Knowing is Half the Battle!!! Part 1 of 4: Know ThyRules!!!

Wow. Sorry for the long dead period. To make a long story short: Mid-terms, Spring Break, Last-minute 13.5 hour drive to Naples, FL, Second degree sunburn, PC burned out, Now have crappy rent-a-mac from School that won't play flash:( , It's a Mac! :'''''( , joined and helped start Unbroken Gaming Club, currently handling t-shirt orders, car is leaking oil, won the Bash at the Barn tournament with my Orks( Waaagh!!!), just pledged to finish 2000pts of DE in 2 months, taxes and fafsa still not done, and i still need a job!!! Anyhow back to the action.

Today I want to start a 4 part series based on what I think is a major reason people do badly in competive play. Most people are pretty competent individuals. So why do some people constantly win top tournements, while other, equally competent players never seem to hit their stride. The answer: MISTAKES!!! How do we prevent ourselves from making mistakes? By become Knowlegable about the game we play. There are many different aspects to this. Today we will cover the first aspect. Know ThyRules!!!

Know the basic rules: This is one of those things you shouldn't think you would have to mention, but it is often overlooked, especially with "veteran" gamers. Many so-called vets fail to really learn the new rules after a new edition releases and often confuse rules between editions.  Do you remember the first time you played a game of chess and someone castled their king? How about taking a pawn en passant?

The Wookie let's Chuck Norris win.

A player must ask himself, 'How do I expect to master a game I do not know the rules of?'
When my brother-in-law first started playing, he lost alot.  He has always played his tau really well, but his tactics are very min-maxed. He would always try some caculated gamble only to realize too late that the rule didn't work quite like he thought. This would often result in a game losing failure. Being knowlegable about the rules is the only way to make tatical desicions on the fly and come out on top.

"What do you mean,  'The popular vote doesn't count'"

Examples: Do you still have to make last man standing checks? What happens if a squads transport is destroyed and they can't disembark out of the exit points? If a squad deep strikes into a multi-floored ruin, where is it placed? Can a vehicle drive through a ruin? Do jump infantry squads take dangerous terrian tests when leaving difficult terrain. How fast is cruising speed? Can you make saves off dangerous terrian tests. Can fearless models fail leadership tests?  I think you got the hint. If you don't know any of the above questions, look them up. One of the biggest weaknesses most players have is that they would rather ask 'that rules guy' or post a rules question on a forum instead of looking it up. Sadly, " That's what it said on Warseer" doesn't hold up well in a rules argument at a tournament. Don't be afraid to crack open the BBOR. You might learn something. Another way to familiarize yourself with the rules is to surf online rules forums for other peoples rules questions.

That's it for now. What are some ways you find to keep up-to-date and fresh on the rules? Tune in next time for Part 2: Know Thyself!!!

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.