A game to celebrate your 81st birthday. --Part I "A downed gunship, Burning sands and a mechanical menace.

While we were at the lake Bonnie and I decided to play a game of warhammer 40k. It was an intense action filled battle in which victory always rested on a knifes edge. I will tell you of our greatest triumphs and our most tragic failures.

It started with a simple question, why were we fighting? We decided that my warband of alpha legionnaires, a cunning group of superhuman soldiers, had crash landed on a planet that harbored a dark secret -- long ago an army of soulless machines had been hidden underground in massive tombs all across the planet. They had slumbered peacefully there until the alpha legionnaires ship had fallen from the sky. Under command from their lord Galthar "The Unbreakable" they scoured the lifeless planet hunting for the materials needed to repair their ship. 

During their hunt they encountered disparate groups of small defender constructs that bore a striking resemblance to the scarabs of a desert world they had conquered century's ago. One of the sergeants amongst their number realised what they truly were, Necrons, soulless mechanical monstrosities that wished to paint the seas between the stars crimson with the blood of their enemy's. 

With this realization the men of the Alpha Legion rushed back to their ship hoping to escape before the Necrons awoke and slaughtered them, but as they approached the damaged ship their worst fears were confirmed, a group of Necrons had surrounded the downed ship. Their fear was compounded when amongst the machines number they saw a skorpeck lord was leading them, a fearsome Necron war form with half a dozen arms holding a jagged scythe that looked as if it could rip a tank in two if its wielder willed it. 

Seeing them Galthar knew there was only one course of action, he ordered his men the charge the enemy, hoping to overwhelm them with speed and ferocity. As his men clambered into their transport vehicle he held one of his sergeants and his squad back, and whispered orders to them that could bring a swift end to the battle. With their orders received the elite squad of soldiers, each clad in nigh impenetrable armor waited motionlessly as their leader climbed into the transport. As they sped towards the Necron forces Galthar whispered a prayer to the dark gods, hoping that they were listening and would grant them victory on this day. 

Hearing a chime in his helmet he knew the Necrons had spotted them, he steadied himself for a moment and jumped from the back of the transport as it came to a screeching halt. He turned his eyes to the enemy, seeing them without his helmets magnification for the first time. As he looked upon the twisted forms of the Necrons he felt a burning hot rage build inside of him, he could hear the shouts of the gods in his ear demanding the blood of the alien to be spilled. He smiled seeing the alien forms begin to charge towards him, knowing he had been given yet another chance to prove his worth in the eyes of the gods.

Engines roar and bullets fly as two armies charge each other, each hellbent on the enemy's destruction.