Table Top Warhammer 40K

Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 2:23 am

Along with reading the series, I have also decided to try my hand at the table top game Warhammer 40K. The fellas who im going to be playing with are lending me scraps from their own sections of Space Marine armies to try out so I don't have to spend money on something i've never tried.

Anyone elese out there tried this game. Any stories to share?

Site Admin Joined: 19 Nov 2006 Posts: 390

Never played the game, but have spent far too much time and money on buying and painting the miniatures.

Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 6:50 pm

Heh, funny you should mention this. I just finished my 2000 point list for my rogue Space Marines chapter after years of collecting. It's a really infantry-heavy list, with a couple of Dreadnoughts for heavy support.

I love the game, but yeah, it's really expensive. They did just come out with the new Assault on Blackreach box set though, which is about $60 USD for about $350 USD worth of stuff. It's got a mini-rulebook, templates, and about $150 dollars of each orks and Space Marines. The store I go to had a swap thing too, where they set up an SM and Ork player together and had them swap for each others' minis. That gives you 2 captains, 10 terminators, 20 tactical marines, and 2 dreadnoughts, along with the rules and templates, for $60. An excellent deal overall, because just 1 captain and 5 termies is about the same price normally. Mad

Plus, they're all snap-together, making them much easier to assemble. Except for the tactical marines, whose arms really don't fit at all. I ended up having to shave them down a bit to make them fit. Evil or Very Mad

My army's a custom rogue Marine chapter called the Bone Knights. The entire list is built around Deep Striking and Infiltrating. Meaning that my opponent puts his entire army on the table before I have to place anything. Laughing

It gets expensive as hell though point-wise, since most of the squads cost about 20% more than usual.

Joined: 10 Mar 2008 Posts: 262

I've never played it, but I really, really want to.

But, do you really have to buy all the minis? There's no way I could do that! It seems like it might be really fun, but I don't know if it's worth the price, or trying to get my parents to buy them for me.

Site Admin Joined: 19 Nov 2006 Posts: 390

VD check out Brikwars gives you the same basic feel as Warhammer, just uses Legos instead of the Warhammer minis.

Most people who actually play Warhammer though start off small and cheap with a $20 USD box set of Marines or Orcs or what ever and just slowly build up over time. This is a good way to go as if you learn all you can about your first set of guys and the game in small scale battles it will make things easier to understand later on in the larger battles.

Joined: 10 Mar 2008 Posts: 262

Right, but surely WH40k is a bit less humorous and more gritty, eh? Also, BrikWars makes me ask the question; does WH40k run quickly? It seems like having to keep track of each unit's condition would slow the game to a grinding halt.

Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:47 pm

VDGMPRGRMR wrote:

Right, but surely WH40k is a bit less humorous and more gritty, eh? Also, BrikWars makes me ask the question; does WH40k run quickly? It seems like having to keep track of each unit's condition would slow the game to a grinding halt.

Well, yes and no. Firstly, you only need to worry about the condition of a few units, mostly your commanders. This is because with the exception of some of the really big units and the expensive characters, everything in the game has a grant total of 1 hit point, called a wound. In my entire army including about 60 infantry, I think I have maybe 2 units with more than 1 wound, and those are my Commander and my Librarian, both powerful Headquarters units. A model's survivability comes not from having more wounds, but from being harder to wound in the first place. The Space Marines, the army I play, actually don't have any units with more than 1 wound that aren't an HQ choice.

On the other hand, a game can easily take several hours to finish. There's a lot of different units to keep track of, and they'll all get to go during your turn. And since most units will experience some form of combat during their turn, this can mean a lot of rolling.