Big Mek's Throzbog's Thermonuclear Morkanaut

Big Mek Throzbog and the rest of Warboss Bluddakka landed on the asteroid containing the human garrison. Not goin' to be much of a scrap as ders only a few 'umies der. Still he mused, since he'd upgradid the engine in da Morkanaut he was eager to give it a lash. As the Orks surrounded the garrison he grabbed Throzbog and warned him "Dis is my show, Throzbog. Don't try annyfink funny, just stay at the back wiv da Lootas an let me and the boyz get stuck in!". "OR ELSE!". Slightly annoyed he just nodded and said "annyfink yoo say boss.". Seemingly calm, a menacing glint in Throzbog's eyes was the only indication of displeasure. With the roar of "Waarrgh Bluddakka!!" the Ork force attacked the beleagered outpost.


Myself and Dylan played the second battle in the Scargill Cleansing, blurb is here. The only difference to the last post is Dylan decided that the Sustained Assault rules were a bit unfavorable to the Astra Militarum force. 2000 points of Orks vs 1000 of Astra Militarum (plus a Bastion) was the forces. If the Bastion was destroyed it was an Ork win otherwise humanity wins the day. A rather interesting result of the game was the winner gains D3+1 command points to be used in a future game to represent intelligence gained /destroyed during the engagement.

The Armies

Dylan's force:

Warboss : Headwoppa's Killchoppa, Kustom Shoota, Might is Right, Warlord

Weirdboy: 3. Da Jump

Weirdboy : 3. Da Jump

 Troops;

Boyz 

. Boss Nob: Big Choppa, Slugga

. 27x Ork Boy W/ Slugga & Choppa

Boyz 

. Boss Nob: Power Klaw, Slugga

. 27x Ork Boy W/ Slugga & Choppa

Boyz 

. Boss Nob: Choppa, Kombi-Skorcha

. Ork Boy W/ 'Eavy Weapon: Big Shoota

. Ork Boy W/ 'Eavy Weapon: Big Shoota

. 17x Ork Boy W/ Shoota

 Elites;

Nobz 

. Boss Nob: Big Choppa, Slugga

. Nob: Power Klaw, Slugga

. Nob: Big Choppa, Slugga

. Nob: Big Choppa, Slugga

. Nob: Big Choppa, Slugga

 Fast Attack;

Stormboyz 

. Boss Nob: Big Choppa

. 14x Stormboy

Heavy Support ;

Battlewagon : 4x Rokkit Launcha, Zzap gun

Lootas 

. 8x Loota

. Spanner: Choppa, Kustom Mega-blasta

Spearhead Detachment +1CP (Orks) 

HQ;

Big Mek: Choppa, Shokk Attack Gun

Heavy Support; 

Deff Dread 

. Deff Dread: Dread Klaw, Skorcha

. . Pair of Klaw Arms: 2x Dread Klaw

Mek Gunz 

. Gun: 5x Grot Gunner, Kustom Mega Kannon

. Gun: 5x Grot Gunner, Kustom Mega Kannon

Morkanaut [18 PL, 340pts]: Kustom Force Field, Kustom Mega Kannon, Kustom Mega-blasta, 2x Rokkit Launcha, 2x Twin Big Shoota

Total: [126 PL, 1994pts] 

There is an awful lot of things to kill in this army. 😒

Here is my army;

Regiment: Catachan

HQ;

Company Commander : Power Sword, Grand Strategist, Laspistol, Mamorth Tuskblade, Warlord

Tank Commander : Lascannon, Plasma Cannons, Storm Bolter

. Command Punisher: Turret-mounted Punisher Gatling Cannon

Heavy Support;

Heavy Weapons Squad 

. Heavy Weapon Team: Mortar

. Heavy Weapon Team: Mortar

. Heavy Weapon Team: Mortar

Heavy Weapons Squad

. Heavy Weapon Team: Heavy bolter

. Heavy Weapon Team: Heavy bolter

. Heavy Weapon Team: Heavy bolter

Leman Russ Battle Tanks 

. Leman Russ Battle Tank: Battle Cannon, Lascannon, Plasma Cannons, Storm Bolter

 Troops;

Infantry Squad 

. 7x Guardsman

. Heavy Weapon Team: Heavy bolter

. Sergeant: Bolt pistol

Infantry Squad 

. 6x Guardsman

. Guardsman W/ Special Weapon: Meltagun

. Heavy Weapon Team: Missile launcher

. Sergeant: Bolt pistol, Chainsword

Infantry Squad 

. 6x Guardsman

. Guardsman W/ Special Weapon: Meltagun

. Heavy Weapon Team: Missile launcher

. Sergeant: Laspistol

Infantry Squad 

. 8x Guardsman

. Guardsman W/ Special Weapon: Plasma gun

. Sergeant: Bolt pistol, Chainsword

 Fast Attack;

Hellhounds

. Hellhound: Heavy Bolter, Storm Bolter, Track guards, Turret-mounted Inferno Cannon

Elites;

Command Squad 

. Veteran: Lasgun

. Veteran w/ Special Weapon: Sniper rifle

. Veteran w/ Special Weapon: Sniper rifle

. Veteran w/ Special Weapon: Sniper rifle

Master of Ordnance 

Special Weapons Squad : 3x Guardsman

. Guardsman W/ Special Weapon: Flamer

. Guardsman W/ Special Weapon: Flamer

. Guardsman W/ Special Weapon: Flamer

Total: [54 PL, 1000pts]

As you can see not much bang for my buck. Hopefully the guardsmen can lay down a withering hail of lasgun fire that will kill all the foul xenos! That's the plan.

Set Up

Dylan spread his force out both ends of the table and I squeezed mine into the centre. The pictures below show what's what (hopefully); 

Guardsmen Wait uneasily for the green horde. Mortars and heavy Bolters on this side (probably should have put them in the bastion with hindsight. Various infantry squads huddled behind barricades and the tanks are the far side of the bastion.

The mainly infantry side of the Ork forcefrom left to right; Ork Boyz with Weirdboy, Grot artillery, Deff Dread, Ork Boyz with Weirdboy. Having two Da Jump casting Weirdboyz in this deployment zone made Dylan's evil plan apparent.

The other end of the table (up to down or North to South): Morkanaut containing Warboss Bluddakka and his cronies, Battlewagon containing shoota Boyz, Stormboyz, Big Mek Throzbog and his Loota buddies.

The Game

The game started with Astra militarum going first. Movement was minimal but I had to inch the Tank Commander to get his Punisher in range. The Master of Ordnance proved his worth by opening up with his barrage on the Morkanaut and failing to even put a dent on it! His worth is well below the 30ish or so points in the book! In my previous game against the Orks I had a lot of aggro trying to get rid of the Battlewagon so I concentrated fire on it on the first turn and destroyed it! I should have tried to kill the Morkanaut first but as is so often the case, when you get mauled by a model in a previous game you need a cathartic blowing it off the table in turn one. Which I did. A few Ork Boyz were kiled by heavy weapons fire but the main weapon of the Astra Militarum - the lasgun was still out of range and I was reluctant to move even an inch nearer to the green horde.

These Ork Boyz now have to walk into battle using their legs! A large ominous shadow can be seen in front of the Morkanaut. What could this mean?

The Orks turn consisted of plenty of advancing. One unit of Ork Boyz Da Jumped to 9" from my Mortars (really should have put them in the Bastion). The other Weirdboy failed to do the same so I got a slight repreive. The Ork heavy weapons started pounding the aforementioned Bastion taking a few wounds from it. Dylan had a few charges to declare and failed the Stormboyz charge in the picture below, but succeeded with the Morkanaut into the Cadians. Another unwelcome success was the large group of Boyz into my Mortars.

"Right men, don't shoot til you see the reds of their eyes!". I think those big rockets on the backs of the Stormboyz must slow them down a bit.

Squeeky bum time for the mortars!

To add insult to injury before closing in with the Mortars the Ork Boyz killed a weapons team in their shooting phase. The assault phase was horrible for AM as I didn't miraculously destroy 30 Ork Boyz and a Morkanaut in overwatch.

This is probably the most one-sided combat I have seen in a game of 40K with well over 100 attacks I just took the Mortars off. Even my worthless mathshammer told me there was a guaranteed 40 wounds there. 40 5+ saving throws was just not going to be made.

Another pretty one-sided combat, these guardsmen win posthumous awards for most terrified faces of supporting troopers in the Astra Militarum equivalent of the Oscars.

Here's a slightly different angle of the demise of my Cadian Squad, I actually had high hopes for them. as previous outings had them take the final wound off both a Deff Dread and a Tau Riptide. Their tank killing streak is at an end.

So turn one ends nice an evenly. 2 VPps each (I got first blood when I killed the Battlewagon) and Dylan had wiped out a unit of infantry and heavy weapons. On the plus side most of Dylan's army was now in shooting range of my guardsmen, but this also meant the Orks were probably going to be assaulting in the next turn also.

My turn/CP/VP marker device. Pretty cool, huh?

I was down two units and something spectacular needed to happen (it would, but that was next turn). So I prioritised targets, mainly the Stormboyz in easy charge range of my infantry, the Morkanaut and the large unit of Boyz interferring with my weapons teams. The now useless Master of Ordnance sat in the bastion twiddling his thumbs while the commander and tank commander belowed out orders (mainly the rerolling 1's type). My flamer squad moved over to engulf the Boyz in cleansing flame (the Hellhound would do the same). All the heavy weapons would target the Morkanaut, whereas the Punisher and lasguns would try to get rid of the Stormboyz. If my shooting went amazingly well i might be able to put a dent in the Deff Dread too! That was the plan for turn two.

The Bastion is sitting pretty on 17 wounds, the Leman Russ is armed with the Punisher even though it looks a lot like a Demolisher cannon.

This unit of Orks are akin to Jehovah's witnesses (or in fact any door to door religious salesmen) - too close to my abode, and in dire need of the cleansing flame of prometheum1.

You will regret 3D6 flamer shots and another 2D6 Inferno cannon shots by Crikey!

Sadly there are still way too many left after the flamestorm! Looks like approximately 7 boyz went into the great big Mosh pit in the sky.

My concentrated fire dropped the Morkanaut down to 7 wounds. Not ideal but at least it's combat effectiveness is diminished. I think the Punisher did enough damage to the Stormboyz to make the rest flee. My plan was sort of working. I could really have done with the Morkanaut getting scrapped though. Dylan made a few vital saves, including one from a meltagun (damn these invulnerable saving throws). That was important, as I knew I was going to roll a 6 for the number of wounds caused.

Like a big metal Ork made toad, the Morkanaut just squats there and mocks me!

Dylan's turn was most inconvenient for me. He started with his movement phase (as you do) getting his warboss and mates out of the Morkanaut. The shoota Orks moved up as did the Deff Dread, in fact everyone did except the Big Mek, Lootas and Grot artillery. In the psychic phase the other Ork Boy unit Da Jumped up to just outside 9" of my Leman Russ. The Ork shooting phase was fairly standard, a few wounds taken of this and that. Then the assault phase came and it was then that commander Schmidt (or whatever - he won't really be playing more more of a part in this or any other campaign) realised his goose was cooked. The warboss, his Nob mates and the Morkanaut all charged the Bastion. The Boyz assaulted the Leman Russ and the other unit of Ork Boyz assaulted the heavy bolter squad. The Deff Dread also made a long charge into the so far unmentioned Catachan squad next to the Bastion.

This was not a good phase for me. It seems Ork close combat equipment is ideal for minor home improvements (such as knocking out non load bearing walls) and also for large scale demolition projects too. Also in the picture are a lot of Ork Boyz with tin openers trying to get into my Leman Russ. This picture was taken bizarrely before the Deff Dread hoves into view and starts kicking the shit out of guardsmen.

Having shot and killed 3 members of the flamer squad these Ork Boyz decided not to charge them and went for the much softer heavy bolter squad target. Ork Boyz - NOT COOL, NOT COOL AT ALL!

The upshot of turn two was the Bastion was down to 4 wounds, there was one Leman Russ locked in combat with the Ork Boyz, a pretty banged up Tank Commander and some fully fupped squads of guardsmen. The heavy weapons squad were gone unsurprisingly,  there was a single sergeant running about after some pretty accurate Ork shooting. All in the things were hanging on a precipice for the Imperium and it would take some rather nifty work to turn it all around.

At the end of turn two all things look equal except for a couple of stiff breezes will destroy several imperial units. 

Endgame

One look at the table told me I was up shit creek with the paddle stored safely in the boot of the car next to my life jacket and rape whistle. I thought I'd try to make the best of it and sell my tiny little toy soldiers lives dearly. Very little movement, the Leman Russ reversed out of combat with the Boyz. Commander Schmidt vacated the Bastion to hopefully kill some greenskins and give orders to the special weapons squad.. The remaining flamers and Hellhound were intent on torching the annoying Ork boyz with a penchant for attacking my heavy weapons. The so far unmentioned infantry squad that had sat in the ruined building directly above the Bastion decided they needed to get stuck in too.  

The Leman Russ goes 'BEEP BEEP BEEP, this imperial vehicle is reversing'. The Ork Boyz do not accidentally get stuck under the tracks,

Orks quiver at the anticipated flamer shots imminently going to wash over them. Commander schmidt issues the 'Burn them out!" order to ensure they don't get any inconvenient cover saves.  

So this is how the centre of the table looks before the Astra militarum start shooting. Plenty of guardsmen to give the foul xenos a taste of lasgun and possibly bayonet.

So in my head the shooting phase needed to go with my Tank Commander (unnamed) open up on the Morkanaut with everything except the Punisher as that was for infantry and everyone else could select targets most suited to the weapons they had in their hands. A simple start to a phase that could get me some VPs and hopefully clear the bad guys from the Bastion. So with the plan in place 2 Plasma Cannons and a Lascannon shot at the Morkanaut........

This happened.

.............taking it's remaining wounds and it blew up! The resulting detonation caused d6 wounds to everything within 9". This was not my preferred outcome. The resulting apocalyptic explosion killed Commander Schmidt, Warboss Bluddakka, the Bastion, Unnamed Tank Commander, Lone Sergeant, special weapons squad flamers, 2 Ork Nobz and 5 models from the Catachans in combat with the Deff Dread. It also caused a single mortal wound on the Hellhound. Annoyingly a couple of Ork units were an inch or two out of the blast radius meaning I missed out on some vindictive "serves you right" type comments. This handed 2 Vps to me and 5 to Dylan and the victory as well due to the objective being the actual Bastion. The game was over, but as there was still time we decided to finish up the battle turn for the sake of completeness.

Big Mek Throzbog was delighted with the explosion, not only had the humie Bastion been destroyed but by the look of it most of the humies and that zogger Bluddakka. When da remains of da Morkanaut cools down I'll go and ave a look to see if any bitz of dat  power generater dat I found on da Nekron planet we looted a while back. Dey blow up good an proper.

I need to build and or purchase some craters for this  very type of event! The only models that survived unscathed from the blast was the bloody useless Master of Ordnance and the sniper squad in the Bastion. A single guardsmen now has to destroy an as yet undamaged Deff Dread.

My Hellhound torched the Ork Boyz getting them down to a manageable number. Whilst the northerly infantry squad took a couple of Orks down. In the assault phase the vets and Master of Ordnance went for the Nobz and the infantry attacked the Boyz. The lone guardsman failed to destroy the Deff Dread and was in turn gobbled up swiftly. The nobz proved tricky as their two wounds  and decent armour meant I couldn't kill one. A slight moral victory for causing a wound though. The infantry unit was swallowed up by the greenskins Zulu style. So an appalling turn for me where I gave up 9 VPs mainly due to an overly successful tank commander.

Last action of the game. Deff Dread vs Hellhound and a few Orks vs a Leman Russ.

So the last turn saw the destruction of the Hellhound (death by Deff Dread after some more good shooting from the Lootas and Big Mek). The Ork Boyz with shootas and nobz did nothing, probably stunned in awe of the exploding Morkanaut. The Leman Russ was assaulted but not destroyed. So the only surviving human model was the tank. The time was just after midnight when we finished and the game had been a very eventful one!

The final one sided scoreboard. 

Debreifing

Well as far as games go I've had less devastating defeats. I really enjoyed the game even if I took an ass whuppin'! Tactically I think putting my heavy weapons in the Bastion would have given them greater survivability, but I wanted to try to fill out my deployment zone to stop sneaky deep striking Orks but with Da Jump that made them very vulnerable. The Master of Ordnance was a waste, should have taken either a commissar or astropath, especially as I had no artillery to buff. I thought that the scenario was tough so to make it less so a second Bastion may have gone some of the way to evening it up. The Morkanaut was definitely the star of the show, as it caused mayhem when it was alive and even more when it died. Dylan played well, made a couple of vital saves at inopportune times and kept the narrative nicely moving along.

In terms of the campaign the surveillance centre is destroyed and Waargh Gitsmasha can now get d3+1 command points to help with a future battle. The Imperial forces are a bit on the ropes now as they have suffered two defeats. Admittedly the Orks are not fighting fair with their insistence on getting into close combat, but hopefully they can be reeducated.   

Throzbog, now boss of the warband watched the humie tank trundle away. The snooping humie building was destroyed and it was time to cut and run. Rejoin the main Waargh as it got nearer Scargill, as there was more Nekron junk on dat planet. Enough maybe to make even bigger exploshuns. "Right Ladz, grab whateva gear we can use, put it back on da ships and we're off for annuvva scrap!" The remaining Orks took up the chant "Waargh Throzbog! Waargh Throzbog!".

Thanks for reading!

 

1)Please note I do note condone the use of Prometheum upon door to door salespersons, however unwelcome or persistent they may be.