The Future of My 40k Hobby

*opens the door slowly with a creak noise, finding all the lights off* Hello? Any one home? *flips on the lights to find all his old 40k models and blog posts right where he left them*

It's been a long time since I've been posting, aruging on forums, and playing the 40k table top game. I did as my last post indicated, run a Dark Heresy RPG campaign with my friends, which went off pretty well. They encountered Necrons (they had to cave in some ruins in time or they would die to flayer fire) and heretical cultists that were kidnapping people to turn into super soldiers of their own. Good times had by all and in the mean time we're playing other RPGs, but I plan on either returning to DH or going balls to the wall and play Death Watch. In addition to this, I'm excited for the general IP with the upcoming PSN title "Kill Team" which a friend and I plan on buying and co-oping, as well as getting Space Marine for PC. The more I see video of SM (from this past month's E3 conference) I'm more excited for it and believe Relic can pull it off.

I also got my RP group to try out some wargamming on Sunday. We did 2 v 2 with Kill Team rules, so 400 v 400 points. I had 9 ASM and my friend that had never played this before had 5 Stern Guard and 5 scout snipers vs 2 Tau suits and some rail-rifle troops and a team of Eldar Banshees and Dire Avengers. Honestly, I've never fought Eldar before, even in my local tournament they never made an appearance, and they were pretty scary. I know the Banshees are built as anti-marine units, but general their speed and initiative was devastating. I basically sacrificed myself to kill off all the ranged characters so the Banshees would have to run across the board and take a hail of AP 4 weapons that pierce their armor. In the end we got the other team down below 50% first so they had to take like 4 leadership tests and passed em all, and then we killed all their units down to just a suit and we failed our 2nd leadership test or something. Kinda crappy result with our upper hand and all, but oh well, everyone had fun and hopefully we can do it again sometime.

I of course have only been back into 40k for a day now and I see the 6th Edition rumors flying about and I'm already feeling like hanging it up since I hate change. Plus all the hate for GW from basically everyone online for the way they handle customers and such. Eh, I dunno, all that is on the back burner and I'll just stick to the video games and RPG and painting.

A Different Kind of 40k

Let me start off by saying that in my last post I was alluding to a Batrep coming with my Necrons, but that game got put on pause and then I needed the table for something else so the game got taken down. I'd probably forecast that I would have won, based on having 2 of the 3 objectives on turn 3 and already taking out a fair amount of Tau suits by then as well, but we shall never know. However, on to other things 40k!

Games Workshop ©

I was a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to my nerdiness, only starting 40k a couple years ago and always being against table-top RPGs like D&D, etc. But as I've embraced it with 40k TT, I've started playing some RPGs as well with a local group, most recently playing Gamma World. I'm still anti-fantasy setting, opting for more sci-fi based worlds, which has led me to think about GMing a game within the 40k realm like Rogue Trader or Dark Heresy. I most definitely want to try out Deathwatch as well, but I figure we could learn the system and rules in a game about "better-than-average" humans within the Imperium first and then later take on being super-humans. The rule sets are the same, and to put it in perspective a Rank 1 Inquisition Acolyte from Dark Heresy has about 4,000 XP and on the same scale a Rank 1 Space Marine has 13,000 XP.

Anyway, it seems my time will be mostly spent learning the rules, creating test characters, and constructing a story with villains, twists, and rewards. It's quite rewarding coming up with story elements and pit falls for the player, just like making up a new army list and feeling like you have an "ace in the hole" super-unit that will tear thru the enemy ranks. I'll be pulling on my knowledge of reading the codexes, novels, and Lexicanum to piece things together. I actually got into 40k based on the lore more than anything, so I hope that will shine through. Hopefully it all goes well and if so I might share some glimpses of my works on my blog here.

» So, does anyone out there play the 40k RPG systems? Tips, tricks, pit-falls? I know there's a few bloggers out there that love to open their Batreps with story line dialogue and setting the mood and I bet they'd be at home in a Deathwatch campaign.