Saturday, I went with a couple of firends down to Jackson, MS to play some 40k with some new people. It was an enjoyable trip down, except for the speeding ticket the driver got.

My army was my Ultramarines, four mechanized squads along with a Dreadnought, a Heavy Bolter equipped Devastator squad and a Predator Annihilator. But the crowning jewel on this list was Chief Librarian Tigurius. This guy cost more than a squad of Marines, but had some terrifying psychic powers, all geared towards killing other Marines. He had a couple of powers that the normally super-tough Marines did not get their armor saves against.

Anyway, the first battle was some “paintball” against a vinillla space marine chapter. The objective of the scenario was to capture as many of the three objectives on the table. One was in each of our deployment zones, and one just about in the middle. This battle was a draw, because a lone Sergeant didn’t die when he was supposed to, then my HQ unit died when they weren’t supposed to do. This allowed a dreadnought to contest the middle objective, by about a half inch.

The second scenario was paintball against another vanilla Space Marine chapter, and the object was annihilation, wipe out as many units as you could. I was leading this one going into the home stretch, 6-5, until I tried a gutsy move to secure the game. Well, My HQ attempting the teleport screwed up and killed himself and the unit teleporting with him, and that swung the points in his favor. I lost 7-6. Ouch.

The third and last game of the day was a combination of the two, you got points for holding objectives as well as killing units. This one was against Orks, and I was outnumbered by about 3:1. My opponent was litterally throwing twelve dice for every die I threw. He only needed 5′s and 6′s to hit (I need 3′s) on a 6 sided die, but when you throw 30+ of them at a time, you’re going to get a lot of hits in, just by the law of averages. I gave up when I was down to two tactical squads, and the point total was 30+ to my 7.

A rather abysimal day, I travelled about 200 miles each way and paid $15 to come in next-to-last. Except for being swarmed in the last game, I did have fun throught the day, so it wasn’t a total loss.