I’m going to a 40k tournament in two weeks time.
Fluffy Highlander is a “fun and fluffy” tournament. May as well make it my first!
The plan is Orks. Of course. What else would you play in 40k?
There are quite tight listbuilding restrictions:
– Your entire army must consist of a single battalion. No more, no less.
– Your army must be from a single codex, including supplements (e.g. Vigilus supplements, or a Space Marine chapter-specific codex). No soup!
– Index units and Forgeworld are allowed, as long as they follow all other restrictions on this list.
– No datasheet entry may be taken more than once, except for Troops and Dedicated Transports
– No unit may have a Power Rating of above 20.
I love these restrictions – particularly single codex and single battalion restrictions. Those are great.
They do however present a bit of a problem with my chosen army background.
My Orks are designed around the idea that they live on their vehicles, that they have a completely mobile city made up of hundreds of vehicles. Mobile mek shops, fuel refineries, even land crawling aircraft carriers. A massive swarm of destruction, roving around the planet’s surface and impervious to most attacks.
The “No datasheet entry may be taken more than once” causes a bit of issue with regards to Battlewagons. I kinda have to compromise a little because trukk mobs suck so bad now, especially when CP is tight. They really suck. I want to have a thematic list, but there’s a limit to how far I’d go…
That restriction means that I’m stuck with a maximum of one Battlewagon and one Bonebreaka (perhaps one of the only times that GW duplicating units to cover up gutting so many options from the codex actually works in my favour).
I have to bite the bullet and go to a Wierdboy to sling a big mob of boyz around the board. I would teleport, but with just a single battalion that’s a lot of CP spent before the game begins and Orks really need their CP…
So here’s what I’ve come up with:
Deffkilla Wartrike
Big Mek on Bike w/Kustom Force Field
Wierdboy w/Warphead, Warpath, Da Jump
20 Boyz w/sluggas, nob w/Big Choppa
30 boyz w/Shootas, nob w/Kustom Shoota
10 Grots
Nob with Waaagh! Banner
9 Tankbustas
9 Nobz w/Ammo run, 2 x Killsaw, 1 x Power Klaw, 2 x Big Choppa
5 Stormboyz w/Nob w/Big Choppa
Battlewagon w/’Ard Case & Deffrolla
Bonebreaka
Trukk w/Big Shoota
I’m not actually a million miles away in terms of painted models, either.
Now painted models aren’t required for the event but you do get bonus raffle tickets depending on how much is painted so I’ve got a lot of incentive to get stuff finished over the next two weeks, but it’s not the end of the world if a few things aren’t finished. I’m certainly not going to rush things and compromise the quality of what I’m painting, but I can do a lot of work over the next two weeks.
So… let’s crack to it.
But first…
My lords, I implore assistance from the Astra Militarum.
The greenskin menace is still roaming Dognoth Prime. While the initial invasion was rebuffed by the planetary defence forces four years ago, the infestation has never been fully eradicated and has since become out of control.
The greenskins, led by a warboss known as the Boneshredda, have built a gigantic swarm of armoured vehicles that has been roaming the planet and sacking hives that they come across.
This swarm consists of thousands of heavy vehicles, tens of thousands of light support vehicles and several hundred titanic monstrosities. Scouts report that almost all of the vehicles have some sort of secondary function outside of combat – fuel refineries, food processors and even land based aircraft carriers. It is essentially an Orkoid city that moves.
We have attempted many strategies. Frontal assaults have proven fruitless. We attempted a mass artillery strike but the faster light support vehicles overran our positions within minutes. Air attacks have dealt no damage due to the power fields that the greenskins are generating (from gigantic mobile shield generators, no less).
I even ordered planetary defence platforms to launch orbital bombardments, but the swarm moves too fast for reliable target acquisition. The few bombardments that have struck home have dealt only superficial damage that we have been unable to capitalise on.
These attacks have only strengthened the greenskins. Our own equipment is turned against us within hours of its destruction and the Ork casualties have shown a worrying trend of increased bodymass over the last four years.
So far the greenskins have not yet razed an entire hive, which I am thankful for. When they attack, they appear to be leaving enough survivors for the hive to rebuild, only to attack it again 6-9 months later. They have repeated this style of attack dozens of times and we do not understand why.
My previous planetary defence commander hypothesised that this was some grand strategic plan by the warboss to increase the experience and strength of the greenskin forces over many years. I executed him for such heretical thinking.
Truly the reason behind this maddening strategy has escaped my command staff and I. We can only conclude that the attacks are entirely random and without reason.
Please, I implore the assistance of the Astra Militarum. The attacks are seriously reducing our production abilities and I fear that we may soon be unable to meet the Imperial Tithe.
Governer Macaroth Ehnis
Nick Williams 