Battle Report - Orks vs Space Wolves

Hello!

Another report with the new Ork Codex, this time against Sharpy, who was bringing his Space Wolves, led by Ragnar! Surely this Open War game promised to be a glorious scrap? (Also, I stole a couple of his pictures for the blog - he has more of them on Instagram as j.sharpe0608, so check him out!)

I was running my first iteration of a Green Tide list for my Orks, in this case 160 Ork infantry models and no vehicles! A single battalion, I spent a bunch of CP on relics and traits, and then at the start of the game some more to reserve units so that I wouldn't have to think about deploying them!

HQ: Warboss (powerklaw, kombi skorcha, attack squig, Super Cybork, Brutal but Kunnin), Big Mek with Force Field, Weirdboy (Warpath, Da Jump, Might is Right)

Troops: 2x 30 Boyz (powerklaw), 2x 20 Boyz (powerklaw), 2x 10 Boyz (shootas, powerklaw)

Elites: 15 Kommandos (powerklaw, distraction grot, bomb squig), Nob with WAAAGH Banner (Da Ded Shiny Shoota), Painboy (Da Killa Klaw, Surly as a Squiggoth)

Fast Attack: 10 Stormboyz (powerklaw)

Heavy Support: 2x 4 Lootas/1 Spanner

Sharpy was taking the puppies for a spin, with a selection of characters and a nice mix of Primaris and Firstborn units. He was mostly melee focus, as one might expect, but had a few shooting anti tank options which were going to be disappointed. As usual I don't remember the exact relics/traits (or if everything is in the right slot), so it's something like this:

HQ: Ragnar Blackmane, Rune Priest (-1 to hit power, combat doctrine power), Wolf Priest (Armour of Russ)

Troops: 2x 5 Assault Intercessors, 2x 10 Grey Hunters (chainswords, some special/melee weapons)

Elites: Judiciar (artificer armour), Venerable Dreanought (multimelta, heavy flamer, fist), 4 Bladeguard, Bladeguard Ancient 

Fast Attack: 4 Thunderwolves (assorted melee weapons), 3 Outriders

Heavy Support: 3 Eradicators

Transport: Razorback (lascannons)

Here's the card draw. Deployment zones the timeless classic of long edges, 12 inches from the middle. Objective the same as when my Orks faced his Eldar, 6 objectives that slowly disappear through the game, and the twist would be falling rocks from space, which I think is kind of the perfect twist because you only have to remember it at the start of each turn!

Deployment - as mentioned, I spent some CP to keep some reserves. The Lootas went into Strategic Reserve, while one of the 30 Boy mobs went in the Tellyporta. The Stormboyz would drop from the skies, and the Kommandos deployed sneakily forward behind the central ruin. The Space Wolves put some units on the flanks (notably a unit of Grey Hunters on an objective on the far left flank not seen in the pictures) while the other Grey Hunters were outflanking with wolfy cunning, or whatever that stratagem is called.

I won the roll off, and since it's not the GT pack, opted to go second.

SW turn one, and not a lot of action. They moved up fairly conservatively, and held the three objectives in their half of the board. Some shooting killed a few boyz, but nothing dramatic.

Orks turn one, and we surged forward, advances across the line and not much else. As we were still a turn away from the charge I didn't call the WAAAGH yet. I tried to Jump one of the Boyz units and potentially make a charge, but the power failed. The Kommandos were in a position to charge forward however..

Between the bomb squig and the powerklaw they did... not much, chipping a few wounds off it, but they did make it onto objective 2 there, scoring me an extra point at the end of my turn and putting me in the lead 4-3, though they were undoubtedly sacrificing themselves. 

As expected in turn two, Ragnar and chums mobbed the Kommandos and butchered them. We also had the Outriders and Thunderwolf cav charging through the buildings to plow into a bunch of Orks, while the sneaky Grey Hunters popped up behind to charge from the rear.

And there were many Ork casualties. But there's plenty more where they came from! At the end of the turn Sharpy picked up another two points, after the objective previously held by the Bladeguard disappeared, and I spent the two CP to keep a single obsec Nob from running off the objective near the bikers and cavalry.

WAAAGH!!! Ork turn two, and reinforcements have arrived! The Lootas popped in behind the sneaky Grey Hunters, outflanking the outflankers, ready to put some holes in them with their dakka guns. The Tellyporta mob dropped in behind the other 30 man unit, ready to feed more into the grinder that was Ragnar and the Space Wolves' hard centre.

Assorted charges connected, killing off the Outriders, the first unit of Assault Intercessors and Warboss Redtoof himself took out the last of the Thunderwolves. Both the Grey Hunter units took a beating, but stuck it out, with the return attacks killing off some more Orks and stopping me claiming to far left objective. The big central blob did take the objective from Ragnar's crew though, scoring me another four points, so 8-5 at the end of the turn.

Turn three saw the Space Wolves once again fight back hard to clear their lines. On the left the remaining Grey Hunters and Eradicators finished off the Boyz harassing their objective, with the last few running from morale. Ragnar sent in more Assault Intercessors to help him and his HQ cull the hordes, though it took a lot of killing to cut through nearly 30 Boyz, and they suffered some losses doing so.

The Bladeguard also got in on the action, shooting then charging the Warboss and killing him with disapointing ease. Largely in vain though as the objective he'd been standing near had disappeared. Another two points for holding their 'home' objectives.

Ork turn three, and the Stormboyz jump in to go for that corner objective where the Boyz failed... and they failed their charge! Elsewhere the Lootas dakka'd the Grey Hunters to death while some remaining Boyz moved up to try and hold off the Bladeguard from getting near any objectives. The big pink mob moved in to remove the Intercessors, while the Painboy lined up a charge through the ruin into the Dreadnought.

With the WAAAGH still in it's second phase and Da Killa Klaw relic, the Painboy gave that Dread a good krumpin', he was then taken down by Ragnar, but his warlord trait kicked in and he was indeed as Surly as a Squiggoth, refusing to die.

The pink mob took heavy losses after being made to fight last by the Armour of Russ, but they were still capable of removing the last of the Assault Intercessors. With that I held two objectives to make the score 10-7 in my favour.

Turn four and the Space Wolves were trying to mop up the remaining Orks, but were struggling to find objectives. Once again the objective removal wasn't favourable to Sharpy, taking away the one his last few Grey Hunters and Eradicators were protecting. A lot of Boyz died, but the Wolves were only able to take back 'their' objective where Ragnar stood.

In my turn the Stormboyz flew over to hold number 6, while the Nob with WAAAGH Banner held position on the left flank, letting rip into the Eradicators and killing one with his Ded Shiny Shoota. The Lootas got into a scrap with the Bladeguard Ancient, eventually killing him, though soon to all die to his slightly younger veteran brothers. The last few remnants of the pink mob piled into Ragnar himself, both getting Obsec on 'his' objective and chopping him down to a single wound. I picked up another three, to get to 13 points to Sharpy's 8. With only a couple of objective markers left on the table in turn five that meant it was impossible for the Space Wolves to catch up - but they were going to have a good go!

The remaining Orks crumbled under the assault from the last few Wolves, allowing them to control both remaining objectives. In my last turn the twist gave me a falling rock, so I spitefully dropped it on Ragnar's head to finish him off. I managed to survive with one model - the WAAAGH Banner, but was unable to rest back control of an objective, so the final score would be 13 - 10 to the Green Tide! WAAAGH!!!

Brutal game, as you can see there's not much left. A handful of Space Wolves (along with their barely participating Razorback) and a single Ork, out of 160! The Green Tide performed much as I'd hoped, being tough enough to take a beating and still hold ground, while killy enough to remove the enemy's front line units. I was a bit careless with my character positioning, allowing the Warboss and Weirdboy to get taken out early, and missing out on some bonuses where I could have used them, so I think there's more in the tank for this style of list. The Snakebite trait also came into effect a fair bit here, with most of the SW characters rocking strength 6 or 7.

For their part the Wolves were pretty scary, they are still good at cutting through even T5 Orks, and their -1 to hit psychic power proved massive in this match, hitting the Kommandos in turn one and then several Boyz units. Ultimately the fates were not with them, as the objectives we lost were almost always ones they were controlling, so I'm not sure what I could have done if it was the other way around - I probably would have been really cursing myself for letting the Weirdboy die early! 

So once again, an awesome game. It's been pretty close in all our games but I think Sharpy is due a win next time, I guess we'll have to wait and see. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and stay safe!