Tabled by Orcs!

Well, I was tabled last night by orcs.  I ran the 1k mechdar list I posted previously.  Over all I think the problem was with tactical decisions I made during the course of the game rather than an inherent problem with my list.  I do think I need to make some changes though.  As for my opponent he had the following from memory:

Big Mech with force field

Warboss with powerclaw

2 Mobs of 30 boys and two Nobz with powerclaws

5 Nobz

3 Killa Cans

The mission was dawn of war and I had first turn.  I deployed my avengers and wave serpent in the center of the board to push back his deployment as much as possible.  I should note we were playing on a 4x4 table.  The first two turns I was doing well.  He advanced a Warboss and 30 mob squad down the right flank, his nobz and big mech down the middle and the remaining 30 mob squad and killacans down the left flank.

I focused all my fire on the left flank for the first two turns.  My mistake happened in turn three which caused my army to crumble.  Turn three he was midfield with his army.  I had my tanks in the center of my table edge.  At the beginning of turn three I had about ½ of the left flank 30 boy mob gone from previous turns of shooting and I had my avengers in range to pop out of the tank and blade storm.  I also could have unloaded the three flame templates from my guardians but I would have had to take a dangerous terrain test for their serpent.  I opted to only hit them with the bladestorm and large blast from the fireprism which was mistake number one.  After shooting I managed to whittle the mob down to about 6 guys.  He kept rolling his cover saves granted by the Big Mech.  I should have either not bladestormed and moved my tank out of charge range or risked the dangerous terrain test for my guardians serpent.  The 5+ invul save from the big mech completely shut down my shooting.  The flame templates would have ignored the coversave and I likely would have wiped out the squad.   Ah well live and learn.

The second big mistake I made was trying to control my deployment zone from the middle.  I should have left my tanks on the flank that I was focusing my fire on.  On the bottom of turn three he declared a waagh fleeted 6” and caught me with my pants down.  He was able to hit my Falcon with his Warboss and 6 or so orcs.  Adding insult to injury I had given my falcon a bright lance so was only moving it 6” so I could get extra shots of.  If I had of moved the Falcon over 6” he would not of been able to take it down.  He was able to get 6 penetrating hits off from the close combat.  However he only rolled 1 or 2 six’s when rolling to hit.  It was not until he rolled for the 5^th pen hit that he got through my holofield, and wrecked the tank.  On the left flank he charged my avengers (who to their credit lasted 3 combat rounds before the broke and fled off the board). 

I also lost two tanks to shots from the dreadnaughts.  I don’t really count that as a tactical error and chalk it up to bad luck. Everything just fell apart after that though.  

Over all I will make some minor changes to my list; however, I believe that the majority of my problems were due to poor decisions on my part.  The big mistake was not respecting the power of the waagh.  I should have been thinking of the extra assault range and positioned my tanks appropriately.  While I do not like being tabled I did learn quite a bit from this match. 

These are two changes I think I might make to the 1k list:

Option A)

Replace the bright lance on the falcon with a EML.  This would allow me to move and fire two guns and still move over 6” to maintain my mobility.   Also I think I would swap out the stones on waveserpents for extra shuriken cannons.  Also guide was wasted.  I should have picked doom as a Farseer power.  It is just hands down a better force multiplier. 

Option B)

Give the Farseer doom rather than guide.  Replace the stones with suriken cannons on all my tanks.  All wave serpents will have twin linked shuriken cannons.  Replace the fireprism with a nightspinner.  Replace the Falcon and 5 man avenger squad with 5 Dragons and 1 Exarch with Dragon’s Breath in a wave serpent with shuriken cannons.  Add 1 viper with 2 shuriken cannons.  Over all this I think would make for a better list at 1k although I lose the 3^rd scoring unit.  With this set up I would have a potential of 27 strength 6 shots, 5 meltagun shots, 1 singing spear, 2 heavy flamer templates, 2 flamer templates and 1 large blast strength 6 template that rends, is barrage, causes difficult and dangerous terrain tests.  Now I’m thinking that the night spinner might be better than a fireprism for the extra ability to cause dangerous and difficult terrain tests.  I do like the fireprism though especially with the extra option of a small s9 blast shot.  And the lack of any armour pen on the nightspinner might nudge the fireprism slightly ahead for utility in this list (especially for an all comers list).  I think I will try it with both just to see which one I like more.  So there you have it, a complete loss, hopefully I can stand up, dust myself off and be a better player for it.