I went to the <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Southington CT</st1:address></st1:street> local Ard Boyz tournament with Imperial Guard. I had 3 demolishers, 3 min sized platoons, 2 veterans with 3 meltas and 1 veterans with 3 plasma, a hellhound, 2 sentinels (LC and HF), 2 hq squads with plasma and two hq squads with missile launchers. I had three missile launchers, 3 lascannons, and 6 heavy bolters in the hq platoon. I also had an Inquisitor Lord.
In round one I faced Mike, a very competent Eldar player. I had only played him once, but it just happened to be our last game. The scenario was also strangely similar. It was pretty much alpha recon cleanse with infiltrate. In my last game I was out of it fairly quick. So, I had some pretty low hopes as this time I would not be facing 1 falcon, but 3. He won the deployment dice. Go figure, it was 3 dice to 1. In the deployment phase I had all 3 of my demolishers in the center between two large hills. My infantry were fairly spread out as I had to deploy them all. No drop troops in this scenario. He had all falcons to my left flank. I got to go first but his falcons were pretty secure so I had to give him first turn. He zoomed up all of his falcons and Shining Spears on my left. In my turn 1 I destroyed all three falcons. That’s right, all three. And if he had four I would have killed the fourth, too. I had only four glances and they were all double fives or five/ six. When I dropped them I killed 2 fire dragons, 4 banshees and all harlequins. I also made his spears run almost off of the board. He fought really hard, but did not recover after that. I can honestly say that is one person I knocked out of the tournament. He came back to finish 4th in the tournament.
In the second game I faced the ringer. I have no idea why. It was IG vs IG in a game where facing a tough power armor or assault army would be murder. So I got lucky. It was a fairly close game until the end, but I got the second straight massacre.
I went into the last round and I was a point behind. We saw the scores before the game and it was clear that nobody was going to catch either one of us. By us, I mean me and the guy I came with. He is a great player, but I built his list and army so I knew it inside out. It was a very tough Thousand Sons army and even though I play tested against it and built my army to counter it, I knew I couldn’t own it and it couldn’t own me. He thought he would own me, but he never saw the army with a hooded inquisitor lord. The game was tight but predictable. We advanced, tied for 2nd place.
In the semi-finals I expected to see lots of nids, so I took out missile launchers and put in flamers. In the first faced Nidzilla, and I could do nothing to counter it. Again I was going into round one figuring I was done. But, it became apparent to me that my opponent did not know the victory conditions. He was going for victory points, and controlling the center. He left the Golden Ticket alone. I had the last turn and the game was obviously only going three turns. Unluckily though, I got all 4 drop troop squads on turn 2. I could not get close to the objective. The game ended in a draw and yet I was totally owned.
In the second game I was facing IG. The scenarios had been leaked the previous day so I saw this dandy coming. Many people said that IG would get toasted in this scenario, but I saw a huge advantage here. There were no deployment zones and no deployment order. I got to deploy first. I deployed a platoon, claiming four of the eight pieces of terrain. When my opponent placed a hellhound on my right flank I knew the game was won. I placed my next platoon and claimed the entire board. His army was relegated to the far reaches of the board and I had pretty much all of the table. The Emperor’s Terrot gave me the first turn, too as I got the +1 and we both rolled a 6. My opponent was very upset about that. But, he said it was the best wooping he had ever gotten. He was done by the third turn. My favorite part was killing 46 conscripts and Gaunt while taking zero casualties from them.
In the third game I got nids again. There were Tyranids on each of the top four tables and none of them survived escalation. They all got massacred. I got my second straight massacre and took third place. My favorite part of this game was my last plasma Hq squad didn’t come down until the fifth turn, one turn after his Winged Tyrant came out and disposed of my heavy flamer sentinel. I dropped my plasma squad 6 inches away from the Tyrant but it scattered 2 inches towards the tyrant. Usually I roll all dice at once, but for effect I rolled the scatter dice first and saw I was heading straight for the tyrant. Just about any die roll was going to squish me, but then I got those snake eyes. Then every plasma gun hit and the tyrant didn’t make a single invulnerable save.
So, I got to the finals with quite a bit of luck. In the two screwy scenarios I faced IG both times. I got the tough nid opponent in an escalation mission, and got the luckiest turn of my life in a scenario I had no business winning let alone getting a massacre. In the finals my luck would finally give out.
In the first game of the finals I had a really great game. I was facing a really good tau army. I started the game winning but it should have been a lot better. I missed two exposed hammerheads with all seven of my lascannons. Then the hammerheads and suits got rolling and my left flank started to fold. But, I was taking the center and right. The longer the game went on the more ground my opponent was gaining, but I was counting on double mind warring my opponent’s hero. It worked. In the bottom of the last turn I took out the space marine hero which was worth 1000 points. But, he had a great last turn and it came down to the last roll, but I lost my hero as well. The game ended in a raw. That opponent was Scott Simpson who went on to win best general at the GT the next two days.
In the second game I was owning the chaos player. I took down one prince, and got the other down to one wound. I took out all but one possessed. I tried to tie up his raptors but one attack out of four got through my sentinel and he got a glancing five. This turned into a game of ones. I needed to kill just one more of this or that. But, the clincher was that the game only went to the bottom of the third turn. And, he had the bottom and brought a Thousand Sons squad onto the objective. I was winning the game but, yet I lost it. Bummer.
In the final game I got another chaos army. My drop troops were working pretty well. Just about everything he dropped I took out. In the end of five turns I had three quadrants. One quadrant was contested. But, he had just brought down his last obliterator squad to take the center. Once again, I could do nothing about it. It went from a massacre to a major victory.
So, overall I went 6-1-1. Four of the victories were slaughters. I had one major and one minor. My loss was major. It was a pretty cool ride. My final assessment was that IG’s biggest weakness in this tournament was that I would not have enough time to finish a game. If I could have gone all six turns my one loss and major victory would have been better. My draw against Simpson, on the other hand may have ended up in a minor loss.
Next year if they have it and the time is not 3 hours, I will not play IG.