40K...What is THAT?

...or maybe an alternate title could be: some pictures of some of the rules that Mike made up for me...

So, I had the chance to hang out with Mike and Serge last week and all that I knew was that there would be some gaming...and I didn't have to bring anything.  When I got to Mike's place, he had laid out a very nice looking table with appropriate scatter terrain...some really nice rocks and trees...suitable for any era of gaming...and on this table were a bunch of brightly coloured figures, for the most part they were brightly painted.

Outside of playing about 10 minutes of demo when Games Workshop still had their stores in Ottawa, my exposure to Warhammer...of any K...had been mostly limited to 'that other section' of the gaming store, "the evil empire", and/or some really great paintjobs of figs in a showcase...all in all, pretty limited.

I have seen individual figures repurposed for Frostgrave...they looked really cool, some great character to the sculpts...and I even have a box of Cadian's and a few snipers in my basement that I had bought because I saw someones force/warband/? done up as a battlegroup of Afghanistan mission Canadians, complete with scratchbuilt Lav's!! It was inspiring...

So, I really have no preconceptions...I have no expectations...and I have no previous frame of Warhammery reference (outside of Legends of the Old West)...I got to throw a LOT of dice; Mike had a great mix of old-school and new figures; the table looked great; it was an interesting multiplayer scenario...and I got to game.

Oh, if you'd like...here is Mike's version of events...

With that, I present the photos that I took as I learned...what the hell this 40K thing is...enjoy...

My initial setup...I think I have...human type forces...bottom blue group has long range weapons...above them are stealthy type troops with 2 damage eating drones...in the centre, I have my force commander and 5 rapid fire guys (i.e. SMG's...), and to their right, in red hats I have a gaggle of rifle toting grunts (I believe these were my weaker troops)...oh, I also had some heavy duty mech looking types in drop orbit...

 

Serge setup near the centre...he also ended up keeping some troops in orbit, ready to drop at a moments notice...Mike setup his Marines to my left behind a copse of pines, and I think he had troops in orbit as well...

 

Serge drops one of his units behind my right flank...they are close combat stars...

Serge takes my red team down a notch or two...

at the beginning of my turn, I drop my Mech's and their damage eating drones in behind Serge's main force...

weird angle...I move my stealthy's over behind the rock formation...move my range guys a little behind them on the edge.

I put some hurt downrange...my red team fires, my SMG's fire, and my Mech's unleash hell...

Mike drops some Marines on the centre objective...we are all trying to occupy within 6" of the centre, whoever has the most troops at end of turn receives a point...most points by end of turn 5 or 6 wins...Mike also deployed more troops to his left flank to deal with another dropped unit of Serge's.

 

Mike unleashes some battlePigs on my stealthy's and I put some hurt on a 4man team, leaving 2...but I think they healed because of his hardcore medic...

 

My forces initially focus on hurting Serge's mainforce...however once Mike's troops dropped, we kind of tried to get to the centre without causing too much mutual pain...

Again, the battlepigs...

My stealthy's were actually doing a pretty good job of defending from these melee monsters...the medic in his other team is doing a bang-up job and is saving troops...

Mike's commissar goes all badass on one of Serge's units...

 

Re-jig of the battle lines...I fallback with the stealthy's...push with the Mech's...move to link with the Mech's with my SMG's

Serge pushes between my two elements trying to get closer to Mike's pigs...

Serge takes the fight to the centre...knocks out the Marines that were collecting points...and then gets bounced by battlepigs...

I push my Mech's in...unfortunately my angle of attack is a little frigged so I have to attack Serge first...

The endstate...somewhat of a melee stalemate in the centre...Mike has collected 3 points and we have 1 turn to go...no way to overtake him at this point...

Fun game though...