A shot of the location... well most of it.


That is some nice Tau Terrain


Another example of terrain, most tables weren't as heavily terrain'ed as this.


Some people and tables at break, I believe. You can see some of the terrain levels on other tables.

Ok, now for some armies:


SW with 2 units of TWC, my game 3 opponent. Good list, I'll talk about it later.


An interesting, fun chaos army. I think those are spawn with oblits in the back led by a biker lord.


Biker army with 2 tact squads in rhinos.


What type of monster brings 7 pods in 1500...


A huge beautiful SM biker list. He used white scars tactics this time.


Woah wtf the bikes light up?! 10/10. Sorry for crappy pic.


Not sure which is primary and which is secondary as I didn't play against him, but Cents in a a pod with tigurius and some other strong HQs. Then the formation that allows you to infiltrate stormtalons so they start on the board... wow. He did quite well...


Picture doesn't do it justice. Adam's Tau army, I'm assuming with firebase formation.


A familiar sight on dakka, Jy2's army, but played by someone else. Jim was just too eager to field his 3 wraithknights and Imperial Knight haha... good thing I didn't have to play him.


1500 points of orks with helicopters.


Tau army, looks like farsight with firebase cadre?


Spoiler alert: This guy wins. Or ties for 1st, really. Farsight bomb is really strong, especially at 1500 points.


Solid AM list.


Yes, that's 1500 points. 2 foot DA squads, foot dark reapers with Maugan Ra (spelling?), Farseer, Autarch, Wraithknight, and crimson hunter (I think).

Well, I missed a lot of armies, mainly those without a display board. But notable exceptions include Grant's Seer Council with 2 Wraithknights (such a ridiculous list if you get the right powers. I know one game he got invis, fortune, sanctuary, shrouding, and protect or whatever the power is that gives +1 armor saves. So 2+/2+/3++ rerollable on an invis unit. Plus hit and run (DE allies). Nice and balanced).

Jy2 brought Farseer, 2-4 units of min jetbike squads (I don't remember how many, maybe he will do a bat rep), 3 wraithknights, AND AN IMPERIAL KNIGHT PALADIN. 1500 points. Okay 40k, you starting to get silly...

My opponent for this game was pure Astra Militarum.

His army was basically this:

Company Command Squad

Two infantry platoons, each with just 2 infantry squads in chimeras (no blobbing, so 4 chimeras total). Each also had a heavy weapons team with 3 lascannons, as well as an autocannon on the guys in the chimera.

3 Bullgryns (they get 3+ if in base to base apparently, and are T5 with 3W, and they improve the cover save of any unit behind them by +1, so normally to a 4+)

5 ratlings

Manticore

Basilisk

Lemun Russ with battlecannon, lasannon, and heavy bolters.

Ok, not a bad list, but I was cocky going into it. The only lists I know of that give me trouble are seer council, imperial knights, alpha striking deathstars (like farsight bomb, heh heh), and tac squad spam marines. I didn't think this would be a challenge, but boy was I wrong.

For powers I got all the important ones, besides gate. Prescience, Forewarning, Perfect Timing, and Invisibility. Also got Misfortune which ended up getting me a wound on a bullgryn. Yay.

Mission is BAO Scenario 1: Emperor's Will (primary, worth 4 points if achieved) and modified maelstrom (secondary, worth 3 points if achieved) and first blood, slay the warlord, and linebreaker.

Here is the only picture I took (I didn't take pics during games, too pressed for time. Maybe some day I'll be good enough to photograph a game while playing )


This picture was taken after my turn two.

My EW objective is in my bottom left corner, his is in my top right corner. Both are behind cover. Maelstrom 1 is on the left of the middle hill with Maelstrom 2 on the right. Nice, some central objectives for my deathstar to take!

Also, who knows what the maelstrom objectives were each round. I didn't keep track. Assume my movement on all the units except the centstar is because of them trying to get to the correct objective for maelstrom. Which I guess is only objective 1.

Dawn of war deployment.

He chooses to have me deploy and go first. Nice, I can get invis up before he can shoot at me, right? RIGHT?!? I mess up and deploy the centstar in the middle of the board. Good most of the time since I don't know where he is going to deploy, but not on emperor's will. My plan was to win the primary, and in order to do that I have to wipe his ObSec units off his emperor's will objective. So I should have deployed by star hard right, close to his EW objective to hopefully make it there by turn 5. Since I don't have gate, I risk being tarpitted on the way there if I deploy far away. Whatever, at least I'm learning. My psybacks and psyfeman all deploy around my EW objective, spreading out in case he shoots with his manticore or basilisk. Scouts infiltrate near his deployment zone. Gettin' ready for line breaker already, ha! Five steps ahead of the game...

He spreads his army out, with manticore and basilisk near his objective behind cover with his CCS holding it and 2 chimeras nearby.

Turn One:

Plan: become invulnerable and kill the things that can hurt my troops.

Reality: Fail to cast invis on 5 dice even with tiggy's re-roll. Ok, that has like a 4% chance of happening. Guess I should roll 6D6 for invis to be safe... not like that has a 25% chance of perils or anything... Well let's have the libby cast perfet timing so I can hit some of his tanks since pretty much all of them are in cover. OH WAIT WHAT'S THIS? PERILS? I only threw 3 dice at it and got 2 6s. No re-rolls here. Uh oh... let's roll on the table... and I roll a 1. Fack. Please pass the leadership test... lol nope. Libby gets sucked into the warp. Gone. Now I can't ignore cover. And he gets first blood. And the unit takes 3 wounds. Noice! Next, I realize I forgot to pre-measure and my cent star can't hit his heavy supports. Ok, my bad. I'm tired. Let's just shoot at his chimera behind the bullgryns with 5 of the cents and have 1 split-fire into the other chimers. (His other 2 chimeras were along his deployment edge in the middle of the board, with his LRBT near). I get a ton of hits and roll like 5 6's to pen, but then he makes 5 4+ cover save form the bullgryn's sheild, so he's just fine. Same deal on the other chimera. I was hoping for first blood, but just put one glance on each. I forgot that perfect timing still goes off even if you perils. Whatever, never making that mistake again. Needed one more 6 to go through for first blood (2 6's = 3 HPs because second immobilized result causes an additional hull point to be lost). Rest of my turn is uneventful.

He shoots stuff at my centstar. Actually shoots everything since they're not invis, and puts some wounds scattered around all of them, but doesn't kill any. Man my dice have been roilling high all game.. even when I didn't want them to!

Turn the Second:

I move the cents up and to the right to head towards his EW objective, rest of the army shuffles around. I keep sitting on Maelstrom 1 since that was one of my objectives both round 1 and 2.

Psychic phase... lost 3 warp charges no biggie. Don't have to worry about perfect timing, I guess. I try to cast invis and fail. I re-roll it, and fail again. Ok dice... I've had enough of your nonsense. Prescience and forwarning go off, at least.

I shoot the centstar at his LRBT and splitfire one into a chimera. I wreck both. Not bad. Cover doesn't save him this time!

He moves his chimeras that were near his EW objective very far towards my deployment zone (and flat outs them, so they're behind me now) in an attempt to get one of his maelstrom points but doesn't quite make it. Bullgryns charge and tarpit my centstar for the rest of the game.

My how the tables have turned. I guess I'm pretty bad at this game. Not being able to overwatch sucks. Taking Cypher for hit and run (and infiltrate) isn't a bad idea.

Turn Three and Four:

These turns might as well be rolled into one, especially because we played it pretty quickly.

I shoot the psyfleman into one of the chimeras that moved toward my deployment zone and actually wreck it. My razorbacks shoot as some of his infantry squads and heavy weapons teams that were near my scouts and maelstrom 1 on the left side of the board. After 2 turns I kill both heavy weapons teams and the infantry squad. I don't know why I shot at the infantry squad though, it's not kill points... now all his forces are on the right side of the board. Plus ratlings on the hill I guess. During combat, I kill one bullgryn but get charged by an infantry squad to keep them tied up forever. Like till this day they are still tied up in that close combat. Tiggy could only hit the bullgryns and they kept making their saves. I also forgot about prescience giving re-rolls in CC. Rules... who needs them?

So basically I manage to get linebreaker, but so does he. He also gets first blood. Neither get slay the warlord. We draw on the primary (emperor's will) so neither of us get points there. And on maelstrom...I WIN IT by one point!!! I got good objectives to go after each turn and barely beat him.

So I end up winning 4-2, despite getting outplayed. I'll admit it. Huh. Next time I play a list like this at least I'll know what to do, because I made a lot of mistakes. Luckily I do much better from here on out.

So I win game one, but barely. Turns out in small tourneys like this (idk if 40 people is still considered small) you basically need max battle points to win it overall.

Okie dokie, my opponent for game two was a really cool guy who was a great sport despite having a bad draw in the pairings. My first opponent was really nice too though. Actually everyone who plays 40k is nice, in my experience.

He played Daemons allied with Chaos Space Marines.

His list:

Bloodthirster

2 10 man units of bloodletters (these guys have AP3 swords?!?) with things that allow other units to deepstrike near them without scattering, even if they weren't on the table at the start of the turn apparently.

Nurgle Soul Grinder with thingys that make it kill stuff (some S7AP4 gun and S6AP4 torrent flamer)

Chaos Space Marine Nurgle DP with ML3, Spell Familiar, Power Armor, Wings.

5 man CSM squad with MoN

5 Havocs with 2 lascannons (in bastion)

Bastion with icarus lascannon and upgrade from stronghold assault that turns it into what's essentially an assault vehicle.

For his powers he gets nurgle's rot (the large blast poisoned (4+) AP2), enfeeble, and the summoning primaris form malefic.

Oh, I got good powers though. Gate of Infinity (on the libby, which turns out to matter), Invisibility, Perfect Timing, and Prescience (x2). One of my Psykers got shrouding which is nice. They always all roll on telepathy for psychic shriek.

Mission is BAO Scenario 3, with the Relic primary. Hammer and Anvil deployment. Still modified maelstrom for secondary. I win deployment and choose to go first (of course). However, he did win the roll to choose sides and chose the side with much better terrain. 2 ruins instead of one, and one of those (top right) is really big and has a solid wall on the bottom layer so you can't see through it.


This image is form the bottom of turn three, after I had three turns of shooting. I'm sitting on the relic. Nice terrain doe.

Oh, there are two maelstrom objectives this game, one in my bottom left corner where all my psybacks are and one in the top right corner where he is castled up. Neither of us would move off these all game.

Turn One:

I move towards the relic, but position coteaz near the back of my centstar so he's still closeish to my psybacks and psyfleman. The psybacks scoot around a little but try to stay more than 48" away from the bastion.

I can't shoot at anything so... yeah.

His turn, he keeps the DP and Bloodthirster on the ground behind the ruins (which have a solid wall so I can't see them), afraid to fly them out and feed me first blood on the following turn.

No other movement, no psychic powers (afraid to perils on summoning I guess, or assuming I would deny it) and the only thing that can shoot is the icarus lascannon.

He shoots the icarus lascannon at one of my psybacks. It hits. He rolls to pen, and it penetrated. I roll cover from the big egg thingy in the middle, and fail. He rolls on the damage table to see what happens, and gets a 6! It blows. NOT AGAIN WITH THE LUCK PLS!!

First blood to chaos! Ok, this might be closer than I thought.

Turn Two:

Just kidding, this turn I grab the relic, and we both know it's not going anywhere. Deathstar armies are great at the relic. Spoiler alert: I hold it for the rest of the game. Now he has to win secondary (which is kinda luck based, but not horribly so) and then get more bonus points than me, which is possible since he got first blood.

So knowing this, I do my best to focus on getting both my maelstrom objectives every turn, and already begin planning for linebreaker. I cant kill bloodthirster (his warlord) but hey he probably can't kill mine (coteaz).

Nothing else happens on my turn as everything is out of range or out of LoS.

On his turn he deepstrikes his bloodletters in my backfield but they're within 12" of coteaz (who I left in the back of the squad for this reason) and I remind him of Coteaz's "I've been expecting you!" and he admits he forgot, so I let him take his move back. Nice guy Fearfire. However, he still decides to deepstrike them in my back field, just farther from Coteaz, but they scatter 7" toward the cent star anyway, into the 12" range of Coteaz! I shoot, they all die. The grav weapons are not that great against daemons, but the hurrcane bolters... not bad at all.

He decides to place his other bloodletters far back near his maelstrom objective and they don't really scatter. He deep strikes his soul grinder where you see it in the picture above and it sticks the landing. His shooting glances a psyback. Oh wait that;s right, he also rolls on this warp storm table and gets a result that makes every unit take D6 S6 hits (something like that) on a D6 roll of 6. He rolls for all the units that can be affected and my psyfleman gets hit 5 times but none glance. But one of my psybacks also gets hit (6 times I believe) and wrecked from it. People inside are fine, they just move into the ruins.

I keep getting maelstorm objectives that are easy for me to achieve, and for him.. not so much. I'm ahead in maelstrom at this point for sure, but only by one or two points.

Turn three:

I move up and shoot at his soul grinder, destroying it.

He doesn't do anything major, just puts more glances on the psybacks form the lascannons in the bastion, for what it's worth. No summoning still. He's jsut hoping to get a turn where he can get both maelstrom objectives, and taht the game goes long enough for him to win maelstrom and get linebreaker.

Turn four:

His maelstrom missions are, I think, to hold his objective (going to happen) and try to get a unit in my deployment zone. So he really needs to get linebreaker. I need to hold my objective and (if I recall correctly) have 3 of my scoring units in my deployment zone with 0 of his in my deployment zone. So if he gets a unit down the board, it will be a big swing of points....

I begin moving back with the cent star and spreading out a bit more. I forsee him trying to fly his FMCs down the top board edge for linebreaker so I want to get in range to shoot him down. If he tries to blitz down the board, I will have one chance to stop him. I can't hit anything because it's all out of line of sight and if I gate of infinity I lose the relic (at least that's how it was ruled in this event, which I agree with. It can't move more than 6" in a phase). I also risk mis-happing since he has people everywhere back there near his maelstrom objective. So I wait.

His turn. Here it goes. He flies his nurgle prince down the board as far as it will go, but he will still need another turn of movement to get linebreaker because of a poor run roll. This is why he moved the DP now instead of waiting a turn. He keeps bloodthirster back out of LoS, on the ground, because he figures if he moves him out I will just shoot him down and get warlord, so a chance at linebreaker for an almost guaranteed dead warlord.... not worth. He also tries to summon this turn, and rolls 3 4+'s but I have 21 deny dice or something ridiculous and deny it, barely.

Turn five:

The libby splits off from the cent star so he can gate into my opponent's deployment zone for linebreaker without taking the cent star with him. Nice that HQs are scoring now. Just not ObSec... In psychic phase I get GoI off and my libby sticks the landing in his deployment zone. Good. Now I would get 8 points if the game ends because I'm ahead in maelstorm too (stopped him last turn). Prescience and Perfect Timing also go off, so I have a chance to shoot down his prince (nurgle princes have shrouding so he could have jinked for 2+ cover).

I shoot the star at the prince and kill it. Simple.

He doesn't pull ahead in maelstrom this turn either, I'm still up by one or two. His lascannons glance a psyback to death. Whoop.

He is still castled up in his corner like he has been all game. So that's the end of the turn.

We roll to see if the game continues but he rolls a 2, so it's over. I win primary, secondary, and get linebreaker, he only has first blood. Grey Knights take it 8-1. Not bad.

It was a tough matchup for him, not much his list can do. He was just trying to win secondary mission while relying on first blood but wasn't getting the right objectives each turn to do so, Oh well. He was a cool guy, and next time I see him I'm sure he will bring a more competitive list!

Well I managed to win two games so far, but so have 5 other people, two or three of them are 20-0, so there's basically no way I can win it since I only have 12 total battle points. That's okay, my goal was just to win my games and learn how to play this army.

This mission is BAO Scenario 2: Purge the Alien (kill points) primary with another set of objectives for the modified maelstrom secondary. Vanguard Strike deployment. We end up with maelstrom 1 in the center, number 2 near his board edge in the middle of the table (above the big terrain piece in the picture) and number 3 in my deployment zone towards the left of the board. My list isn't that great at kill points because the troops are all very fragile. Just focus the 5 psybacks and win.


Blurry overview of the board, bottom of turn 3 I think, after I had 3 turns of shooting.


Better pic of the action, same bottom of 3, with his thunder wolf cavalry (TWC) hiding off towards the right of the pic, trying to stay away from my centstar.


His list:

Wolf Guard Battle Leader (Warlord)
Thunder Wolf Mount, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield, 2x Wolves

Two squads of 5 TWC, one (Sergent or something) has TH/SS, rest plain (still 6 attacks each b/c counter attack apparently).

Two Squads of 5 Grey Hunters in drop pod with meltagun, combi-melta, and melta-bombs.

10 Grey Hunters in drop pod with 2 plasma guns and a combi-plas, also melta-bombs

10 blood claws in a stormwolf with 2 twin-linked multimeltas (that's so darn good on a flyer) and a twin-linked lascannon (I think).


Tigurius got Invis, Perfect Timing, and Prescience. Coteaz and Libby rolled all their powers on santic but didn't get gate, sanctuary, or hammerhand, which are the only 3 useful to me. Sucks. Guaranteed gate on the new grey knight centstar will buff it a lot, although you lose the easy warp charge dice from the psybacks and psyfleman. Anyway, more on that later...

His warlord trait was that units within 12" of his warlord (the wolf guard battle leader which I will abbreviate as WGBL) get furious charge.

I got master of ambush. So the cent star infiltrates!

I got first turn, I think he chose to let me go first. Don't remember who won that roll off. He deploys his 2 units of TWC on either side of his WGBL which isn't attached to either squad, just has the two wolves. I infiltrate 20ish inches away from his warlord, making sure some cents are within range of all models in his unit (so the little wolves too). He baited me with that warlord out in the middle of nowhere and I'm going to take the bait. Hopefully it pays off. Scouts infiltrate onto maelstrom objective 1 in the middle of the board. He fails to seize and so we begin.

Turn one:

I don' t move anything, everything is right where I want it. I'm just going to tell you right now that I lose the maelstrom secondary this game, even though all 3 objectives were near my side. I don't remember what happened turn by turn. Either way, whoever wins primary is basically going to win. Kill Points. Let's do this!

I cast my powers successfully this time, and I don't lose anyone to perils on the first turn. Noice.

I shoot my centstar at his WGBL with 2 wolves. 3s to hit with re-rolls form prescience. 6s to wound (because majority armor, which is why he kept his WGBL separate form his TWC) with re-rolls and I get 8 AP2 wounds. He look out sirs two to the wolves then makes 4 3++s form the storm shield, but is down to one wound. Then I roll my hurricane bolters and end up with 5 wounds. So he needs 5 2+ armor saves or I get first blood and warlord. He rolls two 1s. Yippie! First blood, warlord, and a kill point. Not bad. I also pop smoke on every vehicle in preparation for his alpha strike.

On his turn, his two 5 man grey hunter squads with melta combi-melta come in and get right up front next to my psybacks on maelstrom obj 1. Both squads have to focus one psyback to get through the 5+ cover, but they blow it up and cause the henchmen inside to run away scared. His TWC stay away from my centstar and just continue to tease them by staying 30" away each turn for the rest of the game. He was scared, but he really should have charged them at me to force me to deal with them or get tied up. I think he forgot that slow and purposeful can't fire overwatch, not sure.

Turn two:

I start moving the centstar back to deal with the new threat in the backfield, keeping Coteaz toward the left to create a bubble that he wont want to come in from reserves near. I disembark 3 of the remaining 4 henchmen squads in preparation to psychic shriek the grey hunters for some extra wounds. Psychic phase, I cast everything sucessfully on the centstar and get 2 psychic shrieks off on one of the GH squads, but only one manages to roll high enough to do anything. But it gets a 12, causing 3 LD 9 GHs to die with no armor or cover saves. Psybacks shoot at that squad to finish them off. Psyfleman does 2 glances to one of the pods. Cents shoot at and kill the other grey hunter squad. In the picture above, the two pods on the left were the ones that came in on his first turn.

Now it's his turn two and both his reserves come in. Grey Hunters drop where you see them and shoot 5 plasma shots (rapid fire+combi-plas) at the psyfleman but only glance it once. His storm bolters form that pod and the one remaining pod cause another henchmen squad to flee, but they don't run too far away. His stormwolf comes in toward my upper left corner to shoot at some razorbacks. He was initially within range of Coteaz, but I let him re-place him. I didn't want to feel too bad, lol. Coteaz's "I've been expecting you" is dumb. So he ends up taking out two razorbacks from PotMS and some good rolls on the damage table. The explosion claims two more henchmen, too!

Turn three:

Only 45mins left in the day. I say we give each other 10min rounds now so we at least get 4 rounds in, and he agrees. Ok, time to move fast. I move toward his GH squad towards the bottom of the board, but stay within 24" of the stormwolf. I shoot the stormwolf out of the sky with the centstar and only 3 bloodclaws survive, but the psybacks finish them off. I had also split the libby off form the star to go after the 3 remaining bloodclaws but he wasn't needed. This turns out to be a mistake. One of the cents split0fired into his last pod, scoring two 6s and finishing it off. Nothing touches his grey hunter squad though.

On his turn he multi-charges 2 henchmen squads (one was a lone model falling back from before) and the psyfleman. He kills the lone model and glances the psyfleman (I think he actually glanced it from shooting plasma in the shooting phase), his meltabombs missed. We are locked.

Turn four:

Last turn. Kill points are close now because all my weak troops are dropping like flies and I'm not playing perfectly with my choice of targets. I charge the centstar into combat, which is all that matters. I kill a model, he meltabombs my psyfleman and finished off the other henchmen, ouch. 3 henchmen squads dead now, one down to one model on top of my obj 1 (under a psyback towards the left in the pic) and one squad never disembarked. And that's it, the grey hunter squad is his last unit besides the TWC and neither of us win the combat this turn. So the game ends.

Now, it's the moment of truth, he wins the secondary, but only by like one point. Not that it matters. He gets 3 points from there. For the primary, I killed his WGBL, Grey Hunters x2, Stormfang, and drop pods x3 for 7 KPs. He got 3 henchmen squads and 2 psybacks for 5. So I win primary, yay! I also got FB and slay the warlord but he got linebreaker, So I win again, 6-4.

Ok, so I went 3-0 and ended up with 18 battle points. Not that great considering a couple people went 30-0 but I was happy, despite playing badly my first game and making a lot of mistakes. I think 4 people total went 3-0. I definitely learned a lot, and am looking forward to bringing the new centstar out as soon as possible. Which probably won't be for like 9 months or something sad until I can go to another tourney.