This weekend I went to my first Warhammer
40k tourney ever. First, a bit about myself upfront. I started playing
40k in 5th, left it shortly after launch of 6th and came back at 8th. Due to a lack of players and corona, I played MAYBE 6-7 games of 8th and 9th in total. I am avidly following goonhammer and forums, but I have basically no real experience actually playing. The tournament was a small 14 player three round tournament in the city next to mine. The location was cool, it was in the industry park of the city, so parking and traffic were no issue. It was spacey, there was coffee, so I was pleased with that. Before I go into detail of my list and the games, the whole day was an absolute blast. All the people were really chill, it was great to play so much
40k in a day and my main goal was, to connect with people in my area to be able to play more regularly, which I did. Gaming wise I had no real goals, I thought, maybe a win would be cool yeah, I was not there to win but to gain experience. My goal was to keep the stuff I forget to a minimum and remember my rules for the most parts.
I played with Space Wolves. You can find a picture of my army here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CSjZD96Nctb/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
I played:
HQ:
Primaris Chaplain on Bike with Wolfkin and Wise Orator+Benediction of Fury. As Litanies I chose Mantra of Strength and Exhortation of Rage.
Librarian with Jump Pack, Rites of War, Storm Caller, Instincts awoken.
Ragnar
Elite:
Redemptor with Icarus and Plasma
Invictor with Gatling
6x Jump Pack Wolf Guard with Claws + Shield (and Frost Weapons for the Sergeant)
1x3 Blade Guard
Troops:
2x5 Infiltrator
1x5 Incursors
Fast Attack:
Outrider
1x4
TWC, Leader with Hammer and Shield, rest with Chainswords and Shield
Heavy Support
1x3 Eradicator
Transport:
Impulsor with 5++ for Ragnar and the Blade Guard
I was pretty satisfied with the Chaplain, when he hit, he hits like a truck and with the Mantra flat 4 damage is something else. I would probably switch out Wolfkin for another
SW trait. I also rolled atrociously for my Litanies. I think I rolled 4-6 Ones and even rerolled two dice and got ones again (I used a command reroll when in retrospect, I think I could have just used the commanding oratory stratagem?)
I kinda liked the librarian as well. The plan was, to bubble up with Storm Caller and Cloaked by the storm and keep (depending on the deployment) the redemptor, impulsor and
TWC safe. Like the chaplain, he absolutely tanked his psychic tests. I failed the WC6 spells I think 5-6 times? Pretty often definitely. Most memorable moment: In my second game, he rolled a 12 for a super smite, did 1 damage to the opponents chronos and 3 to himself. I would definitely look at him getting an armour of Russ or something. The lack of invul save is pretty bad.
Ragnar I am not so sure. He performed well but I think I overhyped him a bit in my head. Need to get more experience here. I also think, maybe I should stock up the Blade Guard accompanying him.
The redemptor was a big target but performed okay.
The Invictor was more a distraction, but I didn’t really expect him to do much more.
Troops wise I liked the Infiltrators and Incursors. But I think, I deployed them to aggressively forward at times.
I didn’t really like the outriders, I think I will switch them out for another 5 man Wolf Guard squad, if I play a similar list. The whole army was fast, so this wasn’t the niche for them. In the first match I also stuck them into
SM bikers with T5, so with chainswords wounding on 5+, they were basically stuck there for the rest of the game.
The
TWC were pretty tanky, the huge bases are an absolute PITA though. I think they were doing ok.
I outflanked the Eradicators every game with Cunning of the wolf and they did what they just do, destroying vehicles.
My first match was against an Ultramarines list, which was a bit all over the place. It was painted (and otherwise played as a
HH Emperors Children army) and consisted of a Terminator captain, a Chaplain, Blade Guard,
SM Bikers with Melters, Apothecary, some intercessors, a land raider redeemer with relic terminators in it, a tactical marine squad, a Sicaran and
MM devs in a Drop Pod.
The mission was the scouring and as secondaries I picked bring it down, Retrieve octarius data and Engage on all fronts. What I did in basically all of my games was to deploy the infiltrators/Incursors mid field on objectives and rush basically most of the stuff forward, holding a backfield objective with one of my troops. I was pretty nervous as it was my first game and I am not used to play on time. In the first turn I forget my litanies, moving my Outriders and my ROD action. I won the roll of for first turn. The Redemptor dealt 6 wounds on the
LRR, the invictor killed a blade guard, but I think that was it. I totally forgot that Drop Pods could arrive in the first turn, so didn’t properly screen my backfield, resulting in the
MM devs dropping behind my redemptor and killing him first turn. The Sicaran killed all but one wolf guard that was camping on a midfield objective and the last one bravely hold that objective tanking a lot until the end of the game. In my second turn, the eradicators spawned behind the sicaran and one shotted him, granting me the 3 points for bring it down. I charged the
TWC into something next to the
LRR and was caught off guard by the UM strat, that allowed the
LRR to overwatch the Thunderwolves, but they miraculously survived.
Otherwise in this game, Ragnar survived with 1W against the chaplain, and killed; along with his blade guard, all the termies. The Outriders just got stuck in a fight with the
SM bikers for all of the game. The Invictor died in
OW against the
LRR, which was a turn later killed by my eradicators.
I scored good on primaries (although just 30 points), which my oppononent did not manage as well. On my secondaries I got, 12 on EoaF, 8 on ROD and 6 with bring it down. End result was: 66-33 for me, booking my first (and only win for the tournament.).
My second game was against Drukhari. Yay. I was a bit annoyed by this because of two reasons: 1. Drukhari. 2. of the few games I got in in 9th, it was basically all against drukhari. Well, at least I knew the list and units. He played Drazhar, Succubus and Archon, along with a unit of Mandrakes, Trueborn, Bloodbrides and Incubi. Some Raider, 1x3 Chronos, Hellions and Reavers. Second mission was Battle Lines? The one with the Vital Grounds secondary, which I picked, along with Engage on all fronts and ROD. I won roll off, but I did not really do much. In my notes I have written down “advance!” so yeah. I also did a tactical error up front in choosing ROD. I did not know that I had to stay away 6” from the quarter edges to start the action. As the objectives were on the quarter edges, I had to decide if I stay on the objective or collect octarius data, so I basically had to give up this secondary. The rest was basically as expected. The opponent was very well-versed with the rules and corrected some things, I did not understand correctly, so at least I gained some experience and game knowledge. I was basically blasted away in two turns and conceded in Turn 3. I think it ended 26-97.
The last match of the day was against Eldar, the mission was Battle Lines. I was pretty done for the day already and did a mistake before the game already, by chosing the one objective closer to the enemy as the priority target, instead of the other one, that would’ve been way easier to hold. The opponent’s list was a warlock skyrunner, an avatar, a wraith seer, Wraith guard, two units of shadow spectres, war spiders, a 20 blob of guardians, some shining spears, a viper, some dire avengers and two units of dark reapers. This time, after actually checking my codex I choose Warrior Pride as a secondary. Up to this point I kinda just disregarded the codex secondaries, but for my list, this was a really easy secondary, I don’t know, why I did not have a look at this earlier. But I was there to learn. Not much to say about this game. One of the memorable moments included me charging into the avatar with my Chaplain and Ragnar. After the Chaplain destroyed the avatar, he got back up (which I did not know, that was a thing
) and bashed the head in of Ragnar. I played not really well and the opponent had no real issue with getting rid of my army so I was tabled after turn three. It ended 36-97 I think.
This ended my first tournament of
40k. I was 12th out of 14, so not last and even got a win! I learned a lot and gained a lot of practice, so this was super helpful. I was not so happy with my list; I think the target satuation was off. People had no problem dealing with all the stuff. I think I need to either leave out the Outriders,
TWC and Invictor and get in another redemptor and/or Impulsor with assault intercessors to have more big armour stuff, or go more heavy one or two 5 man Wolf Guard Jump Pack Squads. I also think, a little throwaway squad of Fenrisian wolves to camp backfield objectives would be nice. But anyway. Tournament winner was the Drukhari player I played my second game against, followed by an Imperial Guard army (double Full Payload Manticore, 9 blob Bullgryn with Psyker support, some Scions) and Eldar (not the one I played against).
I am really happy how it all played out and it was a great experience.
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