Victory Pointless

“Zey iz still chasin’ us, Kaptin.”

Uzblitz looked down at the skanna skope where Krakdakka was pointing.  The blood angels had been tracking them since their last engagement, which had ended badly for the Orks.  Worse, two other Imperial ships had recently joined the pursuit.  These humies couldn’t take a joke.

“Dey ain’t chasin us,” he corrected.  “‘Cos we ain’t runnin’ away.  Deyz just followin’ us.  Dat’s different.  Itz all parta da plan!”

“Uh, zure thing, boss.” The Professa didn’t sound convinced.  Nor, Uzblitz knew, were a lot of the rest of the crew.  A lot of them thought they were running away and some of them didn’t believe there even was a plan.

Of course there was a plan.  He just wasn’t sure what it was, yet.

Two more blips appeared on the skanna, shortly followed by glyphs that spelled out their names.  Da Rokk Dat Boats.  Da Booty Krumpa.

Uzblitz grinned.  The plan that he’d had all along was starting to pay off.

“Professa!  Get da kaptins uv dose ships on da line.  Corjully invite ‘em to be parta a little ambush I’z puttin togevva…”

This was a 1000-points-each-player 3v3 team crusade game pitching myself and two other Ork players against an Imperial alliance of the Blood Angels I fought (and lost to) last time alongside some Custodes and Deathwatch.  We were playing the ‘Myths and Monsters’ mission.

Da Fing hunkered down in its cage.  The bars rattled with every bump the trukk they were riding in went over and the world outside was a cacophony of weird noises.

From behind the strange distorted squealing of snotlings could be heard as they were sucked up into a Shokk Attack Gun, then echoed up ahead as those same snotlings, driven insane by their short journey through the warp, started to claw their way out of the armour and flesh of the group of marines they had been teleported inside of.

The part of Da Fing that was still Ork revelled in the violence, but another, smaller, treacherous, mutie part of it missed the quiet simplicity of its life in the cave, before it had been captured.  That was insanity, of course, and it tried to hush that part of itself in case Gork and Mork could hear such thoughts.

A cascade of plasma from another group of red-armoured marines silenced the Shokk Attack Gun.  The bolts were dragged back and the cage door opened, the Beast Snagga Boyz surrounding it urging Da Fing off of the truck and towards the astartes with prods of their Choppas.  Da Fing briefly considered turning on its keepers.  It could probably tear at least a few of them limb from limb with ease before it was stopped.  But… there were humies to krump instead, and it was given better food if it complied.

The lumpen bulk of the creature lurched out of the cage.  The trukk’s half-hearted attempt at suspension groaned and rocked as it launched itself from the flatbed and broke into a shambling charge, easily clearing the distance between the vehicle and the plasma-firing marines.  Its handler-followers ran after it but by the time they caught up two of the astartes were already pulp.  The boyz fell upon the remaining marines and hacked and beat and cut until there were none still standing.

Burning debris rained down across the battlefield as an Ork aircraft was superheated into oblivion by a stream of melta fire from below.

A short distance away a giant golden dreadnought was engaged in combat with one of their allied Warbosses.  The Ork’s power klaws shone with the same golden hue as his enemy and for a moment Da Fing was entranced by the gleaming spectacle until a prod from a nearby Boy urged it onwards again.  A leaping bound landed it on the armoured shoulders of the dreadnought and the klaw that had replaced its left hand cut deep into the already battered auramite sarcophagus.  A small voice inside quailed at the destruction of such a beautiful thing, but was silenced.

The dreadnought fell, the huge mutant Ork springing off and landing as gracefully as its malformed limbs would allow.  Its eyes scanned around for fresh prey.  Ahead – two golden-clad giants.

But before it could move a sudden storm erupted behind the custodes.  Green lightning lashed the ground.  In a flash that Da Fing felt as much as saw, a horde of Orks appeared.  At their head two figures it recognised instantly – Big ‘Ed, its fellow mutant, and the huge bulk of Warboss Uzblitz Gogbusta.

The mass of Orks surged forwards, screaming “Waaaagh!” at the top of their collective lungs.  The wave swept over the pair of Custodes terminators but before they could be overwhelmed one of the armoured giants moved with impossible speed, its glaive blurring and spinning in a sequence of strikes that left half a dozen Orks bisected and ending with the blade thrust straight through the chest of Uzblitz.

As their warboss fell a cry of confusion and dismay echoed through the Ork ranks.   Da Fing was momentarily distracted by a whirring, clanking noise from behind as the dreadnought they’d just destroyed somehow climbed back to its feet.  These custodes were full of surprises.

Once the dreadnought was dead again Da Fing turned its attention back to the melee ahead.  One of the terminators was dead but now two more were closing in on the Orks. 

Waaagh energy sparked from Big ‘Ed’s eyes and with another green flash and a momentary twisting of space he and the few remaining boyz with him vanished, carrying the unconscious Uzblitz with them.

But, despite the retreat the shock offensive seemed to have disrupted the Imperial lines enough that the Orks were gaining the upper hand across the field.

Da Fing regarded the scene.  “Um, good news gentlemen,” it growled.  “From a cursory tactical analysis of the situation it rather appears as though our side are going to emerge victorious.  Hurrah!”

The Beast Snaggas just curled their lips in disgust at the horribly primitive form of Orkish the mutated beast used to communicate.

“Orlright ladz,” the biggest one said.  “Looks like we’z done ‘ere – let’s get it back in da cage!”

Result: Ork(s) victory, 90 to 85

Post-Mortem

• This was a very close game.  Da Jumping my Warboss, Boyz and Weirdboy into the enemy backlines (as recounted above) didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped, but it did mean that, for one turn, their home objective was contested and we held more – this ended up being the tiebreak, but if the Allarus Captain had managed to kill just one more Boy they would’ve held that objective.
• There are obviously dozens of reasons why Custodes suck and shouldn’t be an army.  But today I will gripe about their character design, or lack thereof: from across the table the Allarus Shield-Captain is basically indistinguishable from a regular Allarus terminator, to the extent that I originally thought I was going into two regular termies, not one regular termie and a hyper-powered character.  It didn’t matter much in this game; in all honesty it wouldn’t have changed my approach.  However, if there’s one thing that GW are normally good at it’s making one dude in power armour look different to another dude in power armour.  It’s essentially the cornerstone of their entire business model.  I expect more from them.