Tactics are NOT small minty confections.

There was quite a turn out for today’s session. If this trend continues, we may have to find a larger venue. A warm welcome to Barry and Tim from Kentish Rogues, they were fielding Space Wolves and Eldar. They game at the hamlet hotel and we have an invite to attend and see what they do, their next meeting is Monday 23^rd August and they have a meet up every two weeks. I won’t be able to get along this week, but I may go along to the next meeting. They start at 7pm and run through until 10:30, I think. Unfortunately they have an over 18 policy, so the young bloods will have to wait a few years.

Our third new chap was a lad named martin, he fielded Blood Angels against Data and Mickey’s Tyranids and Imperial Guard, an odd teaming but they still lost, tee hee.

Dan and Dave S went up against Barry and Tim, sadly shop duties kept me away from the gaming so I don’t know who played who played who, but I do know that Dave S didn’t fare too well. Dan's report should be arriving soon.

Pete and Ali arrived later in the afternoon and Ali accepted the challenge I made last month to take on her ‘nids.

After a bit of jiggery pokery with my list I finally had it sorted and was ready to lay down some gauss flavoured smackdown on their chitinous hides. I’d even bought three Heavy destroyers for the event. I only fielded two.

So the challenge was met and I won the roll off, Ali attempted to seize initiative but the goddess Randomonia chose not to bless her die and she rolled a three.

The heavy destroyers moved into position, unfortunately only one of them had line of site on anything targetable, the lone destroyer opened fire, hitting the target only to have the wound saved. My squad of five destroyers took position at the far end of two building either side of the road, quickly acquiring target locks on a squad of Genestealers. The destroyers unleashed a torrent of gauss fire, disintegrating ten of the ‘stealers. The Monolith lumbered forward but could not get line of sight on the enemy.

A shot rang out, taking down a destroyer, fortunately the self repair systems started to activate.

The space between the buildings seemed to fill with Genestealers, they used their large claws to gain purchase on the road surface and fell upon the destroyers tearing them asunder, their claws cutting through the metal of the destroyer’s bodies with little effort leaving gleaming debris in their wake.

Two squads of Necron Warriors and a Lord advanced on the stealers, gauss fire reduced them to atoms. The Monolith activated the particle whip in an effort to take down a squad of gaunts that were entrenched between two small buildings; the shot went wide of its mark dissipating harmlessly on one of the buildings. The heavy destroyer fired at a squad of Tyranid Warriors; although one was wounded it was not enough to bring it down.

Beneath the Necron Warriors the ground erupted as a Mawloc burst out of the ground the barbs on the flanks of this monstrosity tore some of the warriors apart, others were crushed under the rubble that fell from the massive beast. The battle was not going well for the Necrons, their only hope now was the Monoliths particle whip and the heavy gauss cannons mounted on the destroyers, but they were destroyed by venom cannon fire. The Nightbringer attempted to injure the Mawloc to no avail as it burrowed back underground. The Necron Lord and a squad of warriors eradicated some of the Genestealers, there was no time to celebrate the victory as the stealers charged into the warriors ripping them asunder, leaving the Lord with no option than to withdraw from the battle, taking the remainder of the Necron force with it.

So there you have it, I suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Tyranids, to add to the humiliation of the loss, I was beaten by an army controlled by a girl.

However, later in the afternoon, Pete, Ali and I had a HQ skirmish, as I had chosen to field the Nightbringer the points were set at 360. Pete fielded The Keeper of Secrets, A Bloodletter and daemonette and Ali chose a Hive Tyrant and a Warrior. It was agreed that we’d roll off at the start of each turn. Pete went first, the two lesser Daemons head for the Nightbringer, whilst the Keeper of secrets made for the Hive Tyrant. Ali’s Tyranids held their ground. The Nightbringer moved towards the heralds. The next turn I went first, I chose to maintain the advance on the lesser daemons. The C’tan sent a lightning arc toward them, inflicting a wound on the Herald of Khorne, the Nightbringer then moved into close assault using the gaze of flame and wounding the herald of Slaanesh. The heralds returned the assault, causing two wounds. The keeper of secrets continued to hunt down the Tyranids. Pete had the initiative for turn three and had gained ground on the Hive Tyrant. Wounds were caused and saved, then the Tyrant wounded the Keeper. His heralds once again attacked the Nightbringer, etheric blast drove the Daemonette from the fray and the lesser daemon failed to cause any wounds. The retaliation was a little more successful and Khornes herald became nothing more than a memory. Ali’s turn saw her attempt to slay the Keeper of Secrets but her efforts were fruitless and cost her dearly as the Keeper ended its life. The warrior ran away, My Necron God finished of the remaining herald and then turned its attention to the Keeper. Whilst it took a turn or two, it was a mighty fight, one worthy of the inhuman entities that were locked together in a struggle for victory. The Keeper failed to inflict any wounds, however this was not the case for the Nightbringer, it caused four wounds on the keeper of Secrets. The only thing to do now was to seek out revenge for the earlier Necron defeat. The warrior had encamped in a building. Since the Nightbringer was too large to fit inside it had no other option than to attempt to bring the warrior to its end with the lightning arc. Many volleys were exchanged but none of the warriors hit home, and under a constant barrage of lightning the warrior eventually fell.

A fitting end to a good day, I’m happy with the result of my second game, and I had two very worthy opponents. A huge thanks to everyone that turned up today, I look forward to doing it again on the 19^th of September.

IG lay the smackdown!

Disturbed from their slumber by the howling of landing craft, the rumble of tanks and the barking of orders, A solitary Necron Warrior was sent forth to assess the situation. Humans, in the guise of Imperial Guard. The Necron Lord activated his minions to teach these young upstarts the error of their ways. The Necrons broke ground and a single Monolith emerged from the stasis tomb, as they observed the terrain they immediately came under heavy fire, momentarily bringing a Destroyer to the ground, fortunately the microscopic repair drones restored it and it rose back, along with five other destroyers they opened fire on the heavy weapon platforms that had dealt the first blow, disintegrating them and removing them as a threat. Again the Guardsmen opened fire, this time there target was the Monolith, unleashing rounds from two tank mounted Battle cannon and lascannon, although these weapons found their mark, they failed to inflict any damage upon the great machine. In response the destroyers once more turned their gauss cannons upon the human fools, sending half a squad back to their precious emperor, as this was happening the Monolith moved ponderously forward into a position where it could discharge its particle whip. The battle cannon sounded again, this time two destroyers were bought down and their self repair system were unable to function, they evaporated into the ether, and their components would be used again. On the other side of the battle field a Chimera opened fire on a squad of warriors destroying four of their numbers, these humans would pay for their insolence. The remaining four Destroyers opened fire on a squad of Guardsmen again, reducing them to molecules in a heartbeat, The Monolith expelled the full fury of the particle whip on the chimera, rending it and four of its crew to nothing more than a pile of smouldering slag and melted flesh. The Monolith took a hit from the battle cannons, this time the antigrav drives were disabled and the huge machine sank to the ground. The second take moved in on the destroyers, opening its weapons and rending a third to a hunk of useless metal. Meanwhile the warrior squad that had taken casualties from the Chimera were moving into position to take out her remaining crew. One of the tank commanders had unwittingly bought his vehicle within range of the Monoliths particle whip, the weapon destroyed the Leman Russ tank with little effort, and the remaining destroyers cut down the brave but foolish guardsmen. The remaining tank withdrew to what was deemed to be a safe distance and the remaining guardsmen made a futile attempt to bring down the remaining destroyers, to no avail. The last tank turned its attention to the second squad of warriors heading toward the Imperials line, the cannon failed to inflict significant damage, taking down only two warriors. The first squad had gained a firm firing position on the remnants of the Chimeras crew; they dissolved instantly as streams of gauss fire tore through them. The single Leman Russ was just within range of the particle whip, due to the extreme range the shot managed to only shake the crew, making it impossible for the crew to acquire a significant target lock. A shot that seemed to come from nowhere the cut down first squad of warriors, despite taking heavy fire, the second squad took no losses; it was the same for the destroyers. The destroyers advanced on the guardsmen and they were followed by the warriors and the Necron lord. A hail of gauss fire tore the guardsmen asunder and the Monoliths particle whip dissolved the squad that destroyed the first warrior squad. The Leman Russ fired another shot at the Monolith, again failing to inflict any damage. Once again fire fell from the sky, melting the bodies of the Necron Warriors, it was at this point that the Necron Lord realised that the battle was lost and withdrew the Necron forces from the battle field, taking the fallen with him and returning to the stasis tomb to await another chance to eradicate the human infection from the universe.

Quite simply “wow”!

Who would have thought that after three years and a fair few lads and lasses through the doors that we have such a strong and loyal group of members. today, the 11th of July 2010, the Apple j-ax Warhammer 40,000 gaming group had its first tournament, and what roaring success it has been! Firstly a huge thank you to everyone involved, both the gamers and the people behind the scenes, a particularly large thank you to Sue for all her hard work in organising the event.

If I'm honest I initially thought that most of the guys who were with us at the beginning would have moved on to pastures new by now, but many of the lads are still with us and come along almost every Saturday. Without the regular players today would probably not have happened. I for one an very proud of what we have achieved, we may be a small, independent, and we may not get it right first time, but we work well. the lads that attend the gaming days are brilliant, they’re well behaved and polite and they clearly enjoy the game, and of course that’s the most important thing. Ours is a hobby that is open to all, young, old, novice and veterans, and the hobby attracts so many different types of people. we welcome all through our doors, from part time players to full time painters. the great thing about the hobby is that we, as gamers and painters, are happy to share our skills and tactics. of course there’s rivalry and debates over which army is the more powerful, everyone knows it’s Necrons, but the debates are limited to talking smack, and that’s not really taken seriously.

I sat for a moment, and I really do mean a moment I must have walked as far today as I did last Sunday. I was looking around at  the gaming action and the guys playing their games and I thought, “we have something really good here!” I’d imagine that the great and the good in Nottingham would frown upon what we do, we bend, break and at times completely ignore the rules, well lets be honest they do get in the way sometimes.

Well today saw the culmination of many years of botched games and disagreements over whether or not a Carnifex gets an armour save against a bolt pistol. something in the region of forty games were played today, excluding a few hiccups today went really well.

Congratulations  to our two first place winners, James in the 500 point group and Will in the 1000 point group. whilst all the guys played well and every single one of them deserves a mention here, there are too many of them, Will gets a mention, not only because he won his group and overall winner of the first ever Apple j-ax tournament, but because his first game was a well deserved win. Will was up against a strong Necron army and, perhaps, a little out gunned, for the first three turns Wills opponent had the game firmly in his favour, but on turn four the whole game switched, Primarily down to the fact that a Trygon Prime and a Mawloc couldn’t do anything to take out a Monolith. fortunately Will had the points in his favour, bringing him the victory. Pictures of the event will soon be found on the Apple J-ax facebook group, feel free to take a look.

So once again a huge thank you to everyone, from the guys franticly running from table to table checking rules and solving disputes to the mums selling refreshments in the corner of the room, you are all fantastic.

I, for one, am looking forward to our next big event, I hope that many of the lads involved today will still be with us for it too.

Here’s to the future!