Victory Pointless

“Uh, boss… we’z ‘ad a message…” Tok seemed confused, Uzblitz noted.  Not that it was rare for a gretchin to be confused, but Tok was one of the smarter ones.  Almost as smart as an Ork, Uzblitz would grudgingly admit.  “Itz from a humie.  Sum Rogue Trader called Emberlyn Driftwood.  Sez she wonts ta fight us, boss.”

“A humie sed dat?  Not ‘aah, aah, big scary Orks, leg it?’” Now Uzblitz was confused as well.  “Just a regular humie?  Not one of dem beakies?”

“I fink beakies iz all boyz, boss, for sum silly reason.  Er, not Boyz-boyz, but, uh…” Tok struggled to encapsulate the human concept of gender in a language that normally had no real need for it, and gave up.  “No.  Just a humie.  Wot shall I send back?”

“Tell ‘er if itz a scrap she’s after itz a scrap she’ll get, uv course!” A humie that actually wanted to fight was definitely a humie worth meeting.

This was a 1000 point crusade game playing the Empty the Vaults mission against Imperial Agents.  We started with six objectives, but one would be removed randomly each turn.

The Imperials deployed aggressively, Emberlyn the Rogue Trader and her entourage of Breachers and another squad of Voidsmen-at-arms infiltrating onto objectives close to my side of the board.  They got the first turn and inflicted damage on my Lootas and Kommandos and wiped out one unit of gretchin.  In return the Orks moved forwards and wiped the voidsmen and most of the breachers in shooting.  However, Emberlyn activated her displacer field and teleported further away, meaning the boyz failed their charge.

To add injury to insult, the Vindicare Assassin sniped the Weirdboy out from the mob of Boyz.  No Da Jump shenanigans for me this game.  They then got charged from behind by a deep striking first mate (another Rogue Trader retinue with some voidsmen).  This became a battle of attrition that tied up both units for a couple of turns.

Emberlyn’s retinue finished off the Kommandos but all but the Rogue Trader herself were killed in return.  She then got charged by gretchin (because it was funny) who inflicted a single wound.

And then…

Uzblitz sat in the back of the trukk and ground his fangs in frustration.  These humies were too fragile and this trukk was too slow.  By the time he got to the scene of a fight it was already over.

Out of the corner of one red eye he spotted activity.  A fight!  In an instant he had vaulted the side of the trukk and was headed that way, Nobz following behind.

Then, he saw her.  Majestically she rose from the midst of a pile of gretchin.  Her blade flashed out and skewered one grot, then another.  Her – whatever it was humans called their hair squigs – was piled high atop her head like the smoke plume of a glorious explosion.  She glanced his way and their eyes met.

Time seemed to slow.  There was a thunderous crack of displaced air behind him as some silver-armoured Terminators appeared and began gunning down his Nobz.  Uzblitz barely noticed.  The woman had flung aside the clutching gretchin and was coming towards him, a look of glee on her face.  A humie!  Charging towards a warboss and his retinue!  Alone!  It was… the Orkiest thing he had ever seen.

“Well, aren’t you a beautiful specimen?” said the woman.  “I, Emberlyn Driftwood, challenge you to a duel!”

Uzblitz had heard of grod at first sight but he had never really believed in it.  Was that what this was?  It felt like his heart was exploding.

He glanced down.  There was a ragged bullet hole in the centre of his chest.  Oh.  His heart had exploded.  That explained that.

The Vindicare got another notch on his rifle.

The Flash Gitz and Trukk took care of the Grey Knight Terminators and the Deffkoptas sliced up Emberlyn with their rotor blades (though she immediately got back up).

This was now the end of round 3, we were running out of time and I’d built up an almost-insurmountable lead so we decided to call it there.

Result: Ork Victory, 40VP to 20VP

(Don’t worry, Uzblitz will be fine, there were plenty of spare hearts lying around the battlefield for the painboyz to quickly jam back in there.)

Post-Mortem

This was another glorious victory for my Orks, but I don’t mind saying that I think my opponent played better than me and probably would’ve won had they not been playing the notoriously underpowered Imperial Agents.

I made a number of mistakes, some genuine, some I-know-this-move-isn’t-optimal-but-it’ll-be-funny:

• I didn’t deploy my infiltrating Gretchin & Kommandos very well, which made it easy for them both to be picked off without accomplishing anything.  It would’be been better to deploy them together where they could support one another and be more of a combined threat.
• Uzblitz and co should have stayed in the trukk an extra turn rather than hopping out and trying for a long charge (which they failed, fortunately, since it would’ve been illegal anyway because the trukk had already moved.  So this was both a tactical and rules mistake.  I haven’t used transports much before so I’m still wrapping my head around them).  It just resulted in them getting shot up.
• I should’ve positioned my characters more carefully to keep out of line of sight of the Vindicare, especially the Weirdboy who I stupidly put in about the one position in the unit that the Vindicare could see.