PAPER QUIPS: Fielding an army on the tabletop

Last month I finally got a chance to play a game of Warhammer 40,000. 

Long-time readers of my column will know that I've gotten into painting miniatures for tabletop games over the last year. I've painted up several adventurers, knights and wizards for Dungeons and Dragons, a tabletop roleplaying fantasy game that me and some friends play every Monday, but I've also begun collecting and painting a few armies for Warhammer 40K, a tabletop war game. 

While in D&D you control a singular heroic character and work together with a party of like-minded adventurers, in games like 40K you paint and control an entire army and pit them against another player. Each unit has its own rules and attacks, the outcome of which is determined by rolling copious amounts of dice. There are dozens of different wargames out there but the Warhammer games made by Games Workshop are some of the most popular and influential. 

I collect the Imperial Guard, Leagues of Votaan and Sisters of Battle, though at the moment my main focus is on the Guard. The Guard are 40K's version of basic human infantry armed only with rifles, tanks and bravery. This is especially impressive when you consider the other factions in the game include genetically enhanced Space Marines, soulless alien robots called Necrons and a ravenous horde of the insect-like Tyranids. 

While I've enjoyed building and painting my miniatures, until August I've never actually been able to play a game. I have a friend who is building an army of Chaos Space Marines but next to him, there weren't many opportunities to play the game locally. 

However, Creative Magic Art and Hobby have changed that. They hosted a Warhammer hang-out and paint session on Aug. 18 where I was pleased to discover there are several more people collecting and building armies. One of them, Tristan Feissli, asked if I wanted to play a game with him and his son which I happily agreed to. 

Now our game was not a standard game. While this marked my first time playing, Tristan used to play Warhammer back in the early 2000s and still had the rules for 40K's fifth edition. I, meanwhile, was playing with the rules for the current tenth addition. 

This meant my brave Imperial Guard were able to go toe to toe with his classic Space Marine Army and WIN. Space Marines are the poster boys of 40K and as a result, get really good rules. As we played I had to convince Tristan a few times his models had more health than he thought they did and their weapons were better. 

Despite that we still both had a fun time. He moved down a few of my squads of guardsmen while my heavy artillery and tanks pounded some of his Marines to dust. It was also a delight to watch his son roll dice for him and ask questions about the game and our models. In the end, Tristan conceded the match after three rounds of combat which was a pretty great feeling. 

With Creative Magic now starting a Warhammer 40K league this fall, I'll have plenty of more opportunities to test out my army, though I fear with us both playing with up-to-date rules my poor guardsmen and guardswomen will be in for a rougher time. Still, at the end of the day, the game and stories we tell by playing it are all in the roll of the dice...