Why I Suck at 40K - Tournament Report

Warhammer 40,000 – RIW Hobbies hosted a 1,000 point single source (no data slates/no Forgeworld) event on November 7, 2015. This the the second casual raffle tournament they hosted  this year and it had a decent turn out of just under 20 players. The event was holiday themed with special missions that were variations on the core eternal war missions. 

Given the limitations of the event I opted to run a fairly balanced list (also just so happens to be composed of what I have completely painted):

HQ - Tech Marine w/combi-grav

ELITE - Dreadnought multimeta, storm bolter in Drop Pod

ELITE - (5) Sternguard, Powerfist

TROOP - (10) Tactical Marines missle launcher, flamer in Rhino

TROOP - (10) Tactical Marines missle launcher, flamer in Rhino

FAST - (10) Assault Marines Thunderhammer, (2) Plasma Pistols

Chapter Tactics - Iron Hands 

Round one I faced an Imperial Guard player whose list consisted of (2) Taurox w/ Veterans, (1) Command Chimera, (1) Vendetta, (3) Wyvern. His army was nicely painted and was a really nice guy to play against. The mission was Purge the Alien with the first character killed coming back as a ghost. For some reason my dice turned against me in this game and I saw more ones on my rolls then I think I have in the entirety of 2015. Regardless of this fact the game was enjoyable and I learned a bit about how effective multiple small blast templates can be. I think I might need to invest in another thunderfire cannon to try a similar approach. The embarrassing final score was 15 - 3.

With my stellar performance in round one I faced a Space Wolf Player in round two. It turns out this was only his third game ever. Hearing this my Henchman/Demo Guy instincts kick in and I slow down to talk him through each stage of the game. I guess he was curb stomped in the first game so I opted to let him know when he has better choices with his units. The mission this time around was Relic with a twist that the relic is a turkey that runs around and beats the crap out of you when you catch it. Mid-way through the round it became obvious that this turkey was a bit over-the-top. The game was really fun as it felt more like a demo than a competitive game. At the end I tabled my opponent however I just barely squeaked out the win 5-4. 

The final round had us facing off against Santa. This is a weird mission where Santa hands out gifts to anyone within 12" of him. The gifts ranged from minor buffs to extra raffle tickets. If you roll a one then you roll on the coal chart. A roll of one on that chart removes you from the game, the other rolls a minor stat decreases. If you hit Santa with a template or blast he grows huge and forces every unit within 12" to roll on the coal chart. Crazy mission but it was pretty fun. I face off against another Iron Hands marines player who ran an interesting (allow questionably legal list) He had (1) Librarian with command squad three melta guns in a drop pod, (1) librarian in a drop pod with three grav cannon centurions, (1) Scout Squad with sniper rifles, (1) tactical squad with 2 melta guns and a combi-flamer in a drop pod (this is the one I question the legality of as I can't find anywhere that lets you take two special weapons in a tactical squad).

First turn I dropped my Sternguard behind the scouts and killed all but one of them, I moved the rest of my force within 12" of Santa and started rolling. Nothing of note came up on the gift table on my turn. My opponent dropped his centurions in in front of my Sternguard and dropped the tactical marines on the hill next to Santa. The chart saw Santa removing the scout from the game and buffing the WS of the squads that landed this turn. My Techmarine and Sternguard were wiped off the board by grav fire. With this I see where the game is going he has endurance and iron arm on the librarian with the centurions so 2+/3+ saves all day, and the other librarian has melta powers from pyromancy.

The game goes back and forth with each of us losing units to Santa (those damn ones!) eventually it come down to me pushing him off the objective with my rhinos to prevent him from being able to get close and claim Santa. The game goes on for an extra turn however and he's able to wreck both rhinos because he bought an omniscope for the unit. After he gets the 3 VP from Santa the game ends 4-1.

The event was fun and I did wind up wining a Imperial Strongpoint Terrain kit. Which is a nice kit that I was actually thinking about buying. I was bummed I was beat out on the painting competition by a purple Eldar force. (I'm only bummed because it didn't appear to be based or finished...what was done is really nice looking) I'm looking forward to the next event which is supposed to be 1500, hopefully they'll allow Forgeworld by then as I really want to try out my Fire Raptor.