Death in the Skies

We had a total of four runs on the Top Gun Tournament. So let's go in opposite order.

Fourth Place: Sadly, me...
I took a Valkyrie Vendetta, I thought with its high armor and solid firepower I could really clean up. Yes and no. The armor was proof against big shootas from the front and side, I took two glances from the rear from some seriously lucky Ork shooting. I damaged a Battlewagon, and destroyed one of the primaries (The Soopergun Battlewagon).

 On turn two the Black Barron arrived right behind me. Despite a torrent of firepower only two hits and not so much as a glance! I went into hover mode, spun around and blew him out of the sky. I followed him promptly as the first Ork rokkit of the turn exploded my ship.
40 points.

Third Place: Jeff
Jeff picked the sexy-as-hell Eldar Crimson Hunter as his mount. Following a similar path he smoked a Battlewagon and the Soopergun. On turn three he damaged the Ork fuel dump and was brought down by a lucky rokkit hit. 45 points.

Second Place: Matt
Time for the flying brick to dispatch the xenos. Matt's Stormraven was totally immune to all shoota fire, that and the machine spirit gave him quite an edge. He strafed, plasma-ed, and chucked missile without mercy. 11 boyz, a trukk, and the Soopergun all fell before the Black Barron showed up. The Oky ace got many hits and took a single hull point from the Stormraven and a rokkit from the ladz stunned it. In the following turns the Ork flyer was destroyed by a pair off Bloodstrike missiles. The machine spirit got a wound on the Warboss. Sadly Matt's path of destruction was stopped short on turn 4 by low fuel. 61 points.

First Place: Gillian
Mrs. Blackheart also took the Eldar Crimson Hunter. Fragile but very lethal. Each turn a Ork target fell before the Hunter's powerful weapons, A battlewagon, the Soopergun, The Black Baron, and the Ork Fuel Depot. The mass of Ork shootas wore the Hunter down and it crashed at the end of turn four. 62 points. A one point win.

The event was a lot of fun and we hope to do another soon. next time with Necron and Chaos fliers participating. Sixth edition is a flexible game system and many entertaining scenarios can be had within it. I think we will have a bit less ground fire and some sort of handicap for the points difference between filers.

The Emperor Protects

but watch the skies

Something, something, Danger Zone!

This year for the Emperor's B-day we did something a bit different: The Atomic Warlords' Top Gun Tournament!

What is this madness you may ask? Well, here is this years mission:

Lone Intruder 
Ork Warlord Killjack Grimjaw is about to launch a major offensive. Your forces are not yet ready to meet him. A single fighter could slip by the outer defenses and do enough damage to delay Grimjaw.

The player takes one flyer of his choice outfitted anyway they like.

The goal is to score as many points as possible before being shot down or running out of fuel.

The (4x6) table is set up with terrain a bunch of Orks and three primary targets at the far end.

At the start of Ork turn 2 the Black Barron arrives from a random table edge.
At the start of Ork turn 5 Fireflash arrives from a random table edge.

Scoring:
  25 points: Primary Target Destroyed
  5 points: Primary Target damaged
  1 point: Ork Boy
  10 points: Deff Dread
  15 points: Battlewagon
  5 points: Deffkopter
  5 points: Warbuggy
  5 points: Trukk
  15 points: Ork Fighta (Black Barron & Fireflash)

Bingo Fuel:
At the end of turn four the player rolls a D6, 1 or 2 the mission ends. 3+ it continues.
At the end of turn five roll again, 1-4 the mission ends, 5+ one more turn is played.

The player starts on the short table edge on the other side from the primary targets and goes first.
All Orks move & fire normally.

Next, the tournament results.

The Emperor Protects

And would be your wingman anytime

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