Between buying a "fixer-upper" of a house, attempting to sell my current house, work increasing some demands on me, home schooling our children and attempting to be a good husband, Warhammer has hit the back burner.
But it burns. Slowly, it burns.
My wonderful wife, sensing my yearning for more Warhammer despite the chaos-that-has-become-life, gave me her blessing to actually play in the Michigan GT instead of 'just' planning, building and painting the Charity Raffle Army. She did this knowing that Saturday was an EXTREMELY long day, followed by a shorter Sunday. Bless her heart.
So, I starting working on lists about a month ago and had everything pared down to about this:
Fateweaver
Plague Bearers
Daemon Prince
Daemon Prince
Daemon Prince of CSM
Cultists
Heldrake
Defense Line with Com Relay
Well, I am, er, how you say, "between houses." In trying to keep one home show ready while the other home is unlivable, you end up storing boxes and boxes of shit at the work-in-progress house. In some of those boxes of shit are my models. With painting the home, organizing the bat guy, plumbing, flooring, the dry wallers, the well people, the septic people and my family; I have been having trouble even getting a second to look through the boxes to locate the correct models. Fast forward to Friday evening before the event.
I am at the house, finishing up putting in insulation, when I realize I need to locate the models I plan on using for the event. Doh! After some searching, I grab my Battlefoam case, some extra boxes and some paint. I still needed to paint ol' Fateweaver.
Its midnight. Fateweaver is poorly painted. Check. Dice. Check. Templates and tape. Check. Books and lists. Check. Models.
Shit.
I have only one Daemon Prince in my collection of stuff. I don't have my defense line. I don't even have my cultists. Ho hum.
Time for a rewrite.
I settle with:
Fateweaver
Great Unclean One
Plaguebearers
Daemon Prince
Chaos Lord in Terminator Armor and Burning Brand
Chaos Terminators x 3 with combi-melta
Heldrake
Chaos Marines x 5with PLasma
Obliterators x 2
I must say, I felt my list was weak. It wasn't optimal. It wouldn't handle massed Riptides or Wraithknights or Wave Serpents. It was going to get smashed. Ho hum.
You don't play the army you wish you had, you play the one you brought.
Day 1! Match 1!
Ken Brunner
Necrons / Chaos Marines
Ken was playing a list that I had made up and tested a few times. It seems incredibly strong. 3 Night Scythes, 3 Barges, Destroyer Lord, Wraiths, Heldrake, Typhus and Zombies. Zero body fat. No wasted points. To makes matters worse for me, Ken seems like a very competent player. Much more so than me :)
The game went as I had feared. He seemed to make no mistakes, get his guys where they needed to be and generally beat me up. But, Lady Luck smiled on me briefly, as my Lord tied up Typhus for many more rounds than he should have been allowed to, his Wraiths failed entirely too many saves, his Barges went down to Obliterator fire and as we approached turn 5, my Portalglyph had pooped out multiple scoring units that were scoring my home capture and control objective. The beta primary was also on my side as I had killed two of his "marked for death units." As I'm sure we've all been there, I had been praying for the game to end on turn 5 so I could squeak out a win that I entirely didn't deserve. Alas, the game went on until I was nearly tabled. :) I lost 26 - 0 from that point, showing probably a more realistic story of how the game went than what it would have looked like at the end of turn 5.
MVP: Rigor Moratlis (Chaos Lord Terminator)
Opponents MVP (according to me): Destroyer Lord and his darned Mindshackle Scarabs!
Running tally: 0 - 1
Day 1! Match 2!
Getting zero battle points promptly moves you to the bottom tables. But the bottom tables are only tables. The people I met there are great!
Kevin Lupu
Kevin was playing straight Chaos Space Marines in the Iron Warriors flavor.
Chaos Marines (Iron Warriors!)
Kevin was a newer player to the game and like me, blanked in round one. We made good opponents because I feel our love for the game is similar. His army was actually quite scary to certain armies. He had 8 Obliterators with the Mark of Nurgle, along with a Jumppack Lord and 15 Nurgle Raptors, all backed up by 30 Chaos Marines.
The game went extremely well for me. My Daemon Prince engaged his Raptors, killed many but was eventually killed by his Fearless deathstar. But his Raptor unit finally met an end at the hands of Goreguts the Fattest, considering he was Warpspeeded, Iron-armed and Enduranced.
After that point, the Heldrake had arrived and began torching Chaos Marines. I scored full battle points in a good game versus a newer opponent. Kevin was one of my favorite opponents of the day and I was glad to play him. He didn't leave the tournament empty handed though, he won the "Better Luck Next Year" award. Good for him.
MVP: Goreguts the Fattest (Great Unclean One)
Opponent's MVP: Raptor squad
Running tally: 1 - 1
I will conclude the battle reports for games 3, 4, 5 and 6 over the next few days, along with an overall wrap up.