Warhamer 40K Battle at the Farm

A game for children, deviants and accountants - that was how we always referred to 40K when I worked in Mail Order for GW.
Much though I like the background and many of the models I'd never enjoyed the experience of actually playing the game - generally finding it attracted people far more interested in demonstrating their "skill" at pushing little plastic men around then people who wanted to have a laugh, roll some dice and shout hurrah!
However recently my chum and I, grown weary of WFB, decided to have another little go at some round based nonsense and try a bit of more narrative led, scenario type 40K.
He was painting some Crimson Fists and I had a bunch of Orks and so it seemed only natural to give the classic Battle at the Farm scenario a go. Now, not being one of those rose-tinted spectacle wearers who think the Rogue Trader was actually anything other than a tedious mish-mash of role-play, complexity and micro-management we decided we'd go with the latest version of the rules. Good job too as I threw my original copy of RT bought back at Games Day 87 in the recycling a few months ago - along with WFB 3rd ed. hardback, McDeath, Terror of the Lichemaster, Slaves to Darkness, Realm of Chaos and Warhammer Armies on the basis that they were all unplayable old cobblers taking up much needed loft space.
GW produced a revised version of the scenario as part of a Rynns World campaign which is designed for newer versions of the game, so we just used that.
There was a version of the PDF on the GW site, but it's been deleted. So I've uploaded it to my Dropbox here

Sadly my camera proved risible once more and these are the only pictures that are half-decent.

 Hruk da Nob leads the lads on the left

 Meanwhile Thrugg Bullneck heads forward on the right

 Hruk's shoota boys unleash inaccurate lead

 The warboss reaches the marine lines

Thrugg and Pedro go toe-to-toe

The game was pretty simple and straightforward. The orks charged, got shot-up by the marines and finally delivered Thrugg into the imperial forces, where he laid waste to anything and everything he touched. In the end the two leaders clashed and in true comic book style killed one another at the same time.

We had fun, we rolled dice, the soldiers looked quite pretty.

The rules remain a perplexing mixture of very simple core overladen with way too much chrome and special rules that, even in a game as small as this, leave the whole thing creaking a bit. Playing this in a tournament would be my idea of hell.

Was I gripped? Not really, but we think we might think up a few more scenarios to play through set on Rynn's world as and when the mood takes us.