Well, yesterday was my first tournament ever, and it was awesome fun. It’s a bit weird to meet all the forum people in the flesh. Of everyone I met, I think O:nk looks least like his profile picture – I always thought you’d be ... rounder. I've posted my army list on the
Tau forum, if anyone's interested, and my photos for the day can be found on Flickr via my sig (although I only have photos of my games, so they may not be of that much interest).
The Games...The Relic, Hammer and Anvil Deployment, vs Dwarf 2’s (sorry, can’t remember your real name! PM me and I’ll edit) Ultramarines.
This game got me off to a good start. My opponent deployed quite far back for some reason, which allowed me to infiltrate my Kroot right onto the relic. It also meant that I could really milk the first turn of night-fighting. There was a lot of woodland on the board, and I was quite fortunate with my mysterious forest rolls, unlike my opponent, whose deepstriking terminators scattered into some brainleaf fronds and then proceeded to power-fist each other. I took the relic, first blood and linebreaker to win 5-0.
Crusade (4 objectives), Vanguard Strike, vs Phil’s (SeriousCallersOnly) Tyranids.
My gunline sat and waited whilst he came to me. Everything was going well until I fluffed a couple of morale checks, and his deep-strikers started to arrive. We were still fairly evenly matched when we had to call it at the end of turn 3 (large armies and lack of rules-familiarity slowed us down), although another turn would probably have turned it into a decisive victory for one side or the other. He finished with 2 objectives and linebreaker. I had one objective, first blood, linebreaker and slay the warlord. 6-7. This was the first time I’ve ever played against Nids, and was good fun.
Purge the Alien, Dawn of War, vs Jason Tovey’s Grey Knights.
I took a sound spanking. Psycannons and Stormbolters moved into range on turn one, and fairly effectively outshot my Fire Warriors. I whittled down a good number of his squads, but found it very hard to land the killing blow. Then his Stormchicken full of Terminators arrived, along with a deep-striking Dreadknight, and once they were among my lines I was in real trouble. Possibly my best moment of the day came when my Kroot overwatched his Terminator Librarian to death though, who was also his warlord! That saved me from being tabled. 7-12. This was also the most visually pleasing game of the day, as the scenery matched my army!
The Scouring, Dawn of War, vs Steve’s (I think! again please PM to correct me) Space Wolves.
Having invested yesterday in the GW objective dice, I had a chance to use them! They’re definitely better looking than paper, but probably cost more than they’re worth. This board had a lot of city terrain, giving vehicles plenty of places to hide, making it the most tactically challenging game of the day. I was fortunate to have the 4pt objective, a 2 and a 3 on my side of the board, forcing my opponent to come to me. He had a frustratingly effective tactic of sticking Terminator-armoured Wolf Guards at the front of Grey Hunter squads, forcing most shooting hits onto the harder armour then rolling for Look Out Sir! when he failed a save. In the end, it came down to last-turn manoeuvring to claim and contest objectives. The improved jet-pack movement and some good rolls really helped me here, and I took the game 9-4.
Overall, I came 11= in the arcane ranking system used by g00gle5/oink, as my more average tactical prowess was boosted by my
pretty army.
Many thanks to everyone who was involved in making the day happen, and particularly to g00gle5 for the lift - if you want petrol money you need to send me some bank details.
Cheers all,
-Jonathan
