The Conservative Zone

Mondays are pretty boring for me, sometimes I get some shopping done, but usually it's a wasted day. Well, I contacted Mike and off we went to the Memphis Games Workshop World of Battle to play Epic:Armageddon. 5,000 points was the agreed upon army size. It's not as big as we can play, but it's the recommended upper limit for tournament rules games.

I must say it was confusing for the store staff to see us there on a Monday, especially seeing us for several months of consistent Wednesdays. We just told them, "You mean this isn't Wednesday?"

I had worked out a plan, you see, that was to use buildings as cover for my Orks. You see, after getting hit, the units getting the hit get what is called a saving throw, you roll a six-sided die (known as a D6 in the gaming world) and see if the unit lives or dies. Space Marines normally save on a 4, 5 or 6. Orks, when they have a save, it's a 6. But in buildings, Orks also save on a 4+.

So I set up five buildings, three on my side and two on his half of the board. I meant to occupy these buildings to get their cover save and provide a fire base from which to rain death and destruction upon his troops. Mike saw them but didn't assign any ulterior motive. He just thought I had slung them out there somewhat at random.

From what I had learned from my reading of The Art of Maneuver, I was trying to provide Mike an unsolvable problem. Approach the entrenched Ork horde, or stay back and not contest the objectives? The one Warband that did stick to the plan managed to keep two objectives under their control, but nobody else was able to continue that plan, and so were driven back, broken.

As the game progressed, it became a game of "gang up on the Orks." Tim, a Naval Aviator (don't call them pilots) stopped by with his Epic stuff and Mike made room for him on his side of the board. So while points wise the battle was even, I was outnumbered two, and later three to one when Tyler showed up and started kibitzing.

Things started out badly for the Orks. Before I could do anything with my 'Uge (Ork for huge) Warband, a pair of Imperial bombers visited it, raining death and destruction from the sky. Because my forces were still inside of their transports, they had to make separate saves if the vehicle they were in was destroyed. The airstrike wiped out my Warlord and all of the Nobz (leader orks, they are bigger than your regular Ork) for that formation. It never got to do what I wanted it to do. It ended up broken and in the back of the battlefield.

I had several on-the-fly plans that would have saved the day, except for the fact that the units involved wouldn't obey my orders. You have to activate a unit when you give it an order, and for Orks I usually have to roll a 3 on a D6 for them to carry out the order. And when I needed them the most, they garbled the order and didn't do what I needed them to do. Space Marines, on the other hand, activate on a 1, which means it takes certain circumstances for them to ever fail an activation roll. I managed to get the proper support units in position, but when it came for the killing blow, the unit tasked with doing the mayhem said, "You want us to do what? No way!"

To make a long story short, I was mauled by the Marines. I did significant damage to them, but they did more to me and were able to grab a 2-0 victory. I think I'm going to stay away from the larger battles when I play Orks. It gives my opponent too many options that I don't have. At least until I can buy the appropriate units ;-).