White Dwarf XXX

It seems that a lot of things are marking 30 years this year. As well as myself and Star Wars (released last week in 1977) the White Dwarf magazine has been running for thirty years as well.

GW were holding huge events all weekend, including a mega tank battle at the Bath store. This was fun, albeit total confusion. Jasper and I managed to field 21 vehicles in total (mostly wrecks and works in progress from me) and even then didn't have the highest count.

Jasper:
Leman Russ
Rhino
Dreadnought (good ol' Bomb Magnet himself!)

Mine:
Land Raider
3 Razorbacks
1 Whirlwind
Dreadnought
2 Leman Russ
Chimera
Predator
3 Land Speeders
1 Attack bike

Wrecks:
Predator, 3 Rhinos, Vindicator

The game itself was manic; Jasper and I ended up overseeing our end of the table, as we had eight grots taking part who weren't to hot on the game mechanics. Fun, but hard work. We managed to stop one little tyke from bullying smaller players into using his (loose) interpretation of the rules - surprisingly this meant he didn't kill things as easily, whilst his opponents had a chance at killing us. Once we realised what he was doing, out losses began mounting at a more realistic rate. Total losses were around 5-6 of the above list, whilst we racked up something similar. This was despite our Slanesh allies going nuts and attacking us by mistake (losing a Razorback) and my total inability to kill a group of bikers (firing the entire arsenal from the Land Raider, Leman Russ, Whirlwind and two Razor backs at them, for no kills). Matt fared better, as he was able to successfully roll the dice.

"Man of the Match" has to go to the little girl who had 'borrowed' two of her Dad's Carnifex models to add to our side. These are biologically engineered creatures from the Tyranid army (think Alien) who scour planets for biological matter to use (think Independence Day). The creatures are usually nasty enough, but these guys ripped through at least five tanks without taking a wound. She had great fun rolling all the dice and removing the 'dead' tanks.

After two hours of play, and having helped our side take out almost all the enemy at our end of the table (mopping up, really, after the Carnifex rampage), our opponents decided they wanted to defect; so Jasper and I packed our force away, and left the survivors to it.

During the fun and games, I managed to get several Empire sprues of plastics (enough for a couple of complete units!) whilst Matt has now started his Tau (well, once he finds his feet).

So a fun day, even if rather geeky.