Tourney Highlights

[Grand Master Iapetus]

Had a fun time playing in a doubles tourney today at one of Houston's premiere independent stores: Asgard Games. You can find them at: http://www.asgardgames.net/

 

Started with 7 teams, ended with 6 due to a one team having to drop out to an emergency. 1000 points per player, both players had to use standard force org, with non standard missions to keep it interesting. There were 4-5 chaos players, one ork, one eldar, one dark eldar, another GK player and couple of daemon players. I paired up with a guy running white scars bike list, and we were both surprised at the lack of orks and abundance of chaos. I know at least one other ork player signed up and then dropped out before the tourney started, but it was still surprising.

 

I ran:

- GM / SI / PH with 3 GKT retinue

- GHLR w/ Smoke

- Shooty inquisitor: Psycannon/Aus, Mystic, Sagex2, HBx2, PlasCannon

- 2x Stormtroopers (5) w plas / melta in rhino w/ smoke

1000 on the nose

 

My partner ran:

- Khan on Moondrakken

- 3x Bike squads (1 Attack w/ multimelta, sarge with PF, 2 Plasma Gun, 1 Standard bike)

- Vindi with Siege shield

~990

 

Since I walked out the door forgetting my camera, I am going to just do game highlights since I can't possibly remember 10 hours of gaming...

 

Game 1

 

Faced off against 1 daemon and 1 chaos player (5 DPs, almost pure nurgle) and I am just drooling while polishing the ole NFW. Mission was 12" deployment zones with 2 objectives 12" from each edge, 24" apart set on the center-line bisecting the table halves in no man's land. Starting at the beginning of turn 2, you scored a point for every objective you controlled (troops w/i 3" to hold, any enemy unit could contest). Play until 6 turns or until someone got to 5 points. They won the roll and elected to go second.

 

We finished off all of the DPs, priceless moment was fateweaver deep striking about 6" away from my shooty inquisitor lord. He put 3 wounds on big bird before it could do anything. COME TO PAPPA! Grand Master popped 2 of the DPs and the bikes took care of the other 2.

 

We ended up loosing 3 objectives to 0, basically due to poor objective managment. I ended up 3.5 inches away from one objective (misjudged distance) and I rolled a 1 on a DT test for one of my rhinos that would have ensured I could have shot the **** out of the enemy troops sitting on an objective and then scoring a point after that with my troopers. We would have ended with a draw if we had payed a bit closer attention. The same unit of 5 heralds sitting on the objective that my rhino got imobilized while going after withstood 3 full rounds of shooting from the inquisitor and retinue. Made every freaking cover save...ouch. We also made the bad decision of holding one of my partner's bike squads in reserve, he rolled 1's for the first 3 turns and they didn't come in till turn 4...

 

 

Game 2

 

Ok - REALLY wierd pairing. We go up against a DH and Daemon player - WTH? Both of them were unpaired coming into the day, and they were the only solo players that showed up, so there really wasn't any other way to do it. 2nd game was anihilation scored by KP, 18" deployment zone. We go first.

 

GK player had a hellfire dread, GM, GKT elite squad (6 w/ 2 PC), Purgation squad with 5 PC (yup, one on the Justicar, too), 2 squads of (5) vanilla troopers with a sarge w/ PP/Homer.

 

DaemonPlayer had a Skull taker, 2 squads of Bloodletters, 1 squad of flamers (3), 1 squad of horrors.

 

Highlights: Turn 1 - my partner moves the Vindi up, shoots at the GKTs. TAKES OUT 5 INCLUDING THE GRAND MASTER. Woo hoo - we win, pack it up !!! Not so fast. Next turn, his purgation squad unloads on my inquisitor in cover. I fail 7 CONSECUTIVE COVER SAVES -AAAAAAAA!!!!!!! Payback, huh?

 

Honorable mentions go to the GK & Ret for taking down skulltaker and about 10 bloodletters, one of my rhinos that withstood 3 consecutive TLLC shots from the rhino without taking a hit, and just when I was feeling bad about my partner's reserve rolls from game 1, the daemon player rolls 4 consecutive ones for his reserve rolls on the horrors...the flamers, however - were devastating...

 

We called it after turn five as the daemon player had to leave early. We win 9 KP to 8, probably would have extended our margin if it had gone to 6 or 7 - he had a naked ST and 2 PAGKs that would have given up 2 easy kill points the next round. Kind of wierd shooting the crap out of your own chapter, but needs must ;)

 

I do have to hand it to the other GK player, I could tell he was frustrated after loosing his uber unit literally on the first shot of the game, but he was a real professional and then he got to yuk it up as he watched me fail all my inquisitor saves. Just goes to show - never give up...But he ended up making it up by winning best painted army and a $20 gift certificate. He had a great looking GK army and thouroughly deserved winning for it.

 

 

Game 3

 

OK - so we are 1 and 1. The 2 players that had gone 2 and 0 in their previous matches were playing for first and second place on a table immediately to my left (more on that later). So this was a really hanky mission. Deployment in a 12" x 24" area in one of the 4 corners of the table. Your partner deployed diagonally across the table from you, and the opponents got the remaining corners. One objectve placed at the extreme corner of your deployment zone closest to the center of the table and one additional objective was placed in the dead center of the table for a total of 5 objectives. Win by controlling the most objectives at the end of the game (standard troops w/i 3", any enemy units can contest) OR you could control 4 objectives simultaneously at the beginning of any turn in the game.

 

Since one other player had dropped out, we played against one army controlled by one player. Mixed Guard and sisters, about 6 faith points, chimera, Leman, stormtroopers, Standard Guard squad, cannoness w/ celestian retinue, callidus, 3 death cult, repentia, and some more guard...not very much mech...

 

My partner and I decided to take on the enemies closest to us, so he basically goes for one side of the board and I go for the other. He ends up getting totally nerfed - fails like 12 saves in a row and is down to khan, the vindicator, and a couple of other bikes by end of 3. All the good luck is over with the GKS. I took a total of 4 casualties during the entire game: one GKT, both Rhinos and the LR. Khan and the remaining bikes do make a great stand for the last 2 turns and end up wiping out almost everything on their side of the table before going down to 2 DCAs.

 

For me, the Grand Master and retinue mow down 2-3 guard squads and end up running all the way across the table for the last couple of turns to try and help out Khan. Inquisitor takes out 3 full ST squads, breaking 2 forcing them to run off the table and obliterating the other one, and ends up taking out the entire celestian squad and the chimera to boot. STs get on 2 of the objectives and pour out dakka to account for another ST squad and some misc casualties. We win 2 objectives to 1, my partner is totally tabled but all the guy had left were the cannoness with one remaining wound, 5 sisters, 2 DCA and the Leman. They were all WAY across the board and most would have been gunned down if we had gone to turn 7.

 

Final note on the championship game. Evidently the team that won 1st place was able to take control of 4 objectives by the end of turn 2. Looked like it might have gotten a little ;) for a while, they seemed to have some type of rules dispute. The winning team was composed of Khorne and Noise Marines, the losing team was the team we had played in round 1. I think they may not have been able to get all the daemons on the board and the winners were able to exploit that and grab up the objectives quickly...

 

Overall, good performance and a lot of fun, they only gave out prizes for 1st and 2nd place, so I don't know if we were 3rd or 4th. I think we easily could have been second place if we had gone after the objectives more aggressively in the first game. And we had a GK player win best painted, so....good stuff :P