Tournament Report

Well…that went probably about as well as could be expected! To cut to the chase, I ended up placing third…the same as last time! The winner was Greg, with his nigh-on unstoppable Tau force, with Pete coming second with the Dark Eldar and after my Ultramarines, Mark with the Tyranids. I can honestly say that all of the battles were very close this time – and in an unplanned yet truly proper fashion, the final two battles were two contesting first place and two contesting third.

Think we have enough cover?

My first battle was against the Tau; I actually was fairly confident here going in, thinking I had a decent chance. I had won the roll and elected to deploy and move first; my plan was to race ahead and grab the two objectives on Greg’s end of the table with my Tactical Squads, picking off his Warlord and troop units and using my Command Squad to go after his heavier stuff. This plan collapsed when Greg stole the initiative…and all of a sudden my Rhinos looked extremely vulnerable. With three resounding pops, not only did Greg have first blood, but more importantly, my forces were stuck on the wrong side of the battlefield. 

Get 'em!

From that point I was really playing catch-up; the Tau had their range advantage, and I struggled to get to grips with the enemy. Where one squad did get into action it did very well – one of my Tactical Squads on consecutive turns routed a unit of Stealth Suits, routed the Warlord and wiped out a squad of flanking Kroot, but none of my other units did anything significant. My Storm deep-striked into enemy territory and got blown away in a round of shooting. Didn’t even get a shot. Game ended on Turn 4 – which prevented me from actually being tabled. (To make sure we got the three games in, we were playing games of 4-6 turns length instead of 5-7.)

The Thin Orange Line

The second battle was against the Dark Eldar, and this was a lot closer. My forces got across the table and managed to deploy, though one of the Rhinos – containing my Melta Tactical Squad – was blown up during the first turn. As I expected, Pete’s Jetbikes proved decisive, and I was never really able to do much damage to them. By about Turn 2, we’d swapped sides of the battlefield, which was highly amusing, and confusing! I evolved the plan of grabbing the objective on the far side of the battlefield, and preventing Pete from taking the other objective my using all my mobile forces to deny it. That would have given me a 3-2 win…but it wasn’t to be. By Turn 5 both my Tactical Squads were on the verge of death, one Sergeant fighting a heroic last stand while a couple of bolter marines were standing off against the jet bikes…but those jet bikes really denied me a win. I needed to break them, get them off the table…and I failed to do so. I managed to avoid tabling again – we ended on Turn 6. (Technically Pete still had his Turn 6 to go, but we collectively decided that there was no chance of a tabling, and we wanted to proceed to the next game.

Mobile Tin-Openers of Doom

Then came my win! Albeit a slightly controversial one. I was playing against the Tyranids on this one, and Mark decided to simply go for the Kill Points. He whacked my Rhinos first, getting three easy points, but I was taking out his forces about as quickly. His Genestealers were wiped out by a single Tactical Squad, no problem, and I managed to take out his Trygons and Zoanthrope in quick succession. Mistake one – I erroneously thought that Krak grenades were AP 3, where of course they are AP 4. That did make a difference, obviously…but we did agree that realistically, I’d probably done enough overspill that they would likely have died anyway. Mistake two was Mark’s. He’d made his Hive Tyrant flying, and opted to fly him off the table back into reserves. The idea was that I wouldn’t be able to kill him; by his calculations, that gave him the game 5-4 in VPs when it ended on Turn 4. I then pointed out that any figures off the board counted as destroyed for the purposes of the mission…and thereforce a fifth unit was dead – so 5-5 – and the Warlord was dead…so 6-5, giving me the game. Fifteen minutes of flicking through the rulebook later, and this interpretation was deemed quite correct…so I got the win, 6-5. Interestingly – Mark had very, very close games in the first two battles, though the third was a steamroller for me. All he killed were three Rhinos and a Servitor – not a single Marine died. (Another reason why the ‘Super Krak’ anomaly wasn’t that bad. He wasn’t getting my units anyway; I had a whole Tactical Squad doing very little in Turns 3 and 4 I could easily have employed in support.) Ironic that the game he came closest to winning was the game he did worst in!

Little bit of overkill...

I think that the first battle went sour when the initiative was stolen. Had I managed to get closer in, my Rhinos would still have died, but my Marines would all have been well in range, maybe even in rapid fire range…which would have made all the difference. The second battle I really needed to get those jetbikes! The third…well, I don’t think I’d do anything differently, but I suspect Mark will next time!

Ratings on my army to follow tomorrow, then I’m going to do some reviews of old White Dwarves, I think…

Army Lists

Dark Eldar Army

1 x Archon (Shadow field, blaster, venom blade)

7 x Wyches Hekatrix w/Venom Blade and Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Raider)

2 x 10 Warriors (Splinter Cannon, Blaster, Raider)

9 x Reaver Jetbikes (3 Blasters, Arena Champion w/Arena Blade)

1 x Ravager w/ Retro Jets

Tau Army

Shasel

6 x Stealth Suits

3 x Battle Crisis Suits (Flamer, Missile Pods)

12 x Fire Warriors

2 x Broadside including leader (3 shield drones)

10 x Kroot

Tyranid Army

1 x Hive Tyrant

1 x Zoanthrope

4 x Tyranid Warrior Brood

10 x Genestealer Brood

2 x Trygons

Ultramarines Army

1 x Captain

1 x Command Squad (Flamer, Flamer, Flamer, Apothecary, Champion, Rhino)

1 x Techmarine (Servo-Harness, Servitor)

2 x Tactical Squad w/Rhino (1 x Heavy Bolter/Flamer, 1 x Multi-Melta/Melta)

1 x Scout Squad (Combat Knife, Bolt Pistol, Land Speeder Storm)

1 x Attack Bike (Multi-Melta)