Played a game against my friends Orcs & Goblins the other night and decided to right a battle report, as I usually enjoy reading them but rarely have the energy to type my own.We both played with our tournament lists for an upcoming tournament at 2250 pts, pitched battle.The tournament is heavily comped and you get a comp score between 15 and 25. Every points different adds 75 VPs at the end of the battle. In this tournaments rulespack you also gain +75 VP at the end for every banner on a ranked inf unit with worse than 3+ save after parry save is included (which means Saurus gets me no VP bonus for surviving). Its a pretty odd rulespack, but I like it, the banner bonus is pretty helpful for the weaker armies. Only problem is that because it revolves around save it doesnt punish dark elves, deamons or VC (who all actually get a pretty big bonus out of it) and instead heavily punishes dwarves, lizardmen and warriors of chaos. My list, comp 20/25: Slann, Rumination, Mystery, Rod & scroll, Banehead Scar-vet, BBoC, CO, LA, Enchanted Sh 18 Saurus, FC, Spears 18 Saurus, FC, Spears 16 Saurus, FC, Spears 12 SKinks 12 Skinks 12 Skinks 14 Skinks (cohort) 6 Cammo Skinks 6 Cammo Skinks 5 Saurus Cav, std 3 Tarradons 1 Salamander 1 Salamander His list, comp 19/25: Black Orc Warboss on Wyvern Goblin big boss on chariot Black Orc BSB on boar with +3 DD banner 25 Boyz, FC 25 Boyz, FC 18 Black Orcs, FC 20 Night goblins 20 Night goblins 5 Wolf Riders 5 Wolf Riders Boar Chariot 2x Spear Chukkas Squigg Herd (6/9 i think) Pump Wagon Giant Here is the deploy: Better quality: http://i1014.photobucket.com/albums/af263/erians/Deploymedtxt.jpg My battle plan was to pick his units off with magic and harassing, my saurus units would easily destroy his boyz units and probably his black orcs as well without problems especially as I chose lore of metal and with transmutation of lead, the saurus cav could easily handle the flank with Squiggs and wolf riders and my right flank was mostly blocked by a big forest so it would take all game trying to get around it with inf, leaving both my flanks fairly unthreatened. I deployed my scouts in the only decent place on the table, in the forest, 12" from his wagon. I won the roll for who decides who takes the first turn and decided to go first, hoping to get some extra shots off before our armies clash. Turn 1: As most of my shooting wouldnt be even close to 12" from the enemy I marshed every skink unit and salamander 12" forward. The rest of the army moves a couple of inches to get a little further from the board edge. MY Slann moved out of the Saurus bunker and up on the hill. Both his chariot and Wyvern could see me from here however so I placed the skinks and salamander slightly in fron and on both sides so neither would be able to charge the slann as they couldnt fit, and both the sallies and skinks center was positioned so any charged on them couldn't be redirected to the slann. The cav moved forward 14", but the forest was too close to the board edge so I had been forced to deploy them in a 4+1 formation, thinking I could just change their formation next turn. In my magic phase I used a 2+1 2+1 2+1 pattern with the power dices, beginning with Law of Gold on his Dispel Dice BSB's orc boy regiment (the one closest to the black orcs), hoping to get rid of all his magic defence, but it got dispelled. I then decided to cast Rule of Burning Iron on his BSB (the target of my banehead btw), but as he only had a 3+ save I only wounded him on 4+ which failed. Dissapointed in my magic so far I chucked a Destillation on his goblin chariot, putting 2 wounds on the chariot and killing the hero on top. In my Shooting Phase I shot with both cammo skink units that had moved to the edge of the forest, targeting his pump wagon which succumbed to a hail of poison darts (out of 15+ games against all kinds of opponents his Pump Wagon has only done one successful charge!). The orcs and goblins turn was over pretty uneventful. Everything moved forward, his Wolfriders on the left flank angled themselves so any charges from my CoC would leave me in a position far away from the action. His wolf riders could see my cammo skinks, which was very badly positioned as he would've been able to redirect thanks to the Enemy in the Way rule and forced a flee reaction out of both units, but a failed Animosity tests prevented him from doing so. His shooting killed a terradon which had moved into charge position, his other chukka killed a skink from a salamander pack. Turn 2: My CoC begin the turn by failing their stupidity test, which means they were stuck in there 4+1 formation. My saurus stayed put while the skink units and salamanders got into position to both shoot and bait. My terradons charged his spear chukka but wasnt able to fly over anything wort dropping rocks on. In my magic phase I tried the same RoBI & LoG combo. The RoBI failed to wound the BSB but the Law of Gold destroyed his dispel dice banner which meant the 4 next magic phases were gonna be pretty much unstoppable. A destillation of silver puts 2 wounds in his giant. My shooting phase was amazing. Most stuff had gotten in a good position and shooting took out 7 black orcs, 3 models from the squigg unit, 3 boyz, 2 wolf riders, 7 goblins and the last 4 wounds on the giant. By the end of the shooting phase I had forced a panic test on the left flank wolfriders, one boyz unit and a goblin unit from salamander fire, the black orcs had taken over 25% casualties from poison and the giant caused "unit destroyed" panic on the boar chariot and the BSB boyz unit.6 Panic tests at LD8 or worse as his general was too far away from most of it resulted in a fleeing boyz unit, the BSB unit fled away from the giant behind them and into a unit of skinks that had killed the giant, the wolfriders ran off the table and the night goblins ran very close to the board edge. My terradons beat the chukka but had to overrun to avoid a charge from the wolfriders on the right flank and ended up realesing a fanatic from the second goblin unit. The fanatic failed to reach the terradons tho, as they only overran 5". In his turn he failed to rally both the goblins and boyz unit which both fled the table. The Goblin fanatic scattered throught the terradons and the goblins took the last wound with their bows, wiping the terradons out. His goblin chariot tried to get out of LOS from the slann but didnt have enought move. It only had 1 wound left so there wasnt any reason to charge my skinks either as they would get a stand and shoot so he just placed in a way that if I tried to get it I wouldnt be able to target other units. His black orcs charged the Skink Cohort unit that had placed themselves right in front of them and the boar chariot charged the unit of skirmishing skinks in the middle. Both fled and managed to outrun the chargers move. Unfortunarly I hand't been aggressive enought with the saurus so I didnt have a proper counter charge set up on either, but both were unsupported in the middle of my full force. Turn 3 & 4 I rallied both skink units and charged his Squiggs with a salamander and the Cold one cavalry. One cammo skink unit moved out of LOS from the wolfriders on the right to shoot at it while the other unit ran throught the forest so they wouldn't get charged (if even 1 wolfrider connects with the cammo skinks he have a decent chance of beating them, 2 connects and I'm dead). In my magic phase I killed the chariot with a Rule of burning Iron and the last goblin unit with a destillation of silver(panicked off the table), in the shooting phase 4 cammo skinks had LOS on the wolfriders, killing 2 and they ran off the table. In the CC phase I killed 6 squiggs but they stood on a double 1 (which was great for me as if it had exploded it couldve taken out my sallie and damaged the CoC unit). By now he only had a unit of Black orcs, a spear chukka, his wyvern and the almost dead squigg unit (2 squiggs and a few gobbos). He waaghed and charged my Slann on the hill with his wyvern as I had moved away my skinks allowing the charge on purpose, and his Black Orcs charged a unit of 18 Saurus. My slann fled wile my saurus warriors held. His chukka managed to kill off a salamander (hitting the sallie and doing 3 wounds >.<). In the CC Phase his black orcs fought with additional choppa, scored way over avarage and did 4 wounds. I had a 6+ save and saved....3 out of 4. I killed 3 black orcs back with the spears and broke them. They got away but was under 25% and couldn't rally so we took them off. In Turn 4 I rallied the slann, shot everything at the wyvern and did 2 wounds to the rider while the CoC charged and killed his chukka. He then charged my BSB unit of Saurus in the front but only did 3 wounds with his x7 S7 attacks as he had Transmutation of Lead on him, lost on CR, fled and died. By the end of turn 4 he had 0 models left on the table while I only lost a salamander and a unit of terradons. I got 2250 pts of his army, 4 quarters, 1 banner and the general, while ge got around 170 vps, making it a 20-0 win, Analysis Well there wasn't a whole lot to take away from this. I applied my usual tactic when it comes to horde armies: force enought panic tests and some units are gonna start running. Over the game I had incredible luck with poison shots while my opponent had extremly bad luck with his psychology. We also played a relaxed, social game and spend more time talking shit than playing the game, which resulted in a few tactical errors on both parts (His wyvern charge was mostly a "for fun" charge, he new he was beat 20-0 but pretty much just wanted to roll some dice and kill something at least). The only major tactical error I did was probably being too offensive with my terries. There were no rush killing the chukkas as they didnt really have any good targets, and I ended up trading 90 pts of invaluable terradons for a fairly harmless chukka. I usually have a "KILL THE WAR MACHINES!!!" reflex as I'm not used to play without stegs or other good targets. Next time I'll focus on getting them in a good position, dropping some rocks and then chargin instead of just rushing them into the first war machine I see.
well well....beating Orcs and Goblins huh....And with some fluff restrictions...bet you had a hard time dealing with a fluffy O&G army...you little....*Sarcasm mode off* On a more serious note, nice report; good battle, although O&G have a very rough time versus any army, lizzies included. Saurus>Anything in O&G army list. (well...NEARLY anything) I like the fact that you use camo skinks =D they're my fav! Always seem to do outstanding for me... The Hunted
The restrictions, or comp the be exact, is there to make the game more balanced and at an equal level, but yeah O&G is an absolotly horrible book. Don't underestimate it tho, the swedish ETC player (and iirc new captain) Morgan Andersson got some really big wins against the most powerful armies with a O&G list, so they definitly have potential if played. The battle was decided complelty by dice however, and no matter how good you play it doesnt matter when your entire army runs away. He made a funny comment on that my army list had much more shooting, more magic, better CC, better movement and still got better comp (despite dominating every phase !), so the system has some obvious flaws. My opponent has a great attitude tho, instead of just switching to a power army he is staying true to O&G and he keeps getting better all the time, and lets face it, its often more impressive to get into the top 5 with O&G than nr 1 with DoC, DE or VC.
Oh yes, I have read the comp you are using for the tourney (in the link you posted on the Army list section), and it does make things more balanced. I wouldn't underestimate O&G, if the dice go their way it IS an unstoppable green tide....* If the dice are NOT that friendly....well...the result is pretty juch pre-determined. Dice-decision battles are my least favorite. If the battle hinges on a single roll, that's exciting. If everything is going bad..ugh..not fun for both sides. 1 is mopping, the other is cleaning (his models from the table, that is). Most important thing in those situations is, indeed, a good attitude. You need a good one in particular when playing O&G... Every comp system has flaws...think of it as (road) tax (here in The Netherlands), it's always flawed! The Hunted * About the unstoppable green tide: 2 battles after eachother on the same day. 2 Very diferent outcomes. 1k Dwarves vs O&G. First battle: His first turn, everything squables bar 1 unit of spider riders. My turn: shoot the fast stuff, they panic, panic some big unit. His second turn: Everything squabbles bar the same unit of spider riders who charge my Bolt Thrower way out on the flank, he fumbles. I proceed to kill that unit (with crew!) My second turn: Shoot and panic roughly 90% of his units off the table. He now has a troll (general is dead), and a unit of NG with a fanatic. And has yet to move these....Needless to say, I won that battle. So, after this very quick massacre; we decide to have another game. His first turn: Only 1 nonimportant unit squabbles. Rest surges forward. My turn 1: Send Quarrelers forward to lure out fanatics (I know he has 4 or more...), shooting only kills a handfull of goblins. They pass all panic checks. His turn 2: Fanatics crush my 10 quarrelers. 2 fanatics managed to kill 10 T4 Dwarves!! He moves vastly closer. My turn 2: My last turn to deal some real shooting damage, I force him to make about 4 panic tests...which he all passes. His Ld was like a stubborn dwarf that day.. His turn 3: Some charges, nothing spectacular; Fanatics crush my main infantry unit. My turn 3: 1 Infantry block is run down by Night Goblins... The other barely holds... His turn 4: He pretty much crushes me In about 4 hours, we had 2 spectacular massacres....Which none of us really expected. Was great fun though! Sorry for making such a long post
Heh, yeah O&G are pretty random like that. Especially with Animosity, some unlucky squabbles can completly destroy a good battle plan. The comp also got throught some recent changes so my list now scores the same as his (19/25).