So, with my army ready for the tournament, it was time to play 6 rounds of 40K. The Midwest Massacre's games worked somewhat similar to tournaments like the Bay Area Open, where there were 3 different missions in play simultaneously in each game, with the winner being whoever managed to complete more of those objectives (with ties falling to bonus objectives, like Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker, etc.). So, how did I do round-by-round?
Round 1: Hammer and Anvil/The Scouring, Table Quarters, Purge the Alien
Opponent: Dark Eldar/Eldar Allies
In the first round, my opponent ended up being my friend and podcast co-host Dennis. The organizers of the tournament apologized for pairing us together, but we were fine with it. It's our perennial grudge match, and unfortunately for Dennis, his luck against my Tau ended up being as good as it usually is - not at all. An early Raider kill pinned Duke Sliscus and his Warriors in the back of the field, and a Venom deep-strike mishap let me put place it way back in the corner as well. From there, I was able to keep the pressure on and keep him at bay, and even his Razorwing fighter wasn't able to hurt me too badly before I managed to drop it. This would be one of the two times in the tournament that I'd fare well against a flyer. I ended up winning all three missions and getting 4 of the 5 bonus points. In retrospect, this worked against me, since I ended up in a higher tier than I was probably ready for.
Round 2: Hammer and Anvil/Crusade, Purge the Alien, Get to the Choppa (winner has most scoring units within 12" of board center line)
Opponent: Grey Knights/Black Templar Allies
For Round 2, I was facing off against Aaron Aleong, also known as Spaguatyrine from The Back 40K (and I did not make that connection until long afterwards; my apologies!). He was running Coteaz, a Grand Master, a pair of Strike Squads, a pair of Warrior Acolyte squads, two Dreadknights, and a Templar Master of Sanctity with a squad of 10 TH/SS Sword Brethren Terminators. As fits a player of his level, he absolutely rolled me in this game. Between his vehicle-less army list, his playskill, a table with a huge piece of LOS-blocking terrain that did not favor my railguns at all, and my dice falling apart at key moments, I don't think I stood a chance. That said, he's a great opponent, and I had a great time playing him. His army is absolutely beautiful to look at, too. I did have a couple of little victories, like the lone Fire Warrior falling back who managed to snapshot a Terminator in the face and kill him. In all honesty, I'm not sure how I could have adjusted my list to better handle this army; better dice rolls would have helped, but frankly I doubt that even that would have sufficed. Aaron went on to take second place, so taking a loss to him doesn't bother me much.
Round 3: Vanguard Strike/Big Guns Never Tire, Table Quarters, Purge the Alien
Opponent: Necrons
Scott, who traveled all the way from Minneapolis to play, was my next opponent, and I was facing down a combo of Nemesor Zahndrekh, Deathmarks with attached Despair Crypteks, Immortals with Storm Crypteks, Nightscythes, Wraiths, Annihilation Barges, and a Doom Scythe. First turn went well for me, as I blew up two Barges and almost wrecked the third. I made two critical mistakes, though. First, I went ahead and brought in my War Walkers from reserve, rather than start them on the table. As soon as they came in, Zahndrekh brought in half of the flyers, and suddenly I had killer Necrons in my lines. The other mistake was that for a moment, my brain misfired and I thought that Avenger Shuriken Catapults were strength 5, so I lined them up against a barricade to all have range on one of the flyers. This grouped my Avengers (and Eldrad) nicely for the Deathmark squads to come down and destroy them with the attached Crypteks. That's the turn that flipped the momentum, and from that point on it was all I could do to hold on, and I failed. Between gauss fire and Voltaic Staves, the rest of my vehicles died, and my game utterly fell apart. Couldn't make wounds stick, either on Immortals or on Flyers. Both squads of Deathmarks died, though, so I'll take that as a tiny moral victory.
Round 4: Dawn of War/The Relic, The Slaughter House (victory points), Securing the Home Front (winner has most scoring units within their own deployment zone)
Opponent: Necrons
My final opponent for day 1 was Curt, who brought a very different list. He was also running the Nemesor and a pair of Night Scythes, and a Doom Scythe, but that's where the similarities ended. He also had double Monoliths and a Ghost Ark, and had 10-man squads of Warriors for his troops. He started out with just the Ghost Ark, the Nemesor, and a squad of Warriors in play and quickly grabbed the relic. I hoped beyond hope that I could clear the table and win on turn 1, but between another big chunk of LoS-blocking terrain in the middle (right where the Relic was) interfering with my fire lanes, and some poor dice rolls, I just couldn't seal the deal. I didn't repeat my mistake with the War Walkers, but once his reserves started coming in, I didn't stand a chance. Monoliths popped up in my deployment zone, and even though one immobilized itself, it was still lobbing nasty blasts of death into my forces. The flyers were nigh unkillable, with him seemingly making every Evade I made him take. Even the snap-shotting didn't hurt him much. On turn 4, he decided to take a chance and snapshot his Tesla Destructors at my Commander (and Warlord). His dice came up 6, 6, 6, and 2, which re-rolled into another 6. I just couldn't survive 12 strength 7 shots. Without a reliable way to deal with reserves or flyers, my fate was sealed.
So, at the end of day 1, I was 1-3; I hoped that I'd shaken out to where I should be in the rankings, and that the next day would see me hit 3-3. That's how past tournaments have gone, if the field of players is large enough. I tend to end up in the middle of the pack, sometimes at the lower end of the middle. I figured that once I was at the right level, I'd be good to go. And so, when Sunday came around...
Round 5: Dawn of War/The Slaughter House, Emperor's Will, The Relic
Opponent: Orks
My opponent this round was Gavin, and he was bringing a pretty standard Ork horde: Ghazghkull and some Nobs in a Battlewagon, three large squads of Boyz, Zogwort, a Big Mek with a Shokk Attack Gun, some Lootas, a Deff Dread, and a Dakkajet. I managed to get first turn, and I was able to dictate the basic tempo of the game from there. I blew up the Battlewagon on turn 2, killed the Deff Dread on turn 3 (right after it failed a 7-inch assault run), and picked apart two of the three Boyz squads by turn 4. I did lose Eldrad; he ran off the board after half of his Dire Avenger friends were lost to a Shokk blast. Otherwise, though, my losses were relatively minimal. I wasn't able to grab the relic at the end, and we both had our own objectives, but I killed almost 2/3rds of his army. I found out afterwards, though, that he was playing about 100-points down, though, which might explain why he ended up coming in last at the tournament.
Round 6: Vanguard Strike/Big Guns Never Tire, The Relic, Get to the Choppa
Opponent: Space Marines
For the final round, I was playing Andrew and his bike-centric Marines. He had a Captain on a bike, two bike squads with dual meltaguns and a multi-melta Attack Bike each, a squad of Scout Bikes, a squad of Sternguard led by a Librarian, a couple of Tactical Squads, and an Aegis Defense Line to round things out. Not having any vehicles hurt my railguns' chances somewhat, but with Night Fighting on turn 1 I was able to keep range as he turbo-boosted closer. I made quick work of one bike squad, but the other got into my lines and killed both Hammerheads. I used Eldrad to keep up Prescience and Misfortunte and managed to focus-fire down the other bike squad, but not before his Captain got into assault with my Broadsides and contesting an objective. They ended up locked in combat all game long; I couldn't hurt him, he couldn't make wounds stick on me with 2+ armor, and even when I lost drones, I failed to break. He sent one TacSquad over the line to grab the relic, but I shot them apart on turns 5 and 6 to force them to drop it. My big mistake: my War Walkers came in behind his line, but I forgot to shoot with them before they were picked apart. This might have decided the game; we each won a mission (he got Big Guns, I got Get to the Choppa), we each got a bonus point (I had First Blood, he had Line Breaker), and when we worked out the tiebreaker with victory points, I lost by 4. 4 VPs. That's all that separated me from going 3-3 and ending up 2-4.
So, my final record was 2 wins, 4 losses. Not fantastic, but I had a great time and learned a lot about the current environment and what I'm going to have to do to switch things up. Tomorrow's post will be about my take-aways from the tournament. Oh, and the top three places?
1) Chaos Daemons (Tzeentch, mostly)
2) Grey Knights/Black Templars (played by Aaron, my round 2 opponent)
3) Tyranids (played by Turn 7 Wargaming)