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So Saturday I participated in an 1850pt Feast of Blades, bringing my augmented Puretide Council. I had just gotten off of a very successful test run of the list (link) and I was feeling VERY confident. Maybe too confident.
My list was a little different, these are all models I actually had and could paint up to a very basic standard before the competition:

Army Pic

-Shadowsun
-Farsight

-Crisis Bodyguard 7x
--Crisis 3x (PR+PR+TL)
--Crisis 2x (MP+MP+TL)
--Crisis (FB+FB+TL)
--Crisis (SS+CC+PTE+VRT+PR+DC)
--13x Gun Drones

-Kroot 10x
-Kroot 10x
-Kroot 10x

-Hammerhead (Long Strike+RG+SMS+DP)
-Broadside (HYMP+EWO)
--2x Missile Drones
-Broadside (HYMP+EWO)
--2x Missile Drones

-Allies: Blood Angels
--Librarian (Bike+Shield of Sanguinus+Blood Lance)
--Assault Squad (2x Flamer)

There were 3 rounds and winning was all that mattered, with scoring (including paint) being a tie breaker. I had 3 very diverse games against pretty good lists and very good players.

Game 1 vs Collin's Dark Angels
Mission: Big Guns Never Tire
Deployment: Dawn of War
His army:
-Sammael
-Command Squad Bikers 5x (Plasma Talons, Banner of Devastation, Apothecary)
-4x6 Bike Squads (2x melta)
-3x Attack bikes (multi meltas)
-3x Landspeeders (multi melta, missile pods)

Deployment Pic

This first game was against the guy whose Flying Daemon Circus beat me in the final round the first time I tried out the Puretide Council in a tournament setting (link ), so I was ready for some revenge.

He had brought a butt ton of relentless bikes with that ridiculous bolter banner, the strategy is pretty straight forward. I went first, set up about 2'' onto the board (which was pretty evenly covered in a mix of city and ruin terrain). He dodges my deployment entirely, even though the Council has infiltrate, with that really cool scout move. I played a lot of white scars in 5th Ed, so I appreciate smart bike play. I get long range weapons that turn, it should have been much worse, with the carbines and fusions in range. I do pop two of the landspeeders with missiles.

Pitched Battle

He returns with a huge round of shooting, all his squads in the banner's range, breaking down like 7 drones by sheer weight of fire. I suddenly felt a bit of worry, but the following turn I take out the banner and 2 squads with rapid fire plasma and the remaining drones. He was on the back foot from then on, but he's a great player and played hard the whole way through. He maneuvered as well as he could, took out my broadsides with his attack bikes on outflanks, and shot back with his remaining bikes, but was unable to repeat the strength of that first turn without his banner. He was tabled on turn 5.


Game 2 vs Jonathan's Eldar with Grey Knight Allies
Mission 2: The Scouring
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
His army:
-Autarch (naked)
-4x5 Dire Avengers
-4x Wave Serpent (Shield, Scatter Laser, Holofields)
-Wraithknight (2x D-guns)
-GK Grandmaster
-10x GK Terminators (2x psycannon)
-Dreadknight (incinerator)

Jon is a very competitive player (if you couldn't tell from the army list) who didn't quite have the models he wanted on hand that day. I guess he wanted a second wraithknight and another waveserpent or two and his friend didn't show up. Either way, this was a mean looking list that has a lot of strengths. The GK termi's and the wave serpents can put out a lot of dakka, the incinerator on the DK can put a ton of drone killing wounds on my big unit. The wraithknight is kinda scary in concept, although it wasn't a huge threat to the Puretide Council as long as they stayed out of assault with it.

I get lucky once more and get first turn. I deploy the council ~22-24'' away from the dread knight, assault marines and librarian behind, in case of him stealing initiative. First turn is... very good. I ignore the wave serpents for now, thinking I'd wait for them to drop their shields, and took out ~4 of the grey knights with carbines. I popped monster hunter and took out the Dreadknight with fusion and plasma and put 2 wounds on the wraithknight. The next turn he hits me back... hard. My rolling had been good, and so was his. He got, IIRC, 20 shots with his 4 serpent shields. TL BS 4 and S7 meant a butt ton of wounds with that number of shots, and I failed a lot of saves. Lost all but a couple drones. The next turn I take out his Greyknights (not the Chapter master, he takes out a kroot squad before dying). I close with his suits and the rest of the game is The broadsides roll well and put more wounds on the wraithknight, but he lasts until turn 5. His return shooting was withering, and he started biting deep into the actual suits of the unit as the turns wore on. It was touch and go for a while. I needed his GK Grandmaster to roll poorly on an assault and the big unit got pinned for a turn after being forced to take FOUR pinning tests in one turn. I really counted on the broadsides to put wounds and hull points on the wraith knight and wave serpents (tank hunter missiles took their toll this game), and they rolled amazingly well, especially the drones.

Near the End (forgot to take other pics, sorry)

I closed on his wave serpents each turn and successfullly zone him into the one corner of the map with no objectives on it. I held 2 with kroot who did nothing else all game, and at the end of turn 6 when the game ended he had a wave serpent and some dire avengers left. I had like shadowsun and 3 suits, Farsight (who had lost his outflanking kroot), the broadsides, and two units of kroot.

After the game, Jonathan and I both agreed that it was one of the best we'd played in a while, very close. The biggest improvement for his play that we could come up with was being more decisive with the wraith knight, just point it at a target and send it there rather than vassilating back and forth and relying it its two (albeit powerful) guns.

A second victory for the Puretide Council puts me to the top table.

Game 3 vs Sisters of Battle
Mission: Crusade
His army: Vanguard Strike
-Cannoness
-2x10 Dominions (4x Melta, Rhino)
-2x10 Sisters (Heavy flamer, Melta, Rhino)
-2x10 Sisters (heavy bolter, Storm Bolter)
-10x Retributors (4x Heavy Bolters)
-10x Retributors (4x Flamers, Rhino)
-3x Penitent Engines (2x heavy flamer)

Deployment

Deployment 2

This seemed like the dream match up. Somehow this SoB player had made it through undefeated, and now he was about to face the rock to his scissors in my list. I had all the firepower necessary to demech and then pick apart 80+ sisters. This should have been an easy game, but it was characterized by some seriously freak events and (more importantly) sloppy and overconfident play on my part.

He got first, deploys across the board at the edge of his deployment zone. I make my first amazingly awful mistake: I deploy my broadsides close enough that he can 12'' scout, 6'' move, deploy 6'', and shoot another 12'' with his dominions, taking out BOTH broadside teams turn one. Everything else kind of pinged off the unit. I had a reasonable turn, but he was already in the middle of the board (where 3 objectives were) and I was just starting to demech him. I killed 2 squads (carbines+fusion and plasmas each taking one) and got 2 rhinos with tank hunter missiles.

Closing

My next stupid mistake being aggressive with my assault marines. I rushed them forward and killed a rhino in close combat with them turn 2. His next turn, he killed them all and the librarian. The turn after that, I got ballsy with the council, who had soaked a few turns of fire already. I charges right up, split fire perfectly, destroyed the last 2 penitent engines and decimated 2 more squads. Then, the worst thing possible happened: a penitent explodes, killed 4 drones and put the final wound on shadowsun! She dies, and so did much of my hope with this game. I fought hard the next few turns, but without the survivability she and the librarian lent the Puretide Council I was doomed to failure.

The game ended with him holding one objective and me holding one objective, but he had both Warlord and First Blood. I had somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

I took second overall, winning paid entrance fees to the Feast of Blades tournament in Denver. My bumbling with the Sisters had cost me hotel rooms for that weekend.

My thoughts about this tournament:
-The Puretide Council is a scary unit. It can inflict a ton of damage every turn. Ignoring cover with such a powerful and efficient shooting unit ruins a lot of game plans. Tank hunter and monster hunter solve a lot of problems. With the easy 2+ from the librarian, they are amazingly resilient and you would never not want to deploy them.
-Predictably, the rest of the list is rather fragile. The troop situation is especially delicate. I prefer the previous build. which included an extra drop pod squad instead of the broadsides. If I go to the big tournament I will find a way to include those models. Outflanking Farsight with a unit of kroot improves both their durability and their offencive power considerably, but I need to include a single hound in each squad for acute senses.
-This lists weakness against flyers was not tested today. And several of the games did not go as smoothly as I had planned. When I first played this list, I thought it might be easily first tier material, the kind of thing that Alpha Strike IG or Paladins were in their time. But now, I am less certain. I think it will be a threatening fringe, but will meet its match against certain opponents.

A shame the Eldar player didn't have a proper Eldar list to test against. The wasted HQ choice and GKs made the game almost irrelevant as a test for your netlist.

farsight should have acute senses, if i read what you were saying so hound is not neccasarry

I think with a second Knight and another Serpent the Eldar player would have punched your ticket Game 2. Point both WKs at the Council and go balls out.

Congrats on a solid finish.

Sorry but the final table being two wooden tables pushed together not even a mat on it, wow pretty sparse on the terrain as well. Lucky you did win your entrance fee back as I would not have been impressed with that!

Congrats on the 3-0.