Over the last couple of weeks I have played a couple of games of 40K with my regular group.

Game 1: 40K-three-way

Last night we played a three player large narrative game involving Alaitoc Eldar and a witch-hunters army of Sisters of Battle and Black Templars allying temporarily to destroy a Nurgle infestation–the eldar to protect a webway portal and the Black Templars to try to recover gene seed from some fallen marines. The Chaos Space Marines are trying to enact some foul ritual–if their sorcerer can survive to the end of the game they will succeed in this and summon up a disgusting daemonic denizen of the warp to further their vile schemes. The eldar and witch-hunters must stop them whilst also achieving their own aims: for the eldar–protecting their webway portal (this is, despite the fact it was colonised by the Imperium, once one of their maiden worlds) and for the Black Templars–recovering their fallen marines, battle-brothers who were killed whilst conducting a reconnaissance mission against the Chaos forces. The Chaos Space Marines and their daemonic allies start in the centre of the board and the good guys enter from opposite sides.

The Good Guys drew first turn and the witch-hunters moved up slowly whilst the eldar moved forward aggressively. Unfortunately for the eldar they had some very good shooting but the effects of exploding enemy vehicles killed a number of their own aspect warriors.

The Space Marine land speeder zoomed around causing havoc whilst the Imperial infantry slowly walked forward laying down a devastating hail of fire as they went.

The eldar moved up aggressively and eventually managed to take out Typhus and scatter his bodyguard terminator squad across the board with a well executed Eldritch Storm psychic power. This left an opening through which a dreadnought and two war walkers were able to run through and lay down a devastating hail of fire–a lascannon blast, krak missile, and 18 scatter laser shots ensured that the vile Nurgle sorcerer’s sickening ritual was stopped before completion and the Chaos forces ceded the field. Victory!

Game 2: Eldar vs Dark Angels

A standard pitched battle 2000 points with both sides drawing the High Ground mission. This was a tough battle and the eldar won the strategy roll and deployed last, deploying in a refused flank set-up trying to avoid the land raider which contained the space marine librarian (the army general) and a tough squad of assault veterans.

Unfortunately, the space marines got first turn and with some lucky shooting managed to take out the dreadnought with lascannon and several other key weapons on the eldar side. The eldar were able to crush the other flank but at the expense of leaving the Dark Angels largely unmolested and able to claim objectives on the other side of the board. Unfortunately for the Dark Angels their key HQ unit never had anything to attack and in fact never dismounted from its land raider–not a great investment of points!

Overall the Dark Angels managed a fairly convincing win though they took their share of casualties too.

Jay’s old school Black Templars

As a bonus, here a few photos I took of Jay’s beautiful Black Templars army, mainly made up of 1990s models painted in a blend of the now well known 3rd ed 40K scheme and the scheme from the old Codex: Ultramarines, as well as a photo of their Ordo Hereticus allies. Fantastic stuff.