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This Wednesday 7/25 I attended a small Combat Patrol (sort of) tournament at the Liberty Tree Mall GW in Danvers, Massachusetts.

My friend Craig Gallant had clued me in a day or two before, and I jumped at the chance to play a tournament on MY weekend (I work Friday, Sat, Sun, Mon).

It was my first time playing at this store, and it’s a nice place, though a bit small. The store has four permanent 4x6 tables in addition to demo tables and space to put up one additional 4x6. The manager Kyrill (“The Mad Russian&rdquo was very friendly and helpful.

Kyrill had adapted the tourney format from one they used to run back in Russia for several years, apparently very successfully. It was basically Combat Patrol- ie: No special characters, 0-1 HQ, 1-6 Troops, 0-1 Elite, 0-1 FA, 0-1 HS. Additional restrictions: no models with more than 2 wounds, better than 3+ save, or AV total over 33 (counting side armor once). Necrons were allowed to take a Lord, however. No character (IC or squad level) could have more than 30pts of wargear or more than 30pts of weapons. Instead of 400pts it was 555pts, and there was a special rule that if you had over 227pts in Troops you could break one of the “additional restrictions” above. Due to a slight lack of clarity in the rules some players did break multiple restrictions, and a couple also brought named characters from newer codices who were not technically “special characters”.

Despite said clarity issues with the rules, the event was well-run. We got four full six-turn games with a good 45min lunch period, getting a full day of gaming without feeling rushed or hurried.

The tournament was 16 players, so with only 4 tables they were divided in half. So we were actually playing on 4x3s instead of the usual 4x4 for Combat Patrol. These worked better than I expected; Kyrill had set out the right amount of terrain to give some cover and encourage some maneuver without just giving it to the assault armies. Most tables had a building (one of the current GW cityfight ones) played as area terrain, a wood, and then a third decent-sized piece like a hill or ruin, plus usually a couple of walls scattered here or there.

It was a younger crowd than any tournament I’ve previously attended. The players were mostly in high school, with a couple of college-age and about four of us older guys, and a couple of younger kids.

I brought my Dark/Fallen Angels, fielded as Fallen this time, using the Word Bearers rules.

Lt w/Power Weapon, Bolt Pistol, Flight & Strength, Undivided (96)
Oblit (70)
8 CSM w/Undivided, Icon, Melta, Missile, 1x BP & CCW, 4 x bolters, Champ w/Fist & pistol (168)
6 CSM w/Undivided, Icon, Las, Plas, 2x BP & CCW, 2x bolters (115)
7 Furies (105)

Battle points were the primary consideration in the tournament, using VP differential to give you your tournament points, with the 20pt split system. I’ve often seen this system mentioned in reports from European tournaments, but it was my first time using it here in the US. A draw was 10pts to each player, a minor victory 13 for the winner and 7 for the loser, a solid victory 17 to 3, and a massacre 20 to 0. Kyrill rolled a random mission from the basic book each round, and all missions were played at Gamma.

Round 1 I was up against Andrew, a college-age guy using Nurgle. Not bad except that Andrew was one of the guys who though exceeding 227 in Troops allowed him to break multiple restrictions, and I couldn't really argue it, due to the vagueness of the rules sheet we were given. Oh well, it wasn’t really a big deal. He had a Lord with Stature and Aura, two squads of 7 plague marines with aspiring champs and single plasma gun each (though thankfully only one squad had a fist), and a twin-las/hvy bolters Predator.

We played Secure & Control with 4 loot counters, and I got careless and let the counters be more heavily distributed towards one side of the table, which he promptly took. He had a hill and a well-placed building for cover and I thought I was in bad trouble; having to move towards the Nurgle guys and dig them out without being able to really soften them up in shooting first. Thankfully he did move the plague marines forward, and I was able to work them over. Establishing a pattern, my HQ & Furies beat down one squad in HtH and moved forward into the enemy zone, before my HQ was killed by his statured lord, though I did deal a wound to him in turn. I wound up killing both squads, wounding the lord, and immobilizing the Pred (last turn Fury charge to the rear, after my lascannon bounced off it all game), for the loss of a couple of marines, half my Furies, and my HQ. I held two counters to his none, for a bonus 139 each, and a 20-0 win.

Round 2 was against Jacob, another college-ager using Ravenwing. Jacob used Sammael on a jetbike, who is technically a named character as opposed to a "special character". But actually on review of his rules he's not even an Independent Character anyway, which was also interesting. He's a 205pt scoring unit! He also had a 6 man squad of bikes with power weapon sgt, and a 3 man squad of bikes with power weapon sgt.

We played Cleanse and naturally he combat-squadded the bigger unit and moved straight up in my face. He made the mistake of NOT taking his Scout move at the beginning, which would have given him the turn 1 assault. In thanks I shot one of his three-bike squads to death with las/plas and assaulted another with my 8 man squad. My HQ charged Sammael and managed not to die for two rounds while I summoned my Furies and charged them in too. By the end of turn two the rest of his army was dead, but Sammael chewed on my Furies until turn five, eventually finishing them off, and he and my HQ each suffered their last wound at each other's hands. Dramatic! I held three quadrants and still had both my marine squads and the Oblit (which Deep Struck into his quadrant), for another 20-0 win.

Round 3 had me up against one of four or five armies there that I thought were legitimately scary. One was Craig's Lost & the Damned, two were Eldar, another was Dark Eldar wych cult, and the last was the one I faced- IG. More specifically 75 models of IG in 555pts! Heroic Senior Officer (Ld9) with Voxcaster and no other upgrades to the command section. Three squads of 10 IG w/Autocannon & Plasmagun, vox casters, Light Infantry (infiltrate & move through cover). Four squads of 10 Conscripts w/vox casters(?) and light infantry. So yeah; 70 infiltrating dudes, Ld 9 in a 12" radius but also usable once per turn anywhere on the table, a crapload of lasguns and some S7 shots (including Plasma) to boot.

My opponent (whose name I’m blanking on) was a teenager, but I was informed by one of the other players that he’s a very good Wood Elf player, apparently currently ranked #1 among WE players in the Nemesis Crown campaign. We played Take & Hold. He castled up his "real" guardsmen in and next to a building, and moved up the conscripts on the flanks. I traded shots a bit with him using the Oblit & six man squad while my character and eight man squad cautiously advanced. I would have lost the shooting war, but on turn two or three I got what I needed- the Furies didn't scatter, and he had made the critical error of moving one of his advancing conscripts too close to the regular guard squads. My Furies made it into said unit of cheapo chumps with an inch or two to spare, killed exactly half the squad, and they broke despite being in range of the HQ. I was within consolidation distance of two of the "real" squads. Lights out. He counter-charged with another unit of conscripts, but Furies love to eat WS3 T3 models, and this helped my HQ get into charge range. From there those two units walked through most of his army, while the rest of my guys hoofed it forward and finally assaulted as well. At the end I had again lost a couple of marines and my Furies, but my Oblit and both CSM squads were still scoring, and his only survivors were the five original fleeing conscripts who had rallied behind his building near his table edge, and didn't get back into the action. 20-0 tournament points.

Game 4 and I was well in the lead on points, and I got to dance with Craig! We played Seek & Destroy, and I got a little worried. I'd put 96 pts into a non-scoring character, and everything in his force was scoring. He brought a 16 model gorgeously converted bloated mutant squad (T4, 4+ save, boss with Fist) let by an Aspiring Champion with Mark of Khorne and Axe of Khorne, two 5 man squads of infiltrating traitors- one with lascannon, the other with autocannon & heavy stubber, an obliterator, a sentinel with autocannon, and a squad of 4 amazing-looking spawn. Sometime soon I promise I’ll start taking pictures.

I got first deploy and pushed him back a bit with my six man squad in a building center-right of my DZ. My eight man squad deployed to the right of the building. My Oblit hid behind and my HQ hung out with the six man squad. Craig had a small building in his DZ to my left, a hill to the center-right opposite my building, and a wood on the left, fairly central on the board but a bit closer to his zone. His spawn were pushed back a bit to the left, his two shooty traitor squads behind them in & next to the building, his sentinel and Oblit hiding behind the woods (they would move into/around it just enough to play peekaboo and shoot all game), and his big unit of mutants was on the right, next to/on the hill. I concentrated fire on his mutants and then assaulted them with the Furies and my HQ, wiping them out on turn two or three. Said fast assaulty elements then swept over the hill, trying to bypass the spawn, who were heading for the midst of my force. His shooting was winning the shooting duel in the middle/left of the board, chewing my six man squad down to one guy with a lascannon (who thankfully never ran), and my Oblit kept missing. I eventually popped his sentinel, maybe on turn five? Meanwhile my sweeping attack around the back did kill one (maybe both?) squad of traitors, but my Furies were killed by the spawn and my character zorched by the Obliterator's twin-linked meltagun. On turn six my solo lascannon guy took revenge on the Oblit. I had surviving the lascannon guy, my Oblit, and my eight man squad virtually untouched. The end differential was just under the solid level, so I got a 13/7 win over Craig.

Sitting on 73 out of 80 tournament points I managed to win the thing. I'm supposed to get a trophy at some point (they couldn't get it engraved that day), and I got to pick out a boxed regiment. I got some marauder horsemen for fantasy. Rockin'!

Nice report, seems like a fun tournament. I used to play at a store where they would increase the points level of the tournament every month by 250 points all the way up to 2000. People always had the most fun at the 1000 point and below mark. Manuever really comes into play and you have to make a lot of hard hard choices about what to take.

No wonder the teenager is a very good wood elf player, he cheats.  Conscripts can't have light infantry.   Also conscripts act as one big squad, so when you got him to retreat he shouldn't have been able to charge you with a different squad of them. 

Great work Manny, sounds like a fun little tourny. Nice solid WB list you took, good choice on the furies. Wouldn't mind playing a 555 point tournament, small games are more my style anyways - more maneuver and greater importance of flexibility in list design, not vapid dice dumping

Who else was in the top 3 or so? The Dark Eldar somewhere in there?

- Salvage

Awesome, Ragnar.

I love combat patrol.

The Tavarishch's choice for further limiting to the CP FOC is an interesting take. 0-1 elite, 0-1 FA, 0-1 HS. I never thought of doing that. Some armyies may not like that so much though. *shrug*

It sounds like it was a blast and a day well spent. Good mix of demographics among players as well, which is always a good thing. Atleast for the hobby.

5 stars.