Happy Birthday Emperor of Mankind!

What do you get someone whose first name is "The"? Only undying loyalty and death to all heretics. And cake! Do not forget the cake.

We here at Atomic Warlords hope you enjoy this holy day of smiting all those who oppose us. We celebrated by hosting the 40K Top Gun Invitational Tournament. More on that tomorrow.

We also played Fantasy Flight's Relic. For five hours. Relic is a fun game, just oozing with 40K goodness but it is a bit of a grind at the start. Which is to be expected of any game based on Talisman, for which a six hour game would be very quick. The main drag on the game seems to be the very slow start, and the complete randomness of the threats. As you are struggling to level up, few things are as bad as drawing Typhus or a Hive Tyrant right at the beginning. We are going to try a game of Relic were all the players start with some wargear and level 5 to try and make it more of a race than a slow slog. I'll tell you how that goes.

The Emperor Protects

Enjoy the Golden Cake

Codex: Space Marines, First Impressions

Well, it's big and it's here. The largest Codex to date (178 pages), the posterboys of 40K, the Adeptus Astartes have arrived for Sixth.
Good fluff on Ultramarines, White Scars, Imperial Fists, Crimson Fists, Black Templars, Salamanders, Raven Guard, Iron Hands, and some small bits on a large number of successors.

A fair bit of older artwork, with a lot of nice new stuff all in glorious color. All the things you expected, origins, organisation, markings, history, battles, plus a new galaxy map of the home worlds of 50+ chapters. All told, the first 75 pages are just pure fluff, and it is great.

A quick skim shows some nifty new wargear and the new units we were excpecting. A few changes stand out:
Vanguard Veterans no longer can charge on the turn they deep strike.
The Legion of the Damned get Flaming Projectiles (no cover saves).
The Land Speeder Storm is now a dedicated transport for scouts.
Anyone with a missile launcher can buy flakk missiles for it.

And in what I'm hoping is a omission that will be fixed, Command Squads can no longer take any special weapons. Yeah. What the feth? Cut & paste error or random change that makes no sense and goes against 20+ years of Space Marine history? They can all take combi-weapons, grav/plasma pistols, or storm bolters but not a humble flamer or trusty meltagun. We will see.

I am glad the Marines did not wind up with some "super-dreadnought" just so they could have a new big unit like everyone else has gotten so far. The two new units work well enough into a army already spoiled for choices. I would liked to have seen Predators and Whirlwinds be squads of 1-3 units.

Now it is time to build a few army lists and see how the new Warlord traits and Chapter Tactics work on the field.

The Emperor Protects

It helps if you are related 

Armageddon Battle

So this post isn't according to plan. We played a good Apocalypse game a few weeks ago. Then life got in the way, minor surgery, some of the pics I took were corrupted, and I lost the notes I took during the game. Yes, a Lictor ate my homework. Rather than the blow-by-blow battle report I was going to do, here are the surviving pics of the battle. (I have since replaced my camera's memory card.) And some highlites of the game.

Pete's new Stompa joins the fray.

Good ole Armageddon. It's the 40k fluff that just keeps giving. We tried out a battle from Warzone: Armageddon. Steel Legion & Blood Angels vs lots of Orks. I had just finished painting my new Wall of Martyrs fortifications and was eager to use them. They look great on the field and play very well.

Across the table was 3 Stompas, a Skullhamma, 8 various Dreadz and Canz, various wagonz plus a green sea of boyz.

All of Matt's Blood Angels arrived from reserve dead on target thanks to the Precise Coordinates stratagem. Nothing says fun like deep striking Land Raiders full of Terminators.

Just like Beggar's Canyon.

It was a good game, with fun had by all, it ran for three turns and came to a 4-2 Imperial victory.

Heroes of the Day:

Pete's magnificent Skullhamma killed many guardsmen, a bunker, and a Leman Russ before the Warhound was forced to deal with it.

Matt had a humble Tactical squad enter from our deployment zone. Two times the lascannon gunner made snap shots. One Deffdead, and one Megadread exploded in a torrent of rolling sixes.

Mrs. Blackheart's command of Gunhed was inspired. Killing a score of guardsmen and a few tanks, Gunhed was brought down to two hull points. A timely use of the Mek Workshop asset brought it back to full health much to my dismay. It took a lot more shooting to finally kill it.

 

Lupis Rex delivered again for me. Twin Turbo-laser Destructors was just the thing for Ork super-heavies.

Next up we shall look at the good and bad of the new rules.

The Emperor Protects

With more sixes than ones

Stompas 2.0

With the new Apocalypse comes the scramble to make old units compatible. This Sunday we are going to have our first official Apocalypse battle, so I needed to get the Ork heavy metal into line.  Stompas went up in price by good bit, so using some voodoo math and a touch of "that seems right", here are the stats for my two Stompas.

First up is what I wanted to be a heavy command unit. As tricked out as a Mekboy stompa, just geared in a different way. A Flamestorm cannon from a Baal Predator replaces the twin-linked big shoota on the Mega Choppa arm and makes a great Flame Belcha. A pair of nice big Gaze of Mork eyes round out the monster.

BOSS MAULER

950 Points

Super-heavy Walker

WS:4  BS:2  S:10  ARMOR I:1  A:4  HP:12

WARGEAR:

Gaze of Mork

Deff Kannon

Supa-gatler

Mega-choppa

Flame Belcha

Three big shootas

Four Supa-rokkits

SPECIAL RULES:

Effigy

Power Fields

TRANSPORT:

Capacity: 20 Models.

Fire Points: 4

Access Points: One at the rear.

Next we have the answer to the question; Just how shooty can we make a Stompa? Very. Two Death Kannons and a Leman Russ battle cannon provide the blast weapons. Various gun barrels from Ork, Guard, both kinds of Marines, and seven Supa-rokkits make up the Deff Arsenal. 

GUNHEAD

875 Points

Super-heavy Walker

WS:4  BS:2  S:10  ARMOR I:1  A:4  HP:12

WARGEAR:

Two Deff Kannon

Boomgun

Three big shootas

Deff Arsenal

SPECIAL RULES:

Effigy

TRANSPORT:

Capacity: 20 Models.

Fire Points: 4

Access Points: One at the rear.

I printed out a nice data sheet on heavy cardstock for each one. I really like the way they turned out so I think I am going to do that for all my super-heavy units. Even Mrs. Blackheart's cheesy Eldar units.

Next up: The Apocalypse battle report.

Smash 'umies!