1250 at the Gopher

This weekend I drove up CU to attend a 1250 tournament at the Gopher.
I had not been to a tournament since they moved into their new location, and I was impressed with how much space there was. In the old store they had troubles cramming in three 6x4 tables, in the new location they fit in five 6x4 table with plenty of room to move around.
I also have to say that this was one of the smoothest run tournaments that I had the pleasure to attend for quite some time.

The matchings were done by random lottery with latter two games paired according to victory points . You got six points for a win, three for a draw and nothing for a loss. Tie breakers would be decided by over all killpoints gained through out the day.

Of the ten players there was one Nid, one Necron, and one Tau player. The rest of the armies were marines with the majority I believe falling to the spiky variety.

Here a quick list of what I brought:
HQ- Squeaky Bobo – DP with wings and MoN
Elite- 2 Dreadnoughts with DCCW and Missile launchers
Troop- 8 berserkers in a rhino (w/ second bolter) with a fist champ
7 PM with dual plasma and a fist champ
10 CSM in a rhino (w/ havoc launcher) with dual melta, ICU, and a fist champ.
HVY- two oblits in one squad
total points was 1249

In my first round I faced off against another Chaos player who brought:
HQ- Lash DP w/ wings
Troops- 10 berserkers in a rhino (w/ second bolter, EA , and dozer) and a pw/ p pistol champ
15 1ksons with doombolt/melta bomb sorcerer
Heavy- 5 obliterators broken into two squads of two and one by it self

The mission was killpoints and the setup was pitched battle.
The table was a cites of death table with many of the buildings being solid so that was going to be hard to draw line of sight across the board. This table had a retro feel to it, almost like we were playing fourth edition again.
He won the roll to go first and set up in the center of the board spread out over three feet of the six feet available. In response I anchored my center w/ the plague marines and oblits in the highest ruin that I could and every thing else went on my extreme right flank.
He came on in a wave with the 'zerkers leading the charge and the daemon prince shifting to cause havoc in my center. While the terrain slowed his progress I focused my fire power on his oblits and stopping his one rhino.
By turn three I got on to his flank and hit it with most of my mobile forces still left. And that is where I stopped, his daemon price stood up to my zerkers, the remaining dread, and my price for three player turns. By the time it died I had lost my dread and over half of my berserkers. On the center flank I had traded my oblitorators for one of his and all of his berserkers. From that point on I spent the rest of the game trying to take out his large squad of 1ksons with my daemon price, dreadnought, full csm squad and reduced zerkers, to no avail he keep on making save after save. When the game ended on turn seven he still had three of the dust buckets left.
In the end he killed off one dreadnaught and the oblits, while I netted a DP, squad of berzerkers, and two squads of oblits.
Giving me the win at 4 to 2

The second match was against another CSM army , this time it was a pure slaneesh force.
His force was the following:
HQ- Lash sorcerer with doombolt added on
- Summoned Greater Daemon
Elite- Plasma cannon Dreadnought
- three terminators with IoS, x2 combi-plas, 1 set of dual LC and all as asp champs
Troops- 2 units of six noise marines with sonic weaponry
- one unit of 12 noise marines with champ
- six lesser daemons

The mission was capture and control with five objectives, the deployment was dawn of war.
The board was set up with two bunkers at opposite corners each holding and objective marker. The center of the table was dominated by the ruins of a warhound titan, a very nice, very large piece of scenery that held the remaining objectives.
I won the roll for first turn and placed Squeaky in the warhound and the csm w/ rhino as close to the op4 bunker as possible. First turn I made a full court press against his bunker taking the unit of NM closest to it down to two while the dreads and 'zerkers moved flat out towards it. While my oblits and PM secured the home objective in my base Squeaky ran through a squad of NM and a dreadnought.
In the end I was able to hold my home objective and contest the daemons objective(which was the only other scoring unit left on the table) with my rhinos.
Had the reserve rolls not been horrible to my opponent I don't think that I would have been able to pull of the win and would have gone into round three with a tie, but as it was I went on to play the only other undefeated player.

In the last round I face off against the Imperial Fists.
HQ- Lysander (joined to sternguard)
Elite- 10 sternguaed w/ 2 meltas and a fist in a droppod
Troops- two 10 man tac squads with las/plas and fist(?)
- one full tac squad in a rhino with fist, ml, and flamer
HVY- Thunderfire cannon

The table's mission and deployment was randomly determined for each game. We rolled Annihilation and pitched battle.
I won first player and chose to go second.
The board was set up with craters for the most part except for the two massive wall sections one on each side of the board. After seeing my opponent deploy I set up everything behind a wall section out of line of sight of his entire army.
First turn Lysander and friends dropped in and stuck one inch away from my mess of units, they quickly took down squeaky with poisoned rounds. In response I shot out four marines with oblitrators and assaulted with the zerkers and both dreadnoughts. Due to the tight space only one dreadnought and five of the zerkers were able to get into combat, but the upside was that lysander was also kept out of the fight as well. On the following player turn Lysander got into play and started to get his own back. Meanwhile the rest of his army is making a beeline towards my forces.
By my turn two Lysander is on his own and I mange to mass assault with both the CSM and the PM thanks to a poor difficult terrain roll. So at this point I have just shy of 1000 points in combat with Lysander and it still takes me two rounds to finish him off. I do so however just as the rest of his forces are reaching my lines and I am able to mount the wall and start thinning his forces.
By the end of it I was able to hide my decimated berserkers and only lost one dreadnought. While I was able to claim a far sized portion of his army.
Giving me the third win of the day at 7 – 2.

The overall standings ended up as:
Me in first place w/ traitor marines
the Imp fist took second
and Iron hands took third place by edging out the Tau by one KP.


Reflections and Impressions:
I had a great time, which had little to do with my winning and much to do with how well the tournament was run. Coupled with the relaxed atmosphere and great players I think that the 2 ½ drive was worth it. I am looking forward to the next tournament that they hold, barring illness I will be there.

I have never given the 1Ksons much thought seeing as Papa Nurgle won me over back in third edition, but they defiantly lived up to their fluff. They proved to be imposable to get rid of even with the majority of my forces beating on them.

It doesn't matter how good your list is if the dice or the mission/board are against you it is going be nigh impossible for you to win.

Lysander and a full unit of sternguard in a pod is a sick unit. Combine the rerolling bolters with the combat monster that is Lysander, and you have a group that will remove one unit from the game when they land and force you to commit far more than their points to get rid of them.