I had the rare opportunity of actually playing a game of 40k last thursday. An after work visit to see my good friend Bench at the wargames club he helps to run turned into back to his house for curry, beer and a pitched battle which lasted till well past 3 am.
1000 points of Imperial Armour is quite an imposing sight when its eyeing you up from the other side of a 4 x 4 (ish) area of the lounge carpet. Three
Leman Russ tanks, a
Hellhound with its devilish Inferno Cannon, and a pair of
Sentinals faced off against my 1000 point Tau force. I was fielding a single
Hammerhead, a
Devilfish carrying
10 Firewarriors and
two drones, a trio of
Stealth Suits with drones, an 8 strong
Drone squad and a unit of twelve
Human auxilieries.
It became apparent quickly that my only really usefull weapons were going to be my Hammerhead's Rail gun and the Seeker missiles mounted on the two vehicles. Things took a turn for the worst in the early stages when the Devilfish was immobilised causing it to crash and loose the three Seekers it was carrying. The Firewarriors inside all managed to survive the crash but spent the rest of the game taking cover behind the wreckage in order to avoid the menaces of one of the Lemans as it attempted to get round my right flank.
The details are hazy, but suffice to say I won by the skin of my teeth. My single Hammerhead spent several turns tearing around the battle field at full speed with Battle Cannon rounds bouncing of the front armour all the way. Thankfully the crew recovered from this pounding in enough time to take out one of the Lemans and the Hellound before they could break through on my left. The Stealth team and the Human auxilieries also performed magnificently, their unit leaders guiding Seeker missiles onto their targets and imobilising one of the sentinals and the Leman Russ that was advancing on my right flank.
The day was finally carried by my Stealth team with a desperate dash down the right flank, under the nose of the imobilised but still firing Leman Russ. Managing to get round behind it with only the loss of a shield drone they fired everything they had into its rear quarters at point blank range. Adding to the tension was the fact that the single penetrating shot that killed the tank and won me the game didn't come from the three burst cannons carried by the XV15 suits, but from the remaining gun drone attached to the team leader.
Here are a couple of shots of the Team Leader for my Firewarrior unit. He is pretty much complete, although I may well return to him at some stage and bring out a bit more detail on him.
On a final note, a big thank you to all at Karg's Wargames Club for making me feel welcome and saying nice things about my painting abilities. With a little luck I shall make it next month as well.
Here are some close ups showing three of my slowly developing Space Marine force. So far they have had their initial drybrushing of Tin Bitz all over, Dark Flesh on the armour and Bolt Gun Metal on the weapons and other large metalic areas. The Marines armed with bolt gun and plasma gun have had a coat of Snake Bite Leather followed by a mix of SBL and Bleached Bone applied to various areas of armour as a secondary colour. This will eventually be highlighted up to the same colour as similar areas on the biker I've already completed.
is armed with five bolters and a plasma gun. The other unit is on foot and fields three bolters, a melta gun, and a heavy bolter. The sergent of this second unit is armed with a bolter/melta combi weapon.
