Baptism by FIRE!

+++ Contact Initiated with the Traitors. Taking heavy fire. Send Reinforcements!
+++ Tranmission Ends. Squad Unresponsive.

Yesterday I got to play some of my first games of 30k, and what better way to ease into a new game than to toss my troops into the fiery crucible that is Zone Mortalis? My legion dove screaming into the warren of tunnels to sanctify their loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind with their rapid deaths. We used a fan-made adaption of the Heresy Era armies for 8th edition Warhammer 40,000, and the loyal forces of the Imperial Fists and Iron Hands squared off against the traitor scum of the Iron Warriors and the Emperor's Children!

My buddy Marky generously brought out his 4'x6' Zone Mortalis boards for us to battle over the
whole day. 

We played two different missions and my Marines died horribly in both of them. The first game I squared off against the Leviathan Warriors, oops I mean IRON Warriors. The two massive dreadnoughts wiped most of my units off the table in single rounds of shooting and I wept and gnashed my teeth at the indignity of it all. Much salt was thrown about. Thankfully, I did manage to finally kill one of the beasts in melee with my heroic Sword Brethren, moments before they too were wiped out. I considered it a moral victory of sorts.

My troops look so nice and ready to deal out death and destruction. This was a pipe-dream unfortunately.

Who needs and army when two of these things can just wipe your opponents off the map?

Here I am marking my Contemptor with a damage die rather than just removing him like I would have
to anyway when he was annihilated. 

Our second game saw me tangling with the more cultured gentlemen of the Emperor's Children - this went slightly better as I got to shoot and fight somewhat more in this game. In the end, we lost the second game but it was much, much closer than the previous game. 

"Everyone can fit, Brothers! You! On the left! Snuggle in there trooper! In the next 10,000 years you'll look back at this as one of the least awkward things you've done!"

After being wiped out earlier in the game, my Sword Brethren rushed back onto the board and acquitted themselves much better the second time around.

We managed to hold the primary objective for most of the game with the aid of our Iron Hands brothers. It still wasn't enough.

The brave troops of the Iron Hands pour through the doorway. This area would become choked with the dead when the Iron Warriors advanced a Leviathan into the hall. 

It was a lot of fun, but I am looking to see how the game plays on a more open battlefield with less crazy rules. Zone Mortalis has given me some motivation to get the last of my Breachers done this week, though. They definitely would have come in handy the battle zone.

Cheers!