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So after gaining all the knowledge that YMDC has to offer on how to play 40K using the rules as written, or RAW, I created a competitive marine list to take to a local tournament.  I was a little surprised at how many people took objection to my list, clearly they haven't read the rulebook well enough, as these objections also continued as we played each game.  Anyways...

HQ-  Tigurius with FotA, FotD, 5-man command squad with infiltrate, 2 meltaguns

HQ-  Tigurius with FotA, FotD, 5-man command squad with infiltrate, 2 meltaguns

Elite- Venerable Dreadnought w/ assault cannon

Elite- Venerable Dreadnought w/ assault cannon

Elite- Venerable Dreadnought w/ assault cannon

Troops- 5 tactical marines, plasma gun, lascannon

Troops- 5 tactical marines, plasma gun, lascannon

Troops- 5 tactical marines, plasma gun, lascannon

Troops- 5 tactical marines, plasma gun, lascannon

Troops- 5 tactical marines, plasma gun, lascannon

Troops- 5 tactical marines, plasma gun, lascannon

Heavy Support- Venerable Dreadnought w/ assault cannon

Heavy Support- Venerable Dreadnought w/ assault cannon

Heavy Support- Venerable Dreadnought w/ assault cannon

Total Points- 1846

Game One:  Versus Tau

Straight up victory point game with infiltrate.  I set up both my Tiggys with retinues in the same woods right outside his deployment zone.  I got first turn, and moved forward and feared with both Tiggys.  He claimed that troops in devilfish are immune to morale checks, but there is no such rule in the rulebook so I made him figure out how to fall back.  The lascannons picked off the ethereal, causing another morale check, and everything literally ran off the board on the first turn!  The guy was using the new codex, and I had asked him to use the old one because I hadn't read the new one yet, and he refused, so I gave him a 0 on sportsmanship and awaited the next round.

Game Two:  Versus Droppod Spacewolves

This game lasted a little longer than the first one.  Escalation was in effect, so all my dreadnoughts had to hoof it onto the board.  I set up a castle in my deployment zone and awaited his droppods.  Fortunately for me, he didn't have any meltaguns in the units and so only killed marines, and my dreads were easily able to concentrate their firepower and wipe out whole units at a time.  His only anti-vehicle models were predators, and I strategically stalled the game so that it only lasted for two turns (he didn't get a single reserve roll for the predators on the second turn!).  It ended up being a victorious slaughter for me.  I offered to take up both his and my result sheets, and as I was walking up there I noticed he forgot to give me half victory points for each droppod (they were immobile at the end of the game).  I adjusted the points accordingly and got a massacre!  So far so good.

Final Game:  Versus Grey Knights

This game showed just how poorly some peoples' grasp of the rules is.  The game was a recon with night fight.  This guy must not have owned a rulebook, and this was apparent on the first turn.  He went first and moved up with his army and began to open fire.  He had dreadnoughts with assault cannons, but he tried to use the rules for my assault cannons!  We ended up arguing for about 20 minutes before he finally surrendered, giving me my third massacre of the day!

So I had all the battle points possible, my army was painted pretty well (I bought it off eBay), and I thought I had this tournament won...

Sixth Place, WTF?!?!?!?!

Apparently, I had the worst sportsmanship and composition scores of the whole tournament!  This was absolute crap, as I was the only one there who actually knew the rules!  As for composition, I had written a nice article of fluff for my chapter that explained how the mental fortitude of having two Chief Librarians gave the entire chapter a sense of tactical superiority, so they always took the most effective units into battle with them.  While other chapters mess around with ten man squads, my chapter was smart enough to utilize its armory to the fullest.  It was a waterproof justification, but the judges didn't agree with me!  Needless to say, I won't be going back to that store again.  I gave the store a zero for comp and left without flushing the toilet.

So the army performed quite well for me, and I'll be getting it ready for a tournament near you, good luck!

- Oaka

Har-har, you are a funny guy!

I see you have "some" objections against SM.

how do you have traits and tigurius?

why did the tau player have to use the old rules, and why did you give him a sportsmanship score of 0?

i'm pretty sure you are wrong with troops being affected by FoD, the rules contain nothing on falling back from a vehicle(did you include disembark?)

your fluff is not waterproof justification for your force, its clearly built to win, you would have been better off at a GT. You probably wouldn't have gotten docked points there, although your army is illegal(w/ traits and tiggy)

You missed the most important part of a post like that:

"April Fools!"

Someone doesn't realize what day it is...

Thanks Oaka! This was a great one!

Like first off, the Space Wolf player made a HUGE tactical mistake. Use a pen to do your score sheets, duh! It's a competition, HELLO!

Second, you should have played Space Wolves yourself. That would have given you 3 hq choices and therefore 3 total slots to fill with Tiggys. The more you can fear off enemy units before they get to do anything, the more fun and balanced the game is for both players. This will give you a higher overall sportsmanship rating as anyone who doesn't play with 3 Tiggys themselves obviously has more fun losing than winning, and only plays tournaments for the joy of enhancing the battle glory and majesty of superior Space Marine players.

Third, bribe the judges and threaten your opponents with physical violence. As your store is full of apparent n00bs who don't use pens on their scoresheets, the unfairness of other whiny players is easily countered with a little wink wink nod nod and a 20 or two slipped under the table. If that fails, sexual favors also work. I mean it's a TOURNAMENT, win at all costs! This is Games Workshop people, money is *irrelevant*.  Also, whenever playing an opponent smaller and/or weaker looking than you, threaten to do something horrible to their pets/spouse/relatives if they give you a bad sportsman ship score. Something like "Great game! By the way, I know your name, and I know the store owner who keeps records on his customers in his computer database, therefore I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE." is usually sufficient. Offering to hand the scoresheet up to the judge is also good common courtesy/smart tactics that should always be used. Against a larger opponent, flash a firearm from under your jacket to get your point across!

Smart tactics like these ensure victory!

Thanks for the replies in good humor.

The idea was that this list and all the things I did during this 'tournament' were legal.  I was a bit worried about the post that Ultramarines can't have traits, but I couldn't find that anywhere in the codex, only a little line that suggests Ultramarines don't vary from the Codex Astartes.  So that's just an intention argument.  Hence, this list isn't illegal.

- Oaka

Skyfyre, threats and sexual favors don't work until you actually do one of them (go to someone's house and kill their pets or spouse). So, it might require some, shall I say, nasty deeds in order for those comp and sportsmanship scores to rise. Still, I will grant that the rules do not specifically prohibit doing any of these things (no where in the BGB does it say that you can't go and kill your opponents pets).

Nice job on the "win" Oaka.

God, I love April 1st.

Darkchild

After round 3 you should have stood on the table and peed on his army.

This should be stickied. It will become a classic for YMDC.

All joking aside, I don't understand the Tiggy/infiltrate thing. Don't SCs without Special Abilities who join a unit with Special Abilities make said unit lose the Special Abilities? (Yeah, that made sense... to me at least.) But don't they?

He claimed that troops in devilfish are immune to morale checks, but there is no such rule in the rulebook so I made him figure out how to fall back.

The guy was using the new codex, and I had asked him to use the old one because I hadn't read the new one yet, and he refused, so I gave him a 0 on sportsmanship and awaited the next round.

and I strategically stalled the game so that it only lasted for two turns

walking up there I noticed he forgot to give me half victory points for each droppod (they were immobile at the end of the game). I adjusted the points accordingly and got a massacre!

my army was painted pretty well (I bought it off eBay)

I had written a nice article of fluff for my chapter that explained how the mental fortitude of having two Chief Librarians gave the entire chapter a sense of tactical superiority, so they always took the most effective units into battle with them.

It was a waterproof justification, but the judges didn't agree with me! Needless to say, I won't be going back to that store again. I gave the store a zero for comp and left without flushing the toilet.

At first I didnt see the date on the post, and was thinking to myself, "my god! What has dakka created?"

Thats some gold you got there Oaka. Good post!

You made my day. (Or at least evening^^)

One of the most entertaining posts in a while.

Ur a funny guy oaka...hahaha
I must admit you had me steamed when I first read your post but then I got it !
I do want to say a couple of things just so I feel a little better about myself and my initial over reaction.

1. pg. 73 of the "Rulebook", Vehicle morale : Basically states that vehicles don't take moral tests. If a rule says otherwise then you would treat the result as crew shaken or stunned.( a quick note it does not however say how to decide which, roll a die maybe?) Since troops inside a transport(vehicle) are considered to be the same unit as the transport(vehicle) the do not take moral tests.
2. pg. 74 of the "Rulebook", Universal Special Rules : Clearly states that characters with them lose them while in a unit that does not have them and vice verca.
3. pg. 42 of the "Space Marine Codex", Codex Chapters : The way I read and Understand it is that units chosen from the main codex don't/can't have divergent traits. Ultramarines are chosen from the main list so....A+B=B+A. Does that make sense?

Wait...so...would it actually make sense to take 2 infiltrating librarians with retinues and try to fear/fury a bunch of stuff off the board on the first turn? Is this actually something feasable?

*confused*

I gathered that it is possible after reading all the threads about RAW and their conclusions.  Sure, it is a collection of loose interpretations that are all used as an advantage, but it appears to be legal.

1.  Tigurius can join a command squad.

2.  Command squads can be given the infiltrate veteran ability, this ability can also be purchased for attached characters.

3.  Tigurius doubles the range of any psychic power.  Some people believe that fear of the darkness has a range of 12", and so is doubled to 24".

4.  There is no 0-1 restriction on Tigurius, only that he counts as an HQ choice.  You are allowed 2 HQ choices.

5.  There is no provision protecting units inside transports from being subject to morale tests.

So, if you skew every area of interpretation in your favor, you can infiltrate 2 Tigurius models 18" away from an army, move 6" on your first turn and fear twice in a 24" radius around each Tigurius model.  I picked the army that would be most susceptible to this (Tau) and used it as the opponent and voila.  I just wanted to show the more ridiculous consequences of what happens if we take the rules too seriously.  I've always thought that we argue about these rules just for fun in theory on these boards, but recently I've grown concerned that there are a few individuals who are actually building army lists that utilize these things to win.

- Oaka

but recently I've grown concerned that there are a few individuals who are actually building army lists that utilize these things to win.

Oh have no doubts...