Next Tournament - 1850

In a few weeks I'll be heading back up to Battleground Games in Plainville, MA to play in another tournament, and I'm excited to see how my Orks fare. I learned some lessons the last time I was there, and feel like I can do dramatically better this time around. Let's dig into how I'm going to make that happen...

I think I can improve in these areas:

• List Design
• Tactics
• Organization
• Painting & Modeling

List Design
The last tournament there was a 1750 point event, but my list was really designed for 1850 - to shave 100 points I lost some boyz, vehicle upgrades, and 2 warbikers. The boyz and upgrades didn't really affect much, but I really could have used the extra warbikers. This event will be 1850, so back come the boyz, planks, and bikes!

Here's the army I plan on bringing:

HQ: Warboss - power klaw, slugga, cybork, attack squig, bosspole
HQ: Big Mek - kustom force field
Elite: Burnas x8
Elite: Lootas x5
Elite: Lootas x5
Troops: Gretchin x10, Runtherd
Troops: Meganobz - x3, kombi-scorcha, kombi-rokkit, twin-linked shoota
    w/ Trukk - rokkit launcha, reinforced ram
Troops: Boyz x12 - sluggas, choppas
     w/ Nob - power klaw, slugga, bosspole
     w/ Trukk - rokkit launcha, reinforced ram
Troops: Boyz x12 - sluggas, choppas
     w/ Nob - power klaw, slugga, bosspole
     w/ Trukk - rokkit launcha, reinforced ram
Troops: Boyz x19 - shootas
    w/ Nob - power klaw, slugga, bosspole
Troops: Boyz x19 - shootas
    w/ Nob - power klaw, slugga, bosspole
Fast: Deffkopta - twin-linked rokkits, buzzsaw
Fast: Warbikers x5 - twinlinked deffguns, sluggas, choppas
    w/ Nob - power klaw, slugga, bosspole
Heavy: Battlewagon - deffrolla, big shoota, boarding plank, grot rigger
Heavy: Battlewagon - deffrolla, big shoota, boarding plank
Heavy: Looted Wagon - big shoota

That's 1847 points of awesome. I know that warbikers aren't loved by the netlist cognoscenti, but I love them. Sure, warbuggies with rokkits would be nice, but (a) I don't have the models and (b) the bikes are a ton of fun to use and have actually performed well for me.

Tactics
I don't have any specific plans, but I do know that I focused too hard on the primary mission objectives during my games. As a one-day tournament based on mission points rather than win/loss, I need to remember that simply winning the primary isn't enough and I need to always consider the secondary and tertiary. I threw away points last time by focusing strictly on the primary objective, and I must not do that again.

Organization
I brought my army to the last tournament in their home storage system, trays of Battlefoam stacked into carboard legal boxes. While great for the car ride, this was a poor system for carrying the models from table to table, and for storing casualties as they occured. I need to cobble together a system better suited for actively pulling models out and putting them back without resorting to me shuffling big trays of foam.

My plan is to have one main tray with my deployable stuff like vehicles and Lootas. All of the embarked passengers can stay in their foam trays, since they won't be deployed onto the table until they disembark. The main tray should be marked with "parking spots" so that I know where everything goes.

Painting & Modeling
Obviously I'll touch everything up to make sure I'm happy with the basic level of everyone's appearance. To improve my painting score I'll add a couple of conversions (adding the attack squig to the Warboss, for example) and most importantly, build a display board.

The display board will be essentially be a piece of terrain with slots for my guys. Painted like my models are based, it should tie all everything together into one cohesive image and add several points to my score while taking only a modicum of time and effort.


So, that's my plan. The tournament is on 3/24, giving me a few weeks to get everything in order.