40K Again

We finally got around to playing a game of 40K with my friend Aaron and his boys. They are the entire reason my kids ended up starting to build 40K armies and what inspired me to finish up my Imperial Guard (well… ONE of my Imperial Guard forces…). I’d had 40K stuff before… and the kids had one or two miniatures (things we’d planned to use for other games or the 40K RPGs – like Only War  or Rogue Trader), but it wasn’t until we’d heard they’d bought into it and were planning to play that we got going on our stuff. In the last year The Boy has cranked out just over 900 points worth of Orks. The Girl is working away at her Eldar – but she has so many other things she’s working on, it’s hard to stay focused. Mind you, they’re ELDAR and she’s started with her Elites, so she could field half as many points as the boy with two characters and a unit of Howling Banshees…

The Boy took along all his Orks and the Girl took all her Eldar (plus my old Harlequins – that I painted 25 years ago!). I took a pile of Imperial Guard and figured I’d sort out what I could field once we got there.

The original plan was to have everyone field whatever they had and I would make up for difference on our side with my Imperial Guard (Aaron has a few Ultramarines, his boys have Chaoe and Tyranids… Yes, I know, Tyranids don’t ally with anyone – we’re ALL food to the Tyranids… but I figured maybe the Orks caught a few they were using as “pets”..). When we got to their place we found one of his boys had taken ALL of their codexes to school… and left them there!? So we had NO IDEA what any of their stats or rules or points were… so we just ended up playing with what me and the kidz brought – which was okay because The Boy had lots of Orks and I had lots of Imperial Guard and so everyone got a few units to play with.

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Setting up. The Boy and one of Aaron’s set up his Orks on one side of the table. I took the Imperial Guard Company commande

The Boy and one of Aaron’s set up his Orks on one side of the table. I think they had five or six units of Boyz (mostly with sluggas and choppas and one units with shootas), some MegaNobz, some Lootas and Burnas, a Weird Boy, a Warboss and a buggy.

On our side I took eht Imprial Guard Copmpany command team. Amanda and one of Aaron’s boyz each took a Platoon Command and two Guard Squads, Aaron took my unit of Ratlind Snipers.

The Girl had her Farseer, a unit of five Howling Banshees, and a few of my old Harlequins.

It was a smallish table and ended up pretty packed with stuff!

We ended up only playing through two turns as there was a  LOT of explaining of how the game is played – though one of Aaron’s boyz had clearly read ALL of the fluff in the Tyranid codex – they were completely ignorant of the actual rules of the game…

Guard and Orks! The Guard went first and moved a bit to get in range and then started blowing away orks. After the first turn I tried to convince them all to stay put and just shoot at the orks as they approached as they would likely mess up in close combat…

Every single unit and every single weapon has it’s own special rule that we needed to keep looking up… Hopefully by the end of it everyone had a GENERAL sense of how the game is played and were sufficiently motivated to getting back to painting their miniatures!

Aaron’s ratling sniper took out a few Orks…

On the Orks second turn the Weird Boy teleported the unit he was accompanying BEHIND the guard lins and shot up one of the squads pretty good! That was a fun moment – unfortunately we had to call the game as it was getting late so they weren’t really able to take advantage of this.

Buggy rolled into the swamp and got totally bogged down.

It was a little frightening seeing that swarm of orks tearing across the table and not being able to take out nearly enough of them!

Over on the other end of the table, The Girl’s Eldar had rushed into close combat with the Orks and the Howling Banshees were wiped out! The Harlequins held their own… Sort of… Two were shot down by the Orks shooting before they entered close combat. When they did the Harlequins killed a few Orks  - but that wasn’t nearly enough. The Orks then caused three wounds – but amazingly the harlequns saved two of them. So the harlequins won the round of close combat and the Orks fled – the harlequins almost wiped them out in a pursuit – missed catching them be 1”…

I think overall The Girl was a bit disappointed with the performance of her Eldar, but I pointed out that the Eldar units seem to be pretty specific in what they do and need to be used in coordination with other Eldar units – the Guardian defender may be boring – but they might give her force a base of fire that could weaken the orks enough that when her howling banshees DO charge in they can just mop up what’s left… I’m pretty sure her Farseer could have been used far more effectively… but she had no idea how to use it and nor did I (as I currently have no psykers in my Guard force I had little idea how they work at all, let alone how to best use an Eldar Farseer).

I think everyone had some fun. Hopefully the next game will go quicker. Hopefully it will have inspired them to get back to painting (I refuse to play with OR AGAINST unfinished figures!) and maybe reading the rules (in addition to the fluff!). 40K isn’t my favourite miniature wargame – not even in the top 20… but it was fun enough and I’ll play it again – especially with these guys!

I hope I can get them playing some historical games some time... maybe Bolt Action...? 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Finished up another battalion of Great War Canadians – I should have them posted shortly.