Headlong into Heresy!

Welcome again!

In today's post, we'll get to some of the ongoing hobby projects that are currently on my desk (my wife will be quick to point out that they are, in fact, scattered all over the bloody house, but let's not get into that kind of specifics, shall we?)

As stated before, I'm a big fan of miniature games. I've been playing Warhammer 40k for over 15 years, played a bit of Warhammer Fantasy/Age of Sigmar, dabbled in Warmachine/Hordes and played the occasional game of Dystopian Wars. That implies a lot of little plastic soldiers!

Aside the playing of the occasional standalone game, I find great joy in narrative games and campaigns, which is exactly what this post is going to about!

One of the main attractions to Warhammer 40k for me is the rich setting created for the game. It's dark and gritty to the point of ridiculousness. I highly recommend 1d4Chan's take on explaining the Grimdark. For those unfamiliar with Warhammer, just follow the links on 1d4chan.

The single biggest conflict in the Warhammer background is the Horus Heresy, where Horus, chosen Warmaster to the Emperor and one of 20 Primarchs created by said Emperor, betrayed him. Subverting half of the other primarchs to his side, the conflict tore the galaxy a new one, bringing the Imperium of man from it's all time high to the giant clusterf#ck it is now. 
The Horus Heresy has been fantastically brought to life through a still-growing line of novels published by Black Library, and brought to the gaming table by Forgeworld in a serieus of gaming supplements (7 to date, with more to come).

Drawn to the Battle of Prospero, in the opening stages of the Horus Heresy, my regular gaming buddy Thor and myself decided on playing the campaign provided in one of the Forgeworld supplements. In this campaign, the forces of the Space Wolves space marine legion are tasked to bring their brothers, the Thousand Sons to justice for ignoring the commands of the Emperor. 

The Battle of Prospero diorama in Warhammer World. Picture courtesy of Spiky Bits. 

Also: Leviathan Dreadnaughts are mean!

The campaign takes place in 3 phases, and allows players to play any number of games in a phase, respresenting the varied engagements taking place as the Space Wolves are unleashed into the Thousand Son's main stronghold, the Tizca, the City of Light.

Thor and I decided on spreading the campaign over the course of a year, playing 1 game a month, and 4 battles per phase. That gives us ample time to get our stuff (mostly) painted and still work on other projects and real-life to-do's (like jobs..).

To kick things off, we played a game of Boarding Patrol before starting the first phase of the campaign. This is another supplement from Forgewold where you fight over derelict space stations, board another starship,.. 



A pack of Space Wolves hunting for... nothing really

The game turned out to be an affair of ceaseless sillyness as our armies just ran around in the big maze after a small, but brutal skirmish in the early turns.
Thor's Thousand Sons veterans brought some anti-tank weaponry, and used it to tear a sizeable chunk out of my dreadnaught. Demanding justice for their venerable machine-brother, a pack of my Space Wolves hurled themselves on the enemy and swiftly cut them down. Rest of the game was spent running up to grab objectives and ending on a draw.

Thousand Son Terminators lurking in the maze!

All in all, we had a goofy game, had a good laugh and got to planning the actual campaign. Write-up of our first battle is soon to follow!

In the meantime, adding 'painting that terrain you've had for years now' to the to-do list...

Matt