The Star Dragons get Da Red Finga

Nothing says horde like banners!

Round 1 of the Fall of Masuda Campaign saw Da Red Finga facing off against Archer’s Star Dragons 4th Company. The Big Mek Gog fought against Commander Marcus. I successfully rolled as the attacker and since I was attacking a Ruins territory, that meant the Blitzkrieg mission.

Blitzkrieg deployment is table quarters with an objective in the center of the board and an objective in the center of the unoccupied quarters. Only Fast units can deploy and EVERY other unit comes in as reserves. If the player decides that their Fast units come in as reserve, then they can make their first reserve roll on turn one.

Truthfully, I was concerned about this mission. I like deploying my boyz as far forward as possible and running across the board. Coming in as reserve didn’t sound appealing to me.

Archer didn’t have any Fast units, so he had nothing to deploy. I had my two units of Deffkoptas and chose to hold them in reserve in case all went bad. I thought I can jump them in and contest an objective if required.

As it turned out, the Marines of the Star Dragons showed up late and left early for the battle.

The Battle Missions book has a reverse “steal the initiative” roll. As I was the attacker, I got to go first. But instead of Archer rolling to Seize the Initiative, I had to roll. On a 1 he got to go first.

And I rolled a 1.

Didn’t really matter much since nothing was deployed. I rolled to bring my Deffkoptas in, but both failed. So turn one was over in less than 30 seconds.

On turn two he successfully brought a Whirlwind, a Thunder Cannon, and a squad of scouts on the board and planted them in a large building close to the table edge in his deployment zone. Nothing to shoot at, so he ran around to get into a better firing position. Another squad of scouts outflanked and ran towards and objective sitting in the ruins of a tank.

The table. Carrying tray optional.

I never played against a Thunder Cannon before. I don’t think I've ever seen anyone play it before. But now since I've read the rules I learned a couple of things that we missed. First, an artillery unit cannot run. Second, it takes a dangerous terrain test when moving through difficult terrain.

What I didn’t need a rulebook to tell me, however, is that Thunder Cannons are extremely painful to Orks. If I had known that, my next move would have been very different.

Who says Orks can't shoot?

My blue mob, grey mob, tan mob, and the unit of three Deffkoptas arrived on my first turn. Life couldn’t have been better for me. I outflanked the Deffkoptas and they arrive right behind his Whirlwind. The twin-linked rokkit launchas rolled three 6’s, then another 6 for an explosion.

Whirlwind? What Whirlwind?

Seeing as it was turn two, I called the WAAAGH! hoping that I was within range of the scouts on the objective. But a combination of not running enough and not making a good difficult terrain test ensured they were out of range. A wasted WAAAGH. What a shame.

On turn three he shot his shotgun scouts into my mob, but they got a cover saves because more than half the squad was wedged between the table edge and a piece of terrain (I purposely avoided getting into the terrain so it didn’t slow me down).

The Blue Mob avoids that pesky area terrain. DON'T SLOW ME DOWN!!!!!

Then the Thunder Cannon fired its air bursts. For the love of everything holy that was painful. Took out 15 or 17 Orks. I was now regretting that I took out the Whirlwind and not the Cannon.

Note to Aki – read through ALL the frakkin codexes and look for the painful items. You know, the crap that ignores cover saves.

His commander walked onto the board and assaulted the three Deffkoptas that took a wound from the scouts in the building. The scouts and the commander made short work of the Deffkoptas.

The two tactical squads with Razorbacks decided not to come in.

My other group of two Deffkoptas outflanked on the wrong side of the board, but flew in far enough to get within range of the Thunder Cannon. They compensated for the three 6’s from the other Deffkoptas by totally missing – even though they are twin-linked.

My blue mob shot at and assaulted the scouts on the objective, forcing the sole survivor to run for the table edge. My tan mob ran around the building towards an objective and the grey mob ran towards the center objective.

Hey look, he DID bring tactical squads! Better late then never!

On turn four the two tactical squads finally decided to arrive. The Thunder Cannon fired into the tan mob, but didn’t remove as many Orks as Archer was hoping for. The mob assaulted the tactical squad and the Razorback. The Razorback was immobilized and shaken. The tactical squad lost six in the assault and fell back. The mob rolled a five on the consolidation and managed to spread itself from the objective marker to within 2” of the tactical squad, forcing them to run off the board during the following turn.

The blue mob with the Big Mek moved off their objective and multi-assaulted the lone scout and the newly arrived tactical squad. They lost the assault by one and fled. Somehow, the scout survived and fell back. In my consolidation I spread out again, not just because of my utter fear of the Thunder Cannon, but also to ensure the Marines couldn’t regroup. They ran off the table, too.

Orks learn quick. SPREAD OUT to avoid the Thunder Cannon pain!

On turn five, the Razorback near the blue squad fired its twin-linked heavy flamer, but could only reach a single Ork. The Thunder Cannon shot into the grey squad in the middle of the table, but scattered all over the place an only took out a couple of Orks.

I LOVE the multi-assault!

At that point we called the game. My move would have been to jump onto the middle objective and the blue mob would have run back to their objective after the Mek detached and destroyed the Razorback that was too close to him. We rolled to make sure and the game would have ended on turn five, giving me all three objectives.

The end scene.

Archer put up a good fight, but his dice were against him. Actually, I think it was because Boss Kap’n Genral was there for most of the game. He’s my good luck charm and the bane of Archer’s dice.

For the campaign, I was able to gain a territory that puts me in a tactically interesting place and Gog gained five Experience Points and allowed him to roll on the Advancement Chart. This gave him a +1 to his WS, so now the Mek has a WS of 5!

I learned more about my Orks and, in particular, my own play-style with them. Deffkoptas rock. Sure, they died, but they soaked up a lot of fire before falling. Taking out the Whirlwind was an awesome bonus. They were trying to impress me.

I didn’t get a chance to use my bosspoles or my Kustom Force Field. Archer geared his list toward me (which I love as it is totally in line with the campaign) and brought a lot of anti-cover save weapons. My boyz held up surprisingly well. Of course, better dice rolls from Archer could have easily turned that into a disaster for me.

And I learned that the Blitzkrieg mission is FREAKIN’ AWESOME!