From StuartL - Challenge Island Safari Tour - 9th February (40 points)

Greetings brave C.I.S.T.ers,

Today we head for that wondrous celebration of generosity, O'Grady's Gulch. It is traditional upon visiting the gulch to gift friends and family with presents and souvenirs from your travels. For any of you wanting to reward your guide, Challenge Island Safari Tour staff accept all known credit cards, Paypal and cash. Please ensure that all payments are made in your home currency and not Snow Lord Bucks, which are not even legal tender here on the island.

The exact history of O'Grady's Gulch isn't entirely clear, but visitors to the location often leave behind their own offerings, and it is one of these that we will be visiting today. As part of their efforts to ensure that every planet in the known galaxy has exactly the same type of architecture and design, the Adeptus Mechanicus (or cog-heads as they are called when out of ear shot), frequently deploy Imperial structures and defenses in seemingly random and illogical locations. They say that it is all down to the Omnissiah's will, but personally I think that they are running an older version of Google Maps and got a bit lost.

Should there ever be a need to defend the island from attackers deep striking from orbit, this handy-dandy lascannon will ensure that only burning fragments of wreckage reach the ground. Oh, at this stage I would like to remind you all to wear your C.I.S.T approved hard hat and that only those of you with our platinum insurance package are covered for injuries caused by burning fragments of wreckage.

Feel free to take pictures of the weapon system, but please refrain from climbing on it or pushing any of the buttons. To comply with all Imperium regulations, the lascannon features a simple on/off switch that can be activated by any designated member of Imperial Personnel, Heretics, Xenos or, as we have found out several times, curious tourists. We don't want a repeat of last year and the incident with the cruise ship. They said you could see the explosion from miles away. Ahem.

To give you some idea of the scale of the device, Battle Brother Proportionis Comparicus of the Ultramarines is here to help. Hmm, it seems that the cannon has locked on to a large spherical object traversing the airspace above the island. If you'll excuse me for a second, I need to enter the abort code to preserve the Island's public transport network from imminent blasting.

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At my local club we have a few new players who all have armies for 40K but little to no scenery. With that in mind, I intend to donate the lascannon to the group as a combined objective/terrain/weapon system for them to use how they see fit. The gun comes from one of GW's old Planet Strike kits that they released back when 40K was in it's 5th edition. I'm not sure how to score it, as it represents a very small volume of terrain (roughly 2" x 2" x 4" or 1.48 points), so I will leave it up to the Minion on duty to decide. The marine was painted in last years challenge and is just for scale.

So, whatever gets added to my score for the weapon, plus 30 points for the location should give me a grand total of something or other.  

I rather surprised to hear that anyone has survived this adventure tour, but always appreciate Stuart's  Travel Blog.  A fine submission for the Gulch, I hope that the cog-heads appreciate it.  This weapon vaguely reminds me of cheap toys I played with in my younger days (no I never got into GW stuff, I mean real toys back in the 1960s).  I like the red highlights and the bronze symbol on the plinth.

I'm scoring this as a 28mm gun plus the 30 points for the location.