My First Two Games

So I had my first two games last night and it was kind of a mixed bag. Since I was paying more attention to learning and memorizing the rules, this is going to be more of a summary as I simply cannot recall the details.

So game one was between me and a nice younger guy who was willing to show me the ropes. He brought 2000pts or so of...Dark Eldar , so nothing too exciting and new for my first game. I told him I only had 500pts so after he wrote a list, we got going. My list was this:

Succubus, Venom Blade (with Wyches)
10 Warriors, Splinter Cannon, Raider, D. Lance, SR, NS
8 Wyches, HWG, Raider, Dissie, E. Sails, NS
3 Reavers, HL

His list was pretty wonky (and I am forgetting some things) so I am pretty sure he was going easy/trying some things which was nice of him :

Lady Malys
10 Warriors, Blaster, Splinter Cannon Raider, SR, NS
9 Warriors, Blaster, Raider, SR, NS

Terrain was decent but I do wish we had used the rules in the rulebook to setup terrain (for practice). Additionally, we used the full table instead of doing a 4x4. I will have to rectify both of those in the future. We rolled Emperor's Will (neither objective really came into play ) on a Vanguard table, he won the roll and chose to deploy first, and I failed to seize the initiative. Oh, and Warlord traits were negligible.

We both deployed in true DE style: there was copious amounts of cover between us. The first two turns were kinda silly as we both played cat and mouse a bit. I slowly moved my Reavers and Wych Raider up so as to get some sort of assault while he kept his gunboats pretty shielded. Shooting was also ridiculous until turn 3 as we both rolled really poorly to hit and really well to make Jink saves.

This all changed in turn 3 when he managed to score a penetrating hit on my Wych boat and immobilized it. He also took out two of my Reavers. I then proceeded to charge one of his gunboats with my Wyches, HWG it to death, giving me First Blood. Turn 4, with his now disembarked Warriors, he proceeded to wipe out my Wyches/Succubus. My turn comes and I bladevine with my single Reaver over his Warriors and then used my still functional Dissie to take out a decent chunk of the squad. I also scored a rather epic pen on his other gunboat which blew it up and took out a bunch of his squad. I know I also shot with my warriors at one of the units to good effect (QUESTION: transports can shoot at different targets than the unit they are transporting? Can I get a page number on that?). Needless to say, he had all of one model left that could do anything to my vehicles (single guy with a blaster). His turn came around and he completely whiffed. I then proceeded to table him.

Yes I am happy I won, but I am also happy with how he was not overly competitive and, even though he wasn't the best with the rules, he was good enough to get me into the flow of the game. I thanked him by buying him a candy bar . All in all a good experience and I look forward to playing with him again.

I have to go to work now, so the second game will need to wait until tonight. Thanks!

Ok so game two began after another gentleman arrived and us three (new gentleman, guy who just taught me, and myself) decided on a 2000k 2v1 game (I would have my 500pts and the other DE player would have 1500). We rolled the relic mission on a vanguard board, rolled negligible warlord traits, and we got to have the first turn. I should have realized after deployment that this game was not going to be very fun. Not only was our opponent playing a super unfluffy list, but it was spammy as hell. I will try and remember his list:

Huge unit of lootas (no idea how many)
30 man unit of boyz with upgrades
25 man unit of boyz with upgrades
HQ that gives a cover save shield
Ork Flyer
two units of 3 lobbas
Aegis Defense Grid with Tri Gun (weird)
small unit of allied Tau Fire warriors (WTF!!??)
3 Broadsides
I think there was more but I can't remember. Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing a Tau HQ...

He deployed the Aegis on the back line with all the Lootas in it as well as the Fire Warriors, the Broadsides, and a unit of Lobbas. He then encased them with his two unit of Boyz. We deployed in cover mostly.

Our list was my 500pt list plus 5 venoms with blaster warriors, 2 DL Ravagers and one venom with Archon/incubi

After a decent first turn for us (killed off the Broadsides) as well as some boyz here and there, the Tork (?) player proceeded to do obscene amounts of damage. By turn two most of my stuff was gone, and my teammates stuff was mostly wrecked. I wound up leaving around turn three because I was bored and I was getting tired. I have always thought of Orks as a really zany army, where craziness/fun often ensues. Well this wasn't the case. He only assaulted once and that was only because I wanted to try Bladevaning (although come to think of it, I think that might have been illegal as I am pretty sure he shot with the assaulting unit at a different unit from the one they assaulted). Talk about lame. To make matters worse, the gentleman was much shorter with me in terms of rules, and rather arrogant in his comments/demeanor, thus making him kind of a jerk.

So, things that I learned:
1. I hate large games. I am gonna move up to 1k when I get the chance, but that is it. Large games take too long and are too easy to create spammy lists. Sure you can spam in 1k, but the loss of a single unit is much more heavily felt.
2. Despite the crummy second game, I do enjoy 40k. I will continue going, but I think I will be a bit more selective in terms of games (when I can be) and in terms of making sure rules aren't being broken.
3. I need to paint more. Nuff said.
4. DE are really soft. If I had realized this/not liked the models so much/not hated most of the other armies, I probably would have gone with something a little more durable and that has an easier learning curve. Still I think I will do well/like them more once I get the hang of them.
5. Wyches are not my cup of tea. I like having one unit to escort my HQ, but i think my cores are gonna stay with warriors.

Two last questions for you all: how does cover work? In the second game there was one instance where my forcibly disembarked wyches were fired upon through a weird pipe structure (on the fly we called it a 5+ cover, however, I think I should have argued more fiercely to bump it/challenge line of sight), while they were in a crater, and they had gone to ground. They got only a 4+ cover save. In my head that makes no sense, as it would make sense to stack cover, but i guess that doesn't work?

Second, how would you deal with the above Ork list?

Thanks!

Damnosus,

Sorry about those opening games and an Ork player who sounds like a smug... umm jerk. I would argue your 500pt list is good, though a hekatrix with a PGL will do you well (allows for a cover save at 8") and with only 3 Reavers avoid the temptation of bladevaning as you can do more with the other uses of the unit. (the HL, Assault assistance, shoot/scoot, etc... don't worry I made this mistake once too ).

On a side note, Splinter spam and templates are things that orks hate. Though his other options make it a hard list for my to immediatly counter as my coffee has not yet kicked in...

Lootas will reliably wreck anything in your list, however they will only wreck ONE thing in your list a turn, which isn't so bad - orks take a lot of bullets to get the job done! His list doesn't seem too spammy though, large units of boyz are a perfectly valid and fluffy way to run orks. The Tau allies sort of negate that idea though, that's clearly him going for a bit of a power build. Strictly speaking, your ally had a more spammy list than him. His Venoms shouldn't have struggled too much with those large units of boyz, but I guess the Lobbas were probably problematic for them.

Playing against this ork list, two or three Venoms, three or four Raiders and a Razorwing would be useful and hilarious - basic orks don't get an armour save from it's missiles. Load up your Raiders with Warriors, have maybe one or two small wych squads in the Venoms and then shoot the hell out of him. The Lobbas can't target the Razorwing, so the Lootas and the flyer are the things to worry about for it. Fly a couple of Venoms towards the Lootas, shoot the hell out of them and watch them run off the board. This is pretty much guaranteed to happen. I have orks as well as DE, with Lootas, so am fairly experienced at watching them run away! If he brings the flyer on, and if it's a Dakkajet, your Razorwing might be in trouble, as it's fantastic at taking down lightly armoured vehicles, including flyers. In terms of dealing with that, it'll probably be dependent on who gets first turn, as if he brings it on before yours, you can shoot it down. Get everything else in his deployment zone to minimise the damage it does as well, as it'll take ages to train it's fixed mounting guns on you. Hide the Razorwing behind tall cover if there is any too, bringing it on at a very tight angle if you need to.

I don't know what to suggest with the Lobbas, short of having a couple of deep striking units (a dissie Ravager with retrofire jets or Scourges) tasked specifically with taking them out. A lot of people seem to under-estimate the utility of indirect firing, medium strength and AP weaponry, but I'm terrified of any of my friends getting a Whirlwind! Including those deep striking units makes the army less of an all-comers list, so I wouldn't rush to do it. Just remember not to cluster your vehicles together, then fly over whatever he hides them behind.

@Blind_Baku: good idea on the Hekatrix+PGL, I will try and fit one in once I expand to 1k. Sucked about the second game, but the first one was definitely fun!

@Mr Believer: I called the list unfluffy because it didn't assault (I just find that to be the reason why you play orks). Heck it barely moved. The reason why we were struggling so much in killing those big units was because he had the guy which gave them a 5+ cover save bubble/he was rolling really well on both the cover saves and his boss pole I will not run check thing. I really wish I could have read his book cause he was pulling out a lot of rules really fast.

Looking back on the game, there is a lot I would have done differently: use the rules for setting up terrain (we ad very little cover), deploy differently, attack one flank more, and go after objectives.

Thanks for the advice folks!

I am a relatively new player as well and jumped off the deep end with the Dark Eldar right at the get go. I personally love my wyches. They are a moderate CC group that most often wont wipe a squad, but they do remarkably well holding a troop off an objective and keeping them from scoring (by tying them up in CC for a few turns) while you run up and snag it right from under their noses. Flanking and mobility are your best friends with this army. Yeah, we kind of wither under direct firepower but we hit first and really hard. So focus fire and never give up on the game. Its easier to keep with it and pull a mysterious win when they think they have truly won the game and start to make mistakes a little later in the game

Damnosus wrote:

I called the list unfluffy because it didn't assault (I just find that to be the reason why you play orks). Heck it barely moved. The reason why we were struggling so much maybekilling those big units was because he had the guy which gave them a 5+ cover save bubble/he was rolling really well on both the cover saves and his boss pole I will not run check thing. I really wish I could have read his book cause he was pulling out a lot of rules really fast.

That is a fair comment on his style of play being unfluffy in that case, stationary orks with a Kustom force field sounds wrong to me. Competitive maybe, especially against a speedy army like DE, but not proper orky behaviour at all. Throw that in his face next time you play him, try and goad him into moving! With so little stuff in the DE book that ignores cover, I can imagine shifting thirty strong fearless blobs with a cover save would be tricky. And you don't want to assault orks in a hurry, although it is much safer than being assaulted by them. The Waaagh! special rule gives them fleet on the turn it's used, and is practically army wide, as is Furious Charge. Whittle them down with shooting if you're going for the charge, but your best bet here might have been to concentrate on secondary objectives whilst denying him getting them as much as possible. Linebreaker and First Blood are good to go for, Slay the Warlord less simple in this case. He would have been very slow going for the relic, so I'd have taken any chance to use a small unit to move it a little further away from him. If you happen to end up with it at the end of the game, that's all the better, but it's really more about denying it to him.

Oh, and don't get too down on ork players, some of us try to strike a balance between fun, fluffy lists and being competitive, like me. I try to play like an ork when I use orks, and like a dark eldar when I use dark eldar. Playing like an ork is a lot easier, you just run/trundle/screech/hurtle forwards as fast as possible with most stuff, then drown your sorrows with beer if you lose. Or celebrate with beer if you win. The beer is key.

Naw, I am not down on Ork players (only that one). I think I was just got my hopes up that it was going to be an exciting/fun game and then it really wasnt.