Thursday, July 9, 2015

Warhammer 40K in the Park -- Playing a Game Outside!

Hi everyone,

Just played a very fun game of 40K with our friend Mr. Z!

 Playing 40K (Outside!) (In a Park!) -- Orks vs. Eldar

Both Mr. Z and we have had very busy days the past few weeks -- and we were struggling to figure out a time to play which we could both manage.  Overlaying those challenges with the times when our local game stores were open -- and we were really in trouble.

So, we decided to break with convention and try for an early morning game.  And, to make it easy, we figured we would play at a big park with lots of grass and paved areas -- right by a skate park....

Set-up:

We searched, searched and searched, and could not find a "card table" which was 4 feet by 6 feet.  6 feet long was not an issue -- but they were all something like 30 inches wide!!

Then, digging in the garage, we came across one of our old train table boards.  We had cut 3 sections which were 8 feet long and 3 feet wide.  Took a few minutes of staring (and for mental cobwebs to come off) to realize that if we cut this in half, we'd have two sections 4 feet long and 3 feet wide -- AND, IF WE PUT THESE SIDE BY SIDE -- it would be 4 feet by 6 feet :)

So, that's what we did!
  • We bought a low cost 4 feet by 6 feet folding table (fits in the car easily)
  • And, [taking care to be quiet] we used a hand-saw to cut the plywood in half [at 5:30am this morning]....
Gaming table; 40K table; Portable 40K table; battle gaming one
Our portable 4' x 6' Warhammer 40K table!

Portable 40K table; Gaming table; 4x6 table; battlegaming one
 Sure enough, we could fit the portable table into the car....

Our Army:

We were playing this battle as part of the campaign we've been playing -- and the scenario was that Mr. Z's Eldar were attacking our HQ.  We were out-gunned -- some 1100 points of Orks defense against 2500 points of Eldar attack....

So, we had worked to set up 600 points of fortifications -- and 525 points of Ork army.  Everyone had agreed that an unbound list made sense for a cobbled together HQ defense.

Problem was -- other than the big cannon, we didn't really have much for fortifications.  And, we had been planning to do some camping just before we played this battle (which was part of the busy schedule)....

Coaching from friends on Dakka Dakka encouraged us to use models like a Landing Pad, Pain Boy, Lootas, Mek-Guns, and Vengance Weapons batteries.  We had also managed to get our hands on a Plasma Obliterator.

Reading up on the Landing Pad, that seemed like a key to keep things alive.  But, how to find one?  We tried every single one of our usual game stores -- and nobody had one.   It was a special order item for everyone!

Finally, we found one at Apokalypse Games in San Jose.  A bit of a drive, but we managed to pick one up!!

And, while there, we got to see their terrific fortification terrain (what we really needed against the Eldar!)

The very cool terrain at Apokalypse Games :)

40K While Car Camping:

So, we did some 40K model building on the camping trip to get ready.  [We stopped short of playing 40K this camping trip - maybe next one....]  We packed up our model glue, snippers and file -- along with the 40K kits to build -- and we were in business.

Camping 40K; Warhammer while camping; Warhammer in the woods; Battle Gaming One
Here is our Landing Pad assembly area (while camping)

Camping and modeling; Camping 40K; Warhammer on vacation; Battlegaming One
Working on the Vengance Weapons Batteries

The Battle:

The all-stars of the battle were -- no question -- the Mek Guns.  Wish we had had even more of those.  Since we had an unbound list, we used them as single units -- and they couldn't really fail morale against the oncoming Eldar attack.

Also -- the "D-1" flamer weapons the Eldar wield were pretty tough!

Some good lessons:

- Although the Plasma Obliterator was fun to build and fun to play, it would have worked better to spread our points out and use more of the Vengance Weapon Batteries.

- We should have put our Weapon Batteries on the edges of the table -- not in the center where the Eldar could use them against us as screens from the other weapons.

- Need to do a better of knowing the range of each of our units.  In the first round we were thinking that the Lootas had a range of 36" -- not the actual range of 48"!!!

1 comment:

  1. Looks like you had fun and enjoyed your selves. Nice simple report (even if a little more detail or a tunr by turn would be nice).

    ReplyDelete