[andrewbeater]

I'm going to play a bit of a game; I'll post my list and my opponent's list, mission type and describe the board to you. You tell me not only who wins, but in what turn (keep in mind partial turns). It'll be like a vote war, but this game has already been played and I know the outcome.

Environment: Friendly, easy going game.
Table: Two tall buildings in the middle for line of sight blocking, a ruin in each zone, 4+ cover barriers in each zone and 4+ cover crates scattered about the large buildings. 6X4 table.
Mission: Maelstrom of War: Contact lost.
Daemonkin vs. Orks - Daemonkin wins initiative, elects to set up second and ultimately goes second.

1000 Points Each

Daemonkin CAD:

HQ - Herald of Khorne - Collar of Khorne, Juggernaut, Loci of Wrath
Troops - 13 Bloodletters w/ Banner of Blood, Bloodreaper
Troops - 12 Bloodletters w/ Bloodreaper
Fast Attack - 10 Flesh Hounds
Fast Attack - Heldrake
Heavy - 2 Skull Cannons of Khorne

Orks CAD:

HQ - Warboss w/ Mega Armour, Cybork Body, The Dead Shiny Shoota, Power klaw, Boss Pole
Troops - 20 Shoota Boys w/ 2 Big Shootas, Nob w/ Power Klaw, Boss Pole
Troops - 20 Boyz w/ 2 Rokkits, Nob w/ Power Klaw, Boss Pole
Fast Attack - 3x 5 Ork Bikers each w/ Nob w/ Power Klaw, Boss Pole
Heavy - 2x 5 Lootas

Predictions?

 

[Exarch Thomo]

Ok, I'll play.

I'm going to go with the Daemonkin to Win, DK Turn 4

CC will be punishing, however the orks will be hitting piecemeal (half footslogging), and the Warlord is SLOW, with no way of getting anywhere in a hurry (making him easy enough to avoid until you want to fight him). The Lootas and foot squads can be dealt with by the two skull cannons, and once the hell-turkey hits the field, they don't have anything reliably able to deal with it. It will pretty much be able to move and kill with impunity.

 

[kingzerno]

I'm going to agree with the above. Turn 4 for the demons. The orks are too slow and will have been heavily whittled down by the skull cannons by the time they approach combat distance.

Add to this is the heldrake shows up early game it'll slaughter them and they have nothing to fight back. If heldrake shows up turn 2 I'd be tempted to push the guess to a turn 3 win for demons.

 

[Exarch Thomo]

Add to this is the heldrake shows up early game it'll slaughter them and they have nothing to fight back. If heldrake shows up turn 2 I'd be tempted to push the guess to a turn 3 win for demons.

Agreed. I was toying with the helldrake arriving first time, but given my abysmal luck with reserve rolls meant I erred on the side of caution.

 

[andrewbeater]

I'll give it a bit more time for others to guess and then I'll give you the battle report.

 

[Exarch Thomo]

The suspense is killing me. Are we at least close?

 

[kingzerno]

^ seconded

 

[andrewbeater]

Before the game begins, Daemonkin wins the right to either setup first or second and elects to set up second. The reasoning was to put my Skull Cannons in a position to hit the most Orks out of the line of sight blocking buildings in the middle of the table. During setup for the Orks, my son realizing I have pie plates of death, spread out his units to minimize the effect of the Cannons. After set up, my son (Orks) decide to go first which is fine by me.

Ork first turn - except the Lootas, everything advances. Bikes come straight up challenging the Daemonkin to do something about them. On the shooting phase, one unit of Lootas open up on the Cannon across from it and unlucky for me, shake it and leave it unable to fire. The other Lootas try to hit the other Cannon and fail to do anything to it. The Shoota Boyz and 2 of the Bike units open up on my 13 man Bloodletter unit killing more than half of them. The other unit of Bikes open up on the Hounds/Herald killing a hound and wounding one. Orks score 3 victory points from cards.

Daemonkin First turn - The herald/ Hounds move up to the bike squad that hit them earlier. To score objectives, the Bloodletters stay put. The one Cannon opens up on the Boyz coming down at it killing 5; a drop in the bucket. The other Cannon cannot fire. The Herald/ Hounds assault the Bikes, killing them all but take one more casualty in Overwatch. The Herald wiffs on his consolidation, leaving him uncomfortably close to a 20 man Boyz unit. Daemonkin score only 2 victory points.

Ork Second turn - The two remaining Bike squads make it in the face of the remaining Bloodletters. The Boyz close in on my Herald/ hounds and need an 8" charge. Shoota Boyz get closer to my uninjured Skull Cannon and 12 Man Bloodletters. In the shooting phase, one Loota unit opens up on the injured Cannon and blow it up. The other Loota squad open up on the other Skull Cannon, but just glance it. The Shoota boyz open up on the 12 man Bloodletters killing 7 Bloodletters! Further, the Bikes open up on the same Bloodletter unit killing 3 more and leaving 2 alive. The other Bike squad open up on what is left of the 13 man Bloodletter squad killing all but 2. In the assault phase, the Bikes catch up with what is left of the 13 man Bloodletters and kill them in combat taking only one casualty. The worst piece of luck I had was when the Boyz rolled an 11 for charge range on my Herald/ hounds. This gave them 10 hammer of wrath attacks against them. My Herald challenged and won, but the sheer number of attacks from the Boyz were able to kill the entire Herald/ Hound unit. The Boyz lost their Nob leader and about 7 Boyz, but were still very much intact. Orks scored 2 more objectives and one for Slay the Warlord.

At this point I had a sobering fact; I was done. I had a Heldrake that may come in from reserve, 2 Bloodletters and one mildly damaged Skull Cannon. I had 7 Blood tithe points to summon a few more Bloodletters, but I had to face facts, the Orks still had about 80% of his army left. Even if the Heldrake came in, my ground troops would soon be dead leaving my opponent to score objectives almost at will. So I conceded. Worst game of my life actually.

 

[andrewbeater]

I also should add that the Daemonkin dice rolls were bad, very bad. My son on the other hand rolls very well for Ork shooting. It's frackin' crazy. I failed an awful lot of 4+ cover saves on my Bloodletters who were in 4 up cover for most of the game (such as it was).