So a friend of mine spent 15 months in Montana recently (about the length of your average military deployment overseas). He got a job as a computer...somethingerother guy. Anyway, he just recently returned. Before he left I introduced him to
40k. We played a few friendly games of 5th edition. I played my beloved orks and I let him use some of my old space marines. He's really into anime and wanted to play Macross (whoops, I mean Tau), so we proxied various space marine stuff as Crisis suits and Fire Warriors and generally had some fun. He came back with a lot more experience (there isn't anything out in Montana except wargaming, reservations, rednecks, and drinking, you see - not even wind, I'm told) and the beginnings of real live Tau army. Neato, right?
The problem arose when he came back ("back" being New York City, which I'm convinced is its own state because, frankly, the rest of New York State is just really boring) and, after spending his "deployment" in nowhere-montana-time-town playing
40k 86 billion times a week, he was jonesing for a game (cue him slapping the inside of his elbow to raise a vein to shoot up. Yes, that's where that comes from folks. That's why people slap their arms when they are pretending they need something they haven't been able to get for a while and miss it). My cynicism aside, the only table he had available was 60" long by 30" wide. This is not a regulation table by any means. We might as well have been playing on a fallen pillar (albeit a fallen pillar with a cheap wood veneer). Anyway, I say "Say
Anonymous Friend, considering this is a non-standard-sized table, we should probably set up across from one another at the short board edges instead of the long. Otherwise we will be 6" apart from one another or we will have 3" deployment zones." (now you have to picture me, a man you have never met before, smiling in a Boss Hog I'm-your-friend-honest sort of way. Go on. I'll wait.) To which
Anonymous Friend replies (speak this in your brain-head-voice in the most exaggerated authoratative-nerd-voice complete with ridiculous over-annunciation and wild gesticulation. I don't know what that description has to do with what he actually said, but I like the idea of thousands of people around the world picturing some random human flailing around like a clown on speed), "Well, regulation deployment zones are 12" so that's what we'll do." And like a jackass, I say "SHOOOOORE, what could go wrong?!?" Right?
So, here I am, deployed 70 trillion miles away from the one army (so far) in
40k that DESIGNED to kill me from a distance, using an army with a 5th edition Codex in a 6th edition world that is designed to kill someone up close. Did I mention I had no vehicles? That's really the best part. ...I looked, there's no orky emoticon over there that really captured how I felt.
I'm not even going to give you a play by play, because essentially what happened was: I moved forward, barely saw anything to shoot at, missed anyway, and then in his turn he killed half my army. It was great to try out all the jungle terrain I had made because, really, it was just there so that the table wasn't flat, but his twin-linked army of I-don't-even-need-to-know-you're-there-to-shoot-you-to-death-with-missiles-of-ignore-every-rule-established-in-the-book made using it less fun than if I had just painted green splotches all over the plastic wood-looking surface.
Did I mention his Deepstriking, flamethrowing crisis suits of killing-the-rest-of-my-army-in-turn-3? (there needs to be an emoticon of me smashing my head against a brick wall. Anyway, he's some shots of our "game". (I apologize for the blur, I was trembling with rage at the time)
Me spending time on my end of the table waiting to die.
Stormboyz foolishly thinking they might make a difference by getting closer before being shot to death before having no effect on the outcome of the game whatsoever.
The Tau gloating before shooting the last two suicideboyz.
Nobz arrayed for death.
All of these Tau survived. I killed THREE stealth suits. So great.
This guy? I hate him the most.
By the way, his entire apartment is this ridiculous punch-me-in-the-face-blue. Walls, ceilings, light fixtures, everything. And ranting and mayhem induced rambling aside, I really love my friend. I just hate his Tau.
Cheers! Thanks for looking.
