40k Tournament - 3 Games in

Got to play in a 2000 point tournament this weekend.  The missions were modified/created/bamboozled/whatever for a tournament in Alabama that one of the local guys go to every year.  This one was the short table edge deployment, objective in the center (yeah, in that building), dead units get you reinforcements only until you get a unit off the opponents table edge.  Only a character could get the magic sword in the middle - at which point, night would fall.

Lytro camera pictures from the day are here:  https://pictures.lytro.com/stories/127344

My army was the only thing I could find from the move - my undead Eldar.  In 13 years and 4 codecies, the list hasn't all that much.  Avatar (now with "Fast Shot"), 2x spiritseers, 2x10 wraithguard, 1x5 wraithguard in a waveserpent, 3 war-walkers with scatter lasers, 5 dark reapers (now with Starshot) in a waveserpent, and a battery of 2 d-cannons.  The real difference between the list from the 4th ed codex and this one is the spiritseers and toys.  Instead of being warlocks upgraded to spiritseers as part of the units of wraithguard, they're IC's.

Anyway, game 1 (pictured above) was vs. a SpaceWolf / Tau alliance.  I won, but not by much.  I used to joke that there were circles of death with this army, and it still holds true.  More so now, I think.

Game 2 was a Dark Angel/Space Marine alliance.  This was a three objective (two immobile, one mobile) with vortex missiles falling from the sky.  Starshot missles are mean...  :)  Win for Eldar, but just a squeaker.

Game 3 was vs Marines / Guard hybrid.  Kill points with corner deployment... oh, and a tornado running through the field.  This one reminded me that new Spiritseer powers aren't nearly as solid as the old warlock/spiritseer powers (I failed a *lot* of "Conceal" rolls).  Ended in a low point tie.

So, at the end of the day, I did go 2 wins and 1 tie - but not enough points to do anything other than have fun.  Prizes were a drawing for $10 cards and I picked up a tray of sabol foam for the dark reapers.

Waaagh! for the Cure (Charity Tournament)

So, Saturday morning I got my ass out of bed at about 4:15am, to leave the house by 5am to get to Tri-Cities in time to meet my ride to Spokane by 6:30, to make it to Spokane before 10am to play a tournament.  Baring the snow for part of the drive up and back - it was well worth it (cause I had a blast!).

First up - the venue.  Gamer's Haven in Spokane Valley, Wa.  It's just off the freeway, in a little strip mall.  Four stores down is a Subway, and in the parking lot is both a 7-11 and a Casino.  :)

The bottom picture is the miniatures gaming space.  It had 13 4x6 tables setup (some were had 2' storage space on the side), but could easily have put another 10 tables in.  The room is decorated as if it were an Imperial Ship / Spacehulk (including some tyranids coming through the walls) - for more pictures and store details, visit their webpage at www.thegamershaven.net.

Anyway, on to the show.

Game 1 was against a hastily built Space Wolf list.

I say hastily built because him and another guy had come up from Moscow, Id to play and they had to kinda build both lists on the fly using just his stuff.  It was 5x5 Grey Hunters in Assault Cannon razorbacks, 2x6 missile longfangs, 1x6 heavy bolter long fangs (and yes, both of those are 5 heavy weapons and the pack leader), led by a Rune Priest with Divination and something else... (not important, he only got one power off... ).

So, if you're looking at the picture, you'll notice 2 of the Long Fang packs, 25 Grey Hunters, 5 Razorbacks, and a Rune Priest... The Rune Priest got "Misfortune" off against the Death Company.  All of that flank on the board shot at the Death Company.  Everything but one power fist wielding DC died that round.  The DC, was then shot in over watch before he charged in.  My left flank folded like a dollar store chair.  The right flank was successfully contained by the rampaging Librarian Furioso until turn 4.

Descent of Orks: 0-1.

Got some lunch (did I mention Subway was 4 stores down the strip mall?).  Headed back in for Round 2.

Hammer and Anvil DZ, Kill Points for victory.  His army was a Huron-led Word Bearers (Huron, 1x3 termiantor in a land raider, 2x10 chaos marines, 2x5 havocs, 1x15 cultists hiding behind an Aegis with a quad gun, with a Hell Drake coming in behind).

Death Company went straight for the Land Raider, Assault Marines split around the center piece, Predator went left, Librarian went right.  It was a beautiful pincher move that ended with him wiped out and me having 1 Death Company, 1 Assault Marine Sgt from one squad, 1 Assault Marine from another squad, Predator with 1 hull point left, libby dread and the drop pod.

Descent of Orks: 1-1

Game 3 was against a Typhus +6 terminators, 2x7 plague marines with plasma, a forgefiend, and necron allies of a doom scythe, 5 warriors, and a cheap overlord.

There was, I think a little bit of 5th ed wound allocation memory going on in his head, but my big issue was not sending the dreadnought after Typhus.  He's only S6 - Librarian Dread is armour 13 on the front...  didn't think of that till after I got home.

Descent of Orks: 1-2.

So, waiting around for the results, of the 14 players, I think there were only 2 or 3 other people with fully painted armies (one of which being the guy who went with me from Tri-Cities).   Ended up walking away with "Best Appearance / Players Choice".  Charity event so the prizes were... odd.  My winning was a poster of the new GW paint set, 6 opened (but reasonably unused) GW paint pots, and a King Sized Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Text conversation with my painting slave on the way back home went like this:

Me:Hey - just wanted to let you know that you won best apprearance
Him: Sweet.  Did I get a cool prize?
Me: (winnings - see above)
Him: Haha - sadly one of the better prizes I have won lately.

Sir, I believe we're surrounded...

This was a shot from Game 2 - against the "wolves" list.  It was Canis plus 2 wolf lords (on thunder wolves), 3 large units of wolves, and 2 units of thunder wolf cav.  It was nice to be able to drop the thunder wolves (and lords) down with very few hits - something about S10 thunder hammers and/or force weapons :)

Over all for the weekend, I went 4 wins, 0 loses, and 1 tie.  The tie was just barely (skin of my teeth) - it was against the daemon player.  My reserves we're being fickle, his weren't.  Him being eternal warrior (even with Daemonbane) he wasn't failing those tests.  And the two full units of Blood Crusher's didn't help.  :)

Had a blast of time hanging out with some old friends... not "old friends.." (well, some of them are).. but you know what I mean.

I wonder if I can find a gaming store in The Netherlands...

OFCC - Game 5, Clay's Grey Knights

OFCC - Game 4, Dylan's Tau

OFCC - Game 3, Eric's Blood Angels

OFCC - Game 2, Wes' Space Wolves

OFCC - Game 1, Levi's Daemons

Game 5 - You have how many dreadnoughts?

The answer is "six" by the way.  Six dreadnoughts hurt.  A lot.  Fun game though - everything went into reserve for fun - and then most of them didn't want to come out and play...  Mek with SAG actually killed a few things... it was amazing.  Imaging this scene with 5 drop pods, roughly 25 marines, 4 dreadnoughts, a tech marine and vulkan in the middle... that's about what the end of turn 6 looked like. :)

Game 4 - Orks win!

I sat down for this game with one request - Could I please only fight 1 land raider.  This game seemed to reverse all my (bad) luck from the previous 3 games.  I could hit, I could wound, I could save... it was a miracle - I was rolling average!  :)

Terminators in lower left had some issues hitting my nobs (they were in a land raider), and the terminators in the upper left - I stayed away from.

Orkses winz!

Game 3 - 7 Tanks-a-shockin!

This was my opponents turn 1... that's 7 tanks that tank shocked on the board - total casualty for the Orks: one biker.  Only failed 2 checks requiring the nob pole re-roll... and failed one of them.

Game went downhill casualty wise from there... :)

End of game 2

Another Grey Knight army... vs one wounded power klaw nob. Technically beat my opponent - but not by enough to win... Strange mission, I'll have to post it when I get home.

Game 1 highlights

Adeptus Mechanicus army using Grey Knight rules... And those are Dreadknights.

End of game is one immobilized trukk... vs most of his army.

Pre Game 1

Ready to go!

Army's all packed. Display (movement) board is done. I leave Friday morning... It's weird to not have a list of things to finish before the tourney...

Rigging tourney's for the win!

< rant >

So, evidently, Tye and I can rig a local tourney to guarantee a win.  :)  There's been some discussion on the back end for our beating face last weekend at the doubles tournament.  "Did you know that not only are we bad ass at 40k, but we also have the ability to rig tourneys so we win. Cause, that was the only way we were able to stomp face so well...That's why the prizes were so big."

I was talking about this with Corey - and he referenced the South Park episode with Gnomes attempting to steal underwear for profit.  See screen cap here modified to be the following:

• Step 1: set up tournament, "manipulate" players to play at $10 a head.
• Step 2: ???
• Step 3: take all the winnings

His final bit was "There's a crucial flaw in the plan unless a) you had rigged scenarios b) you have an 'uber-broken' army list or c) you have microwaved dice."    Now - rigged scenarios?  You betcha!  Rolled randomly from the big rulebook - definitely rigged... you check the fine print where it says "Trent and Tye always win"?  "'uber-broken' army list"?  Well - you know we did have 2 HQ, 2 Elite, 6 Troops, and 2 Heavy's in 2000 points... so I guess so.  Microwaved dice?  Nah... we play old school - each of my dice are hand-drilled to roll only 5's - great for orks shooting and armour saves - less helpful for the leadership checks. Now Tye's dice - his are hand crafted by specially trained Peruvian screech monkey's to have all seven sides of his D6's roll 3's.

Or, from Tye...

Now it's my understanding that there were feelings that the tourney was "rigged" and Trent and I were going to win all along.  That being the case, I figured I would enlighten you with our master plans.  Following these easy steps you too can rig any tourney you play in.

• Step 1: Make sure that you and your partner have a combined total of over 25 YEARS playing the game.
• Step 2: Plan, Prepare, and Design a solid list that compliments each other well.  Make sure that you have a strong list that is able to handle anything thrown at it.
• Step 3: Make sure that you and your partner have time to talk strategy and different possibilities.
• Step 4: Make sure your armies are painted and you are good sportsmen so that you don't loose points on dumb things.
• Step 5: Play 3 good games against tough lists and decent players.  And beat them soundly.

By following these simple steps, you too can win every tourney you play in.

< /rant >

Distance tournament report.

Saturday involved me getting up at 4am, and leaving at 4:30 to meet up at the game store in Tri-Cities by 6am.  We then all piled into the man-van and drove up to Post Falls, ID for a 10am start time at Gamer's Haven's Grand Re-Opening day.  First up is some pictures of the *BEAUTIFUL* tables and space.

 

  

  

  

So.  I didn't take any pictures of game 1 - and it wasn't intentional - I just wasn't quite awake.  The game was good against a SM player coming back after a few years off.  It was a Shrike led, infiltrating, drop podding, veteran list.  To say my dice checked out would be an understatement.  I lost the Avatar to 4 bolter rounds.  It was a fun game, loosing 7-6 on kill points using the Adepticon missions from 2009.  Turned it into a 47-3 loss.  

Game 2 was an Ork player, mission #2 from Adepticon.  That one was the random mission on turn 4, that was a 1-0 loss with lots of death on both sides.

 Game 3 was against a beautifully painted (mostly done) Salamander's list.  Here's the setup.

This one ended up being a slaughter fest.  The wraithguard unit on the left wiped out that flank, the wraithguard on the right speed-bumped Vulcan and the marines coming out of the land raider long enough for the elite wraithguard to take out the raider, take the charge and then die quickly enough that the Dark Reapers could finish wiping them out.  Not pictured was the Sternguard squad that landed about 3 inches to the right of the warwalkers.  The Sternguard squad ended up taking out the warwalkers, the d-cannons, and one of the dark reapers before the game ended on turn 7.  The sgt. was the only marine still on the board.

MVP of this game was defiantly the Dark Reapers

 

The Avatar went on a rampage, then failed the difficult terrain test needed to charge into the scouts hiding in the forest... then they shot it dead.  :)

Results, some shopping, some dinner then the drive back to Tri-Cities.  We arrived there a little before midnight and then I drove home.  

It was a fun day, but I'm still very tired.  Would I do it again?  Hell yes.  I can't wait till the next one we do.