40K Tournament Report, or ‘How to Eat Humble Pie’

Well firstly I'd like to say just how well run the 'A Game of Pwns' tournament was on Saturday, even though only 16 competitors made it.  We still had 4 games and were only running late by 5 minutes!

Only one army wasn't fully painted, and aside from 1st, 2nd and 3rd there was the 'cheese' award (awarded to the necron flyer list that won the tournament), an actual wooden spoon for last place and a police truncheon (night stick for my across-the-pond brothers) as the 'i got battered' award for the fastest loss. 

I missed out on the last two awards only by courtesy of the last game I played!

The 'Deathwing Experiment', as it is now known, started just over a month ago with the purchase of dark vengeance, and a short ebay shopping spree later I had another 10 terminators for the total of £20.00.  Throw in a dreadnaught I had going spare and a converted Belial, and I had 1,000 points to play with.  Amazingly for me, I managed to paint all 17 models to a half-decent standard ready for the tournament, although in true tourney style I only did the bases the night before!

Believing that a boatload of terminators would walk to the top table and have my opponents cowering under the tables gave me some false confidence, and add in the fact that I did no playtesting beforehand due to a solide three months of butchering WoC with my Wood Elves and with hindsight I was due a reality check.  If I'd taken it more seriously I might not have been so disappointed with my results.

Game 1

With a random draw for the first round I ended up on table 3 against Lee's Tyranids.  He was using a gaunt-spam list, two tervigons spawning out hordes of gaunts to swamp me with too many wounds.  It was dawn of war/crusade, and with the spread of terrain I didn't want to chance deep strikes.
Through a heroic display by my terminators, I managed to kill both tervigons - who both kept making themselves toughness 8/9 via their psychic powers- and 30-40 gaunts.  At the end of turn six my last terminator died with his hive tyrant on only one wound, but as he was holding several objectives and I couldn't contest any he walked away as a 14-0 victor.
The hive guard and zoanthropes did absolutely diddly-squat all game, and I couldn't help but feel that they were an indulgence.  Lee got away with it though as the rest of the list was so tough to beat, and with only 17 models I never had enough shots or attacks to make serious inroads into nid hordes and contest the objectives.
The 14-0 scoreline didn't reflect how the board looked at the end of the game, there were hardly any nids about but I was beaten fair and square by a better list, and a better player.

Game 2

Bounced all the way down to the bottom table, I had to face the tournament organisers Space Wolves.  Ali had wanted to join in, and after a democratic vote one person every round would receive a 'bye', and would be awarded an average amount of points (of their other three games) for this 'bye'.
I would like to point out that I don't like space wolves.  There are only so many times you can be shot to death by long fangs before it gets boring.
Predictably there were three units of long fangs, wulfen skyclaws, dreadnaught, 2 grey hunter squads in rhinos and a runepriest.
Despite killing several long fangs, getting first blood and wiping out three units in our 'purge the alien' battle, I still lost 7-4, in only 34 minutes, after six turns!
I can simply never understand how the puppies can field so many models, that get 8 rending attacks in combat, and still field 15 missile launchers at 1,000 points. Ali was a great guy and I took it on the chin, but it stil hasn't improved by opinion on the broken puppies.  Oh well, two heavy defeats in a row showed that it me at fault, and not misfortune so I couldn't complain!

Game 3 never happened, I received a 'bye' and waited for game 4.....

Game 4

So, the last game of the day and I seemed nailed on for the wooden spoon.  I was up against chaos daemons, commanded by ralph who was just above me in the standings.  I'd never faced daemons before so this would be a learning experience. 
It was 'crusade' again, but we were playing the long table edges.  Only three objectives were rolled, spaced evenly about the table.
I opted to put belial and two squads in reserve, one squad and my dread being placed.  I won the roll off and moved squad one onto the objective closest to me, and deathwing striked belial and squad 2 onto the objective in the daemons delpoyment zone.  The daemons turned up, bloodletters and nurgle prince threatening my 'home' objective and his plaguebearers landing near the middle objective.
In my turn two my third unit arrived, landing next to his nurgle prince.  The two squads near me combined their fire on the nurgle prince, wiping him out in one go!  My dread then took on the plaguebearers, tying them up for the rest of the game as they couldn't hurt it. 
The daemons continued to arrive, and I was able to concentrate on each element in turn until only one horror was alive at the end of turn 6, denying me 3 victory points.  I still ran out 9-0 victor, and with this result my average score awarded for the round three 'bye' was also bumped up, meaning that I ended up in 11th. 

Conclusions

Well, I feel a bit 'meh' at the bye.  Originally I didn't feel like my position was fair after my one heavy victory skewed my final score.  But after studying a few other games I felt really confident that of the two players I might gave taken on instead, another solid victory could have been acheived as neither had much in the way of AP2 shooting or combat, and looked quite squishy.  On the other hand, I could really have got trounced with a string of ones rolled for armour saves!

Georges Eldar managed to lose in a record 33 minutes, meaning that I avoided the 'I got battered' award.  Lucky escape!

Here's the final standings (courtesy of Gobstyks Gamig Club):

Position Name Race G 1 G 2 G 3 G4 VP1 VP2 VP3 VP4 G Total VP Total


1 Sam Hunt Necrons 30 30 30 30 11 10 16 11 120 48

2 Lee Cant Nids 30 2 30 30 14 4 11 14 92 43

3 Adam Calver Grey Knights 2 30 30 30 4 3 6 12 92 25

4 Adam H Space Marines 30 30 2 30 5 6 1 11 92 23

5 Alister Williams Space Wolves 16 30 30 2 6 7 14 3 78 30

6 Simon Necrons 2 30 30 2 4 8 6 4 64 22

7 Pete Delafield Necrons 2 30 2 30 1 9 5 6 64 21

8 Peter Lennon Tau 2 2 30 30 3 3 8 6 64 20

9 Ossie Lennon Ork 30 30 2 2 5 11 0 1 64 17

10 Will Platten Nids 30 2 30 2 5 2 8 1 64 16

11 Neil Drakes Dark Angels 2 2 8 30 0 4 0 9 42 13

12 Anna Delafield Sisters 30 2 2 2 7 3 5 3 36 18

13 Philip Croft Imperial Guard 30 2 2 2 5 3 4 4 36 16

14 George Eldar 2 2 2 2 3 3 0 2 8 8

15 Ralph Notman Demons 2 2 2 2 2 0 6 0 8 8     No worries then, terminators aren't king in 6th.  In fact they may be going on ebay after all that!   Next week our fantasy tournament starts, and I shall keep you updated as to how my twin dragon high elf army gets on.  And then in the new year our annual 1750 40k tourney gets started, where I might use my Eldar/Deldar army.   Until next time folks, arrivederci!   Neil   P.S.  Pics of my army are to follow!