Introduction and 30k of 30k

Hi everyone and welcome to the first post of this blog. As you can probably guess by the title it is about Warhammer 30k, or The Horus Heresy, and a large game that was played this weekend. Before I get into that however, I just want to take a moment to introduce myself and my blog. My name is Jason and I am an avid gamer, collector and to a lesser extent painter, and it's probably safe to say also a Warhammer addict, just ask the missus!

I've already got a youtube channel called The Lords of War, and made a page on Facebook called the same, you can find it at www.facebook.com/thelordsofwarbatreps. The channel is going well, me and my friends uploading a battle report video once or twice a month, and the facebook page was done just to put links to videos on and also get pictures up. The only thing missing then, is the written word. That's why I decided to create this blog now. I have so much to say about this weekend between photos that a facebook album just won't do.

If you're wondering why the blog is called Ashes of Isstvan rather than The Lords of War or similar, that name appears to already be taken. I searched for other gaming groups using the name when I first thought of using it, a name I of course took from those mighty warmachines of the 41st millennium, but only found a Warcraft card game. Thus the name was decided for youtube, my channel of course having nothing to do with the cards. If there is indeed another blog using that name already, I have nothing to do with that either. Ashes of Isstvan is actually a video blog I started on the channel, focusing on the 30k aspect of our groups' gaming.

Again, it's just a name I came up with and checked wasn't already in use somewhere else. This time though instead of relating directly to 40k it is just a name I thought up whilst trying to think of a Horus Heresy related and memorable title. My legion of choice is of course the Salamanders, my army based around the Isstvan V Dropsite Massacre, so I combined the fiery element of the legion with what happened. The blog therefore follows my Salamanders and the other legions of our gaming group as they rise once more from the ashes of Isstvan V. As we all know from the novels, the dropsite was far from the end for Vulkan and his sons.

Anyway, that's enough about me and the reason for starting the blog. It's also enough about my own gaming group for now, I'm sure I will introduce them and their armies at some point, but this weekend I wasn't playing at home. I had signed up to a Horus Heresy weekend tournament way back before the new year, which was to be held at Slayer Gaming in Mansfield. Now I'd never been to the store before what with it being a few hours away, but I signed up regardless as at the time I hadn't even started my youtube channel and wasn't getting much 30k gaming in due to a severe lack of opponents. In my own region gaming is very 40k dominated, with a lot of other stuff like X wing and Conquest going on. Fantasy and 30k have somewhat of a backseat, but I hope to change that for the latter. But for now, if you can't bring the heresy to you, bring yourself to the heresy!

So I turned up at the event, and waited for everyone else to arrive. Unfortunately after an hour or so, there didn't seem to be anyone else coming. What had at first promised to be a quality tournament with 14 players on the list could have been a complete flop when only 6 of us turned up. I think it was a mixture of it being Easter weekend, the tournament having first been announced way back in about November, and just the general fickleness of us mortals failing to show up for something without prior notice. Hats off to the guys at Slayer though, they turned it into an enjoyable and memorable weekend and gave store credit compensation. I really can't rate these guys enough now, I should really stop and talk about the gaming store as well, but I don't want to stretch this first post out too much so maybe I'll do that at a later date.

So we ended up playing a mini tournament on the Saturday, which was good fun and gave me a chance to face three legions I hadn't previously gone up against, the Word Bearers, Iron Hands and Iron Warriors. There's a few pictures included from those games, but most are from the Sunday. We decided to just have a big game on the second day, and worked out we could run 15,000 points per side with what we had available. The other guys were all local to Slayer so could go home and get more stuff, but I only had what I had brought for the tournament. I hadn't anticipated the game so I didn't have my camcorder either, or I would have done a video report of the whole thing instead of pictures. I hadn't planned on taking videos at the tournament due to these events usually being both very loud and on a very tight time schedule where filming between turns would only slow it down. I guess if I had filmed though then this blog might never have been born so it was maybe for the best.

Vulkan's moments of glory from the three mini tournament games.

On to the game then. So we had four loyal legions facing off against the same number in traitors, some having a larger representation than others. On the loyal side were my Salamanders with Iron Hands, loyal Iron Warriors and Raven Guard. The traitor legions were made up of Word Bearers, Sons of Horus, World Eaters and a few Death Guard. I ended up in control of half the Iron Warriors, since the player that owned them was also controlling the Iron Hands. Likewise on the other side, there were only three people, with the Word Bearers player also using the Death Guard which were his anyway. This made it a 3 vs 3 match up which I decided to call 30k of 30k, as in the name of this first blog post. We started by setting our armies out and I grabbed a photo of each, so I might as well start with those here as well.

XVIII legion - The Salamanders

IV legion - Iron Warriors and X legion - Iron Hands

XIX legion - The Raven Guard

XVII legion - The Word Bearers and XIV legion - Death Guard

XVI legion - The Sons of Horus

XVII legion - World Eaters



As you can see, the guys had some really nice armies. It was nice to have such a variation of colour on the battlefield too, even the dark coloured legions were noticeably different from each other thanks to stuff like the hazard stripes of the Iron Warriors. There was so much forgeworld resin on the table it was like being back at the forgeworld open day or last ever Games Day back in 2013, with those huge tables covered in beautiful miniatures enacting great scenes from the heresy timeline. The only difference was that this time I was actually reliving the battle rather than just imagining it, and the battle was of course an entirely fictional event. Such a game demanded an impressive table and Slayer had pushed several of their usual gaming tables together into one big 12ft x 6ft board for the occasion.

The battlefield awaits us...

The only thing left to do was to decide on a mission and table sides before getting deployed. We decided to put 5 objectives down, one in each of the buildings along the central line of tiles. The loyalists had the first deployment, followed by the traitors. Below are the pictures I grabbed before we started playing as the armies were set and ready to go. Once the game began my taking of photos became somewhat sporadic, as I'm sure you can imagine there is a lot going on in a game this size. I didn't write notes or intend to do a full battle report, but I've captured some of the best moments which I will caption below. As I'm sure you can see it promised to be a great game with some intense and spectacular moments of 30k action, and let's just say I wasn't disappointed.

Loyalists left flank during deployment.

Loyalists centre during deployment.

Loyalists right flank during deployment.

Traitors left flank to centre during deployment.

Traitors centre to right flank during deployment.

The World Eaters seize the initiative with Kharns re-roll.

The Mhara Gal Tainted Dreadnought

Word Bearers Contemptors.

The damned Gal Vorbak.

Death Guard standing their ground pre game.

Sons of Horus Reavers with their Spartan.

They had a Glaive. If only I had brought mine with me...

Raven Guard Contemptors during setup.

Corax converted from an Angron model. Nice!

On they come! Turn 1 kicks off with traitor movement.

Tank rush...

Dreaclaws land bang on target in the ravens nest...

Raven Guard reinforcements swiftly retaliate with pods of their own.

Loyalists advance.

Spartan carrying Vulkan towards his first goal, enemy super heavy!

Left flank advance, lots of dreads and Contemptors!

Salamanders infantry make a run for the central objective.

Traitors turn 2 opens up with heavy fire from the Death Guard.

Raven Guard meltas and Vulkan made short work of the super.
Word Bearers Contemptors remove the Ravens in return.

The Glaive lines up it's first shot...

Reavers pour towards the Salamanders on the objective.

Gal Vorbak rush Vulkan and his Fire Drakes joined by Erebus and Kor Phaeron.

Sicaran Venator loses its main weapon to a penetrating hit!

Vulkan calls Erebus out... the coward refuses the challenge.

Dreadclaws took to the air over the Raven Guard to devastating effect.

Death Guard heavy tanks continue to bombard us.

Spartans square up to one another as their units clash beside them.

The Mhara Gal joins the fight, Vulkan stands his ground defiantly.

Sons of Horus Praetor accepts Sallie Praetors' challenge and proceeds to kill him.

Vulkan entirely surrounded after the Fire Drakes are dragged down by the Gal Vorbak.

Word Bearer Contemptor loses both arms to two penetrating hits. Take that!

Iron Hands on the flank were taking lots of fire.

Outflanking reinforcements arrive just in time to lend a hand on both board edges.

Death Guard continue to hold their ground in the buildings.

Vulkan dispatches the Mhara Gal, the ensuing explosion kills Kor Phaeron!

Death Guard doing what they do best. Staying alive.

More Iron Hands arrive from the flanks.

Goodbye Glaive. After much shooting, the Raven Guard dreads finish it up close.

Iron Hands getting a good view of all the action from this vantage point.

The World Eaters pour out of their transports in front of the loyalists all across the board.

What a shame strength 7 weapons can't hurt armour 14 tanks.

Even unpainted Angron looked awesome when he charged out!

Raven Guard terminators get stuck in with the enemy Contemptors.

More World Eaters arrive from the skies!

Word Bearers possessed hunting around for Raven Guard.

Vulkan still standing after several more rounds of combat and the Gal Vorbak are mostly dead.

A view from afar as Fire Raptors begin to circle the battlefield looking for targets.

Iron Hands terminator squad on the rampage.

Iron Warriors Contemptor seizes one of the objectives on the final turn.

Raven Guard sneak in to grab another on the far end!

They stand defiantly over a third as well... giving the day to the loyalists!

So there you have it. Those are all the pictures I took that came out okay to use, I had a load more but they weren't in focus or captured nothing in particular just random shots of parts of the battle I can't recall. One thing I missed out a photo of was the Sons of Horus Praetor who had slain my own later standing defiantly on one of the five objectives, contested by an Iron Warriors Contemptor he was fighting. That last turn he took several lascannon shots and a storm of bolter fire but lived, then survived combat with a Contemptor with a fist, all to keep from giving us that fourth objective. It was not to be the deciding factor though, as the fifth objective was left open after my two Contemptors that had been holding it were earlier removed in the traitors last turn. Regardless of the outcome of the battle, we all enjoyed the game and I was just happy to get some decent 30k time in and grab as many pictures as I could in amongst all the action.

Of course, winning is always a bonus!

Thanks for reading,

Jason

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