7: Job's a Good 'Un 

Road to Apocalypse: 9. The Final Battle

Road to Apocalypse: 9. The Final Battle

13 February 2022

👈 Part 8: Goff Aggression

👉Part 10: Where Next?

We's gonna stomp you!!

So this was it, the final battle. It had all been leading up to this for the last few months - all the painting and practice battles. The Modelling Exhibition at Midhurst, the final showdown between the forces of the Imperium and the WAAAAAAGH! that had been steadily growing.  

+++++ INCOMING TRANSMISSION +++++
+++++ PRIORITY: ALPHA +++++

+++++ CLEARANCE LEVEL: VERMILLION +++++

+++++ STRATEGIC VALUE: ABSOLUTE +++++

+++++ THREAT IDENTIFICATION: XENOS | ORKOID +++++ 

+++++ PRIORITY DISPATCH REQUIRED TO MIDHURSTIAN PRIME +++++

+++++ ORK WAAAAAAGH! DEVELOPING ON MANUFACTORUM WORLD +++++

+++++ MUNITIONS PRODUCTION OUTPUT CEASED +++++

+++++ SUB-SECTOR SECURITY THREATENED WITHIN 5 STANDARD DAYS +++++

+++++ ADEPTUS ASTARTES SURGICAL STRIKE REQUIRED +++++

+++++ ADVISEMENT: SIGNIFICANT ARMOURED VECHICLE PRESENCE +++++

### CUT OFF THE HEAD AND THE BODY WILL DIE ###

Road to Apocalypse: 7. Job's a Good 'Un.

Road to Apocalypse: 7. Job's a Good 'Un

👈 Part 6: Reflections of a Warboss

👉Part 8: Goff Aggression

After a few games of Apocalypse to hone the list a bit, I was feeling pretty good about where to focus my painting efforts. Yes, it would be great to get more of my dozens of boyz painted up, but it was all about clanking vehicles - Dredds, Dredds and more Dredds! I also knew I had to get Ghazghkull painted up, and the Mek Gunz had proven invaluable for their accurate (for Orks) shooting. Plus, I knew the Imperial list in the final battle was likely to be very flier-heavy, and there aren't many anti-air options available to the Orks. 

These are all just some quick snaps with the phone as I was finishing off these models. I'm going to get them in front of a proper camera with lights and things when I get a chance, and I think I might even do some step-by-step WIP posts on at least some of them - I have a load of pictures of the models during assembly and painting, so when I get a chance I'll do something with that. For now, here are the things I was getting prepared for the final couple of battles! 

The Final Army List

+++ Waaaagh! Da Goffs (Warhammer 40,000: Apocalypse) [150 PL] +++

++ Supreme Command Detachment (Orks) ++

+ HQ +

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, Prophet of Da Waaaagh! - Warboss of Warbosses: Kustom Klaw, Twin Big Shoota. WARMASTER. 

Ork Mek Boss Buzzgob - Big Mek: Kustom Force Field, Mek Arms, Nitnuckle and Lunk (Grot Oilers).

Gulskrag Thraka - Warboss: Boss Weapons. 

+ Elites +

Gulskrag's Tuffgitz - 6 x Ork Meganobz 

+ Lord of War +

Da Great Green Gitkilla - Stompa: 2 extra Supa Rokkits. 

++ Spearhead Detachment (Orks) ++

+ HQ +

Buzzmek Geargrinda - Big Mek: Kustom Force Field. Warlord.

+ Elites +

Old Man Lo-Ghaz - Nob with Waaagh! Banner 

+ Heavy Support +

Orktimus Prime - Deff Dread: 2x Kustom Mega-Blasta, 2x Dread Klaws

Gitslasha - Deff Dread: 2x Dread Saws, 2x Dread Klaws

Buzzmek's Ruzzbot - Morkanaut: Kustom Force Field

++ Spearhead Detachment (Orks) ++

+ HQ +

Deadeye Dregmek - Big Mek: Shokk Attakk Gun. Warlord.

+ Heavy Support +

Dregmek's Wagon - Gunwagon: Kannon.

Lifta-Droppas - Mek Gunz: 2x Traktor Kannons

Pulsa Rokkit - Mek Gunz: 1 x Bubble Chukka

Da Kannons - Mek Gunz: 2 x Smasha Guns

++ Battalion Detachment (Orks) ++

+ HQ +

Da Amayzin' Bozgit - Weirdboy. Warlord.

+ Troops +

Dagratz Ladz - 10 x Slugga Boyz.

Snikrot's Sneaky Slittas - 10 x Slugga Boyz

Snotty Grotz - 30 x Gretchin

   

Road to Apocalypse: 5. The Meat Grinder

Road to Apocalypse: 5. The Meat Grinder

29 January 2022

👈 Part 4: Junkyard Brawl

👉Part 6: Reflections of a Warboss

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.     

Road to Apocalypse: 4. Junkyard Brawl

Road to Apocalypse: 4. Junkyard Brawl

15 January 2022

👈 Part 3: The Dread Mob

👉Part 5: Meat Grinder

Big Meks love their Kustom Force Fields!

Buzzmek turned the wrench one more time then stepped back to admire his handiwork. Dat wizzy fing was just what his Ruzzbot needed. Of course, Buzzmek had no idea what it was going to do when the driver pressed the new, shiny red button, but he had a feeling in his gut that it was gonna be good!

Warboss Gulskrag had left the Mekaniak behind to fix up his walkers while he and da boyz went looking for a scrap. The scramble back to the Roks and Landas to escape the dying planet had taken it out of the clanking machines, and the Boss wanted them running in tip-top condition in case those Beakies caught up with them again. Buzzmek and his crew of Grots had been hard at work on tuning up the Dread Mob before his natural inclination for tinkering had distracted him, and he had left half the Dreads and Kans immobilised on the landing field while he began dismantling bits of spaceship to make some new worky gubbinz. Given enough time, the Mek would have completely disassembled all the grounded spacecraft, expanded his junkyard as far as he could see, and constructed a horde of walking death machines to stomp across this planet in an orgy of destruction. Gulskrag would probably be back before then, and he might not look so favourably on his space fleet being dismantled... he'd probably rather let those thieving Deffskullz loot whatever they could from the planet's inhabitants and use THAT to build more war machines. Buzzmek didn't have that sort of foresight, that was why Gulskrag was Da Boss!

He might have had plans for the Deffskullz, but Gulskrag still didn't like being around the gitz; it was tiring to always be on the lookout for their grasping hands trying to nick anything that wasn't nailed down. The Evil Sunz had managed to rejoin the WAAAAAGH! during the escape off-world too, but he didn't like them much better... days of them riding their bikes round and round the cargo holds on the journey here had made Gulskrag dizzy. He'd sent the lot of them off in the opposite direction when he'd jumped into his battlewagon and trundled off to find trouble, leading his Goff boyz tramping across the plains of this new world. He'd told them it was a Grand Plan to spread out and find more enemies to kill - the sort of genius plan that Ghazghkull himself would be proud of! But, really, they were doing his head in and he wanted some peace and quiet. With the promise of some proper violence for him and his ladz, of course.   

  

Road to Apocalypse: 3. Dread Mob

Road to Apocalypse: 3. Dread Mob 

👈Part 2: ApORKalypse

👉Part 4: Junkyard Brawl

Classic! I would love to have one of these bad boys!

Our initial practice Apocalypse game (the ApORKalypse) had gone well from a 'learning the game and having fun' perspective, and from a 'stomping lots of Space Marines into the dirt' point of view. But, in terms of the Orks getting points and focusing on the objectives... not so well really. Typical Greenskins!! 😁 

We've got a month until the big game at the Midhurst, so we're looking to get some more practice games in so that we're more familiar with the rules. Combined with a reduction in the total PL per side, we should (fingers crossed!) be more successful in completing the game, as we only managed 3 turns the other day. 

I think there's one other 2 v 2 Apocalypse game going on at the club (Black Hole Wargamers) on Saturday morning, and I'm going to take on Tris and his Imperial force. I'm not sure exactly what he's bringing, other than he said that he would have a Hellhammer Super Heavy Tank, so he asked me to bring a Stompa... I was more than happy to oblige! In fact, I decided to do the entire 100 PL (like I said, just a very small game) as a Dread Mob - so a single Big Mek with Kustom Force Field (to ride in the Stompa), with as many other stompy things of various sizes as I could fit into the points limit. 

My narrative for the game is going to centre on the fact that Gulskrag and his ladz made it to the chopper in time (OK, spaceship) and escaped off-world before the nasty Space Marines blew the planet to pieces. They've landed on another planet, and while Gulskrag has led the boyz out to find a bit of a scrap, he's left Buzzmek behind to give the 'eavy armour a bit of a tune-up. Then, whatever Tris has got rolls into view and there's killin' to be done. 

Something like that anyway! 

So I'll have to look at the book before Saturday and find a good mission for that. Might mean that the Orks are defending again, which is sort of weird unless the planetary defence forces catch them unawares while Buzzmek is mekking away... or maybe he manages to sally forth from his junkyard with all the walkers that are functional and attacks the enemy that he's seen through his spying scope. Something will work.

Anyway, I think this is a pretty cool little force, should be really fun having one of each type of (non-Forgeworld) walker in there! 

+++ Da Mekyard Clankers (Warhammer 40,000: Apocalypse) [100 PL] +++
++ Spearhead Detachment (Orks) ++

+ HQ +

Buzzmek - Big Mek: Kustom Force Field. WARMASTER.

+ Heavy Support +

Orktimus Prime - Deff Dread: 2x Kustom Mega-Blasta, 2x Dread Klaws

Grimgob Irontoof - Deff Dread: 2x Big Shoota, 2x Dread Klaws

Grod Stompas - 3 Killa Kans: 2x Grotzooka, 1x Rokkit Launcha

Stompzilla - Gorkanaut

Buzzmek's Ruzzbot - Morkanaut: Kustom Force Field

++ Super-heavy Auxiliary Detachment (Orks) ++

+ Lord of War +

Da Great Green Gitkilla - Stompa: Commander

👉Part 4: Junkyard Brawl