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My last game was neither a strategist's dream, nor a particularly large scale engagement, so I'd like to distill only my impressions and a few thoughts... It was an 845point game, Orks vs RG, Orks had initiative, Mission was Anhiliate/table ends.

So here goes...

An interesting thing happened to my jump pack equiped chaplain in my last game.

Chaplain Bartok was the last man standing after leading a 5 man squad of assualt marines in a successful (in that they fled and were cut down) smashing of a mob of 20 ork boyz. In all fairness to the boyz, I managed to whittle down some of their numbers with a full squad of bolter equipped scouts before thier assualt.

So, forgeting the extreme movement power of some nearby deffkoptas, I left my wounded Chaplain with his consolidation move and about 11 inches away from those darned contraptions. Having being a real life helicopter turbine repairman, its rather insulting to have those flying tin cans called koptas, but, I'll get over it.

Bartok survived the shooting phase, a minor miracle there, and actually managed to take out all three koptas which had 1 wound a piece on them already in the ork players own assualt phase!

So, normally being a bit of a pessimist about my luck with the dice gods, I had a good, but lucky moment. I'd also say that it is imperative to never underestimate any army, esspecially orks. Also, never ever concede to defeat or defeatism. While I did manage to pull a draw resolution to what may have become a rout for my teams, It was only because I managed to continuously outflank and out manouver the green tide.

Things I found out, Things to ponder... (these are probably already in other posts, so I'm not claiming anything profound or groundbreaking.)

Mob rules, with boss pole. This can be a very nasty surprise combination, which in a sense can negate Morale for large groups of Orks, at least the way we read it. Allowing the Ork player to reroll leadership that is already high with large numbers means you have to soften these groups up in the shooting phase and have a succesful assualt phase dealing out as many wounds as possible.

Be aware of mobile units that can tie you up while blocks of troops rearrange themselves. While this is common sense, there seems to be a lot of ork stuff that can move.

Be aware that Orks Rocket launchers are strength 8 ap 3, but are assualt weapons. This can be brutal.

Orks are cheap, and can sport many upgrades, increasing strength and giving an extra attack here and there is an awful advantage when You have 10 or 12 point models going toe to toe with 18 and 20 point marines.

Ork charges increasing strength and initiative. Being as tough and as strong as a marine is not cool, for a 6 point model, even if its only in their initial assualt phase.

I play with lots of scouts and captian Pendrecki (shrike statline) having the ability to infiltrate a group of assualt marines and many scouts means that most of my troops infiltrated. This allowed me to mass troops on the far end of the Ork gunline, severely limiting his ability to get to me and reducing the head on green tide charge.

While Both Captain Pendrecki and Chaplain were present this was way too many points (obviously) tied into HQ units in an 845 point game. This was done because of lack of constructed models at this point, and will not be repeated by me.

While I learned a lot, and made many mistakes, I'll never forget The Chaplain taking out the Koptas, or Pendrecki and Boss Grignok both wounded from previous engagements, squaring off in a fatal duel.


Pen

Sounds like a fun game, and very similar to the game my wife and I had. Though I didn't put my shrike in.

Though for constructed models my wife and I use ones that are not complete just to try things out.

Never give up, on reading the rules....

Bosspole only equals one reroll, still a pain, but less so now that I know how it works.

Always read the other dude codex, who knows if they even know how their stuff works.

Also, in units of multi wound models, when they take multiple hits they have to take as many whole models off that they can, not spread them around.... makes the whole last stand action against the deffkoptas impossible... although I still think it makes an awesome scene.

Okay, so gotta work on writing a better battle report, and continue to follow up on my understanding o the rules... and still have fun too.

Trent, we are using a ton of unfinished models... before I used to not even like unpainted miniatures on the table, but it took me a year to paint 1500 pts of tau... so, I guess I'm getting over it.

In your battle report you said you used a lot of scouts in your army, might I inquire (if you remember) how many units you had on the field against the Orks? I ask because my main opponent uses a lot of basic Boyz in his army which seems to spread me too thin even when using a couple scout squads.

Yeah, this battle rep was pretty loose, it being my first one... My next one will be more in line (at least in form) to the excellent ones on this site.

I played with one tactical sqaud (the one out of aobr, missle launcher/flamer...)
One 10 man squad of Scouts, w/ bolters and a hbolter.
One 10 man squad scouts w/ Sniper rifles, which I split up on deployment.
An aobr dreadnout (mm and dccw)
Shrike, a chaplain with a plasma pistol and jumppack, and a 5 man assualt squad.

The tactical squad felt like a points sink with this weapons load out. Not enough attacks when assaulted, not enough firepower to take down anything heavy. Splitting the flamer (associated with assualts) and a ml (tankbusting and character killing) just felt wierd to me, when the bulk of the this unit is tooled for rapid fire. I'm sure other people use this just fine, Its not my preference. Okay, well, really, I don't know enough to have a real preference yet

The bolter wielding scouts did great when used in conjunction with an assualt squad and shrike. I used them to soften up two ork boy mobs, and then assualted with shrike and company. This worked well for me, excet I illegally (lack of knowldge) infiltrated with shrike AND the chaplain in the assualt squad.

In hindsight, splitting up the sniper team and infiltrating into cover with overlapping fields of fire still seems smart in principle, but didn't work out as well as I hoped. I'm retooling that squad with telion and a ml+ camo cloaks, and keeping them together for massed fire. This is mostly to help against boss characters which seem crazy powerful, esspecially in huge ork mobs. This may be too expensive for games under 1000 points.

The assualt squad is of course amazing. If I had the models I would have run ten instead of a chaplain. Although liturgies of battle is sweet.

I've already complained about the dreadnought elsewhere. In this instance it tied up the deffkoptas for three turns!

Using many groups of scouts seems okay to me. The ability to infiltrate large portions of my troops has really helped mitigating the ork players gun lines.

The guy who got me into 40k played with Orks i found a few things to be helpful.
1. Try and hit warbosses from range as best you can before closing with an assualt squad. I found this to work well combining with my Chaplin Assualt squad and a 5 man combat squad. Do some damage from range and then make sure to close the distance so that the Orks do not get the charge.