Managed to get three full games of Warhammer 40K in this last Saturday. Two of which where timed tournament missions, both of which finished a turn five. A roughing out of point for what a tournament game for round three would have been, and I fell just short of my 30 point goal.
Game one was versus Shea with his Blood Angels. He is looking to put these into tournaments, possibly Tacticon. His list has a Storm Raven, three drop pod Dreads with flamer stuffs, two assault squads, a couple Baal Preds, three attack bikes, and a Chaplain. Its a fast list that basically pivots around where he drops his dreads. His dreads generally do a number on me when they drop, but then are out of the action the rest of the game. Also, while his other units are generally fast, my units a specifically fast. As such, I kinda force him to be the "static" army as he just can't quite keep up. We played mission one from GenghisCon, adding in some differential to try and find where that should be for Tacticon. I started off knocking out one of his Preds, but the other was on the grav whatever objective that cuts my charge in half. We didn't roll for this until I was beginning to charge, even though he moved on it in scout. I had left myself out 10", hoping to add my hammer of wrath attacks to the number of hits I dealt(I had +1 Str from combat drugs for those doing the math), and rolled a 10, then he remembered the mysterious objective. Had we rolled at the right time, I would have moved up the full 12" forgoing the wrath attacks to get the charge, but oh, well. As it was, my Hellions were out in the open, prime for dreadnaught hurtage. He dropped in two of his dreads, one to either side of my Hellions, and roasted most of the squad. He did some damage elsewhere, though mostly ignored the Council. I then moved a unit of windriders into the rear arc of the closest dread and killed him. I also uglied up the Attack Bikes and charged one of his assault squads. My reserves came in wrong, with the Hunter arriving turn 2, the Windriders on 3, and the Razorwing on 5. This meant that his Storm Raven followed the hunter and munched it. I did take his other Pred out first though. I was wrong about making turn 5 on this game, we ran of time on 4, though a turn 5 wouldn't have made much difference. At the end of 3 he had a squad strung from the 3 point scouring objective, to the king of the hill objective in the center. I had a 2 objective, +3 for fast attack kills(the pred may still have been alive, since at the time I only counted two points, I may have forgotten the bikes though). My Razorwing was still off the board, giving him another point. At the time, the plan was to either tie primary, or take secondary. We still had 15 minutes left and decided to do a turn four. My Razorwing auto came in, and I mopped up his assault squad. I also finally finished off his Warlord with a well placed ChallengeSeer strike. I moved the Guardians around, giving me the 2 and the 3 point objective. I didn't go after king of the hill, partly because I screwed up, and partly because he had a dread right there to flame the tar out of my squad. In the end, I won the Primary, Tied the Secondary, and scored all three Tertiary, leaving me with 17 points coming out of round one. Shae finished with 4 or 5. A good game, had it not gone on, I wouldn't have done near as well. Had it been a tournament game, it would have been a good start to the day.
For game two I managed to lure Nabors into a game of 40K. I also chose to go second. I wanted to play on the back foot, so I am more prepared for when it happens(not by choice) at the tournament. And back foot it was.Nabors rolled out swinging. Hard. There were a couple of times in the first two turns that I thought I was going to get tabled. I stuck to it though, since in a tourney there are no more games or rematches. I managed to kinda turn it around, due to mistakes he was making. Mind you I kept the field plenty even by making mistakes of my own. Forgotten moves, was the biggest culprit on both sides. In the end, I made a move to contest Big Guns, hoping to wipe the squad, leaving him ahead by one objective, but killing two of his heavies, making it a one point difference and a minor loss for me. I moved a squad of windriders onto his Emperor's Will objective, in order to contest that for a draw. I would also get Line Breaker. In the end, I couldn't kill the squad, giving him a major win for primary, draw for secondary, and a single point to me on tertiary for a total of 5 points. I could have gone for the secondary, looking to kill that squad and pick up a minor win there, which would have given me a total of 7 tournament points, instead of the bigger gamble for 8. But, every point counts, so go big or go home, and had I failed to kill that squad, though it was smaller, I still would have gotten 5 points. Live and learn
The final game wasn't a tournament mission, but was rather Emperor's Will versus a returning player. He was a bit rusty and running Dark Eldar. This was a blood bath, but I learned a valuable lesson. I may have found a way to deal with a Land Raider or two, but massed vehicles, even AV 10 ones, is trouble. I am really good at killing infantry, but wasting shots on vehicles, makes a unit into a single kill a turn circus. I did plenty of damage, but he still had two troops, in two venoms at the end of the game, while all I had left were my flyers. This was mostly a reteaching game, as I pointed out plenty of things that he forgot or didn't know, usually to my detriment. It was fun though. I look forward to playing him again. DE are also an army I don't get to play against, and with the plethora of Eldar coming out of the wood work, Shaffer not only playing Tau, but playing Tau often, I am getting to face armies I have only until recently played. There is still Space Marines and Orks and Tyranids, so for the first time in I think my entire 40K career, I have a wide range of armies to face. Very exciting, but I digress. In the end, he took one of the objectives, while I was unable to do anything about it. I snagged a couple of secondaries, but he took the taco easily.
In the end, I played for very many hours, and was still standing at the end. I was tired, and played as such, but I managed to stay on target, even after many hours of play. I think I am fairly ready for Tacticon, though I do need to better learn to adapt to my changing powers list. Some times I just can't jump in like I would want to, and others I need to wait for another turn, cause a power or two failed. Either way, I am ready for mid table obscurity!
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