A beast of a post - the trip to Warhammer World

   Like the title says, this is going to be a beast of a post, so strap in. . .

   At the start of 2020 my podcast mates and me were discussing a dedicated trip to Warhammer World where we would book a big scenic table and play a massive themed game - we were thinking one player with 4-5k of Space Wolves vs 2 players with the equivalent points in Thousand Sons and Tzeench Daemons, to just play the sort of game that you talk about for years afterwards. Then Covid hit and WHW was closed for the year. Then with 2021 and the world starting to open up, we modified the plan but kept chatting about it.

   The end result is a day booked off in early July, we figured we should have been past the end of restrictions (although we go that one wrong) but before the school holidays (we go that one right). The big scenic tables have been taken out of the hall, so they weren't an option and as it is only 2 people per table, we limited our plans. But then we got chatting even more, if we weren't planning on playing a single game that would take up most of the day, why don't we use the day to test out multiple ideas, its a long way to drag models but if the day is going to be fun anyway, why not use new lists and try ideas out in quick succession - this is where the length of this post start to come in.

   First up, the guy I spent the day with (Keith) is currently a 30k player and, although, he used to be a 40k gamer, he only plays one ruleset at a time and really focusses his energies on it in a way that I will never understand. So this trip is predominately 30k, I did manage to sneak in some 40k.

Sons of Horus

   The first army I had a look at was my Sons of Horus as they are my go to legion for 30k games at the moment. When Keith said that he wanted to play a smaller size game it gave me the idea of trying the sort of list I'd love to play in full size games, but, without winning the lottery, would never be able to afford. Full jump pack armies have always excited me but the sheer cost has put me off, even in plastic the old assault marine packs were too expensive for me to have more than a single squad and in Forge World resin, the fact I have as many as I do is simple due to how old this army now is, and the vast bulk of them in this list are sub optimal in load out but too expensive to do anything about.

   The list is a Centurion with Lightning Claws - how I always used to love characters with a pair of these, 2x apothecaries, 2x 14 man assault squads with a power fist, power axe and power sword (and melta bombs), a 10 man reaver squad with 2x power swords and a power fist and a 10 man destroyer squad with power sword and 2x missile launcher.

  Despite the reavers being one of the Elite SoH units, they are actually a tad worse than regular assault marines and I've never actually made destroyers do half the damage that people think they should do.

  The only new model in this list is the Centurion himself, which was interesting to paint as I had to look up my SoH painting recipe, something I never thought I would have to do.

30k Daemons

   Daemons was the next thing that jumped into my head. I've made noises about doing a daemon army for years now as a single box of figures can be an army for 3 different game systems (plus sub-games like Warcry and Kill Team) without needing any modifications - proper value for money.

   When the new Slaanesh daemons were released 3 or 4 years ago, GW sold a starter box that had a few units of Slaanesh vs a few units of Khorne and when I was offered the Khorne half of a box, I said yes. Then I was offered the Khorne half of a second box and said yes again. Without any real plan, I then bought an old metal Blood Thirster that I was offered, put everything away in a box and got on with my life.

   Mucking about with a vague idea to try AOS's Warcry as a playing in the back garden in the summertime game and writing lists for that meant I had daemons on my mind already, then the chance of a low points 30k list pushed this idea up a few notches. I realised for the cost of a Start Collecting box (already fantastic value), I had a full army and I just needed a quick paint job.

   The list is a Blood Thirster, a 6 daemon unit of Blood Crushers, 2x 5 Flesh Hounds, and 4x 8 daemon units of Blood Letters - again not an optimal list but it looked good on the table. This isn't everything I've bought for this army, but its everything I painted to directly get on the table at Warhammer World.

The Sacrificed Sons - Chaos Space Marines

   Lastly, we have been talking for a while now about putting our toes back into the 40k waters again, again, it was going to be a game we would sprinkle in last summer, but C19 put a stop to that. As we had a table booked for a whole day, so there was no point playing a game or two and heading home, we decided that for the sake of another box of figures plus a rulebook, it would be nice to play a really small game of 40k to top the day off. I have a fair few 40k armies in varying states of completion, but I knew my mate would be bringing his Primaris Space Marines, so I thought I should avoid bringing my ones, then it dawned on me what army I should be packing - my Chaos Space Marines.

   My Chaos Space Marines jumped out at me for three reasons; 1, they were mostly painted but I had a couple of units that were half done and just had no motivation to finish. 2, I'd been meaning to remove their sculpted resin bases and replace them with my normal bases for a few years now and as with point 1, it was just lacking a reason why they should jump the queue. 3, it kept a narrative theme through all my armies on the day . . .

   The paint jobs aren't the best in the world, but with no time to deal with that, I added the bare minimum of fixes to bring them up a little bit - black on the (I assume) rubberised joints on the back of the legs (a small difference but looks much better), repainted a single shoulder pad black and painted the backpack vents metal. In my head cannon, my Chaos army is my SoH but 10,000 years later, so I wanted small details to tie the armies together a bit more, plus it breaks the red up a bit more.

   The units that needed to be finished was the Hellbrute, one of the Forgefiends and the Spawn, who I did in my Daemon colour scheme to tie in as well.

Games

   I'm not going to go into too much detail on the games themselves as they were generally short affairs where I took the majority of the figures off the table. My Sons of Horus list was completely outclassed, it was up against a planned tournament list and was countered at every turn. The first turn looked to be going well but when I lost a whole squad in the first combat phase to the leviathon dreadnought and I then had Abbadon appear behind my lines at the start of turn 2, the writing was on the wall.

   The Daemon game ran a lot closer. I've never used or played Daemons of the Ruinstorm in 30k before but I've heard broken things about them. I'm pretty confident that after playing a game, I know how people make broken lists with these guys but my list was not one of them. Daemons take forever to kill and throw out a lot of attack dice, but lacking anything that can just ignore armour means marines just take their saving throws all day long. While I killed off two of his squads, the characters and the bogged down nature of the combats swung against me after a few turns.

   Lastly, the game of 40k. I've played 4 games of 40k since 8th edition came out a few years back and my mate hasn't played one, so we were rusty as anything, but the rules are easy enough that we muddled through and got a game out of it. Honestly, I think this was my game to lose. I had complete control until the last combat phase where my last heavy hitter were mopped up and it went from a close, but easy victory to me, to a total wipe out of my troops.

Thanks for reading