6th Edition Unwrapping

$75.00. 431 glossy color pages. 1 1/2" thick. And heavy enough it should have come with a kickstand.

Well the terrible time of rumors is finally over for now. I unwrapped my copy of the much anticipated Warhammer 40K, Sixth Edition rules about a half hour ago. It is beautiful, lots of new and old artwork. To be fair, some old art done in color and large sized. A few impressive gatefolds and a handy cat-inciting place holder ribbon.

It will take a bit to read and digest the rules to be sure. But here is what I gleaned in a quick thumb through.
Turn sequencing is the same, allies and flyers are in along with the new psychic powers. Hand to hand combat seems to have a lot of changes as does damage to vehicles.
The one thing I did look for right away (and was quickly disappointed) is the "To Hit" chart for hand-to-hand.  It is unchanged. Still maxes out at 3+ and 5+.
I'm still a firm believer that it should go from 2+ to 6+.

On a quick glance I like the new standard missions and deployment types. The Reserves rule has been changed, and for the better I think. Turns two and three reserve units arrive on a 3+, turn four automatically.

The fluff section is huge (101 pages), I look forward to reading it and seeing if anything has changed.
About sixty pages of painted minis, a 30 page hobby section, 50-ish pages of the ideas-for-battles type stuff rounding out with some nice looking appendices.

It will be a week or so before we get in our first game of Sixth, so stay tuned!

The Emperor Protects

Out of da blue and coming fer you

I just added the last parts to my Ork horde, for now.
 A pair of newfangled flyers.

Very nice kits, lots of weapon options. Which makes the rules in the White Dwarf sort of odd in the fact that the three variants have so few weapon options. Very un-Orky. So I'm working on some house rules to fix that. I'll put them up as soon as I get a chance to playtest them.

Next up, the final 5th edition Apocalypse game, this Fourth of July!

Carnage-Asada 2012

Time for the tabletop slaughter and BBQ that is the Atomic Warlord's second annual Carnage-Asada!

This years event was a 15,000 point Apocalypse battle between the Imperial Guard and their somewhat shady Eldar allies versus a whole lot of Orks.

The Ork players (Pete and myself) made two huge mistakes right away. We didn't add enough terrain to the field and created a huge cover-free killing zone in the middle of the tables. Then I decided it would be best to hold the Two Stompas and the Deffcoptas in reserve. Spoiler alert: Bad plan.

My Dread Mob.

Pete's awesome Skullhama anchors our left flank.

Mrs. Blackheart's Eldar

Way too many super heavies.

The Allied forces took the first turn, and Jeff wasted no time in wasting scores of Orks. All three of my Battlewagons and all four Trukks went up in Hollywood-style fireballs.

 It was at this point the magnitude of their deployment error got through the Ork players rum addled brains. By giving the Eldar and Guard forces only one super-heavy to shoot at they were free to decimate the Ork troops for two turns.

Right before all those Orks went boom.

One of our cunnin' Ork stratagems "Rok 'em boyz" was a lot of fun and did a fair bit of damage to the Guard. We will be using this very Orky bit again. At the bottom of turn two most of the Orks were off the table, but here come the Stompas!

Boss Mauler

GunHead

They torn into the Eldar and Guard. The Shadowsord and Baneblade were hit hard. A Fire Prisim, two Leman Russ and a Falcon were erased from the table. Could this turn the tide of battle?

Not a chance. Jeff unleashed the Warhound Lupus Rex on Boss Mauler... 

Two Turbo-Laser Destructor hits, resulting in two chain reactions ending with a Apocalyptic explosion.  

The sixteen boyz and the last Deff Dread standing too close to the Stompa never knew what hit them. 

The Eldar Titan took down Gunhead with some help. 

And that was it for the Ork assault. Then we had great BBQ.

Thanks to all the Warlords for another fantastic Carnage-Asada!

The Orks demand a rematch! This time we will devise our cunnin' plan before we start drinking!

Battle Five

The final round of the Non-Powered Armor League saw the Ork Hordes take on the Tyranid Swarm and The Dark Eldar attack the Tau. The mission was Annihilate. And that is what all four armies did.

Hive Fleet Tiamat once again came on like a living tide, forcing Warlord Grimjaw to dig deep and use every bit of cunnin' at his disposal. Resisting the strong urge to just charge forward and meet the mass of 'gaunts head on, the assault units of the boyz hung back and let the the large amount of firepower reduce the swarm a bit.

Hard for even the Orks to miss.

A series of hand to hand to claw combats covered the entire field in no time. The fights were short, sharp and decisive. A very close game that could have easily gone the the Tyranid's way if not for a cold roll here and a slightly different decision there. The Ork shooting was above par for the most of the battle, and played a key role in their victory. The Zoanthropes under-performed badly, and the Tyrgon showed up far too late to make a difference.  

Late to the party, but still lethal.

And on the other table The Dark Eldar got to go first and swept across the field and into the awaiting Tau.

A truly epic slug fest erupted that lasted seven turns. When the dust had finally settled, the Dark Eldar pulled out a Major Victory. 

Overall, the League went very well. Many hard fought battles and a few absolute slaughters. Next time, we should have some work-up battles before the League kicks off. 

I would like to thank my fellow Warlords for a fun time. Matt and Jeff get a special thanks for being brave and taking armies they were not familiar with at all. It was great to see Pete finally bring his Tyranids onto the field after such a long time. How long? That is a tale for another day.

The final scores:

Orks:19
Tyranids:10
Eldar:8
Dark Eldar:8
Tau:7

Now it is time to prepare for the Warlords annual Memorial Day Apocalypse battle & BBQ, Carnage-Asada!