Why you NEED Ghazghkull

Boss Redtoof, cuz ReD Thraka's go FaStA!!!

Your competitive ork list needs Thraka. "Not wants", "or would be better by", but needs. Here is why:

6' waaagh move : once you get used to having this, without it, you feel like you went to war without yer choppas. With Ghazghkull, your waaagh is no longer a random prayer to Gork(or possibly Mork). Your Waaagh! Move becomes a usable, devistating tool.

 ON Demand: One thing I feel that should be mentioned seperately, but effects all of Ghazghkull's abilities, is that Ghazghkull waaagh can be call at ANYtime. That's right any time. Most people miss this at first glance. I know I did, till a very good player pointed it out to me.  This is the true source of his abilities. In fact, many of the best times to call the Waaagh is during your opponent's turn. And since it lasts for two player turns, you always get your 6" move.

Fearless army, ON Demand:  Orks use the mob rule in order to fight their low leadership, however many of our most expensive, effective units are rarely taken in squads above ten. I'm off course talking about Nobs, despite their bosspole, and Lootas, who really have no way of fighting their low leadership, save taking full squads of 15. Just a few casualties or a lost combat can see Lootas run off the board, or Nobs overrun. If you are called upon to make such a test, especially one that the game depends on, simply call the Waaagh!!! This will ensure you boys will remain 'stuck in' and Lootas firing. Don't forget though, that you will take fearless wounds in assault, so don't try this trick with anything that isn't well armored.

Big Shoota!!: Just kidding. Moving on...

He can beat anything! (almost): During the Waaagh, Ghazghkull has a 2+ invul. So 2+ Invul. Sv.: ON Demand!. He also has T5 , 7 X S10 Attacks on the charge and eternal warrior. This simply mean he can go toe-to-toe with anything( besides a C'tan ) and come out on top. Which, leads me to my next point.....

It's a nasty universe out there: I'm sure after playing a few Space Wolfs, Blood Angels, or Tyranids a beginning Ork player has asked themselves, " I thought orks liked assault? Why do I keep getting my butt handed to me then." The truth is there are many things in the 40k universe, that no ork( save Thrakka ) wants any part of in Hand to hand. To prove my point, here's a short list of them:

                                         Abbaddon

                                         Skarbrand

                                         Blood Letters

                                         Grey Night Termies

                                         C'tan

                                         Ghazghkull

                                         Shrike

                                         Lightning Claw Termies

                                         Well-tooled Vanguard squad.

                                         Calgar

                                         Lysander

                                         Ragnar

                                         Thunderwolf Cav

                                         Swarmlord

                                         Deathstar Hive Tyrant squad.

#1 Reason, CUZ IT"S ORKY!!!: The simple fact is that you didn't start playing orks so that you could dance around the field, avoiding loses, and minimizing damage done by the above mentioned units, picking your targets, and striking when the moment is right.  You started playing orks, cuz you wanted to run greenskins around like a biligerent mob of angry drunk dudes who's momma just got insulted. You wanted to see them grit and grunt, and be fairly certain that they were gonna krump some skulls. You can't play them like that if your opponent has a unit that can mow through any unit in your army, and your trying to avoid them the entire game. Running Ghazghkull into your opponent's nastiness allows the rest of your army the freedom to stomp around and destroy everything else. Ghazghkull gives you the freedom to play orks the way they was meant to be play: GOOD N' PROPA'!!!

Tournament Results: A learning experience

                            I love going down to Dicehead Games for two reasons. One, the players there are really cool guys. Second, the caliber of gamers that you play is top notch. When I loose a game down there, I see what I did wrong in a big way. I can see what I did and learn to change how I play. So, as I tell you how  me and The Griz did in the tournament, The main theme will be "What I did wrong," and "What I should have done..."

Note: I am assuming if your reading this, that you read my previous post with our army lists in them. I suggest you read if before you continue on.

GAME 1: Orks and Blood Angels vs. Orks and Chaos Marines
            The first game was a pretty easy win for us. The guys were new to the game. I think they said they both had been playing for about six months. They were great guys and it was a very enjoyable game. The mission was Seize ground, Dawn of War. Like most new Ork/ Chaos players, they assume the best thing you can possibly do is get as close to the enemy as possible. They went first and  put a approx 30 man boyz squad and 10 Bezerkers with a Khorne Termy Lord in it on the middle of the field. We had everything come in on Turn 1. They ran every thing up. We assaulted there stuff on turn one. At the end of the day we were able to get the charge on every assault, which for ork and blood angels usually equals a win.

GAME 2: Orks and Blood Angels vs. Dark Eldar and Tyranids
               Our opponent luck ran out after the first game. The next two games were against two of the best teams at the tournament. This was a really well built list. basically there were 3 or 4  Large Genestealer squads all with Broodlords, and the Dark Eldar vehicles had the grenade launchers on them. The point was to get all this cumulative -1 Leadership stuff up in your grill, then drop in the Doom of Malantia and just wreak havoc. The Mission was Modified Kill Points, Pitched Battle. I seriously think we would have had a chance here, if it wasn't for bad rolls. The Griz loves to put his storm raven in reserve. It allows him to move flat out when it moves on, giving him the 4+ save and preventing it from getting shot down in his deployment zone. Sadly though, when you put a Stormraven, 10 Death company, a Master Reclusiarch, and a Death company dread on a single reserve roll, It was bound to happen eventually, and this game it did. He failed every. single. roll and it automatically came in on turn 5. Needless to say my orks were 'stealer chow by this point.
             "What we did wrong...." letting The Griz roll his own reserves. My Grots came in on turn 3. Just sayin'
              "What we should have done..." Hindsight's 20-20. And if the Raven would have come in we would be having an entirely different conversation. But it is safe to say, that against this opponent, getting shot down in our deployment zone wouldn't have been so bad if we could have kept the lootas alive to shoot down raiders. I guess in a KP mission mobility is not as much as an issue if you have fire power. It would have been best.

GAME 3: Orks and Blood Angels vs. Black Templar and Dark Eldar.
               We played our third game against two gamers we are very familiar with. I don't like using people names on blogs without their permission so we will  will refer to them as Sea and Youyou.  Sea and Youyou have given me more whoopin's than my momma has. The Griz and I played them second round in the last team tourney we went to. On turn 3 when the painting judge got to our table, he had to ask us what armies we were playing, cuz they weren't on the board anymore! Last singles tournament at The Barn, I and Sea played on the "final table" and he beat me to win the tourney...with Necrons!
                   Anyhow, I am happy to report that we have improved. At the end of the game we had a single Ork Loota on the board!!! YEAH IMPROVEMENT!!

"What We did wrong..."  We put everything on the board during deployment. I also did a horrible job ad judging their army. I thought it was gonna be assault oriented just because it had BT in it. What I didn't realize is that due to the new FAQ they can be shooty as hell, not to mention all of the DE 12 poison shots on each of about 5 venoms. So it was a desert table, we were going second, and staring at a incredibly powerful shooting army, and what do I do? Because of the last game, I put every single model on the board. For them, it was like a turkey shoot. Looking back, I really see how I played like a complete and utter noob. After one loss, I completely shut my brain off and didn't play to the level I am capable of .

"What We should have done.." Reserve EVERYTHING!. The game was Capture and control, Spearhead. Reserving everything would have robbed them of 2 rounds of shooting. Then we could have brought everything on the far left of our long board edge, shortening our drive. Instead of try to hold our objective, we would have put the lootas within range of it and let them shoot everything off of it, then making an all or nothing play for theirs.

THE BIG MISTAKE:  DEPLOYMENT:Griz and I have got to learn to read other people's list in order to discover what their play is. We are both very visual people and tend to dismiss our opponents list and assume we will figure it out once it hits the table. In fifth edition, deployment is one of the major tactical aspects of the game, and if you don't deploy correctly, it will loose you games, like it did for us.

CONCLUSION. The guys we played second round went to the "final table" were they won their game but only got 4 battle points. See and Youyou got 16 off of us and hence won the tournament.

Welcome! and About Me: Extended Edition

                                  Welcome, one and all, to Tainted by Xenos. Tainted by Xenos will be a blog focused on the alien races of the  40k universe, and just generally anything I feel like talking about. First off, I would like to say that I am not a self-proclaimed expert on anything, and as with anything, you should judge my advice, tips, and opinions with your own judgments. Please feel free to post any questions, comments, or criticisms. If you have any ideas or articles you would like to see please let me know.
              Today's post happened by accident. I was writing the "About me" page and got a tad long winded and basically told a history of almost my entire war gaming past. Sadly my long rant will not fit on the "About Me" page. Since I'm not one to throw stuff away, I decided to  post it here. It is a tad long winded and  if you are not interested in such things I suggest you stop reading here and, once again, welcome to Tainted by Xenos. If you are interested please continue.....

As you could guess, My name is Steven, but everyone calls me Stevo. I am 24 years old and live in Tennessee USA. I have been married for 3 1/2 years to my beautiful wife, Kathleen a.k.a "The Wiff" She has always been very supportive of my hobby, though I have never been able to get her hooked on it in the last 6 1/2 years of trying, but hey, there is still hope ;)
I started playing 40k around 3rd edition.I was brought into the hobby as a young kid by my long time friend and fellow blogger, The Griz. His blog address is ifitwearspowerarmor.blogspot.com. Check it out if you get a chance.
      The first army I ever considered playing was Tau, mostly because they were new and that just happened to be the issue of white dwarf I picked up first.  That is, until I visited the website and saw the necrons. I have always liked my Sci-fi a little on the dark side and the necrons were a perfect fit for me. Evil robotic space zombie skeleton warriors with self repair abilites? Yes, please!
    I continued playing necrons for many years, all through 3rd, 4th, and even into 5th ed. My gaming group consisted mostly of me, the Griz, and my now brother-in-law, K-berg.(Yes, I did marry my best friends little sister. Don't judge me! She is hot!) The Griz played Ultramarines and K-berg played Tau. I would also say that I was the one who got our gaming group into the tournament scene. Playing Necrons, I had much success. I thought this warhammer thing was easy. I remember how many people said my army was overpowered. I just shrugged it off as people being sore losers. It wasn't till later in 5th edition I saw how powerful they really were. I guess you don't truly appreciate something until its gone.
      Midway through 4th edition, i caught the green fever and bought my first orks. I didn't buy to much. Just some boyz and a looted bassie. I don't know if ya'll remember how the rumor mill work back then, but about that time ork, DE, and spacewolves were gonna get a codex any month now. I even built trukks out of legos. A year and a half later, im still using this crap, playing speed freeks. I don't know if any of you played speed freeks in 4th ed. so let me explain it to you. Trukk blows up, wounding everything inside on a 4+: the unit deploys just outside the crater it just made, meaning no cover save: the unit is autopinned due to the entangled special rule. Needless to say, K-berg brutally, mercilessly slaughtered my orks, always. It was sad times. But then the new codex came out, and gave me new models, new rules, and more importantly, a chance to win. I was so happy. I was like, "wow now I have two unstoppable armies". Alas it was not so.
      Six months later they came out with 5th ed. I was very happy with it. My orks got even better. A month after its release, there was a big tournament at DiceHead Games in Clevland TN. The orks were not near painted, so I brought the 'crons. Up until that point, I had never phased out in tournament play, and rarely had a losing record. I lost all three games that day, and phased twice, once on turn 3. I had always played a very defensive necron list and that day I learned the hard way what had become of my beloved 'crons.
        Since that day, my orks have been my primary army. It took me roughly 2.5 years to paint and get right, but I finally have my ork army where I am happy with it. I have had lots of success with them, but not near the success I had with my necrons.
      I got married, just before the orks got their new codex. We moved to Cookeville TN to attend TTU. As fate would have it the Griz and K-berg did the same. We found a link on GW's website for a local gaming club. We emailed them and that is how we met up with good ol' Dan. Dan is older guy is his late 30's. Turns out the gaming club met in a shed in his back yard. That shed had one, 8'X4' table in it and got really crammed with it and about 6 guys in it. Dan was a very welcoming, friendly guy, but above all, Dan had a dream. His dream was to build a huge place, with room for plenty of tables and terrain so that many people could come and play 40k and experience the hobby. I thought that was alot of time and financial responsibility for one guy to take on himself, but if he was willing to do it, I was willing to help and so was everyone else in the club. After years of work, Dan finally completed his Dream. Dan completed and opened the Cookeville Battle Barn last summer. Since then, the Barn has hosted many tournaments were people from all over Tennessee have come to play and have fun, as well as been open weekly on Saturdays for open gaming. For more info on the Battle Barn you can visit their website: www.cookevillebattlebarn.com

     The Dark Eldar Codex was release approximately 3 months ago. I have always like the fluff and idea of Dark Eldar, but the models were so butt-ugly I never wanted to play them. With the new models and rules, and with my ork army being complete, I decided it was now time to start my Dark eldar army and solidify myself as "The Xenos Guy"