A New 40K Convert?

By the time I played my first game of Warhammer 40,000, Bryce had been looking for someone to play against for some time. It seems that 40K has a tendency to instill a missionary-like zeal for converting others to the game. Within a few months, Jonathan, a friend of mine with whom I walk to the bus stop and whose brother used to play both 40K and Warhammer fantasy had started to show interest. At about the same time, another coworker, Kevin, who enjoys painting the Lord of the Rings figures, also expressed interest. Soon Bryce and I were incorporating Jonathan and Kevin into our games. The best part is that neither Jonathan nor Kevin showed any interest in any of the armies that Bryce or I were playing. Kevin wanted to play Dark Eldar and Jonathan wanted to play Orks. This has led to a lot more variety in our games. In fact, the growth of our little cabal encouraged Bryce to build a new Imperial Guard army. The Imperial Guard had always been his favorite army, but with no one to play with, Bryce had sold off nearly all his figures.

This past Friday took an even more interesting turn. Bryce and I successfully convinced our boss, Carl, to participate in a game. His first game was a 500 point fight between my Ultramarines and a Tau army borrowed from Bryce. Usually my Space Marines don't have a whole lot of luck in such low point games, especially when I have few heavy weapons while the Tau are fielding three Broadside Battlesuits. Usually I'm forced to do a Pickett's Charge, in which I march the Ultramarines across the table while taking heavy fire from the Tau's guns. This is horribly costly and I rarely have any Marines left for the assault. However, this time I teleported a Terminator squad within close range of the Tau forces. Despite the strength of Carl's army, and the coaching he got from from Bryce, the Ultramarines were able to hold their own.

A Space Marine Terminator Squad: Not something
Xeno scum wants to find on its doorstep
[Models by Games Workshop]

After the first game was called, Carl's Tau and Jonathan's Orks faced off against Bryce's new Steel Legion Imperial Guard and my Ultramarines. It was a pretty evenly matched game, with the Imperial Guard and the Tau handling the long range shooting while the Space Marines and the Orks fought it out in close combat. Vastator participated in the game, although it's main gun met an untimely end from a Broadside's gun. As we often do when it gets too late at night for Bryce and I to remember the rules anymore, we finally called the game before either side was annihilated. Although the combined Space Marine and Imperial Guard forces were left with more points on the table, we had no way to counter the remaining Broadsides. Thus, we called it a draw.

It's expected for Guard and Marines to form
alliances, but I can't really see an Ork-Tau alliance
[Models by Games Workshop]

The purpose of the night's game was to introduce Carl to 40K in the hopes that he would enjoy it. We may have succeeded better than we thought we would. Our unconverted coworkers could only shake their heads when they caught the boss discussing the game with Kevin the following Monday. Even better, Carl has decided that the Tau are probably not for him, but that he's very interested in the Necrons. He's even done some research on the army. I had been thinking of playing Necrons after completing the Ultramarines, but I will gladly let a new player have dibs on the army of his choice. If Carl does indeed become our Necron player, we will have a thoroughly diverse little 40K club.

The Atomic Spud's Warhammer 40K Blog

Thanks to Bryce, a coworker and good friend of mine, I've been a Warhammer 40,000 addict since May 2011. I immediately preferred Space Marines, the first army I ever played, and quickly began an army of Ultramarines. After several months of playing regularly, Bryce and I were joined in our games by two other coworkers.

I have maintained a blog, The Atomic Spud, since November 2008. The Atomic Spud has primarily been a place for movie and book reviews, political commentary, and other (hopefully) amusing anecdotes from my life. Unfortunately, the blog was quickly overrun by posts about 40K, which appeals to a smaller audience than the other material. For that reason, I've started The Atomic Spud's Warhammer 40K Blog; a more appropriate place for battle reports, army photos, and other 40K miscellanea.

Warhammer 40K-related posts that previously appeared on The Atomic Spud have been reproduced here with some slight editing. Since they were originally intended for an audience that is unfamiliar with the game, there is a lot of explanation that is unnecessary for the average 40K player. I like to think of these posts as a brief history of a rapidly developing addiction.

New Warhammer 40K Model

Again I've neglected my blog [The Atomic Spud] in favor of Warhammer 40K. I finished my first figures, a squad of Tactical Marines, earlier this summer. I followed those up with a Terminator Squad and a Dreadnought walker. Now I've finally finished my first tank, of which I'm rather proud. The tank, a "Vindicator" model, carries a Demolisher cannon; the most powerful gun that the Space Marines can field. Since the dark future of 40K portrays mankind as having somehow reverted to a medieval culture that uses elements of the Latin language, I've named my Vindicator Vastator, which is Latin for "Destroyer". Yes, naming a tank "Destroyer" in Latin is the extent of my creativity.

Vastator actually participated in its first game last Saturday. It was mostly complete, although the winch holding the ridiculously large shell wasn't attached, several details weren't yet painted, and it was missing the final washes (the very thin coats that give the model its dirty look). It got off a single shot in the first turn, was stunned and unable to fire in the second, and was destroyed in the third. However, that single shot tore the heart out of Bryce's command squad. The points value of the figures killed by one shot exceeded the points value of my tank and the loss of his command squad hampered the effectiveness of his army for the rest of the game. Once that happened, anything else Vastator could have done would have been icing on the cake.

Now that I've finished the Vindicator, I intend to move on to a squad of Sniper Scouts. And I expect to make another relatively pricey order at TheWarStore later this month to add a Predator tank to my collection as well as a few other squads of infantry.