I was perusing (okay, who am I kidding, I read it voraciously!) my copy of White Dwarf 298(US) today and I was reading the Battle Report between the Ultramarines and the Orks. As I read through, I noticed a number of things that I would have done differently for each of the players. As the number of differences began to grow, it occurred to me that you all might be interested in hearing my commentary. Admittedly, I don't necessarily always follow my own advice, and some of these comments came to me after reading the report, which gives the benefit of hindsight. Interestingly, while it was a fairly close game, I feel that each side had opportunities to make a large margin of victory for themselves, but they squandered these opportunities.

Please note that this will make much more sense if you have read the report, or can reference it as I go through. I'm not going to give a play-by-play account here, since they do that just fine in White Dwarf. I just have some comments and critiques about army selection and tactics during the game. That said, I am going to tell you who won and who lost and why, so if you want to be surprised, go read it first, I'll wait...

...Okay, Welcome back. For purposes of coherency, I'll split my commentary up into three sections, Army Selection, Deployment and Tactics. I'll also be separating my comments for the Space Marine Player and for the Ork player.

Army Selection: Orks. There's not a whole lot to say here. I like having lots of bodies, and Pete did take a lot. I do feel that more Slugga Boyz would have been useful, and I would have dropped some Skarboyz or Tankbustaz (not all of them, just half) to fit some more in. The more, the merrier or something like that. Not only is a Slugga Boy a terror in close combat (4 attacks on the charge, cutting saves to no better than 4+) but with the new rules about how many get their full attacks, these Ladz can get a sick number of attacks in combat! In addition to their combat prowess, they are fairly inexpensive as well, meaning that you'll get a few more bodies than you would with the Tankbustaz and Skarboyz you'd be replacing. Of course, since Pete wanted to fit this army into a single GW case, he's limited to 108 models, unless you get creative with your storage. All in all, it wasn't a bad list, but a few more bodies would have helped.

Army Selection: Space Marines. Here I have a bit more to say. Graham starts out by saying that he resolved to take as many Marines in Power Armor as he could, while still including plenty of shiny new things. He then takes two big Tac squads and a bunch of smaller, more expensive squads. (Command Squad, Devastator Squad, Assault Squad, for example.) Compounding this, he also takes a couple of vehicles and a Techmarine with Servitors and an expensive Librarian. Now, I realize that this is supposed to be the first battle report with all the new bells and whistles for the Space Marines and they want to show off some of the changes here. I'm okay with that. The thing is, some things haven't changed much and their inclusion in this list limited the number of Marines Graham could take.

Assault squads haven't really changed, so drop them. Same with Devastators, leave them behind as well. While I know Graham just wanted more firepower from the latter and more assault power from the former, that 315pts could have bought him a lot more of the boys in blue, with all those move and shoot rapid-firey-goodness Bolters, as well as extra bodies and attacks if it came to an assault. While I don't think the Techmarine was a particularly effective choice, they have been redone and their Servitors are something new (and give some good firepower as well) so they can stay. The Command squad, while very pricey, has also been redone and needs to be showcased, so that's a fine pick as well. The Dreadnaught is a perfect choice to take on Orks, and the Whirlwind is a great idea as well. I'm not thrilled by the Landspeeder for this game, but assuming that they did not know their scenario ahead of time, they are usually pretty useful. The points saved could have bought two full Tactical squads of Marines, or one and some extra bodies and bells and whistles here and there. I'd back up the Command squad with a Tac squad with a close combat veteran sergeant, in lieu of the Assault marines I suggested dumping, and I'd put the extra Tac squad in the line to take the Devastators position.

Deployment: Orks.Note: I will make notes here and in the Tactics section based on the actual forces used in the Battle Report, as it gets just too different otherwise. The Orks had to deploy to cover all their bases, since the Space Marines could come in on either or both sides. If Pete had stacked one side too heavily, it might have caused Graham to take the other side, so the Orks would have to walk further. There are two possible options that Pete could have used, but did not. The first is what I just mentioned, making it look like he was stacking one side (the side with less cover) a bit, to try to induce Graham to use the other side, which would not have offered as much in the way of good fire lanes. The other option would be to spread some of those mobz across his deployment zone in relatively narrow bands PERPENDICULAR to the Space Marines deployment zones. (IE: take a mob of 15 and spread them out two wide as far across the deployment zone as possible. This gives you a front of several units that can go in either direction, which would be useful for this scenario. In addition, by having several narrow mobz next to each other, you can take casualties from the back without losing any ground. Of course, you would have to modify this to take advantage of those Kustom Force Fields, but that should be doable. Note that these are not huge issues, by any means, I'm just detailing a few options that might have given a little more of an advantage.

Deployment: Space Marines. There's really not much to fault here. The side chosen was definitely better, as the other side was blocked by too many trees at the board edge. On the clearer side, I would have wanted the Devastators a little further back, so the Orks would have to pass LD tests on the first turn to shoot at them. In addition, parking a Tactical squad behind a forest and the Dreadnaught loses you a bunch of firepower as well. As the second group came on, the Whirlwind is in a pretty good place. It's hard to say, but the opposite corner (where the Landspeeder came on) might be better. Even though it wouldn't have any cover, it would be well away from the Orks, who would have to go away from the main line to get in range with their Rokkits. Too, I think the Assault squad would have been better placed near the Command squad, since they are both going to be headed into combat and can support each other well. Due to some odd movement choices for the Orks, this didn't end up being a problem, but it could have been. In addition, this would put the Assault squad in cover from most of the Ork shooting, leaving more of them to hit in the assault.

Tactics: Orks. While I felt that Pete had pretty good Selection and fair Deployment, I was not impressed with his tactics in this game. The first big issue is hiding units and not moving them. It's fine to use cover, but you just can't afford to leave a bunch of close combat troops hanging around in cover unless they've got extra fast movement. There was a squad of Tankbustaz hidden in a bunker for two whole turns and that mob of Shootaz hung around inside the cover of trees for three turns before being gunned down. Had he moved these units forward, he might have taken some more casualties. He might also have gotten into the main Space Marine line with his Orks, instead of being just out of reach, which brings me to my other observation. He let his army get distracted and pile in on the Librarian instead of going after the main lines. Yes, the Librarian should have died, but it looks like the rearmost unit of Burnaz could have piled in there and put those Burnaz to good use while all the Skarboyz headed for the main lines. This would have let the Burnaz actually get into the game and would have given him a lot more movement and shooting toward the Space Marines. Instead, he kept the Burnaz out of the fight and stuck at least 24 Orks into a combat that didn't need them and prevented them from getting to the enemy lines.

Tactics: Space Marines. Graham played his Space Marines pretty solidly, I think. He established a good firebase and let rip, then when the Orks got close, he assaulted to take some of the pressure off of his lines. He should have, however, advanced the Dreadnaught forward to get it into the Mobz. As Pete had very little to damage it, this would have been a great move to keep them off the Ultramarine line. The Tactical squads should have also used the new Rapid Fire rules to move up and fire twice into the lead mobz. With two squads firing, that should take down about 16 Orks just between those two, then additional squads can mow down the ones further back. This mostly would have come up at the end of this game, but would have secured more victory points for Graham. Finally, don't target mobz in cover with your Whirlwind. Hit the guys out in the open. There was a large squad of Skarboyz clustered just as closely together right next to the Tankbustaz in the bunker.

Wrapup: So, while I felt Graham was hobbled by his Selection and slightly hindered by his Deployment, Pete's tactical errors (just barely) lost him the game. Sure, if Tigurius had fallen more quickly, his forces might have reached the Ultramarine lines anyway, but he could have had both the Librarian AND the main lines if he hadn't squandered movement and taken some of his own forces out of the fight.

Lessons to be learned: More bodies is good, less bodies is bad. Give yourself good fields of fire and make use of the assets you have (like advancing the Dreadnaught, for example.) Use your movement to close with the enemy (if you are close combat based, of course) and don't let too much of your army get distracted from the main goal.

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