Relaunch...

Well, welcome to the relaunch of my Warhammer 40,000 blog, a collection of battle reports, ponderings, musings, reviews and comments about Warhammer 40k. I'm hoping to be posting on this blog at least semi-regularly, certainly after every game; one of the resolutions I have made for 2014 (and yes, I know that I am writing this in 2013) is to not only play 40k more regularly, but also to keep up my blogs a lot better than I did this year. The fact that my posting in 2013 represented a substantial improvement over the last few years is more of a testament to my failures before!

Primarily, I'm an Ultramarines player. I have an Ork army, and as a result of the recent Codex: Inquisition sourcebook, I have an Inquisitor as well, but most of the time I play Space Marines, and God was the new codex an extremely welcome one! I already don't know what I would do without it, and the Ultramarine Tactics have been key in several battles. Something I have toyed with in the past – and now mean to seriously do – is to come up with an extended narrative for my army. I'd like to be in a position to properly remember past glories, and put them into some sort of context.

Recently, I was listening to a few Overlords podcasts where there was some interesting discussion about narrative army lists, and I think we're going to be doing a lot more along those lines in the year to come – in any rate, I mean to – and so I decided to come up with a theme for my army. This is one I have played with, one that goes right back to my origins in 40k – Space Crusade! And its expansions, and Advanced Space Crusade. This already gives me an interesting backstory that I can explore in future posts, giving a 'past' to my battleforce. I already know that they need to be something a bit exceptional – Renegade Ultramarines. If only because half the time I am fighting other Chapters...

I fought a pair of battles this weekend that have really kicked things off. Both of them were with the same opponent, playing essentially the same army, and had all of this in mind. I wanted to field-test Codex: Inquisition (I've loved the idea of Imperial Agents sub-lists since the Black Codex, and nothing has changed for me) and he was interested in an all-Terminator force – as well as field-testing the new Inquisitors! My list consisted of a Librarian, Inquisitor, pair of Tactical Squads in Razorbacks, Dreadnought with Plasma Cannon, and a Devastator Squad. A thousand points a side; I was facing a Dreadknight, fifteen Terminators, a Vindicare Assassin and another Inqusitor.

Already we have an interesting narrative here, and the game really gave us a basis to work on. Two Inquisitors fighting it out does not happen every day. Every month, perhaps, but not every day. Given that one had Ultramarines and one had Grey Knights, it was apparent quite early on that I was not on the side of orthodoxy. I haven't gone into any detail about why my force has decided to go rogue, but I think I can find some interesting titbits in my chosen source material.

Tactically, I realized right at the start that I had to knock out as many Terminators as possible. If they got into close combat in any sort of numbers, I was finished. My opponent began to march across the battlefield, but made what I considered a tactical error; he chose to shoot instead of run in the Shooting Phase. His storm bolters made almost no impact, and it gave me a critical extra round to attack. Both of my Psykers were using the Primaris Powers of Divination and Telepathy; my Inquisitor was basically just sitting with the Devastators while the Librarian's goal was to survive long enough to use his Psychic Scream. The only real threat was the Assassin...but he turned out to be as effective as throwing rocks at the Librarian. Some of the Terminators actually made it, but by the time one reached my deployment zone, he was the only one left. The game ended with one Terminator in my deployment zone, one running away next to the Inquisitor. The Dreadknight had been killed by the Scream – one look at my Librarian had evidently been enough!

I lost, two points to none. I'd not had a chance to claim any objectives, and my opponent had managed First Blood and Linebreaker. I rather think I had a moral victory here. Nevertheless, all part of the narrative, and we decided that 'victory' in this case meant that he had been able to get word of the survival of my Inquisitor – for it was apparent he was the source of all the trouble – back to Grey Knights Command, who promptly dispatched a second, almost identical force. We left the terrain as it was, and kept the same sides of the table for the battle, reasoning that my forces had probably dug in. Indeed, I hardly had to move any of my forces, just put the casualties back onto the table, though I did make a few tweaks.

This battle was a total whitewash. For the Ultramarines. One Tactical Combat Squad – with bolters, a plasma gun, and a plasma cannon – killed four Terminators (for the loss of the plasma cannon Marine) – and that rather set the tone. The only serious threat to reach my side of the table was the Dreadknight, and here we really had an epic. I'd managed to scream two Wounds from him the round before his charge, and a lascannon had taken another one. With no other choice – and my enlarged Tactical blob by far the largest thing left on the table, he charged. I fired everything, all the bolters, missile launchers, everything in overwatch. Nothing had any effect. All that was left was my Inquisitor with his bolt pistol. I rolled a six to hit, a six to wound, and my opponent rolled a one for his save.

Yes, the Dreadknight was taken down by my Inquisitor with a Bolt Pistol. This is the stuff of which legends are made, and why I keep coming back to 40k.