Lot's of stuff happened during the holidays. One thing which I particularly enjoyed was my first game of Warhammer 40k in a long old time. Two years I'd venture. So getting back behind the rulebooks was good fun. Before I begin, for those of you unfamiliar with warhammer, it's a tabletop game, where you collect,assemble and paint miniature figures and battle whoever else is insane/loaded enough to play. I play with longtime buddy, Neil, who tends to be the only person I ever play Warhammer with. 
The problem with playing with Neil is, I'm a terrible painter and he is not. It's not that I don't try it's more it's more that I don't try enough. Put simply my models are atrociously painted and maintained. Neil's on the other hand, tend to be simply amazing. It's terribly embarrassing, especially since Neil enjoys nothing more than pointing out my shitness. But I got over the taunting and we got stuck into the battle! Neil plays Imperial Guard; Cadian. He has 3 tanks with ordinance, a squad of shock troopers (his elite troops), a command squad, a Sentinel and some troops. I play Space Marines; Black Templar. I have two squads with heavy weapons, 2 squads with assault weapons for close combat, an emperor's champion, a tooled up Chaplain, Assault Marines and 3 bikes. The points limit is 1200, there is no scenery because we couldn't find any.
Now, the first problem we faced was a complete lack of rulebooks. I had my Black Templars Codex. Neil however, did not have his codex or the rulebook. Thanks to the internet and it's amazing ability to plagiarise. we got around the lack of codex, but the lack of a rulebook posed issues at many stages in the battle. Mainly because we couldn't remember some of them. Anyway once we were all set up, we rolled for first move.
I got a one. Neil got a five... Typical. So Neil's three tanks, each with one ordinance blast, capable of mulching several of my marines each, took their shots. However, the three tanks were pretty unlucky with their shots and all of them scattered. Even so, I lost two assault marines and a member of my lascannon tactical squad to their fire. My assault marines pushed onwards to avenge their fallen comrades, but my tactical squad fled backwards, which brought them to the table edge. After a big argument between myself and Neil, they stayed and regrouped.
My turn went no better, with my troops running forward to try and reach the front lines of Neil's Imperial Guards. My bikes boosted 24" to Neil's front lines. This was a bad idea. So here's what we were looking at the end of turn one.
Turns 2 and 3 saw Neil destroy all 3 of my bikes, most of a squad of Templars, my entire squad of assault marines and wounding my chaplain. I missed 3 times with my missile launcher and lascannon, and the tanks continued to pound away. The situation wasn't looking good.
That is of course, until I reached Neil's front lines circa round 4. What remained of my templars crashed into Neil's storm troopers, slaughtering several of them. My Chaplain accompanied them, making them an even more deadly target. Funnier still, was when my Emperor's champion arrived at Neil's commanders' door. My champion has this funny knack of not dying, but Neil's command unit seemed equally determined to not go away.
Turn 4 also say one of Neil's tanks finally biting the dust, which was nice.
Turn 5 and 6 became less of a battle and more of a "How many can I kill before the game ends to try and save some face." The answer was quite a lot. Neil lost a good proportion of his troops, and one of his tanks were immobilised So many in fact that in the end I managed to scrape a points victory! However it wasn't enough to be official, so it ended a draw. Yay!
I love Warhammer. It's just fun. Plain, unadulterated fun. There's a great element of strategy, but then, you can roll that 1 at exactly the time you DO NOT need to and it can turn your plans on their head! What a game. Thanks to Neil for putting up with the constant photo taking!
Til next time...
APPENDIX: People rolling their eyes and refusing to try Warhamer is just a bit snobbish. Most people enjoy Warhammer when they do finally give it a go. If you know a place near by you that sells it, you should go in and ask for a demo, they'll probably be only too happy to show you the ropes!
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