Tournament report, Feb 5th, G2D4

by TheGraveMind

So the morning of the fifth, I wake up, shower and get ready to pick up a few of the locals on the way up to G2D4. Behold the snow, on top of the good amount of ice that is still clinging to spots. I pick up Strung muppet and Nemisis first as they are close. We call the fourth person and find out his car went off the road near his house. We drive and find him, and try to get it out, but he somehow found the one hole in all that ice and was stuck good. An officer drives by and says they'll have to tow it and probably impound it. Nothing more Nick can do, so he locks it up and we drive up to G2D4 at 10mph cause 74W and 65N are a mess with crashes every 100 feet. We get there a few minutes late (we had called ahead and they were understanding). Nick had been on the phone the entire way up trying to straighten up the car towing situation. But now it is game time!

Now, I didn't look at the missions before hand, with the exceptions of Ard Boyz, I normally don't bother. Ard boyz has crazy enough missions that you have to, but for most other tournaments I go with the belief that if I make a good balanced list it should be able to handle what ever mission I come against. I'll put this to the test.

First game was against imperial guard. KP mission with dawn of war deployment. I generally love dawn of war. It allows me to deep strike my squads in, while guaranteeing my normal reserves just turbo boost on turn 1. While deploying 24" up is tempting with a jump squad, not having a priest in them is not worth it. We roll off and He wins and starts deploying and... crap. Not just IG, but he has 4 Battle cannon russes, and I'm deep striking squads!

Ok, so I know my target priority. Turn one I turbo boost bikes, Storm raven and typhoons up. My raven immobilizes the front Chimera. One squad of russes fire into my bikes. At that point I realize that to half of my army, the lascannon hull mount and heavy bolter sponsons are just as dangerous as the battle cannon. Well 3+ on my bikes mean nothing. Cover and scatter help with the rest of my army. KP 0-1

Turn two my four melta squad comes in, but my reclusiarch squad decides to hold back. Fine with me. My meltas DS to the side of the russes, while my raven turbo boosts up.

Dread jumps out, melta and assaults the other russes. squad plus Storm raven take out other chimera and troops.

His vendetta comes in too late, shoots some shots, and I explode it with my Raven.

He scoops with 4 guardsmen left that are about to get assaulted. He's not too upset, they are giving out blisters for people who get tabled, and he learned some stuff. While not a new player, I think he was a little new to mech guard. Holding the vendetta in reserves was risky and ended up biting him, and not popping smoke on some russes when he had the chance also hurt.

Game two was against a deamon player. Oh boy, G2D4 has a known demonic infestation and I'm about to face it head on.

It's pitched battle and 4 objectives. Three end up placed on my left, with one on the far right. So I deploy on the left side.

He gets "Flipped" meaning the half of his army he didn't want in comes in. That's his three troops and a deamon prince. His two nurgle squads deploy on the two objectives in front of me, and prince to the far right. I shoot and assault up, while typhoons and bikes unload into deamon prince.

Fate weaver scatters a couple inches closer, and then every single deamon hits after that. sigh. I keep assaulting through his plaguebearers, while keeping one combat squaded half in the back to try and claim the objective later.

 

Blood crushers ruin my midfield, fate weaver and lord of change start destroying my surviving infantry. A lucky bolt takes down my Raven. I charged Fateweaver with my dread, Ws6 and AV13 should tie him up. Fw hits once, and pens, and explodes my dread! grr. Lone bike fails moral, runs, rallies and then shoots Right side deamon prince killing him. Typhoons pump shots into the horrors leaving just the changeling. Tactical retreat! I jump three marines over to the far right objective, run 5" and claim it last turn. The squad jumps out of the raven and assaults the changeling on the center objective. I nearly got tabled, but mobile troops grabbed the victory for me.

Going into Round 3, there are six undefeated players. Three of us from my car ride, Spaguartyrine and two others. Spag's wolves face against orks, while Nick' orks battle against a Space Wolf player. That leaves Nemesis and myself to duke it out.

Blood angels on blood angels is always a rough fight in my experience, and coupled with His flittery evasive style of play, it is going to be a tough fight.

We deploy and I have my 4 melta squad in reserves. I take down his three speeders, but my missiles bounce off of his raven. Crap there goes my alpha strike. Vindicators tear into my chaplain squad, his storm raven fires into mine, rolls hot, and blows it up. Lascannons take out my typhoons and mephiston assaults my bikes.

 

Turn two my melta squad does not come in even on rerolls. crap, well I assault mephiston, kill him through it all, and eat vindicator shots. Dread is immobilized with out the melta arm, and My chaplain made his invulnerable save. Melta squad finally comes in, I combat squad to hit both vindicators. First one scatters 6" back into the Raven, mishaps and is destroyed....Ugh. Second one comes in, and shakes a vindicator. Chaplain assaults a razorback just to get out of the open, and fails. Everything dies bottom of Three. Ya tabled, I get a blister! I get this cool looking Chaos sorcerer that is all skulls and dragons heads!

All in all it was a great tournament. Good turn out, excellent games with a good atmosphere. Two of the guys I came with went undefeated, I got a blister and made it to the last table, and the fourth got best sportsmanship. And to top it off, Nick's car wasn't impounded, it was close enough I guess they took it to his house.