Really, two years passed since the first post went online. Almost two hundred, english butchering posts later we are here today and still going strong. Cheers and salutes towards our visitors from all over the world. We are especially grateful for the comments some of you left here over the last two years. You know who you are!
I took the opportunity and looked back on the Aleator gaming club during the last couple of years. In fact you can hardly call us a gaming club by regular standards. We are just a bunch of hobby crazed individuals gathered under one banner.
Of course we were around before the blog opened its gates in 2013. The year was 2008 when spring brought forth three nerds, eager to perform the hobby in a more serious way then they had before during their teenage years. Of course one would never call an Aleator-match a serious event at all. There’s always an open beer bottle around, people (still) don’t know the rules of the game and the chitchat is everything but mature. No, the main idea that united us was to have your miniatures painted and push them around on completed terrain – no compromises. We always had the battle reports from the early White Dwarfs in mind and tried to achieve an equally cool look. The quality (especially in the early years) might have not been top-notch, but that was never really the point. If someone did spent the effort in painting his stuff it has always been a blast to come together.
The years went by, new members joined, some old vanished. There’s little free space left for a time-consuming monster like our hobby. Kids/family, job, moving, or even some conflicts of opinions, constantly took its toll. Not complaining at all, that’s life. But I would like to take the chance and say cheers towards our lost companions, no matter if they are just not that much into the hobby anymore or doing their own thing now.
While losing some thoughts on what would be a good topic for this year’s anniversary I focused on the club and its members. There has always been one aspect of the actual gaming that we could all relate to oh so very well. I’m talking about Warhammer 40K Kill Teams! To us they are just the perfect match. They are taking place in the rich background of 40K, you have an excuse to come up with a new army, it is possible to get them painted in a reasonable amount of time and at a gaming event you are able to play a couple of matches during one day against all the other club members. On the blog we already featured some Kill Team events, even during the Horus Heresy lately. But today’s anniversary post is dedicated to the club events from the days before we started the blog. Please excuse the rather poor quality of some of the pictures. The photo equipment was not the best back in the day. Even though there were much more Kill Team matches lots of pictures got lost over the years. I hope you’ll be able to enjoy this post anyway. Please keep in mind that the Kill Team rules changed quite a bit during the last couple of years, thus you will see teams which might not be possible these days anymore.
These are the oldest Kill Team pics I could find on my hard drive. Here you can see scrum’s Space Wolves of the 13th company.
Major Tom challenged the Wolves with his Evil Sunz.
Vehicles better watch out!
Here the Wolves of Fenris are about to fight my Kroot Kill Team.
I still dig this Kill Team pretty much.
For Pech!
Flattervieh’s Imperial Guard? Meat in a tin can for the Kroot.
The fighting men of the deadly world Karnivore!
Major Tom’s Orks VS Flattervieh’s Imperial Guard.
Here it is yet another Aleator-Kill-Team-Event which is quite remarkable as it was Broncofish’s first event as an Aleator.
His Tau challenged my Bad Moon Orks.
Here they are, quite a huge amount of miniatures for 200 points.
I can still remember the long time one turn took to move each single Ork or Gretchin.
And of course rolling all the dice for running.
Club mate Wrathchild and his Daemons were still among us.
Giving both scrum’s Imperial Guard from Cadia …
… and Major Tom’s Blood Angels a hard time.
The next Kill-Team-Event took place on this neat Necron board made by Broncofish. It was the one and only time we used it and I am wondering if it survived his recent move?
Back then I fielded this Deathwatch Marines count as Space Marine Sternguard squad. It was also meant as a tribute to my club mates as it consisted of their Marine chapters only.
I think they performed pretty well.
Major Tom’s Blood Angels had a similar approach.
A couple of days before the event the new Dark Eldar miniatures were released and left quite an impression.
Both Broncofish and Flattervieh…
… couldn’t resist and just had to bring them on the table.
Another Kill Team event triggered the birth of my Nurgle Daemons.
They had a good match against scrums Cadians.
The Imperial Guardsmen were chased around.
Urgs!
I should really field my Nurgle Daemons again soon.
This one has to be one of my most famous Kill Teams ever! Elrond de Gravenesse came up with the idea to bring a Necromunda like gang of criminals as count as Imperial Guard on the table.
Of course they had to deal with the Nurgle Daemons aswell.
Battle of the small – Nurglings VS Ratlings.
Flattervieh brought another nurglish Kill Team.
We had to sort out which team was favoured more by the god of plagues.
Major Tom had quite an entertaining team that day. It was the nightmare of every team featuring a transporting vehicle.
On yet another event Major Tom tried a Forge World list with his Orks.
While scrum went for his Cadian Veterans again.
Broncofish sold his soul to Khorne that day.
A very cool team honouring Khorne with the number of 8 Marines.
I choose my men of Argos. The Kasrkin are the proto type of a Kill Team.
Flattervieh went for the Grey Knights which were hard to come by with the teleporting devices.
Also this was Rekrom’s first time as an Aleator.
His Sons of Vulkan had a good start.
And here we go again! This was Flattervieh’s new team. Do you remember his Imperial Death Guard? The Death Skullz from the very same planet obviously share some similarities with them.
Rekrom’s Sons of Vulkan were with us that day again.
And scrum’s Space Wolves, too.
Major Tom brought a new Team, also one of my all time favourites. The Wildgänse as a fast jump squad were a perfect fit for the Kill Team background.
I was in a Space Hulk mood back then I guess.
As always we had lots of fun that day.
If I remember correctly the Wildgänse had a good start back then.
The ride of the Sons of Vulkan got a bit uncomfortable.
pew, pew
Shootout!
Wolf against machine.
If memory serves me right the Tyranids got a severe beating that day.
On the next event I tried the Death Guard myself. Picking up the (un)holy seven Marines should do the trick to win Nurgles favour.
Elrond de Gravenesse had this very unique idea for his new Blood Axes. Probably the fastest Kill Team ever.
I think it was this Kill Team event that triggered Flattervieh’s love for Canoptec constructs (which lasts until this day).
For the first time Rekrom brought his Sororitas with him. I think they won this particular event that day.
Broncofish had to go with his old love the White Scars…
… just like Major Tom had to with his Blood Angels.
I may sound like a broken record but we had a terrific time that day.
This match was a blast! Felt pretty much like Space Hulk or maybe even had some Horus Heresy vibes.
My personal highlight of the day: A stubborn FIREfight … one Marine had the stronger flamer, yet the other marine was tougher.
Bad idea to wake up the Necron constructs.
Again Marines VS Marines.
On the next event both scrum and me thought it would be good idea to field a huge amount of miniatures thus chosing our Imperial Guards.
Here we can see scrum’s Astra Militarum from Cadia.
Broncofish was already lost to the Horus Heresy. His White Scars were mostly wearing MK IV armour that day.
My men of Argos gave them a hard time, forcing them to roll a lot armour saves.
Rekrom brought some Necrons with him.
Not the best position for a heavy weapon team.
Flattervieh continued with his Canoptec Necrons, this time in a different shape.
They were not easy to come by.
Major Tom painted some elite Blood Angels for this event.
I can still remember the look on his face after he rolled one and one again for the armour saves of his Sanguinary Guard.
This has to be the last event before the Blog went online. Flattervieh’s Orks got themselves some neat gretchin tanks.
While Major Tom painted this great new Dark Eldar Team.
Elrond de Gravenesse also came up with something new. These Thousand Sons were not the only Chaos Space Marines that day.
I picked up my old Black Legion Marines (just in case you wonder why I went for the Sons of Horus during the Horus Heresy – that’s why).
Rekrom brought Tyranid Warriors.
And Broncofish had this cool Eldar Team with him.
The 13th company of the Space Wolves was scrum’s choice of the day again.
Well…it was of course an entertaining day again.
Chaos Space Marines in a Space Hulk never get boring.
To see them fighting Dark Eldar there may be not a common sight.
The Black Legion was tough that day. I remember that I passed almost every armour safe roll.
Xenos brother fighting xenos brother was an intense event.
The Horus Heresy for Eldar so to say.
Dark Eldar collecting tokens to bring down the huge Tyranid creature.
These are by the way the gaming boards you have seen most of the time. Major Tom’s board.
My Ork village gaming board.
And Flattervieh’s Zone Mortalis board.
Oh – and there was this special Kill Team match I also have to tell you about. Flattervieh and me skipped the rules a bit and agreed on fielding vehicles only on 200 points. The scenario was some heroic gretchin tanks defending an ork village from the mean intruding Imperial vanguard force consisting of three Sentinels.
The gretchin leader – Von Grommel – really gave the match that desert fox tank battle vibe.
The Grots were horribly outgunned by the Astra Militarum Sentinels and stood little chance.
Yet Flattevieh/Von Grommel went for some brave charges and due to some really, really lucky dice rolls he was able to cast the humans out of town and win the match. One of the best Kill Team matches I ever had for sure.
Phew! This turned out to be the most picture heavy post of all times. Now looking back I have to insist that we should do a Kill Team event again pretty soon again. Also I have some ideas I would like to test…like an Eversor running wild in a Zone Mortalis among others.
One last thing I have to show today. During the fall of 2011 we acted as a real gaming club for once. We talked to the staff of the Games Workshop store in the city of Bonn and agreed to set up a Kill Team event there open for everybody who was interested.
It all started with our add on the pin board.
We were allowed to put some of our Kill Teams as an example in the store’s display (middle row). This proved to be a good idea as a lot of gamers visiting the store had never heard of the Kill Team rules before.
We brought two of our own, used two of the shop’s boards and added lots of terrain. I think that’s an appropriate size for the twelve players we had that day.
Three Aleatores were also among the players, other were busy taking pictures and helping out with questions regarding the rules. Rekrom fielded his Sons of Vulkan.
Major Tom had a brand new Kill Team of Khorne Daemons.
I went for my Black Legion again, yet I painted an elite formation of terminators.
Even though we saw some cool miniatures from other gamers I have really no idea if they are cool with them being posted on our blog. Therefore this is all I can show.
And this was the end of our very successful open Kill Team event. Again I don’t want to get anyone upset by posting his picture online thus you get this mysterious bunch of people. Yet you can spot the Aletores wearing their club shirts. It was a fun event for sure but the one and only until now as it was quite some work, too. But I wouldn’t exclude a second try completely.