Return to Warhammer 40,000

I played my first full game of Warhammer 40,000 last night (well, my first in seventeen years).

Back in 2002, I'd moved on from Science Fiction to historical gaming, packing my 40K models away in some old boxes. My friend Sam had been asking me to play for a while and I didn't have an alternative game. Joining me on my side was Mal, a veteran gamer of fifty plus years who had never played 40k!

Dusting those boxes off out of my cellar, I gauged the damage that three house moves and nearly two decades of neglect had taken on my Imperial Guard. Picking out the occasional broken Lasgun barrel, I slowly assembled an army.

Tidied up Guard box with broken models removed. There were twice as many I had to put to one side.

The damage was quite extensive and numerous models were missing (I'd foolishly lent my Guard out at one point), so I had to resort to some unpainted models in my army.

Early on, when there was still some Guard left!

Sam's Salamander army promised not to be 'too fluffy' - aside from their special Salamander 'Chapter Tactics' rule.

Special rules... special rules...

I knew the basics and quickly caught on to the 8th Edition mechanisms, which reminded me of the first edition of 40k. They were simple enough. I also remembered most of the old 'rules fluff', such as weapon ranges and relative effects. What I didn't know was the new rules, such as using command points.

Deep striking Assault Marines up to no good.

Still, the Guard won the first turn and started annihilating their Space Marine foes. With some early successes, a Land Speeder and a squad destroyed, things were looking up. The Guard fired everything at the Land Raider and didn't even dent it. Then the deep strikes landed and the Land Raider opened its maw, disgorging Terminators, who quickly ate two tanks in rapid succession with thunder hammers and three plus invulnerable save storm shields.

Terminators! I wonder if they want to be my friend?

The deep strike Assault Marines did their damage and even though they were wiped out bar one character. We had no troops left to secure the objective and only a third of our armoured vehicles. The Salamanders were in control of the objective when the game ended.

Excellent shooting by the battle cannon! :-/

As we finished and packed up, my opponent Sam said "I hope the fact I totally destroyed you didn't affect your enjoyment of the game".

I'm planning a second blog on the mechanisms of 8th edition and how I feel about the new 40k.