Battle Pict Captures

Lupis Rex backs up the Steel Legion and its (very) temporary allies.

Armageddon 23rd standing by for deployment.

The Gaze of Mork! (or Gork)

5th Edition Farewell

Matt's Warlord Titan makes it's semi-annual appearance.

Fourth of July, time for BBQ, booze, and Apocalypse. And this time, one last battle with Fifth edition. 5000 points per side, Eldar and Imperium versus Orks, a timeless classic. Mrs. Blackheart took a lean army, and Matt took one model with his 2500 points. A big blue one. I took a whole lot of ladz. I had 146 models to their combined 38. This would be interesting.

Being clever gitz, the Orks went first and quickly revealed both of my cunnin' strategemz. A shield generator, which both of the Stompas stayed close to, and Precision Strike, which give a 2+ to hit any one target to all units shooting at it, like a big blue one. I unloaded a horrendous amount of firepower upon the Warlord Titan. I immobilized it and took away 4 structure points, only 5 to go! The Orks took typically heavy losses, but both Stompas survived, due to the shield generator saving them from the worse of both titans shooting. 

The Orks closed for the next two turns, losing one of the Stompas and a few of the Dreads. The small numbers of Eldar were overrun at great cost to the Orks. The Revenant Titan was brought down some lucky shooting that kept it from moving, and then it was swamped by angry boyz with power klaws. That only left Big Blue.

My last Stompa, Boss Mauler,  was badly damaged but finally got a good roll with the Gaze of Mork(or Gork) and took the last structure point from the Warlord Titan. Big Blue was not about to go quietly into that good night, oh my no.

The ever popular "Before"...

I had moved in close figuring I would have to take Big Blue down the old fashioned way, with power klaws and tank-busta bombs. With no structure points left; Matt rolled on the Catastrophic Damage table and did not disappoint. The mighty Titan detonated in a 27" blast.

...and "After" pictures.

The Mega-Dread, a BattleBuggie, 2 Trukks, 2 Bikers, 4 Nobz, 12 Tankbusters, and 22 Boyz where vaporized. Only my Warboss, a Battlewagon, a Dread and a damaged Wave Serpent survived the fireball.

A fine time was had by all, although Matt was the most affected by my Ork-Fu treachery. He could have recovered from the totally cheesy goodness of the Precision Strike, but the Shield Generator making the Stompas obscured and giving them  a 4+ save was just too much to overcome. 

Fun fact: In 6th edition obscured goes down to a 5+.

My pair of fighter jets where swatted from the sky with ease, I am looking forward to seeing them work in 6th. The current FAQ from Forge World gives Super-Heavies 3 hull points for every structure point, so that means the Warlord will have 27 hull points. Yikes. 

So goodnight Fifth Edition, and thanks for all the fond memories.

Next up, our first 6th edition battle report.

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!