Hello All,
It's been a while - and I thought I would share my current play with the community..
Playing Orc's like a wood elf..
I have just started an Orc's and Goblin army.. and I played my first game with them and the fellow Orc's and Goblin players were starting at me in amazement...
First memorable moment:
"What are you playing Ben?"
*Ben opens big shoebox to reveal 120 orc arrer boyz..*
Ben: "Orc Arrer Boyz..."
People: *err...*
Back on topic.. while I amused myself playing an army that no-one expected.. I learnt a lot from doing it.. and used a lot of the strategies that I was used to playing with the girly wood elves.. as I said I have the girlies orc army ever..
My army:
Level 4 night goblin shaman, dispel scroll
Black Orc Boss
Black Orc boss
Night Goblin boss battle standard with spider banner
40 Orc Arrer Boyz, musician, standard
40 Orc Arrer Boyz, musician, standard
40 Orc Arrer Boyz, musician, standard
2x mangler squigs
2x rock lobba
4x spear chukka
or some such
----
Interesting points:
- First: My characters, My general is a hero, I remember being asked turn 2 where my general was?, I pointed to the far left hand of the board, where my opponents death star of Epedemius plague bearers (61 of such) was on the far right.. I made it very clear, I knew that the mirroring block of 40 boyz were going to die... and as such my characters were nowhere near it.. I had no intention of sacrificing 100vp's un-necessarily..
- Second, my characters have barely any equipment.. firstly if I am paying a premium of points for any weapon I don't need anything else.. the big thing is where's the 2+ armour save on the general.My personal lesson from playing WE is that you don't really need armour saves.. least of all on characters.
- Let's say that you buy the 4+ ward on your lvl 4 wizard and you buy the armour of destiny for the 2+ armour save on the general, those two items are 90 points.. assuming you don't actually get beaten up in combat you are effectively playing 100points down... I am a strong believer of putting MORE boots on the ground and no army does this work better with than the good old greenskins.. T4 is your friend! Also.. for any character killer that is designed to kill characters they will be packing tricksters shards and such designed to get around the saves.. lets be honest anyone able to do a ton of wounds to a T5 chap is going to be wrecking the humble 2+ armour save anyway.. I am willing to be proven wrong on this point.. but of my 2 games so far.. neither game have I wished or felt it needed to have the tooled up characters.
- Bow's vs. spiky close combat weapons: let's say I get 1 turn of shooting at close and one at long range, that's 60 shots (volley firing, 4ranks of 10), okay.. that's only 30 hits.. against T3 15 wounds isn't at all bad!!! compare that to the additional 10 attacks from 2x choppa's or spears.. 10attacks, 5 hits, 3 wounds vs. T3. Okay.. this is reliant on having the 2 rounds of shooting.. but it's not even including stand and shoot.. and how often does combat last more than a turn anyway..
- The other exciting bit.. is that when they get into combat THEY ARE STILL ORCS!!! you are paying for the S4 and T4!!
Army thoughts:
I've played 2 games, the first game I will happily concede that I was being outplayed by our friendly resident deamon player.. who insisted on pulling flank and rear charges out of nowhere and such.. however the turning point was when the deathstar only 10/60 plaguebearers left cleaved through the first block and then hit the second block of arrer boys who happened to have the BSB in, the gift of the spider kin meant I was wounding on a 5+ and the 40 arrer boyz attacks prompty turned the plaguebearers to dust.. Eppy crumbled and I was suddenly 800vp's up giving me a slight lead.. leading to a victory.. While I can't claim to have deserved the victory.. the sheer resilience of the humble arrer boy is astonishing.. and the fact that all the goblin buffs are better on orcs than goblins!! At no point did I want an orc shaman.. making that deathstar coming towards you move 2 inches a turn rocks!! I can't help but feeling the sheer power of the army is everything in it is very efficient.. Again Characters shouldn't be relied on to do the killing.. cos basic troops doing it for you is just more efficient.
Note: I did drop the spear chukka's in favor of goblin wolf riders 2x5units for guarding flanks.
Second game:
Vs, a lizardmen skink list.. I won't lie with the exception of one horde of orcs (the one without a black orc) failing 3 animosity tests and spending the 4th turn stupid and high in a fungus forest.. the army did what it was supposed too, the wolf riders slowed down the chameleons.. the rock lobba's lobbed the carnasaur and the stegadon.. and all the while, while my wood elves would have been terrified by the shrapnel of darts coming towards them.. I wasn't unduly bothered cos the 40 man blocks take an awful lot of punishment!! While, there was a turn where things turned sour, my general was assassinated by the opposing old blood.. and 40 orcs were run down by a stegadon.. I feel the mistake was mine for poor target priority.
I am excited to be learning constantly with the army.. and I feel that cunning use of 30pt goblin bosses as road blocks and other cunning tricks could make it a deviously tough army.. that opponents may need to adapt to face as being out shot by orcs is an unusual match up (atleast in my metagame)
