Twisting Tzeentch Horror
Golden, CO
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This past President's day/Valentine's Day/Chinese New Year weekend was GenghisCon, a gaming convention here in Denver. Of course, the convention included a 40K tournament (3 rounds, 1850 points), run by various members of the Wrecking Crew for the first time this year. No comp, but painting and sportsmanship were graded. From the WC's reputation, I suspect there was a bit of trepidation beforehand in general, but the tournament was run well and professionally, aside from minor issues. This was also probably one of the largest 40K tournaments I've seen in a while, with about 60 participants give or take a couple. So congratulations to the WC!
I had planned on bringing my Imperial Fists list, but could not get it painted in time. Instead, I brought my Iron Hands list that I had used last time, with some changes here and there.
1850 Iron Hands Space Marines
Master of the Forge, Conversion Beamer
Librarian w/Null Zone, Avenger
3x Dreadnought, Multimelta
3x 10 tactical marines, flamer, missile launcher, Razorback w/heavy bolters
2x Landspeeder w/Typhoon Missile Launcher and heavy bolter
Landspeeder w/multimelta and heavy flamer
3x Ironclad Dreadnought, meltagun, heavy flamer
The idea of the army is, naturally, based around 6 dreadnoughts. If you're unprepared to deal with them, they will run you over. The speeders give me long-range firepower or a mobile multimelta/flamer/movement blocker. I almost always combat squad, so the heavy weapon half of the tac squads try to sit in cover and hold close objectives, while the flamer and sergeant half ride forth to claim further afield ones, using heavy bolters to winnow down squads on the way, and don't get out unless they have to. The Librarian usually accompanies one of these squads so his short-range powers can actually get in range, while the MotF hides with one of the heavy weapon squads as far away from the enemy as possible (to get that S10 hit if possible). Unfortunately, my camera's batteries died that morning and I had no time to recharge it, so no pictures! Hopefully someone else will post some soon.
Round 1:
In my first game, I was matched up against a local dark eldar player. He actually goes to my gaming store and we know each other, but we never actually play against each other for whatever reason, so I didn't ask for a re-pairing. His list was roughly:
Archon, shadow field, combat drugs, agonizer
3x 5 wyches, 2 blasters, Raider w/dark lance
4x 5 Raider squad, blaster, splinter cannon, Raider w/dark lance
2x 13 Warriors, 2 dark lances, webway portal
2x Ravager w/3 disintegrators, nightshields
Ravager w/3 dark lances, nightshields
Quite frankly, all those dark lances scare me. It's a lot of anti-tank, and my Ironclads don't get the benefit of their 13 AV. The mission is a modified killpoints - you pick 5 units in your army to make worth a killpoint, everything else is worth nothing. Main objective was get more KP, secondary was kill all of your opponent's troop choices (including dedicated transports), tertiary was win by 500 VP. Personally, I would have modified the mission so your opponent picks the 5 units worth a KP, but so it goes. I chose my 3 heavy-weapon halves of the combat-squadded tac squads, my Master of the Forge, and an Ironclad (probably should have chosen a regular one, but oh well). He chooses his three Wych squads and his two WWP squads.
Deployment was pitched battle, and I won the roll to go first and took it. I realized that I lost a turn of shooting at his tanks when they arrive through the WWP, but my fear was that if I took second he may just not use his WWP, line up his raiders in a firing line and take out my dreads first turn. The terrain was fairly sparse (a common recurrence on almost all the tables) - four two-level hills in the four quadrants and a river (diff terrain to cross) going vertically down the center of the board. I split my forces more or less evenly - two heavy tac squads, a razorback, a Typhoon and a dreadnought at the hill on the right, one heavy tac squad, the MotF, a dread and a Typhoon at the hill on the left, and the remaining 4 dreads, speeder, and razorback in the middle out of cover. In response, he sets up his two WWP squads in two long lines to my left, one about 6" back from the first which is on the 12" deployment line. Behind them, he sets up his three Ravagers. Everything else is held in WWP reserve. He tries to steal the initiative but fails.
First turn, I start making my shift to the left. The lone dreadnought on my right advances but a little - his job is backup for the two tasty VP heavy weapon squads there in case the DE decide to swing over later in the game. Typhoon to my right moves up 12 towards the center, Typhoon on the left moves to get a clear shot on the Ravagers (and be within 42"). Tyhpoon in the middle moves 24" to get in front of the hill in the far left quarter, hiding from sight. Everything else moves as quickly as possible towards the webway portals (save one razorback which moves 6). While I can't stop him from dropping them and the rest of the army coming through, I can at least give him very little time to react once he arrives. Luckily for me, missiles destroy both the dark lance ravager and one of the disintegrator ravagers, while a couple DE in the front squad die to heavy bolter fire. Destroying that DL Ravager was priority 1, so I was glad I pulled it off. His turn, the warriors don't move and drop the portals about 6" from each other, roughly in the middle of the quarter and back from that. It takes all 4 dark lances to wreck my Typhoon on that side, but wreck it he does. The Ravager drops two templates on the MotF and his half-squad - despite cover, two die, but care not.
Turn two, and I keep running towards him. One Ironclad crests the hill and pops smoke, ready to charge his warrior squads. Others are on the verge of making it, including my KP dread. The Typhoon on the right moves closer again, finally within range. The regular speeder moves up and flames the back warrior squad, killing a few. Missiles from the speeder immobilize the last Ravager and take off a disintegrator. A few more warriors die to heavy bolter fire - his back squad fails a morale check and runs, but not off the board. His turn, he rolls for reserves, and gets only two raider squads. Both come out of the front WWP and immediately move 12" to my left, skirting the edge of the board and trying to stay as far away from the dreads as possible. His fleeing warrior squad regroups. With only 4 dark lances this turn, his shooting is less than effective, but he does immobilize a regular dreadnought about 12" away from his lines. He also kills one more from the MotF squad, but they pass again.
Turn three, and I'm finally in range for things. One Ironclad readies to charge, while the KP Ironclad continues to move up and will be in charge range next turn. The other Ironclad and regular dreadnought are still about a turn away from being in range - crossing the river running down the board took some move, and runs haven't been spectacular. Shooting this turn immobilizes both of his Raiders and shakes one, as well as destroying another Ravager weapon. The mm/hf speeder roasts the regrouped squad, killing all but one dark lance and the sergeant. Ironclad charges into the front warrior squad and spends the next four rounds of combat killing them all. His turn, reserves are more kind. He gets all three wych squads and the Archon, but the last two Raider squads don't come out yet. Again, his three wych raiders swing to the far left, though not quite as far and in range of my dread to charge, should it survive. One speeds 24" into my far left corner, however, likely ready to try to take out at least one of my KPs. One squad disembarks to be sure to be in 12" for their blasters. His shooting, however, is ineffective - 9 blasters/dark lances manage to blow the heavy flamer arm off of my KP Ironclad, but he otherwise is unharmed.
Turn four is a turn of righteous retribution! Moving in for the kill, all my dreads are almost in range save the immobilized one and the one to my right, still guarding the (so far impotent) heavy weapon tac squads against an attack that likely, at this point, may not come. Firepower is brutal, downing his Archon's raider. Due to my librarian popping Null Zone, he has to reroll his shadowfield saves from the explosion, and it of course shorts out on the reroll. The rest of the firepower/explosions kills all of the Archon's unit of wyches, three from the other squad, and a 5-man raider squad, and puts two wounds on the Archon. Unfortunately, my KP dread fired at the wyches' transport, so he can no longer charge due to casualty removal. The mm/hf speeder also finishes off his last two guys from one of his WWP squads. On his turn, the surviving two wyches and the Archon run for the mobile wych raider, which then gets the heck out of dodge (in retrospect, possibly not legal since you can't go flat out when you embark, but oh well, neither of us realized it at the time) and hides behind the wych raider on my side of the board. His last two raider squads also come in, one moving to the left to try to again take out my KP Ironclad and the other moving to the right to deal with the Typhoon that's been pounding them. His wyches in my deployment zone disembark and move up, almost in range of my MotF and his depleted squad (now down to him and the missile launcher, after turns of disintegrator fire), but they'd need a good fleet move. Instead, he shoots his blasters at my Razorback on that side and blows it up, with all wyches managing to duck shrapnel (5 ones and twos on the explosion!). Unfortunately for him, this leaves 5 tac marines with a flamer in close range. On the plus side, his dark lances and blasters start hitting, finally downing my KP Ironclad and immobilizing my Typhoon. The Ironclad finally kills the last of the other WWP squad.
We proceed to turn 5. I'm fairly confident of a win at this point - he hasn't touched 4 of my KP, and even if he manages to get the two from the MotF and squad, I still got both his WWP squads and a wych squad, and am about to wipe out a second. Still, I have no desire to see my MotF get slaughtered by an angry archon, so my third razorback dumps out its combat squad, flamer at the ready, and the MotF and the missile launcher run over and get in in their place. Firepower downs the raider that shot my Typhoon, leaving a single survivor who is pinned. One Ironclad splits off to see if he can help deal with the Raiders invading my lines, while the other dread continues apace towards his lines. I manage to destroy two more raiders at this point, including the wych raider on my side of the board, but cannot deal with the Archon's new raider. The 5 wyches that blew up my Razorback are flamed into ashes. His turn 5 and he's rapidly running out of guys. The Archon's raider moves forward and the guys pop out, charging the squad that made room for the MotF and not quite wiping them, sadly. The 5 men on the hill are shot and reduced down to the sergeant from the Ravager's one disintegrator, while the dark lance of the Archon's ride (naturally) blows up the new ride of the MotF.
My turn 6. Note that after my movement phase the TO announces "5 minutes left," so we agree to play out both turns and stop. I try to get the secondary objective of killing all his troops choices (including transports), but everything has to go exactly my way. It doesn't quite, and he's left with two immobilized, weaponless raiders and a 5-man raider squad that I can't quite take out. A bit frustrating - rolling at dice+2 on the damage table, needing a 3 to kill, and rolling a 1 or a 2, but so it goes. The last wych raider is downed, but the archon and his surviving succubus kill of the squad and consolidate towards the MotF. The last tac squad, including the Librarian, moved 12" in their razorback and ran to try to block access to the MotF, but get a poor run roll and can't quite surround the squad. His turn is last gasps - kill off the last sergeant, the MM/HF speeder (finally), and he does make his way to the MotF with a good fleet roll and summarily does the three agonizer wounds necessary to kill the squad.
In the final account, I win 4KP to 3. I do not score the secondary objective (curse his bringing lots of Troops choices!), but I do take the Tertiary, and gain a bonus point for his not having any FA left (or at all). All in all, a good start to the tournament!
Round 2
Feeling pretty good, I head into round 2 after a quick lunch. My opponent, Tom, is an older gentleman running an Imperial Guard army. If I can recall correctly, his list was roughly:
CCS, flamer, grenade launcher, carapace, Kell and Creed
PCS, flamer, grenade launcher, carapace
2x Infantry squad, missile launcher
PCS, flamer, grenade launcher, carapace
3x Infantry squad, lascannon
Veteran squad, meltagun, Harker
Valkyrie, 1 TL-lascannon, TL HB, 2 missiles
LR Squadron (Main battle tank with lascannon/hb sponsons and Punisher with Pask, lascannon/hb sponsons)
Vanquisher, lascannon/hb sponsons
LRMBT, lascannon/hb sponsons
voxcasters throughout the squads
The mission was "Wreck the Crew." Your most expensive unit was nominated as your "Wrecking Crew." Deployment was table quarters. The primary objective was to claim table quarters - 10 for the opponent's, 5 for the two adjacent, 0 for your own. Secondary was to utterly control your own - no enemy units in it at all. Tertiary was to get your Wrecking Crew in your opponent's deployment quarter at the end of the game. Bonuses were for denying your opponent table quarters, having more surviving Troops units than your opponent, and killing the opposing side's Wrecking Crew. My Crew was one of my Ironclad Dreadnoughts (at 145, since we figured once the tac squads had combat squadded each was only worth about 85 points, instead of the 170 they were together), while his was his CCS with Kell and Creed (clocking in at a cool 270).
The table we were set up on had a few hills, a small copse of trees in one corner, and a moderate sized hill roughly in the center. I win the roll-off and decide to place and go first, figuring the quicker I can get to his infantry the better. I choose the bottom left quarter for my deployment. I figure that the hill will protect most of the dreadnoughts, and set up mostly hugging the 12" from center line, speeders wide out to either side, razorbacks behind the dreads, and missile launcher fire squads in back, though one is placed on the north edge of my zone to run for a hill in the next quarter. He responds by spreading out his infantry squads in wide lines, with a good 6" between them. A reasonable set up, but more suited to fighting a horde-style than my dreadnoughts. He then surprises me by declaring that his Russ squadron and Valkyrie with Veterans will Outflank. Not realizing that he could do that (thanks to Creed), I suddenly realize that I've left a pretty big hole behind me should he decide to roll in.
Accordingly, on my first turn I shift two of my multimelta dreads back towards my short table edge. I figure they ought to be able to handle anything that decides to pop up there, but it does take them out of the main fight should he decide to come in on the other side. My mm/hf speeder boosts 24" behind a hill, while my other two speeders swing to the sides a bit more, angling for good shots. My Ironclads move and run forward, with the remaining multimelta dread running behind them, and the Razorbacks behind those. One Ironclad makes it to the top of the hill and pops smoke. Firepower sees his LRMBT that he deployed stunned, and a few guard picked off from one of the lascannon squads, but not enough to break them. His turn is likewise uneventful - despite multiple Bring It Downs on stuff he could see, cover or poor shooting ruined most of the shots, and only one Ironclad lost an arm.
Turn two, and two more of my dreadnoughts crest over the hill. The one that was on top moves down and is able to charge a lascannon squad by about an 1/8 of an inch. More firepower again shakes the LRMBT. My speeder roasts some guys in a missile launcher squad, but not enough to break them. The lascannon squad that I shot at on the first turn is reduced to just the sergeant, who also does not run. In combat, my dread eats some of his guys and they can't hurt him back, so they break. I don't catch them, but they run again in his turn before Creed tells them to Get Back In the Fight. He rolls for his reserves and both are available, and he rolls boxcars for location. As I expected, the tanks roll in on my left flank, but the Valkyrie comes in off my right. Combined firepower blows up my Razorback on that side and kills one, they fail their pinning test and go to ground. The newly arrived tanks fire at my tac squad I had sitting on a hill in the far left corner and kill 4/5. My mm/hf speeder is stunned and immobilized. In the main battle, he blows another arm off a dreadnought, but fails to do anything else.
That could have been much worse, I think, and I think I still have this, especially with the dreads running around in his quarter. My two multimelta dreads begin to make their way towards the new Tank arrivals, one popping smoke. The typoon on that side moves around to side armor to try to get a shot. The lone survivor from that squad unhooks some krak grenades and makes his way towards the tanks. Shooting only shakes the LRMBT, though, and his brave charge is ignorable. Meanwhile, dreadnoughts continue to munch infantry squads, and my two surviving razorbacks inch more towards the center, picking off stragglers and platoon command squad models when able. The formerly fleeing lascannon squad and a middle missile launcher squad are torn apart, and the dreads consolidate back toward center. In his turn, his shooting luck finally begins to turn around. The Valkyrie drops a Typhoon. and his veteran squad kills 2/4 of my pinned squad, leaving only the flamer and sergeant. He also manages to down one of my Ironclads and my multimelta dreadnought that were advancing, though not my WC Ironclad. His Punisher targets the closer multimelta dread on that side gets only a glance with his lascannon, shaking it.
My turn and I'm starting mop-up, but I need to ensure I have the troops to take quarters. To that end, my Razorback with Librarian begins to move forward into his deployment zone, while the other razorback moves closer to top center, ready to jump into whichever quarter he needs to be in. My multimelta dreads move closer to his tanks, ready to go. The MotF finally does something useful and blows up the Valkyrie, while the ignored mm/hf speeder flames another missile launcher squad. The two men left from the Razorback wreck get out and flame the veterans, but only one drops (hey, carapace armor does something!). They charge into combat, but both sides whiff. The Dreads ignore the tanks and continue to go after squads, annihilating his last lascannon squad and running towards the CCS. On my left, the shaken dreadnought slams into the LRMBT and blows it up, leaving Pask somewhat lonely. On his turn, he decides discretion is indeed the better part of valor and starts moving his CCS and his remaining PCS away from the rampaging dreadnoughts. He manages to immobilize the WC one, but does nothing to the other. Pask fires ineffectually. He fails to blow up my immobilized skimmer, but does destroy the weapon on my Librarian's Razorback. Combat between the vets and the two SMs is still a whiffing draw.
Turn 5. Finally, the Librarian and his squad disembark from their Razorback, flaming and Avengering the PCS squad in front of them into oblivion. My MotF and his squad move into the bottom right table quarter, contesting it, while my last Razorback moves up into his quarter. My remaining Ironclad continues to go after the CCS, taking a pot-shot at the Vanquisher that misses. My remaining Typhoon can't quite get through the side armor on the remaining LRMBT. Multimelta shots explode Pask's tank, but my one remaining guy ducks and avoids the wound. Unfortunately, the veterans get lucky and kill off the remaining two marines (who whiffed for the third turn in a row, lousy bums) and consolidate towards my librarian's squad. On his turn, he orders For the Glory of Cadia on his command squad and gets ready to charge my Librarian and tactical squad. Combined fire from the LRMBT, his last missile launcher, and the newly-freed veterans wipe out the five marines surrounding my librarian and blow up his razorback. The command squad charges, but does only one wound, which the librarian returns in kind. We roll, and the game goes on.
Turn 6, and last turn. The Typhoon sends two krak missiles up the LRMBT's tailpipe and smokes it, while the remaining mobile Ironclad reaches his Vanquisher and hammers it to pieces. The mm/hf speeder kills the last of his missile launcher squad. Finally, my librarian shows off some matrix moves, and manages to kill the remaining 3 members of the CCS without taking a wound. Creed and Kell run on a 10, and the librarian catches them and wipes them out. His last turn, all he has are his veterans, who forlornly blow up the mm/hf speeder before slinking away. I manage to claim his deployment zone and one of the side ones, as well as my own, and contest the fourth. I get near max points from this game, missing only the 5 from taking the last table quarter.
At this point, I'm pretty sure I'm within at least the top 5 or 6 in terms of battle points, but the leader managed to get near full points in both his first two games, so catching up is still going to be hard.
Round 3:
I end up on table 2, facing off against Tulio Wolford. Tulio's one of the better players here, fields good lists, and knows what he's doing. We actually played in the second round of last fall's tournament, my dread list against his daemons, and he had a hard time of it, pretty much playing for the draw from the start due to some bad luck. This year, he brought a mostly-jetbike Eldar list:
Farseer, jetbike, fortune, runes of warding
5 warlocks, jetbikes, 2 destructors, 1 enhance
Autarch, jetbike, laser lance, mandiblasters
2x 8 Fire Dragons, Wave Serpent with stones, TL-Scatter lasers
4x 6 Guardian Jetbikes, 2 cannons
5 Shining Spears, Exarch with Withdraw
Solid list, though I personally think the bike squads could have used warlocks to lead them. The mission is a capture and control mission, with 4 objectives (each player placing 2) and a pitched battle setup. Primary objective was to claim objectives - each one was worth 5 points. The secondary objective was to have 750 more VP than your opponent, while the tertiary was to have a unit, scoring or not, in each of the four quarters. Bonus points were if your opponent controlled no primary objectives, killing the most expensive HQ, and reducing your opponent to 3 units or less. I win the roll to go/place first, but give it to Tulio - I want to see where he sets up first, and possibly deny him the ability to make last-minute objective grabs. Three objectives are on my right (one a bit more central than the other two), while one is on the left.
He sets up on the board his two Serpents with Dragons, the Farseer and Warlocks, and two bike squads, holding everything else in reserve. The Serpents go behind a copse of trees on my right, while the Farseer and Council set up in the open in the middle. His two bike squads go to the Council's left. In return, I set up with a heavy center-right, with 4 of my dreads (including all Ironclads) on the front line and all three Razorbacks behind them. Two heavy weapon squads and a mm dread set up for a turn-one move/run into the trees in front of them on the far right, while my MotF and his hw squad set up in the trees to my left with a mm dread supporting them. My Typhoons are split to either end of my line, while the mm/hf speeder is lurking behind the dreads among the razorbacks. I roll to seize the initiative and get a 6! Tulio groans, as his opponent did that to him last game as well.
I doubt, though, that his last opponent had as good luck as I did. The four dreads move up, staggering themselves in case of a charge by the council, while the razorbacks move up behind them. The typhoons move to get clear shots on the Serpents and troop bikes, while the heavy-weapon squads on the right move/run up into the trees. Firepower is devastating - my Typhoon on the right blows up one Serpent, injuring a couple Dragons, while the MotF blows up the other Serpent, killing 5 of the 8 (and the remaining 3 fail their pin check). Dreadnought/razorback fire kills 3 of his council and puts a wound on the Farseer. All in all, a pretty bad turn for my opponent, and almost immediately putting him again on the defensive. On his turn, his bikes make a strong move to the left, away from my wall of Dreads marching up the table, and manage to immobilize my Dread on that side. Unfortunately for him, my Librarian is within 24" of his Farseer, and Hoods the Fortune he tries to cast.
Turn two and most of my firepower goes into the council and Farseer. It takes most of my firepower, but they're completely wiped out. Firepower on my right is likewise strong, killing another 4 of his larger Dragon squad, who fail their leadership and fall off the table. At this point, Tulio's kind of stuck. He has almost nothing left that can take on my Ironclads save rear shots from bike cannons or the three remaining Dragons, both of which are fairly easy to avoid. The only strategy he's left with is to run around the table, try to eliminate my Troops while avoiding the Dreads, and hopefully objective-grab with a boost on the last turn. From reserves, he gets the remainder of his forces. Two jetbike squads come in on the right, as does his Autarch who turboboosts on, while the Shining Spears come in on the left, boosting as well to cover one of his bike squads. One of the two on the left boost up, while the other moves slower, hiding amongst the Spears. His Dragons decide to move up out of their wreck into the trees in front of them. Shuriken cannons destroy my speeder on the left, but only stun the one on the right.
Turn three. I decide to split my remaining dreads and Troops up. One razorback, a dread, and an Ironclad each start moving towards the two far objectives on his side of the table, to the left and to the right. The mm/hf speeder moves up to flame the remaining 3 dragons. One Ironclad and my Librarian's Razorback sit on the objective in the center, while my two hw squads on the right are surrounding the one on my side. Firepower this turn is much less effective, dropping only a couple jetbikes due to great boost saves on his part. The heavy flamer hits all three Dragons, but fails to wound one, leaving him in range to move and fire at my Ironclad. He continues to make cover saves from other firepower - someone is out for revenge! He continues to fly around the board a bit with his troops. Cannons destroy my mm/hf speeder, but his Dragon only shakes my Ironclad, rolling a 1 on his damage roll. The Shining Spears crash into the MotF squad and wipe them all out, while his Autarch charges one of my hw squads on the right. He kills 4 for one wound in return - the last survivor tries to use Combat Tactics to run away, but the fast Autarch catches him and they stick in combat.
Turn 4 and I continue trying to herd him in, limiting the places he can get to without turboboosting. The trio of Ironclad/MM Dread/Razorback continue towards each of the far objectives, but the Ironclad on my right takes a minor detour to squish this fire dragon in his way. The hw squad on the right that's not in combat gets ready to be rocked but holds position on the objective. Firepower is a bit more punishing this turn, reducing one of his bike squads on the right to just the cannons, and killing a shining spear and another two jetbikes from a troop squad on the left. In combat, the remaining marine in combat with the Autarch takes a wound and dies, freeing up the Autarch to charge again. In his turn, he again moves a bit cautiously, boosting to get cover saves and staying away from my Dreads. Cannons stun my remaining Typhoon again and immobilize it, as well as taking off the heavy bolters on the Razorback to my right. The Autarch charges the second HW squad and kills 3, who do no wounds in return. They try to stick and do, as my Multimelta dread is in range to back them up next turn.
Turn 5, possibly last turn. My trio on the left make it to the objective, and the guys inside hop out. All four squads try to spread out and keep him from boosting to within 3" of the objective. I can't quite block him out on the right, but I do park the Razroback on the objective and bring up the Ironclad to support. The mm Dread moves to charge the Autarch. Firepower is again mostly ineffective, but I have little left to fire with. In combat, the Dread charges the Autarch, who attacks the squad instead and kills one. The dread hits him, but he makes his 4+ forceshield save. The marine runs, and is far enough away that he will regroup next turn. His turn 5, and he doesn't want to take the risk of the game not ending after turboboosting troops. Instead, he continues to play a cautiously, although a bit less so. The shining spears move up within Ironclad charge range and shoot at my Razorback in the center, blowing it up and killing two marines. Unfortunately for Tulio, my guys are able to disembark and be more than 6" away from them, so he cannot charge and wipe them out. One squad of bikes moves to be within grab range of that objective, but are also in charge range of the same Ironclad. I assume he's trying to present me with a choice - charge the Troops and lock them down, but then the Spears kill my guys, or charge the Spears and let the Troop bikes zoom and claim. Cannon fire finally kills my last Typhoon and shakes my other mm dread on the left. His bike squad of two models moves to at least contest the objective on my side on the right and possibly claim it if the dreadnought dies, while other cannons immobilize my Razorback on the right - no matter, it was where it wanted to be anyway. In combat, his Autarch tries to haywire grenade my dread and fails, but I can't hit him to squish the guy. We roll the dice and indeed, there is a turn 6.
Sadly for Tulio, once again on this turn my dice get hot and his fizzle. The Librarian detaches from the squad in their wreck and moves to use Avenger on the Spears, killing two, while bolter and heavy bolter firepower kill off the other two. The Ironclad is thus free to fire on and charge the Troop bikers in range, and does so, wiping them out. Meanwhile, firepower on the left kills two bikes, and they fail their leadership test, falling back towards his table edge - and my waiting Ironclad, who charges and wipes them out as well. Lastly, the marine on my right who fled autorallies at the beginning of the turn, and runs back to the objective, charging the two bikes trying to claim it. He kills one, but the last one makes his morale roll. The dreadnought finally manages to get a blow past the Autarch, who flattens into a small pancake. The game is pretty much over, and all Tulio can do is jump to contest the objective on my right. Mercifully the game ends here. I claim two out of the four objectives, and the other two are contested. But I claim both the secondary and tertiary objectives, plus all three bonus points. Knowing that the players on table 1 drew, I had a good feeling about my chances.
In the end, I take 1st place overall, by a mere two points! My opponent had slightly more battle points than I, but the supplementary points from painting (GW tournament checklist) and sportsmanship (which was simply listing your favorite opponents in order of 1-3) made up the difference and a little bit more. All in all, I was pleased to have played three very good games against three great opponents, with nary a Marine list amongst them! As I mentioned, the tournament was run well, with minor hiccups (such as a computer crash, or misprints in the handouts) not really seriously affecting the tournament. One minor issue that didn't affect me but did affect some of my friends - there were a noticeable percentage of players with unpainted models or even unpainted armies. IMO, if you're coming to a tournament, a three-color minimum should be upheld, but this wasn't explicitly laid out in the signups for the events. Playing against grey or pewter minis is fine for casual games, but at a tournament shouldn't be allowed. Other than this, it was well run, and I think the no-comp-score bit was fairly popular as well. Thanks again to everyone who helped run it!
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:6500pts: 
harlequins down there with his serious 
Dakka!
