I do not have many pictures of the battle and forgot to take notes after the first turn. One might think I did this on purpose rather than face posting about a game loss but I think it is more an indication that I was just not thinking about what was going on. My opponent was also rolling hot with the dice and we started teasing him about sacrificing a goat to the Chaos god of dice earlier that week. But you can only blame the dice so much before you have to take ownership of the faults. So where did it go wrong?
OK, step back. Second game of Orks vs Sisters of Battle and Dark Angles -- we really need to find a 4th player for these games -- and the first game of a short campaign.
- The orks brought killa-kans galore, a horde of defkopters, two units of 16 lootas (or was it one loota and one big shoota?), 3 units of boyz in trukks and a battlewagon full of HQ and Nobz.
- Sisters of Battle forces consisted of 2 troops with flamers in rhinos, a Seraphim squad, 2 Exorcists, a squadron of 3 Penitent Engines all lead by Saint Celestine.
- Dark Angels reinforced the center with Belial leading 2 (3?) Deathwing terminator squads, a devastator unit packing plasma cannons and a full squad of veteran marines.
Pitch Battle. Seize Ground with 3 objectives. The Sisters won first turn.
The opening turn was just the first page in a book of fail. Both exorcists fired 5 missiles each with a total damage done of one shaken kan. Plasma cannons drifted way off target. No other shooting done but several units moved forward looking for range. The orks retaliated by destroying all 3 Penitent Engines with loota fire on one side and killing all but 2 devistators with loota fire on the other. Also on the other side, ork boyz in a trukk ran in and charged one of the Deathwing squads, removing 3 terminators but loosing none. One or two other casualties happened in the middle, I think, but the end of turn 1 was probably enough to foretell the final result.
Saint Celestine got in flamer range of one loota squad and burned them enough to route them off the board. On the other side, the Seraphim leaped over the boyz locked in combat with the 2 terminators to open fire on the lootas. With 4 flamer templates and double shooting bolt pistols they managed to wipe the lootas away completely. This left them free to charge back into the boyz and give the remaining terminators a hand. Together they managed to remove the orks without any further casualties. Again, the Exorcists failed to make a casualty even with rolling 5's and 6's for number of shots. They lasted for 3 rounds of shooting getting 4+ shots every time against light armor of the trukks and kans but never removed a single model. Even with the poor performance from the Exorcists things we looking up.
Then the killa-kans got in range. Worse still, the battlewagon made its move.
Seraphim squad went away as they were easily overrun by a unit of kans. Saint Celestine was put down by another unit of kans -- again actually, since she was killed on turn one but resurrected on turn 2. Defkopters came in on a outflanking move and wreaked one Exorcists and then Belial and company found themselves swarmed with nobs lead by Gazgul all fighting over the center objective. The vets took a charge from a unit of boyz bailing out of their turkk with heavy casualties happening on both sides. More so for the marines than the orks thanks to the dark ritual to the dice gods mentioned before.
Turn 3 was more of the same. Battle Sisters disembarked and opened fire on the defkopters with flamer, heavy flamer and rapid firing boltguns killing all but one. They then assaulted (!cheat! sorry, Bry, I missed that one) it for the final wounds. More Dark Angles were lost to the ork combat troops and again the remaining Exorcists did nothing. Well, it did manage to get a single weapon destroyed result on one kan. The ork response was to only activate maybe two thirds of his units, but he manage to get the Dark Angles down to twomodels from being tabled, brining on the second defkopter squadron and wreaking the last Exorcist and getting his kans in position to dive the two Sister squads off the outside objectives.
Top of turn 4, the disembarked Battle Sisters managed to finish off the boyz that assaulted the marines in shooting. The other squad tried a repeat of their sister unit by going after the newest defkopter squadron but only managed to remove one. Celestine was locked in combat with a damaged kan and there she stayed, unable to even get a glance on an AV10 vehicle much less penetrate a walkers AV12. We did not run the close combat portion and conceded the game after 3 1/4 turns.
What Worked:
The Seraphim were again star performers. They are deadly and I am now wishing I had made room to give the Superior an Eviscerator.
Battle Sisters in a box. I have been cold on my assessment of the basic sister troop lately and it is nice to see proof that they can do some damage still.
What Didn't:
Exorcists. Wow, you never see them in this section. But the fact is the pair of my primary long range character killers could not even stop a single open topped vehicle. in 3 turns of shooting.
Penitent Engines. They are always dicey at best but they moved 12" and went poof.
Lack of walker killers. You can actually count this up to my mistake since this is the same problem I had last game but did not adjust it. If anything it was worse since I traded 2 Dominion squads for 2 Penitent Engines and 2 more Seraphim in their squad.
Dice. It really was hideously lopsided. I can't get a single six in 18 dice yet I can get 6 ones? Meanwhile, the orks are rolling more box cars like a freight train.
My brain.
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