Epic 4K: Feral Orks vs Death Guard

Glyn from the UK has been visiting New Zealand for a time, but is flying back to the UK tomorrow. We managed to get in one more game before he left, with Glyn using my Death Guard, while I used my Feral Orks. 

Here's the Feral Ork horde I used:

MARK THE MASHER, 4000 POINTS
Snagga-Snagga's Feral Orks (NetEA Army Compendium v20120208)
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STEAM GARGANT [500]
3 Steam Gargant

WARBAND [425]
2 Nobz, 6 Boyz, 2 Grotz, Orkeosaurus, Warlord, Wyrdboy

WILDBOYZ [350]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus, Wyrdboy

WILDBOYZ [350]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus, Wyrdboy

WILDBOYZ [350]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus, Wyrdboy

WILDBOYZ [350]
2 Nobz, 3 Two Wildboyz Units, Orkeosaurus, Wyrdboy

JUNKA BRIGADE [275]
Junka Trukks, 6 Boyz, Wyrdboy, Nobz

JUNKA BRIGADE [225]
Junka Trukks, 6 Boyz, Nobz

WARBAND [325]
2 Nobz, 6 Boyz, 2 Grotz, Wyrdboy, 3 Squig Katapult

WARBAND [325]
2 Nobz, 6 Boyz, 2 Grotz, 3 Squig Katapult, Wyrdboy

MADBOYZ HORDE [175]
11 Madboyz

BOARBOYZ HORDE (BIG) [175]
10 Boarboyz

BOARBOYZ HORDE (BIG) [175]
10 Boarboyz

Here is Glyn's Death Guard List.  The Plague Towers were also costed at 325 in this game rather than 300, hence the slight difference in points total listed below. In addition a few models were proxied as I haven't got them painted yet. These included the Plague Reapers (Death Wheels used), Chaos Spawn (Lictors used), and Havocs (Terminators used).

GLYN THE GANGRENOUS , 3950 POINTS
Death Guard (NetEA V0.2)
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DEATH GUARD RETINUE [550]
7 Plague Marines, 2 Chaos Spawn, Nurgle Daemon Prince (Supreme Commander), Daemonic Pact (includes 1 Plaguebearer), Chaos Champion

DEATH GUARD RETINUE [450]
Plague Lord, Chaos Spawn, 4 Plague Marines, 3 Havoc, Contagion Engine

DEATH GUARD RETINUE [450] 
Plague Lord, Chaos Spawn, Contagion Engine, 4 Plague Marines, 3 Havoc

PLAGUE TOWER [375]  (+25 cost for plague tower so 400)
Plague Tower, Desecrator

PLAGUE TOWER [375]  (+25 cost for plague tower so 400)
Plague Tower, Desecrator

ARMOURED COMPANY [225]
3 Nurgle Predator, Nurgle Land Raider

WALKER HORDE [275]
2 Death Guard Desecrator, 2 Death Guard Plague Hulk

PLAGUE REAPERS [200]
Plaguereaper

PLAGUE REAPERS [200]
Plaguereaper

RUPUGNANT TITAN [625]

PLAGUE SHIP [175]

DAEMON POOL [50]
Great Unclean one

TURN 1

The Battlefield had a central town area surrounded by some woods and hills. Glyn garrisoned the town area, while the two Ork Catapult mobs held the two woods on their own side of the table. Most of the Ork heavy units were on the right flank, including the three Steam Gargants and four of the five Orkeosauruses. The two Chaos objectives were in the town area, the two Ork ones on the extreme flanks.

A look at Chaos garrisons.

The Chaos war engines get ready to roll.

As do the ork ones!

Chaos win the Strategy Roll. The Plague Ship flies overhead and unleashes a tremendous bombardment near the Ork Blitz, hitting one of the Catapult mobs and the Mad Boyz.  The Mad Boyz break but stay where they are, while the Catapult Mob comes close to breaking. Three small hordes of Plague Zombies also appear around these units!

The Chaos war engines rumble forward on the other flank, a Great Unclean one also being summoned to lead them forwards! The Orkeosauruses thunder forward too, while the Steam Gargants stay stationary and blast one of the garrisoned Chaos infantry units, killing a single unit.

On the other flank the Orks gradually batter down the Zombies, and both sides advance on each other. Here one of my Orkeosauruses eyes the oncoming pestilent clawed monstrosities (Desecrators and Plague Hulks), and decides to act rather unorkily, sustaining fire rather than advancing! One of the Desecrators is destroyed.

The Ork Catapult mob also fires on the garrisoned chaos retinue formation on the ork right flank, killing another unit.

End of turn one, and here is the overall situation. Chaos press forward in the centre, while the orks are more cautious, probing on the flanks. Shooting from both sides is pretty ineffective for the most part, as it is mostly normal or disrupt attacks rather than Macro and Titan Killer weaponary, and Feral Ork shooting sucks anyway, and both sides are heavily armoured. 

On the left flank, the Catapult mob is down to a single ork unit, which nonetheless rallies. The Zombies have been mostly eliminated by the orks for little loss in return. The few remaining zombies have retreated to the town.

On the right flank, the war machines face off...

...while Ork Junka Trukks race around the flank.

Last of the Plague Zombies lurk in the town, still broken.

The Chaos War Engines advancing past the town and looking fearsome.

Turn 2

Feral Orks win the Strategy Roll. First activation is an assault by the Boarboyz on the left flank against the Chaos armoured company. Two Predators and two Boarboyz are lost and both formations break and both head towards the Chaos side of the table. The Steam Gargants then bombard the Chaos centre killing some infantry and placing blast markers.

A Chaos Plague Reaper doubles and kills three Junka Trukks and their boyz.

The Repugnant Titan advances on the Orkeosaurus, but fails to damage it.

The Warlords Orkeosaurus shoots and breaks the garrisoned infantry retinue, and then the Ork Junka Trukks assault the Plague Reaper, doing two damage and breaking it, but breaking in turn themselves. 

The Orks decide to move away from the Repugnant Titan feeling it is too much to handle for now. The large Chaos Retinue firefights an Orkeosaurus but gets unlucky and loses, and the Great Unclean One is lost! The Orkeosaurus is wounded though and stampedes away from them.

The lone ork unit surviving from the Catapult mob sneaks forward and destroys the last of the Armoured company, which had just lost another unit to Orkeosaurus fire.

End of turn two. Chaos still hold the centre, while Orks advance around the flanks. All Chaos units have rallied except for a Plague Reaper in the upper right, and the Plague Zombies. All Orks have rallied except for remains of a Boarboy mob behind the woods in top left centre, and remains of a Junka Trukk mob behind the hill top right centre.

Orkeosauruses advancing on the right flank.

Junka Trukks racing around the left flank.

Turn 3

Feral Orks win Strategy Roll again! The heroic lone ork unit from the decimated Catapult mob doubles over and shoots the Plague Hulks, which only needed one blast marker to break and do so. The Steam Gargants again sustain fire against the Chaos centre, only killing a single unit.

The Chaos infantry on their left flank has rallied and assaults an Orkeosaurus with firefight support from a Plague Tower, while the Warlords Orkeosaurus also provides some firefight support for the orks. However the Chaos lose and fall back.  The Repugnant Titan fails its activation roll and shoots ineffectually at the Steam Gargants.

Another Orkeosaurus sustains fire again, the Wyrdboy hitting and killing the Chaos Daemon Prince!

An Orkeosaurus fresh from it's success against Chaos infantry rumbles forward, but it is firefighted in and killed by another Chaos retinue from the town, though it takes three furious rounds of combat as the first two rounds are draws!

A Plague Tower unit rumbles back to defend the Chaos blitz. The Chaos Supreme Commander formation is finally broken by Catapult mob fire, but moves towards the Ork blitz anyway.

The Ork Warlords Orkeosaurus claims a Take and Hold Objective.

The Chaos have left their other Take and Hold objective exposed and the Ork Junka Trukks rush in to claim that too. Chaos are out of activations.

The Orks move to secure their own three objectives and so have achieved 'Take and Hold' and 'Defend the Flag" Victory Conditions. Orks win 2-0!

Conclusion

Well another interesting game, with quite different tactics used by the Feral Orks this time! The Death Guard are slow but well armoured, and quite fearsome in close assault. Also even to orks these plague creatures smell bad! Hence I decided to stay away from the enemy a lot more than I usually would with Feral Orks, concentrating instead on shooting them up and suppressing them even if I couldn't kill them, and destroying the weaker formations when opportunity arose. The Death Guard struggled to impact the armour of the Orkeosauruses and Steam Gargants, and ended up being too few in number to hold objectives in the end. And the one surviving Ork unit from the Catapult Mob deserves some sort of reward for service to the cause!

Another interesting game with yet another novel tactical challenge involved! Thanks Glyn, been great having you here and good luck for your new ventures in the UK.