Weekly Battle Report #6: Salamanders vs. Ork Horde

What's up everyone!  As promised, I'm starting to use a different army other than my over-used Wolfstar.  I wasn't really tired of the list, but it's always been my intention to play the Salamanders once they were finished, and I finally got them done.  This game is a fun one for Salamanders, with lots of targets to try and flamer and such.  As always, there are pictures.  Read on, for the report!

 Real quick, here's a link to my list of links to my various battle reports.

So, a quick disclaimer:  I haven't played this army for a year, and I've literally never used a Land Raider in any game before this.  So go easy on me, I'll get better, I promise :)

Here's my list:

Vulkan
Librarian w/ Null Zone/Avenger

10x Tactical Marines w/ Missile Launcher, Flamer, Combi-flamer, HB Razorback
10x Tactical Marines w/ Missile Launcher, Flamer, Combi-flamer, Rhino
10x Tactical Marines w/ Multi-melta, Melta gun, Combi-melta, Rhino

5x Terminators w/ 5x Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield
Dreadnought w/ Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer, Drop Pod w/ Locator Beacon

2x Land Speeders w/ Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer
1x Land Speeder w/ Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer
2x Attack Bikes

Land Raider Redeemer w/ Extra Armor, Multi-melta


The Ork Army List:

Wazzdakka (the dude on a bike)

30x Slugga Boyz w/ Nob w/ Power Klaw, Boss Pole
30x Slugga Boyz w/ Nob w/ Power Klaw, Boss Pole
20x Slugga Boyz w/ Nob w/ Power Klaw, Boss Pole
20x Shoota Boyz w/ Nob w/ Power Klaw, Boss Pole, a few had Big Shootas?
10x Gretchin w/ Runtherd

8x Nobs w/ 8x Bikes, 4x Power Klaws, 4x 'Uge Choppas, Pain Doc, all the good stuff

Battle Wagon w/ Deff Rolla, 2x Big Shootas
Battle Wagon w/ Deff Rolla, 1x Big Shoota

5x Lootas

We rolled for objectives, and got seize ground w/ 3 objectives, 'standard' deployment.  He won the roll to go first, and opted to go first.

Here's a picture of our deployment:

As always:  IF YOU WANT BIGGER PICTURES, CLICK ON THEM!

 

I kept a single speeder in reserve.  My goal was to charge the Nobz with my Terminators, with Null Zone going off.  Otherwise, I wanted to use flamers as much as I could on the boyz, while whittling down his nob bikers with my meltas.  Straightforward enough, I suppose.  The rhino on the right is the one with a Multi-melta

I was already going 2nd, and was happy to remain there for an objectives game, so I didn't try to seize the initiative.  We agreed to play to 6 turns exactly, and started up.

Orks Turn 1:

He moved everything forward, but didn't run the boyz, even after I asked him if he wanted to.  The nobz just moved up 12" and shot, to no real effect.  The lootas however, destroyed my Razorback w/ Librarian in it.

 

Heh, also, you'll notice my combat squads on either side of the rhinos on the left.  I originally wanted the full squad in the rhino on the left, but forgot that Vulkan + 10 marines= 11, and remembered a little later.  That's where the combat squad on the left came from, different from the last picture.  

Salamanders Turn 1:

I moved my speeders up 12", in front of my Raider.  I wanted them to be able to shoot at the Nobs, and to also block his access to my Raider.  I desperately needed the charge against the Nobs, and was fighting to protect it.  I was also happy enough to let him charge my speeders with whatever, since they'd be clumped up for my flamers to go to work on.  Everything else moved up a little, the Librarian's squad made their way to the protection of 'behind the raider'.  The pod came in, and went behind the huge squad of ork boyz, ready to burninate the loota squad behind them. 

Shooting went well for me, and he failed a lot of 4+ cover saves with his bikes.  I think he failed like 3/4 of them or something.  Lots of dead nobs.  The Heavy Flamer killed 4 lootas, and the 5th one ran off the board.  Sweet :)  Not much else to do... his turn!

 

His bikers are on the right there... his guys will be in range to charge soon enough.  I'm just glad he can't ram my Raider with his wagons' deff rollas yet :)

Ork Turn 2:

In a move that somewhat baffled me, he only moved his stuff up another 6", including his wagons.  The nobs stayed roughly where they were and shot at stuff, not doing much. 
 

 

Despite the lack of modeling, those wagons definitely have Deff Rollas.  Nobs are trying to stay out of range of my Termies.  At this point, I just want to kill them all with shooting if I can.

Salamanders Turn 2:

Lone speeder didn't come in.  Dread tries to move through cover and fails terribly, popping smoke.  I decided I wanted to get rid of his Wagons this turn if I could, and as such positioned my speeders on the black one's flank, and moved my Attack Bikes in front of my Raider, ready to Death or Glory any Wagon who survived.  The rhino on the right with the meltas moved up 6", ready to melta some nobs, and Vulkan moved up, ready to flamer some orks.  He immobilized himself on the terrain, however, and had to get out in an un-optimized setup.

Shooting did me well enough, killing the remaining nobs (but not Wazdakka), and immobilizing his black wagon.  Vulkan and co. killed a ton of orks (and screening gretchin), and braced for the counter-assault.
 

 

Notice my attack bikes in front of my Raider.  Probably one of my 'better' moves of the game.  Unsupported Vulkan on the left?  One of my worst moves, likely.

 Orks Turn 3:


He started by trying to deff-rolla my Raider, and exactly as I had hoped, my attack bike held and exploded the Wagon.  Awesome :)  His other stuff moved up and got ready to assault my own stuff, including speeders, bikes, and combat squads.  He declared his Waaagh!! and got good rolls.  This turn was going to make or break him, I figured.

So he assaulted, and killed lots of stuff. Vulkan barely won the combat, but didn't really do much real damage.  He was able to wreck both of my speeders, and kill both attack bikes and my combat squad closest to my Raider.

 

At some point in time, my Librarian had gotten into the Raider.  Not sure when... but after his razor died so quick, he decided the Raider was a better choice :)

Salamanders Turn 3:

Time for me to do something decisive.  I needed as many orks dead as possible this turn, or there was a possibility that I'd be overrun next turn.  So, I took my Librarian out, with the Termies, and got ready to charge his orks who had gotten out of the battle wagon and charged my speeders.  The raider then moved up, with no real purpose in mind other than to get out of the way of the flamer squad behind it, so they could get full view of the orks next to it.  My Dreadnought saw the Nob way in the front of the last 30-boy squad, and decided to charge in, just to tie them up for as long as possible.

Shooting saw me ruin the Ork squad in my part of the board.

Charges were declared, and the Termies killed their 20-boy ork squad (the librarian chased them down after a failed leadership by the Orks) though they lost 2 of their number to the Klaw.  Vulkan and his squad actually won combat again, and broke the Orks, but not until after the Orks had killed his whole squad around him.  They broke, and Vulkan chased them down.  So, 3 ork squads taken care of!  The Dread whiffed his attacks and did nothing, but the orks couldn't do anything back.
 

 

Huge cluster in the back with the Dread

Ork Turn 4:

Wazzdakka moved and shot at Vulkan, insta-deathing the poor dude.  He probably deserved it, after the dirty turn of combat he had killing those orks, lol.  His nob failed to kill my Dreadnought.  yay...

 

As you can probably see, there's an objective over by the huge combat on a hill.  His remaining gretchin/runtherd are almost on it. Then there's a smaller one over by my immobilized rhino on the left.  My raider is on the last one.

Salamanders Turn 4:

Time to start worrying about the objectives.  First, Wazzdakka needed to die, and he was in range of my Termies, so they moved toward him.  Land Raider scooped up the Librarian and his original squad, and moved forward, in anticipation of contesting his objective near the big skirmish.  My melta rhino moved a full 12" toward an objective.

Not much shooting to be had.

In combat, the dread survived again, and Wazzy killed another 2 termies, but eventually died.

 

So, here's the ridiculous combat right now.  The Runtherd is on his objective.

 Ork Turn 5:


He had combat, and failed again to kill my dread.

Salamander Turn 5:

I just moved up, and got ready to contest his objective.  My tacticals moved closer to an objective.

He finally killed my Dread.

 

Poor Dread.  Didn't even explode, lol.  Killed like 6 orks though :)

Orks Turn 6:

He just moved onto his objective.  Meh.

Salamanders Turn 6:

I moved onto an uncontested objective, and tank-shocked his orks off of his own.  I didn't see the need to flamer them, so we called it a game.

 

Woo!  Tank-shocked orks!

Victory 1-0 Salamanders!

It was a fun game, and Thomas was a great sport.  His rolling was pretty sub-par this game, and he had never played against a Salamanders list.  I had a lot of fun playing with a list I've never really played, and though I don't think it's an optimized list by any means, it still did pretty well in this game :)

Overall, I think the lesson should be this: keep your units supported.  I know I should do it, but it seems like I never do, heh.  Thomas did a good job of keeping his army together, and made me pretty hesitant to charge into his dudes, and making me pay when I did.

My dread made me happy as well- it made that wave of orks stay away for a long time, to the point that they were irrelevant to the rest of the game.

A good first game with the Salamanders, next week I'll be posting up a report against the new Dark Eldar, using my Salamanders :)

Let me know what you think!  Am I doing a good job with the Battle Reports?  Any specific armies you'd like to see my Salamanders match up against?  How do you like this list?  I'd like to hear :)