My friend and fellow 40k 2nd Edition Challenge participant since the first challenge and I had some time to meet up and play a game of 2nd Edition. I had thought we hadn’t played our end of challenge game for Mark V, but apparently we had, but Jon came up with a scenario from the Battle of Piscina IV. We do still owe each other our Mark VI challenge game though! Using our old challenge armies was a great way to start Mark VII of the 40k 2nd Edition Painting Challenge, and as the night we had initially planned was snowed out this game happened to fall on February 1st, the official starting day of the challenge!

In this scenario the Dark Angels had to destroy a power plant to shut down a piece of technology the Orks were looking for. The Dark Angels had to Take and Hold the center of the industrial cooling platform while the Orks had Engage and Destroy. We were originally going to play 1,200 points but Jon was willing to play 1,250 points so I could bring the Dreadnaught I painted for last years Dreadtober painting challenge! We decided to play four turns and roll to see if their would be a fifth turn. At the end of the fourth we would play one more turn on a roll of a 5+. I’m not sure how the writers thought a game could be played in only 3 turns!

Codex – Angels of Death (Dark Angels) – Mark V – [1248 pts]

# ++ Dark Angels ++ [1248 pts]
## Support [370 pts]
Space Marine Dreadnought [190 pts]: Lascannon [30 pts], Missile Launcher with Frag and Krak Missiles [45 pts]
Space Marine Predator [180 pts]: Autocannon, Lascannon [90 pts]

## Squads [720 pts]
Deathwing Squad [361 pts]:
• 1x Deathwing Terminator [21 pts]: Terminator Armour, Power Fist, Heavy Flamer [21 pts]
• 3x Deathwing Terminator: Terminator Armour, Power Fist, Storm Bolter
Terminator Sergeant (Power Sword, Storm Bolter, Terminator Armour)
Tactical Squad [359 pts]: 9x Tactical Marines, Meltagun [8 pts], Power Armour (Power Armour), Lascannon [45 pts] (Targeter)
• 1x Space Marine Sergeant [6 pts]: Power Sword [6 pts], Power Armour (Power Armour)

## Characters [158 pts]
Dark Angels Master [125 pts]: Show Wargear Cards, Conversion Field [10 pts], Power Armour (Power Armour)
Techmarine [33 pts]: ServoCapable, Power Armour (Power Armour)

Da’ Orks!

Warboss Gortslob – Snakebites Warboss mounted on a Cyboar, Flak Armor, Kustom Shoota, Kustom Force Field, Power Axe, Steel Skull 132 points

Tarbugg Domehackah – Bad Moons Painboy, Doc’s Tools, Flak Armor 26 points

Urord Grimsnappa – Snakebites Runtherd, Flak Armor 18 points

Ragnak Gutzsmashah – Evil Sunz Mekaniak, Shokk Attack Gun 43 points

Brazdram’s Boyz – 10 Evil Sunz Orks including Nobz champion, 8 boyz w/ Bolt Pistols and Axes, 1 boy w/ Heavy Plasma Cannon 160 points

Muzzleskar’s Biker Boyz – 5 Evil Sunz Boyz including Nobz champion on Warbikes 258 points

Wildspittah’s Mob – 12 Goff Gretchin w/ Autoguns 60 points

Krookslashah’s Mob – 13 Snakebite Gretchin w/ Auto Pistols and Knives 65 points

Rabidfang’s Stunties – Evil Sunz Snotlings, 3 x Snotling Bases 15 points

Da Brainkrusha – Goff Dred, Heavy Bolter Lascannon, 2 x Power Claw 145 points

Da Gloomkrakah – Evil Sunz War Buggy, Multi-Melta 65 points

Da Ragewhacka – Evil Sunz Wartrak, Twin-Linked Heavy Bolters 50 points

Da Eadrippa – Evil Sunz Splatta Kannon 60 points

Da Glumsmasha – Evil Sunz Traktor Kannon 40 points

Goff Mob – 8 Goffs –

1,233 points

The battlefield after deployment.

The Orks handily won the first turn and in true Orky fashion began their advance up the board. The shooting was limited as most Orks either ran or didn’t have a decent line of sight. The Ork Dreadnaught managed to hit one of the Deathwing but failed to wound!

In the Dark Angels turn the troops and the Dreadnaught moved up to secure the objective.

Meanwhile the Predator took aim at the Ork Dreadnaught and let loose with it’s Lascannons.

1 shot bounced off metal monstrosities armor, but the second one struck true blowing the walker up in a shower of metal shards and rivets! Not to be totally outdone the autocannon opened fire on the gretchin and managed to lay one low.

Meanwhile the Dark Angels Dreadnaught opened fire on the approaching buggy and wartrakk and in a rain of lascannon fire and krak missiles killed the crews of both vehicles which would go out of control next turn! With nothing better to shoot at the Deathwing opened fire on the Gretchin mob in the open and after rolling the Sustained Fire dice came up with 13 hits leading to 11 dead grots! The grots felt enough was enough and legged it to cover where they would not recover during the game! The Lion was looking out for his favorites as only the Sergeant jammed his Storm Bolter! Jon was gnashing his teeth at this result but soon the shoe would be on his Orky foot!

The crewless Ork vehicles lurched forwards, without hitting anything they remained a menace to both sides in the next turn!

while the war bikes engaged combat speed and swept around the flank to get to the rear of the Dark Angels! The Orks had the Barrage strategy card and dropped it right in the middle of the Dark Angels forces. The Barrage was fired with superb accuracy and only deviated 4″ catching the Dark Angel Master and two Tactical Marines, but all three survived despite a -3 to their save!

Their good luck was not to last as the autcannons on the warbikes opened up causing 11 hits, 11 wounds, and zero saved wounds completely eliminating the Tactical Marines! I’m no expert but I’d say that was more than a fair trade for the Sustained Fire gods when comparing 9 dead Gretchin to 10 dead Tactical Marines!

Don’t worry though, things continued to get worse for the Dark Angels as the Shokk attack gun hit the Dreadnaught, killing it outright. Jon almost forgot the template might hit the troops near the now lifeless shell and I pointed out he also hit the Terminator and the Techmarine. I didn’t realize the Shokk attack gun hit anything the template touched without the need to roll a 4+ to hit and while the Terminator was lucky and had a low result on the chart allowing him his save the Techmarine was torn to ribbons by the Snotlings that materialized in his armor! I was so looking forward to failing to repair the Dreadnaught next turn too! With just under half the Dark Angels troops dead, and three bonus victory points earned for the Orks due to Engage and Destroy things were not looking good for the Dark Angels!

The situation at the start of Ork Turn 3.

The wartrakk carrened straight into the Predator but as expected didn’t even damage the paint on the venerable war machine…

while the Ork Warbuggy ended it’s reign of terror by hitting the ruings of the downed Dreadnaught!

The Ork warbikes dropped their speed while the Orks Evil Sunz mob attempted to flank the surviving Dark Angels.

The warbikes continued their rein of terror and once again the Sustained Fire dice did their thing. With only three bikes having line of sight 7 hits were caused, followed by 7 wounds. Even Terminator armor has a hard time against that many shots and one of the Veterans went down to the fusillade of fire! The small arms fire of the Ork troops bounced off the terminator armor causing no further wounds. Still, things were looking rather grim for the Dark Angels!

Despite being surrounded on all sides the Dark Angels continued their advance on the objective. On the other flank the Predator crew saw the danger to the Deathwing and risking the attention of the Shokk attack gun raced across the field to engage the Ork Warbikes.

The Heavy Flamer opened up on the Goffs killing four. The sheet of flame also caught the Painboy lurking behind the Ork lines and he was also engulfed. The Stormbolters of the other Terminators, and the bolter of the Master killed the rest of the Goffs. The Ork forces were going to have a hard time contesting the objective, but with the Evil Sunz nearby, and the Warbikes running rampant it wasn’t an impossible task.

After opening fire on the Warbikes the Predator managed to kill two drivers and reduce two of the other machines to slow speed. While it wasn’t as many kills as the Dark Angels were hoping for the closely packed Warbikes were in for a potentially hazardous situation when the two bikes without a driver went out of control next turn!

As expected craziness ensued as the out of control Warbikes caused further damage to the unit as they crashed into two functioning Warbikes. One of the collisions resulted in the working bike exploding, while the other caused the working bike to go out of control. This dropped the unit down to only one healthy bike!

In their fourth turn the remaining Orks moved up to try and contest the objective in case their was a fifth turn, if their wasn’t they were going to have to rely on their dwindling shooting! The Ork Traktor Cannon grabbed the Terminator with the Heavy Flamer and pulled it forward 6″. The marines armor saved him from any further harm. In fact, if the Traktor Cannon did anything it gave the Heavy Flamer a better shot on the encroaching Evil Sunz as the angle of his shot was better and he could still advance on the objective! The Splatta Kannon bounced around for a while, failed to kill a Terminator, bounced around a few more turns and finally sputtered out. The Shokk Attack gunner had more foresight than most Orks and after briefly considering shooting at the Predator realized the Terminators were the more important target and let fly with his last snotling stand. Once again a hit was rolled and the snotlings killed the Terminators Sergeant! Adding insult to injury the Evil Sunz actually took down one Terminator with their bolters! Weight of metal for the Orky win! Fortunately the remaining Warbikes autocannon failed to hit!

In the Dark Angels turn the Predator destroyed the remaining bikes ending their threat. The Heavy Flamer opened up on the Evil Suns and killed four of them.

The Ork Warbosses Kustom Force Field wasn’t able to save him from sustaining 3 wounds from the Terminators Storm Bolters (they rolled 6’s to wound!) but the armor of his Cyboar ended up saving two of the three wounds allowing him to live another turn, if in fact there was another turn to play. With the angry Warboss staring down at me I anxiously awaited the roll of the dice to see if there wound be a fifth turn. As the die clattered to a 1 I let out the breath I wasn’t aware I was holding and we went about counting up the Victory Points. I knew I killed a fair amount of Orks and easily held my objective but after the insanity of the Ork shooting of turn two I wasn’t sure who would come out ahead!

The remaining Dark Angel troops fighting back to back as they place the charges on the objective so many marines died to take.

After Victory Points were tallied up we realized the Dark Angels had managed to eek out a victory, if only just barely. Before objectives were added in the Orks had 6 Victory Points while the Marines had 7. The Orks eliminated three units getting three bonus Victory Points but the Marines had captured their objective getting a bonus 5 Victory Points. Thus the game ended Orks 9, Dark Angels 12!

This was one of the toughest games Jon and I have ever played. When I lost half my army on the second turn I felt the game was all but over. While I had managed to cause some damage to the Orks by that point I didn’t think it was nearly enough, especially with the bonus objective points those units gave out. Despite wavering my personal morale held firm and I decided to make the Orks pay! I knew I needed to take the objective if I were to have a chance of winning so I continued to press on with everything I had to take control of the fan complex. I knew it was a risk to dash the Predator across the Shokk Attack Guns field of fire but I needed to keep those Terminators alive so they could claim the objective. In the end the three surviving marines managed to win me the game. Jon mentioned he had considered charging his Ork Warboss into combat to try and shift the marines off the objective but he forgot. If he had charged there would have been two more marines, including a sword armed Sergeant as it would have been harder to shoot into the combat, but then again the Shokk Attack Gun would have been free to fire at the Predator. If there had been a fifth turn the Warboss might have been able to stop the Marines from claiming the objective and if so the game would have swung to the Orks favor. Thus the game could have swung on one charge. Close and bloody, just how I like my games!

-Wachtmeister