The Big Game

Every year, those of us in the family who play Warhammer 40k get together at my Uncle’s Upholstery Shop in Austin, Colorado and play the big game.  The goal is two-fold: to get together and spend some family time together, and to pull out all the stops and play Warhammer 40k, all day, with as many models as we want.  In previous editions, this was called Apocalypse, for us, it’s the Thanksgiving Apocalypse.

For my part, I play the Space Wolves.  I personally like to only run a few models, but lots of elites and as many walkers as I can get away with.  Here is a picture of my army this year (pay no mind to the orcs staged behind me – they are on my team though):

Space Wolves Panoramic

This year, I managed to bring ten dreadnoughts (including Bjorn the Fell-Handed), which is the big win for me already.  I only ran two troop choices (one of each Blood Claws and Grey Hunters), but a lot of specialized infantry: 23 Terminators (including 2 Wolf Lords and Arjac Rockfist), 14 Thunderwolf Cavalry (including Canis Wolfborn and Harald Deathwolf), 9 Swiftclaw Bikers (including a Battle Leader and two Attack Bikes), 11 Skyclaw Jump Troops (with a Battle Leader), and 5 Wolf Scouts; all told I had 12 HQ models!

The game was fairly epic from turn one, though I think things got slowed down quite a bit due to space in the deployment zones being limited.  In particular, by the time we were deploying the last quarter of our forces on turn three, we were having trouble finding space for them.  Here’s a couple of pictures of the end game from each end of the table; the teams were Space Wolves (me), Tyrannids (Clayton), and Orcs (Barry) vs Iron Warriors (Ian) and Chaos Space Marines/Daemons (Cody):

Game End 1Game End 2

Next year, I have a couple of different goals to shoot for.  In particular, I want to have at least one more walker on the field – either an Imperial Knight or a Space Wolf Defiler (this is the more ambitious conversion).  I also plan on rounding out my tank battalion with a Stalker or Hunter, and add a Stormtalon Gunship or Stormwolf (I have the Stalker/Hunter and Stormtalon Gunship already, they just didn’t get assembled in time for the game this year).  Another idea I kicked around was trying to get all 12 Wolf Lords assembled; this is more of a long-term goal, but I already have seven done, so adding a couple more should be doable.

Finally, the thing that I fell down on this year that must be done next year is Leeman Russ Unbound.  I have a model prepped, but not yet ready, and a sketch on some rules, but nothing really final yet.  This Leeman Russ is meant to be a much more feral version of the primarch, where the Mark of the Wulfen is much more prevalent.  The biggest challenge here will be getting him painted up and getting a datasheet that I am happy with, but I should be able to get that done by next year…