The Confrontation of Tartarus Tor: A farewell to 5th ed Imperial Guard

With the new Guard codex on the horizon, it was with much glee that I managed to squeeze in one final battle with the rule set that has been my 40k life blood for the last 5 years (since May 2009!!).  At the beginning of March I dispatch an invite to a small coterie of 40k heroes for a two on two, 4000 point a side battle at my place.  This party of heroes comprised of my regular opponent James and his Space Marines, fellow blogger Liam (Muppet) with his Guard and Ultramarines, Dale joined by his Space Wolfs, and me (Ray aka Col. Ackland, aka The Beard) leading my Guard. Seeing that James and I had played against eachother many times I teamed up with him for this one.

Celebrating 50,000 Hits

Evening Gents. I'm just kicking back with a cool drink on a sweltering 43 degree day looking over the crazy number of visitors that have stopped by my little blog this week.

Over the last two and a half years my hit counter has slowly risen in small increments. I try to blog regularly but usually one post a month is all that eventuates from my sporadic hobby time. As a result, this is only the 67 post on my little blog while other blogs of the same age are at well over 100 posts. Never the less, I noticed last week that I was only a couple of thousand hits from the 50k mark and I thought to myself "That will be a nice milestone to hit in 2 or 3 months time". I'm surprised to say however, I completely underestimated how many people would be interesting in checking out the cavalry! In a week my Rough Rider Army post has clocked over 4500 views which is about 10 times more then I expected it to be seen in a month. The result is that I have absolutely smashed past the 50,000 hit mark by several thousand.

The Massacre of Omicron Peninsula and Preparations for the Battle of Iron Vale

+++The HD85512B Campaign+++

It is a dark time for the Imperial Forces on the isolated planet of HD85512B.

After The initial loss of the major Imperial outposts, Renegade Space Marines have driven the Imperial Guard from their defences and pursued them across the planet.

Evading the dreaded Marines, a ragtag party of survivors led by an unlikely partnership of Commissar-General Marwood and Primaris Azzopardi, have found refuge in the rough mountainous terrain of the Iron Rangers at Cape Sierra.

Little did they know that their prayers to the Holy Emperor for deliverance had been heard as the damaged Frigate Heidelberg limped into Praetorian space with news of the Marine attack. 

Fearing that the isolated planet would become a staging base for raids on the Praetorian transit routes to Bakka, Segmentum Command dispatched the 5^th Praetorian Battle Column with a modest Navel Patrol Fleet to retake the system…

The Defence of Complex 23

 

The Marine Commander swung his oversized Relic Blade up around his head and out in an attempt to decapitate Commissar-General Marwood. The old Commissar clumsily ducked and brought his Power Fist up to block the strike. There was a loud crack of energy discharge and the smell of ozone as the blade ricocheted off of his fist. In a fluid sweeping motion the Commander continued the flight of his blade around and down toward the Commissar. Marwood leaped backwards falling on his wrinkled rump and gasped as the sparking blade split the ground between his legs – narrowly avoiding a battlefield castration. Appearing from the blur of combat around them, Primaris Azzopardi swung his mighty Force Axe at the Commanders flank. In a display of mastery footwork and swordsmanship the Commander swiftly moved, parring the strike and followed with a series of quick slashes. As the Primaris defended with his large axe, Marwood was granted the few seconded that he needed. His hand disappeared into his coat pocket and reappeared grasping a glass vile of Fury. In a single well-practiced motion he thumbed off the cork stopper and drove the opening into the external stim port of his power fist. He instantly felt the strength, he felt the power, he felt the Fury. With agility thought to be long lost in his youth the old Commissar rolled to his feed. As the Commander swung his Relic Blade in a wide strike, Marwood, using his momentum stepped inside the swing. With unexpected speed, Marwood forcefully thrust his crackling power fist into the right side of the Commander’s back fracturing his elegant artificer armour. The Commander curled his torso like a school boy receiving his first kidney punch while his aslant continued the frenzied assault. With speed, Marwood punched high uppercutting the Commander’s helmeted chin, then across and down in a backfist, followed by an almighty forward punch square on his helmet fount. As the Commander’s head rebounded of the fist, Marwood saw parts of shattered eye lens and fragments of crushed vent explode outward from the blow. The commander’s body limply fell backwards collapsing into the dirt.

Report lost!

In 40k, astropathy is the only means of fast interstellar communication available to the Imperium. It’s a good service but increasingly messages are often distorted, delayed, or lost altogether in transmission. It’s just that the Adeptus Astra Telepathica isn’t training astropaths like they use to!

I wrote up a battle report for the first battle of the new campaign! Yey! But somehow I deleted (or saved over it) and it is lost. Noo! Rest assured I will have a serf come up with a new report soon.

In the meantime, two messages did make it across the warp! First, a list of those that fell in the Defence of Complex 23 arrived to be craved on a memorial wall. This is situated on the top left of my blog and will record the sacrifice of the Guardsmen undertaking the Campaign on Hotel Delta Eight Fifty Five Twelve B.

An extract from the Personal Journal of Commissar-General Marwood

The new campaign rules are sorted, a new army is built, but before we go to war it would be good to find out a bit about the heros that will lead the way...

A personal chronology of events leading up to the destruction of the Imperial Navy Frigates Hansa and Hahndorf, commencing the battle on Hotel Delta Eight Fifty Five Twelve B.

Day 31:

Sitting in my cabin on the Barbarossa – I managed a minute to myself.  Finally, this is the last leg of my trip. All I have to do now is rendezvous with the three frigates; the Hansa, Heidelberg and Hahndorf, as they prepare to leave the Reductus Sector, conduct one last DPPR whilst on board the Hansa, and then enjoy the ride to Praetoria. From there, it is a short jump back to Bakka, back to comfort, back to my glum desk – just the way I like it. This trip hasn’t been particularly rotten; I only had to administrate the ‘cleansing’ of two Psykers. Cleansing. After all these years I’m prepared to say it; I murder people. It’s my job. ‘Commissar-General’? What they really mean is ‘Chief Executioner’.

Revitalising my hobby: Part 1 Rules for a Campaign

The thing about having regular gaming buddies is that they requires you to game with them regularly.  It is very easy to keep putting other things first and continuously put games off. If you keep doing this eventually you find yourself with no gaming partners. Of course you can pop down to your local GW or club and try and get a game in, but A) there is no certainty that you will find someone and B) that someone may or may not be a person that will give you the sort of fun game that you are looking for. So I have decided that even though things are very busy right now, I will specifically put time aside to game and seek out other gamers like me who like fluffy battles and fun games rather then tournament uber-list building and two dimensional battles.