Big Game report. Nids V Marines

It has been a while since I last posted here. My marines have slowly being expanding. Since the last time I have painted:

• Assault terminators (lightening claws)
• Void Shield generator (started)
• Tactical terminators (heavy flamer)
• 5 man close combat scout squad
• Played some games
• New kitchen

Now I am in the process of buying a house so more time being used up doing no geekery stuff.

Anyway last weekend my local mates and i played a large game. we had been discussing it for a while as with any large games things can get complicated, time consuming, unbalanced and all of the above!

First of all to try and keep it simple we said the marines would defend a fortress in the centre of the table. The nids would come in from both sides (like a mission in Horus Heresy Book 1). The marines would set up and the nids would have turn 1 in which the moved on from the board edge. This would save time in not having to set the nids up then move them. When we setting the board up we decided that it would be best not to have any terrain between the base and the table edge. While this would not give the nids cover it would also not slow them down getting to the marines. The nids aim was to wipe out the marines (not flyers).

We agreed on a time limit for moving and shooting of 30mins (timer paused for the psychic phase). We didn’t time assault as it was felt you could not do an assault for an advantage, so all would have to be done, where if you forgot to move or shoot it is generally to your own detriment. Rather than play APOC we just played a big game of 40K. APOC has even more rules and situations to remember and to be honest we just wanted to roll dice and play!

I’m not going to give a turn by turn report or anything like that, but overall the game played well with very little that needed changing. We ran out of time (as usual) but managed to complete 4 turns, which isn’t bad for 21k points on the board. The marines held out and had a little over 2k left… the nids still had a lot left! The nids did start with 25% more models and could respawn stuff each turn. Their entry point also crept closer to the base each turn. I think it was a balanced game, maybe swinging to the easier side for marines. I think we still would have held out for 1 more turn, after that not so sure!

Here are a few pictures of the game.

More can be seen in my photobucket account here:

http://s856.photobucket.com/user/toonboy78/library/Big%20Game%20Sept%2015

Lessons learned:

• Big games are hard to plan. This took the best part of 2 months of chat to get a rule set we all liked (or at least compromised on!)
• Time: no matter how much time you give you will always run out
• Space: hosting is hard and we needed space for an 8*6 table (no deployment zone for nids) and plenty of space to walk around and put models out of the way. We were lucky and could hire a local room that allowed us to be there until after 11pm.
• Game rules: it was a little one dimensional and as the marine player I didn’t have to think about too much, no choosing between a run for an objective or shoot the nearest enemy. Not this scenario needed it but other games I would like to have a 3 tiered set of objective, turn based (maelstrom), game based (eternal war), secret (special one made up for that specific game, like kill all HQ’s, or hold any 6 objectives at the end of the game). each one worth more than the other so it would be hard to know how is going to win

So that is now over I am cracking on with finishing off my first load of Centurions and I have started the storm raven. That should keep me busy until my house move is complete!

Apoc Day - January 2015

Hi All,

I have been meaning to post this up for some time now.  Back in January the code40k members got together and had a big apoc game based on the Pandorax book.  Redmist and Trevdog did a fantastic job of getting us organised.

It also gave me a chance to use the 9 tiles I now have for my realm of battle board.  Well 8 realm tiles and 1 forgeworld mechanicus tile.

Essentially the rest of the post will now commence with a picture dump which showcases the game and many super heavy vehicles!  This was great fun and hopefully this can help inspire you to get Apoc..ing you wont regret it.

What do you reckon inspiring?

As always let me know your thoughts on the scale of this game and the super heavies involved.

Cheers

DOC out

Code40k A History

Hi All,

Today I'm going to do something of a memory lane post.....  To get some context to this post a brief history is required.  Code40k is simply our group name and came about from a campaign run back in 2006 run by Trevdog Howler.  On the back of this we set up a yahoo group which we use to communicate with each other to this day.  All of the contributors to this blog are in our group which continues to grow and migrate to other countries.... if you can use the word group essentially we just all share the same passion for model games.

The interesting thing about the yahoo group is it allows files and pictures to be uploaded to it which is useful when running a campaign between friends.  More importantly for this post it gives me the chance to go and grab some stuff from the archive and bring it back to life!

For the statos out there we have sent 8,058 messages to each other talking about this great hobby!!

Right on to some highlights of the group known as the CODE40K

The First Big Xmas game well at least the one I have photos of XMAS'06

This was I think pre apocalypse days and we came up with a flag scoring game using a massive city fight board.  You can see one such flag in picture 6.  Basically the side with control of the most buildings won.  Now if memory serves the conscript building using the ammo dump special rules caused mayhem in this game!  Also Honourary mention goes to LukoDakka for the plague ogryns in picture 3 they stole the show that day!  Also if you look closely you can see his face in the background of pic 4 which made me laugh!

This last shot shows the catachan jungle fighters hanging out in the big cathedral building we made for the event and I noticed on the yahoo group some work in progress shots of this beauty....

We put show much effort into this piece, alas we rarely used it as it was just too big!!  In the end I turned it into 3 seperate pieces so it could be used more often.  But for the first Xmas game it was the bomb!

As we moved in 2007 onwards Mr DarthDarlow, Hypaspist and Boss Bludtoof began to join us and we started to get bigger and crazier with our games.

DarthDarlow was the eldar Man and produce some great Biel Tan:

These were awesome although Darth to this day is the worlds best roller of 1's.  It got better on the vehicles where in a moment of sheer brilliance or madness Darth painted rose thorns on:

The thing that stikes me about this table is how devoid of terrain it is we certainly wouldn't do that these days!

2009 also saw the continuation of the ongoing war between my Space Wolves and Red Mists Khorne boys certainly a battle of the ages....

Love this photo really shows off the quality of Red Mists painting.  Don't fancy my Grey Hunters chances in this situation though!

2009 Also saw Hypaspist Stag Do....................... In a Battle Bunker yes a battle bunker remember them!

As with any stag do it wouldn't work without the obligatory T-Shirt

Action Shots

December 09 and we were at the big game antics again and this time Hypa had taken some great photos but also kindly captioned them which I shall re-create a few here....

The Setup

Who Let the Dogs Out

Never Trust A Grot With Paint

Beatifull!

 Faasans of Em

 Impenetrable Shield

The Scout Lines Up an Ambitious Shot.

Stonking Game!

Ok I could keep going but the post is quite long now and my wife requires my presence.  All I would like to say for all the moaning we do about this hobby it gives some great times with great people!!!!

Signing off

DOC