My first game vs. the 'new guy'.

So we've got 2 new players that have been coming to the shop here of late, and I got to play one of them this past Saturday. So Dillon (the new guy) had 610pts total, and on hearing that the week before it occurred to me with a point limit that low, I could drag my gutted collection of CSMs out of storage for a game! Knowing that he's inexperienced and what he has in advance creates the problem of coming up with something competitive without handing him a soft list in which I'm all but letting him win. That was another reason for choosing my CSMs, as I have so few of them, I'm sorely limited as well.

I had:

HQ: Sorcerer with doom bolt

Troops: 7 man CSM squad with Power Weapon
6 man CSM squad with plasma Gun & Powerfist

Elite: Dreadnought with extra armor, twin-heavy bolter & Heavy Flamer

Hvy: 5 man Havocs with 1 ML

vs:

AoBR's ork contingent with an added Trukk & 5 Lootas.

Capture & control (I think, I can never remember, it was the mission where you each have 1 objective to capture & defend), Dawn of War deployment. He won the roll & deployed one mob with the warboss dead center & as far forward with the 2nd mob in the trukk aside them. I deployed the 7 man CSM squad on my objective (both of which were in opposite corners as is usual), & the Sorcerer & 6 man squad on my right.

Turn 1, I stole the initiative and in general just advanced. The sq. of 7 moved forward of the objective into some trees and away from my table edge, the dread hit the table, heard something in the darkness & blood raged forward into the night on my left flank. The havocs moved on into my center, the remaining CSMs & Sorerer advanced up on the right towards his objective. The orks, in true Orky fashion moved straight towards my objective, the Lootas moved into a decent firing position while the nobs moved in to cover their objective. The Trukk went 13" straight for my squad on the right his boys disembarked & opened fire (missing completely) swinging the wrecking ball also to no avail & then charged. Die rolling was pretty lousy all around with 2 wounds a piece & a tie combat.

The then the dark gods said 'Let there be light', and there was light, and it was good! The whole split second switch (as the turn ends) from darkness to daylight always strikes me as odd, but that's chaos for ya.

Turn 2, With my right locked in combat, the Dread & CSMs on the left opened up on the rapidly approaching Orks, killing all but 2 & the WB, not wanting the potential of them to drag the WB off the table the havocs fired (krak missile first so a scrub would take it) finishing off the mob & wounding the WB (He didn't give the WB eavy armor or a cybork body, to which I suggested that he never do that again!) Luckily the WB passed his LD. At this point I was afraid that I was murdering the new guy, which can be quite discouraging for the both of us, luckily though fate intervened and my dice rolling tanked. For the rest of the game. The lootas opened fire at the Dread, but inflicting no damage, the trukk sat & watched (if it fired it didn't connect, not sure exactly) as I lost 2 marines in HTH for no Ork losses, of course when rolling all 1s & 2s, I didn't run away. The WB chose (@ my suggestion) to use his WAAAUGH to get into combat with the CSMs (after explaining why he shouldn't charge the closer dread, which he was about to do) meanwhile the lootas continued to annoy the dread, though not cause it any harm. Charging in with his Power claw, the CSMs & WB were dismal all around with 1 wound a piece, while my CSMs on the right finally broke the Orks & ran them down.

Turn 3, The Dread, disgusted with getting shot determined that it was the Havocs that were causing all of his problems & summarily killed one while expending lots of ammo. The Sorcerer & 2 remaining marines advanced passed the trukk, fired a few shots @ it & missed. The Havocs distracted by the dread managed to not hit anything either. Nothing of interest happened in HTH. The Deff Koptas arrived on turn three right into my backfield, while the trukk tank shocked my CSMs on the right who simply stepped aside.
Amused by the dread shooting @ me, the deff Koptas ignored it & charged into HTH, adding a whole lot of more bad dice rolls. I lost a few more CSMs, but they held.

Turn 4 the Sorcerer split off from the 2 CSMs on the to go for the Lootas while they survivors ran towards the Nobs. The Havocs unloaded on the approaching trukk missing with the missile and not hitting anything important with the bolters. The Dread blood raged into HTH rolling 4 '2s', although the CSMs finished off the WB & wounded a Kopta breaking & running them down. The ork trukk meanwhile tank shocked & broke the havocs sending them off the table, while the lootas switched to the CSMs, killing one.

Turn 5 the dread opened fire on the Trukk immobilizing it, The Sorcerer doom bolted and rolling a snake eyes to wound the lootas & the 2 CSMs closed to shooting range of the nobs, though not hitting. The Dread then charged & destroyed the trukk. Having no forward units left, the Lootas continued shooting the CSMs on my objective cutting them down to 2, while the nobs shot @ my other 2 CSMs to no effect.

Contnuing into turn 6, the Dread blood raged forward again while Sorcerer turned towards the Nobs & killed some foliage that seemed to have caught his attention. The 2 advancing CSMs fired into the air before charging the nobs & dying to a man for no positivie effect. The lootas in turn fired @ my 2 remaining CSMs on my objective killing 1. The lone survivor passed his LD test, and with the next roll being a 1, the game ended in a tie.


So in the end it was a close fought game. I made a few suggestions for tooling up his WB, and he bought a box of boys to add some numbers to his army. Normally I'd be mad as hell with the dice rolling so horribly, but this turned out to be one of those rare occasions in which it worked out nicely by balancing out the vast difference in experience levels.