Strength 10. Large mosh
2014 has been a good social year for Corehammer with the WHFB Ill Blood tournament, The Dark Throne 40K tournament, plus a couple of trips to Sanctuary Gaming Centre, so we closed the year out in style, with a chiller at Warhammer World, with all and sundry invited. “Let’s have an all-day Apocalypse battle, with a narrative” said David Ager*, so we booked the 6′ by 12′ board, sorted out a Loyalist v Traitors/Xenos rumble, and the warrior lodge descended on Games Workshop HQ
*the fucker never turned up
It was great to see people travelling from all over the country to get involved and join in the fun, and we held court over half the gaming hall, rolled some dice, ripped each other and painted some miniatures.
J’migan Bridge in all its glory
The main distraction was the aforementioned all-day slog, The Battle For J’migan Bridge, where 12 of us attempted to play something silly like 10k points per side, with very few super-heavies, and a swathe of infantry.
All the toys
Loyalist boys
Team Xenos
Loyalist Astartes, represented by Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Imperial Fists, Raptors, 2 companies of Grey Knights and an Imperial Knight, faced off against the traitor legions of the Emperor’s Children, Iron Warriors, 12 Leman Russ battle tanks, Necrons, Tau and a cheeky flanking force of Tyranids. We soon learned that these games are an absolute nightmare, that take ages to set up, are unwieldly to manage, and bring nothing but headaches figuring out who is responsible for what models when their respective owner inevitably wanders off. It was like herding cats.
End of turn 1 and the Loyalists drop into the Traitor lines
It was a good laugh though, with some great cinematic moments. Such as Nate’s storm of Space Wolf Drop Pods coming down in turn 1 and getting right in the grill of their hated brethren. Grey Knights arriving from deep-strike and upsetting Paul after they made a beeline for his daemonic coven. The Imperial Knight getting blindsided by some Iron Warriors Terminator combi-weapons, stripping it down to one remaining hull point, before Paulo’s Fellblade took the remaining HP, and the ensuing mega-apocalyptic blast took out most of the Terminators. Poor Matt having to wait an eternity for his Blood Angels to arrive from reserve by deep-strike and then get taken out pretty quickly. Sketch’s Stormraven from the Raptors’ chapter made short work of a flying Daemon Prince, and the other one was punched in the face by a Venerable Dreadnought belonging to Duggan’s Grey Knights. Short work was made of the majority of the traitor legions. At the other end of the table, the tanks and xenos were happy throwing pie plates and all manner of firepower into the entrenched Imperial Fist lines and Devastator squads, so much that if left poor Pete’s flanking ‘nids with nothing to charge, and he’d have been lucky to have got into combat by turn 6 at that rate
Imperial Knight is an imposing figure
Pie plates everywhere
The crew
Like I said, an absolute clusterfuck of a game that we’d still be playing a fortnight later, but it was an experience to say the least. Think we’ll be sticking to doubles at the most next time. Speaking of which, there’s another WHFB tournament that Stevie is hosting at Darksphere at the end of February. We’re also planning a Corehammer Games Day of sorts in early Spring, most likely at Sanctuary, as it’s central and we can play what the fuck we want, which will be handy for those getting hooked on X-Wing and Infinity. There’s also talk of an RPG sesh and maybe a little painting workshop. The long-mooted Corehammer podcast may also be on the horizon. So here’s to more gaming and painting in 2015, and hope your luck’s changing with the roll of the dice
Joe’s rip loses points for poor grammar
“Like herding cats” is exactly how I’d describe it. It took all day and we got 3 turns in. That isn’t to say we had fun though, I drank 4 cups of coffee and ate most food, got some good rips in and laughed my arse off the whole time. This was a good way for me to lay down 40k for a while whilst I delve into new things, the next CH Games Day I’m expecting more heads, more laughs and more variety in game systems played. Viva Corehammer.
Sounds like every Apocalypse game I ever did see, or hear about, or read about outside WD. I think I prefer the multi-table approach (like in that one WD battle report where there’s artillery pieces on two tables bombarding a third, and then another one where reserve forces are fighting it out to see who’s allowed to save the day on the main board) to the everyone-around-one-board thing… but it still looks like fun. I’ll have to get some actual Citadel Orks painted up for the next one…
Looks like you had the same problem we had at our last one; 2.5k a player, 3 players a side. Set up too far apart! I had 30 boyz footslogging across the board behind my stompa and then failed a charge on the third go then it was time to pack up. Need to set up 12 inches from centre, then you can at least get a couple of rounds of CC done.
Great blog though, only found it recently but Hardcore Punk and gaming is a match made in heaven!