I'll try to post some pics but frankly I forgot to take too many of the actual game so here's the quick and dirty
TT report:
Was up to 2 am the night before eating and drinking and had to be at the main hall at 7 am for the
40k Team Tournament. There were 119 4 man teams so over 400 people playing
40k in one room at the same time! We set up our models and organize our forces while reading over the missions. I have never seen more complicated missions. Each one had a Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary, as well as bonus points and "Command Counters" that gave further bonuses (usually extra scoring units). The missions were like you had to both have a scoring unit in a table quarter and it had to have this certain counter on it and the moon had to be in the right phase... I kept getting the primary and secondary missions mixed up and then the scoring and rules were on separate pages (which screwed us up in game 3). That aside, they were a lot of fun and certainly made you think.
****************************
We see our opponents for game 1 and they are sporting basically mirror image
IG but with Hydras and Manticores and Space Wolf Razorback spam. Basically lists taken right from YTTH. Reecius and I were paired up while Platuan4th and whitedragon were together this game. Reecius and I lose the die roll for first and looking at the wall of tanks and artillery facing us we deploy in reserve. We come on using a refused flank and try to engage half their army with whatever is coming on. This basically results in neither of us doing any significant damage to the other. We contest the center Primary objective and both teams score the secondary and tertiary. We had a chance of stopping them from getting the secondary, giving us basically 6 more points all done but Reecius' dice abandoned him and we were unable to kill the 5
IG legging it into our deployment zone. We made a few mistakes, but overall, we came out with a draw against a vastly superior force that went first so we were happy. We actually even scored more points than them with the bonuses so had technically won. Story was the same on our teammate's side except there it was a bloodbath but a draw none the less.
****************************
Game 2 saw us paired up against another mech
IG team. This time I was paired up with Whitedragon and we squared off against 2 Psyker Battle Squads, 2 Manticores, 2 Vendettas, and since certain Forgeworld items were allowed, each team member brought a Hades breaching drill. This 50 point (!!) item proved to be very popular and many
IG teams were sporting one. It basically is a super-charged Mawloc, coming in from reserves and doing a S10, AP1 large blast (!!!) to whatever it comes up under and then a single squad gets to move on from the hole next turn as if walking on from a table edge. Missions was table quarters and we won first turn. Pretty uneventful on both sides as we traded shots, stunned a few of their tanks and vice versa.
WD and I both had demolishers and they were proving their worth by shrugging off fire from their lines and wreaking havoc on the tanks lined up against us. Their turn 2 the first breaching drill emerged, flattened part of my command squad and did a "Live Free or Die Hard" moment and exploded the Vendetta hovering above it (!!!!). We managed to kill it thanks to our mystics but man that thing was annoying. Thankfully, the second one scattered when it came in a couple turns later and it played no part in the game. To wrap up, we were slowly gaining the upper hand and began wearing them down and trapping them in their own table quarter while we moved into position in the other three. They did decide they wanted to kill our commanders and spent 2 turns dropping manticore templates on their heads. My commander took a direct hit on the chin but when the smoke cleared, he had been saved by his refractor field. Next turn he wasn't so lucky and the S10 blast turned him into a pink mist.
We ended up scoring Primary, losing secondary, and drawing on tertiary. We also score several bonus points so had clearly defeated our opposing team. On the other board, Reecius and Platuan4th did great as well and won primary. Platuan's Primaris Psyker had a turkey shoot, shrugging off incoming fire and shooting his psychic attack to great effect (I may have to start using this guy, he performed great!). I hope next year they stop allowing
FW into the
TT. Most
FW stuff is ridiculously overpriced but when you have a S10 AP1 large blast for only 50 pts that's pretty crazy.
****************************
We headed up the list to Game 3 versus a hodgepodge list. Platuan and I faced off against Thunderwolf cav Space wolves and Berzerkers and a Lash Sorceror while Reecius and Whitedragon paired up against 16 Bloodcrushers and Skulltaker and 90 Orks plus 15 lootas. Looking over, I was pretty happy to say I wasn't on that table. Mission was Dawn of War with 4 objectives as the Primary mission. This was pretty much a turkey shoot as the Thunderwolves started all the way across the board and the lash sorc only had piddly guard squads to cast Lash on. We systemetically demolished one flank with the Zerkers, Sorc, Long Fangs, and Oblits then turned our attention to the Thunderwolves. The only thing I have to say about it is that the Psyker Battle Squad plus a Demolisher equals no more Thunderwolf cavalry.
The
PBS was the all-star of this game. They forced the Long Fangs to fall back out of cover so that the Stormtroopers could wipe them out in the next turn, they forced a Grey Hunters squad to fall back off the objective, letting me capture it, and they broke the TWolves on the last turn with no chance to rally. They didn't do great every game, but their abilities should not be underestimated. We ended up winning on our table, but we didn't read the scoring rules (which were on a different page than the scenario rules...) so didn't realize that we got fewer battle points for holding our own objectives than we got for taking the enemies. We could have loaded a squad in the Valk to score rather than shoot, but didn't so oh well. This game beat into my head how important it is to know the scenario thoroughly as we could have scored max points in this game but didn't know exactly what we had to do to do so.
Next to us, Reecius and
WD took a beating but managed to keep their opponents to a pretty minor win. Overall we had more battle points than they did but not as many as we should have had.
****************************
Last game is captain's choice and we decided to have Plat and Reecius pair up and me and
WD pair up. We were playing the Da Boyz team, who won best theme this year and won overall in 2008. Scenario was "Marked for Death" where you chose one of your two opponents and could only score
KP's on them. We chose Shaun Kemp, a great player and a terrific guy who's list seemed a bit weaker overall. They chose my list to be marked for death as well. They had 2 princes and 2 greater daemons as well as dropping Termies, Oblits, and lesser Daemons. We castled up with my stuff hiding behind
WD's and they won first turn. This turned into a shooting gallery as they rushed to pin us down as we bombarded them on the way in. We managed to kill all princes and both greater daemons pretty quickly as well as wiped out a Chaos Marine squad that had disembarked right in front of us. They did a good job of keeping us penned in but we were able to wipe out most of their Marked force and won Primary but lost secondary and tertiary. So overall we won but they had nearly as many points as we did. Over on Reecius and Plat's side they decided that the obvious close ranged force was going to shoot them to death and so put their whole army in reserve...
That pretty much cost them the game as once they arrived they were pounced by princes, greater daemons, oblits, etc and suffered a major defeat. If they had deployed on the board they would have wiped the Chaos marines off the table but that one mistake (and it was a big one) cost them everything. We had been up since before 7 and by this time it was in the evening so I think the toll the day was taking on everyone's brain affected those two. Or as they put it, they failed their stupidity check (some square base humor for y'all).
*****************************
We ended up 51st overall out of 119 teams so not bad for our first showing. I think next year we'll have a better handle on how the missions work (and hopefully they won't be as crazy as this year) so we should do better. Dakka Detachment 1, our sister team, took 7th overall with an Ork Kan army so kudos to them (though we placed higher in painting and quiz than they did
).
Nids - 1500 Points 
- 1000 Points 
In progress
