The gates open!
After THREE TIES to see who gets the charge (despite the +2 for the Orks), the Orks finally win it. Is that the beginning of the end for the Grey Hunters? As the Grey Hunter Wolf Standard Bearer activates the standards power to reroll all ones in combat, the Orks open fire with their cobbled together 'Slugga' guns and manage 12 hits out of 30 shots. Only 4 of those wound however, but two Wolves fail their subsequent save - despite rerolling one fail with the standard.
The Space Wolves get the first chance to strike given their high initiative. They get 24 attacks, and roll 14 hits - after rerolling 2 ones. They roll seven wounds, but five of the failures are ones. I reroll them again, but none pass! Two of the wounds are from power weapons, and the rest are not saved by the meagre 6+ offered by Ork armour.
Gulp, so 23 Orks on the charge, thats 92 attacks. 42 hit, and 20 convert to wounds. Despite some thorough wound allocation, 5 Grey Hunters died - 4 plain, and 1 power sword equipt. Although they have been savagely reduced, the Space Wolves have won this round of combat by 2. One more Ork dies to Fearless wounds after saves are made.
Round 2, and the greatly depleted Grey Hunter squad fights on. However without benefits of the banner or Counterattack, They only manage 3 hits, which ends up being one unsavable wound from the remaining power weapon.
A disappointing result for the Space Wolves there. They left 21 Orks unharmed, and these orks land 30 hits on the Wolves. At Strength 3 they can only convert 8 to wounds - but this still leads to 3 dead Grey Hunters, despite trying all the wound allocation tricks. They Wolves have lost and flee combat, but are too fast for the Orks to be caught. They rally automatically and the battle continues.
The remaining 2 Grey Hunters stand bravely back-to-back at the start of Round 3. They only have 4 attacks, but they land 3 hits and convert to 2 wounds. Neither are saved by the Orks - an impressive performance given the circumstances!
The 19 remaining Ork Boyz still land 30 hits, and this time manage 13 wounds. Allocating 6 and 7 wounds to each of the remaining Space Wolves, none of them manage to make all their saves. The Ork Boyz are victorious!
Aftermath: Well there you have it. No suprises, but I was impressed with the ability of the Grey Hunters to stand toe-to-toe with the Ork Boyz. With a lot of luck I think they could have pulled it off, but not today ladies and gentlemen. It's a Greenskin victory for this year's Squad Smackdown tournament.
I'll be back in a couple of days with some more thoughts and the results of the betting.
Job's a good un.
ReplyDeleteI'm gathering that because the Grey Hunters came second that me and An Enemy won as there wasn't any votes for Orks.
ReplyDeleteIn which case go us!
Hi Casey,
ReplyDeleteWith Squad Smackdown I wanted to capture the randomness of 40k. It was not a out averages, but about luck and results.
I made the judgement that the Orks were going to have an advantage in getting the assault, which gave them +2 to the roll to get to shoot and assault. These are the rules I chose before the tournament began.
Sounds like you are looking for something different, it might not be my thing...