The Blood Deserts of Auros IX: Battle Summaries (Battle #12)
We've included this section for those of you who might be curious as to how the the games and the campaign actually played out. For the sake of brevity, we're presenting summaries of the battles instead of turn-by-turn transcripts. Remember that each army's goal is to secure five objectives. 

Battle #12: New Git on the Block (1500 points per side)
Sprokkits the Mekboy strolled into the communications shed and flopped down dejectedly next to Flibbits, his Gretchin assistant. Things had been going so well recently; Sho-T had even called him his “bestest mekboy.” Then last week, a bunch of Speed Freeks led by a Big Mek named Speedo had somehow broken through the Tiger cordon and had joined Sho-T's army. Now, the only thing that Sho-T paid attention to was their shiny, fast vehicles. Sprokkits was lucky if Sho-T even took the time to threaten him. “It just iddnt fair,” he growled, and idly cuffed Flibbits.

Flibbits yowled and landed in a pile of scrap on the other side of the shed, scattering junk everywhere and making a tremendous racket. Still, he was used to such treatment: as always, he sat back up, dusted himself off, and went back to monitoring the radio channels as Sprokkits sulked. After awhile, Flibbits said, “Hey, Boss, I tink I hear sometink.”

Sprokkits grabbed the headphones and listened to static and garble. He smacked Flibbits again--not so hard this time--and the little Gretchin fiddled with the knobs on the yakkbox (one of Sprokkit's inventions) that unscrambled and translated Imperial transmissions. Now Sprokkits could hear ‘oomie voices. 

He listened for a little bit. Having been driven back by Sho-T's latest successes, the Tiger 'oomies were setting up a new base. Sprokkits shoved Flibbits aside and patched the transmission through the trakker, disconnecting and reattaching wires here and there. Within minutes, he had the coordinates of where the signal was coming from--and he was pretty sure it was the new base, still under construction, and thus vulnerable.

Sprokkits jumped up to go tell Sho-T, but then a better plan occurred to him. He threw the headphones at Flibbits and ran out of the shack. 

He spotted Speedo, the Big Mek, sitting on the running board of his Trukk, oiling the power claw of his mega-armor. Sprokkits casually strolled over to him. 

“Well, Speedo, I’m off to get meself a promotion.”

“Watchu talkin’ ‘bout, Sprokkits?”

“Oh, see, dere’s dis ‘oomie bunker out dere--'bout a good four hunnert miles dattaway,” he said, pointing, “--and Sho-T tol' me dat any Ork who can take it out iz gonna be his Number One Boy.” 

“Izzat so?” asked Speedo. “Well, dat sure as zoggin 'eck ain’t gonna be yoo.” The Big Mek leveled Sprokkits with a haymaker to the jaw, knocking him senseless. Chuckling, he finished bolting on his armor, then lumbered off to gather his boyz. 

Sprokkits regained his senses after a few minutes. He spat out three teeth, got to his feet, and started stumbling back toward the communication shack. The Speed Freeks zoomed past, laughing and firing their sluggas in the air. Speedo gave Sprokkits "da finga" before disappearing in a huge cloud of black smoke and red dust.

When the cloud cleared, Sprokkits could see Sho-T up ahead, watching the Speed Freeks vanish in the distance. “Sprokkits, what is that idjit Speedo up to?”

“Dunno, Boss. Maybe dey’s drag racing.”

“Dat fool gonna get hisself perished. Da Kommandos say dere's a whole messa dem stripey Marines dat way.”

Sprokkits just shrugged his shoulders and shuffled past. He almost felt bad for Speedo. But he knew that feeling would pass.

WHAT WE DID DIFFERENTLY: This game is a replay of Battle #2, a "Strongpoint" mission where Pat's Orks were attempting to destroy a Fighting Tiger bunker. We played it at the store Borderlands, in South Carolina, as part of the Fall From Grace events; normally, Pat and I play 2000 point games, but because we wanted to get to the other games there, we limited it to 1500 points. 

Pat had recently purchased Codex: Armageddon and wanted to try out the new Speed Freek rules, so he created the character of Speedo the Big Mek and assembled a swarm of Trukk Boyz, Stormboyz, Warbuggies, and Deth Koptas for him to lead. 

Going along with the spirit of experimentation, I assembled an "orange" army. That is, I only took units that were the traditional tiger colors of orange and black. So my army consisted of:

Zaghnal Maratha, Tiger of Brihaspati (Librarian)
Tiger Eternal Surya Ashoka (Dreadnought)
20 Tigers of Rudra (Tactical Marines) 
Maneater (Rhino)
5 Tigers of Puchan (Scouts)
"Flying Tiger" Squadron (3 Land Speeders w/multi-meltas)
5 Tigers of Agni (Devastator Marines; 4 w/heavy bolters)
"Tyger Tyger" (Predator Annihilator)

Premise:	This battle was fought using the "Strongpoint" mission from page 151 of the main rulebook.
Tiger Strategy:	Keep Orks away from bunker by overwhelming firepower and rapid counterattacks.
Ork Strategy:	Rapidly attack from one side and destroy bunker before Fighting Tiger reserves can arrive.
Play of the Game:	Land Speeders come out of Reserves on Turn 4 in time to destroy the Ork Battlewagon, giving me a slim 40 point margin of victory.
Winner:	Tigers--but not by much!
How the Tigers won:	Dumb luck was--for once--ultimately on my side, not Pat's. By all rights I should have lost this game: my Vindicator would have been more effective than the Predator; I made several deployment mistakes which left my troops out of position to respond to Pat's Orks; and I had some bad rolls (particularly when my Speeders didn't show up until the end of the game). But somehow I managed to eke out 40 more Victory Points than Pat.
How the Orks lost:	Again, just dumb luck. Pat played well, massing his army on one side of the board and forcing me to waste lots of firepower by maneuvering. His Stormboyz hacked down Zaghnal Maratha and a squad of Tigers of Rudra; his Warbuggies with megablastas shook the bunker so violently that my Tigers of Agni on top could barely make any shots. Speedo the Big Mek even destroyed the bunker with his power claw but the Orks still came up just a few points short.
Objectives Secured:	Tigers 2, Orks 2.

 

Previous Page: Battles #10 and #11 Next page: Battle #13

Related Pages
Fighting Tigers Glossary and Pronunciation Guide
 

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© Copyright Patrick Eibel and Kenton Kilgore, September 2000
 

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