So, things I learned yesterday from my games against people who play a lot more than me:

First, and most disturbing, even people that say they play ITC and NOVA, and the store's staff that were TO's, didn't understand the sequencing of combat c activation. In my first game, I activated my berzerkers and asked the opponent, a player who said he competes in regular competitive tourneys, if he was familiar with berzerkers. He said it's been a while but played against them, I reminded them that they can fight twice a turn. I activate, pile in, roll dice, and then go to consolidate before second activation. Wait, he says, you don't consolidate until the end of the phase. I'm like naw bro you consolidate as the last step in a fight sequence it's not part of the phase. I pull out my battle primer to show him the order of operations, he's still convinced consolidating is at the end of fight phase.  Call for judge. We pose our question and they don't know how the sequential works. Ask to see rules. I show them the berzerkers rule and they think fight means roll dice to attack 2x. I'm like naw bros here's the order. Any chaos player will tell you the same, and any player should know consolidating is part of activation. They ask for rulebook I'm like i don't have rulebook but the rule is here in the primer. They go to Internet to check FAQ. 20 minutes later they see no FAQ and decide to rule in my favor because they can't prove me wrong for obvious reason and say they think that wasn't GW's intention.

Moving right along, the opponent was a good player with a tough list. 1 las pred and 2 Baal preds he luckily put forward to peek around big center of table LOS blocking terrain. I was able to get my DP on 2 of them round 2 and get 1 down to bottom profile and tie up the other 2 for the rest of the game. Also luckily he couldn't use killshot stratagem as the strat names Predator profile, not keyword. Also, my bad ass lord with the murder sword 1-shotted his Slamguinius thanks to Death to the False Emperor. Other lessons learned that game: I messed up and tried to kill a Lieutenant instead of the scouts and size the objective from him, mistake, I love a 3++ chaos lord from Tzeentch's spell, and if my helbrute survives turn 1 it is well worth its points in dmg output, scarecrowing, and as a durable target closer than my characters.

It was also my first tourney using Alpha Legion rules instead of Word Bearers. A significant change in play style even without infiltrating anything, and the -1 to be hit at ranged was so incredibly helpful at keeping me moving up the board and messing with their "math" in their head with my dudes surviving what "should have killed them!" May Lorgar forgive me.

My second opponent was Thousand Sons and had an impenetrable setup with 3 predators upon a hill with an exalted sorcerer in the middle, 30 tzangor and 40 cultists around them and between me and them, a shaman and sorcerer on disk and 10 Enlightened with bows  beside. And 10 rubrics in the Webway. the mission gave credit for killing a unit first turn and there was a huge building in the middle of the board (seek and destroy deployment) so i couldn't reach him turn 1 and nothing was really viable. I got first turn and tried to pop his nearest pred with my brutes and heldrake and havoc launchers but just didn't have the punch. Also trying not to give up a backfield Webway gate didn't warptime me berzerker rhino forward. I managed to kill about 10 cultists with what couldn't reach the pred and dove ny drake into them and the tzangor just to keep them busy, and maybe force him to blow CP on Bravery and i forgot 1KS couldn't Tide (couldn't touch the Enlightened or preds). His turn put out a lot of hurt with killshot and the enlightened. I killed 1 pred turn 2 but the rest of the game was a bloodbath, luckily i got death hex off on his tzangor that surrounded my prince and sorcerer and helbrute, fried chicken man for dinner.

 Unfortunately the Enlightened were WAY better in melee than anticipated and they got my prince and brute, but not the huge point gain from slay The warlord thanks to I am Alpharius. That trait is so useful for denying warlord kills, even with the random tertiary trait. Lessons learned: that 6" increased range on casts makes a well-screened sorcerer really hard to deal with directly, but also let my sorcerer stay out of deny range to counter with my own spells; 1KS has some very Nurgly spells with the D3 healing and -1 to hit from range; and the opponent was very nice and a sportsman but was measuring tzangor movement from front of base to back of base getting that extra 32mm in movement until I pointed it out and thereafter he was very careful with every model's movement and I felt a little bad because he was so nice and it probably didn't even matter.

My third opponent was someone who wrecked me in my previous tourney, then playing Steel Legion and now playing Blood Angels with 15 Scout snipers, 15 Death Company, Slammy, Storms talon and raven, librarian and librarian dread, Ave some others. I knew going in that the guy is smart about playing for objectives, kill priority, and map awareness, and he had me really threatened going in to deployment with the deep strikers and snipers. I could sort of screen but with dawn of war deployment he had lots of room to Wings into my DZ. He deployed his Slamguinius in the back corner for that stratagem, and i infiltrated 10 cultists up front to try to bait some snipers or DC. He put all sniper shots into my warlord Prince and thanks to the Hydra trait only dealt 1 mortal wound. He did indeed send 5 DC into my infiltrators (RIP) instead of my rhinos or brutes. Turn 1 he Wings'd Slamguinius near my Las brute and 1- shotted him (RIP) but didn't do much else. My turn 1 my Murdersword Lord failed his charge into Slamguinius but my autogun cultists made it in! RIP 3 cultists. Took down most of storm talon with shooting and heldrake claws, 3 of the exposed DC. Kept screen in place for turn 2 DS. Turn 2 he Wings'd his captain to other side of field and failed his charges into a helbrute and didn't deep strike his guys, kept trying to snipe but not having much luck with the -1. Got the 3rd brute down to 1 wound. DC remaining killed my very brave cultists down to a man, i used Bravery and on My turn 2 Tide to get to he far corner 3rd level of cover to sit and throw rocks at snipers and finished off DC with Lord. Killed Slamguinius with my DP and got warlord kill. Took down Talon but couldn't dislodge scouts. Turn 3 10 more DC, 5 S.Guard and librarian and dread dropped on me. RIP my tac boys but the terminator sorcerer and lord did some wicked work fighting back in melee.  Turn 4 he focuses everything in my HQs and gets all my characters but invested everything into that, and kills cultists so i gave 1 remaining in his DZ for linebreaker. My turn i disembark my berzerkers who clear up my entire backfield, shuffle my one remaining brute and rhino up to charge his scouts. All in all it was super close the whole game and I feel i fought well. Lessons learned: blood angels can fail their charge especially if they are trying 4 9" charges at a time; denying librarian dread spells are Gamechanging; and while a list can be intimidating and an opponent's tactics sound, things can not go according to their plan too.

At the end of the day I finished with 3 Draws with each of those games me scoring more "battle points" than my opponent [just not enough to move from draw to win per mission parameters], and felt great about that because I usually lose to blood angels, felt I had weaker lists but played smarter, and had fun. It's also my first time leaving a tourney with no losses which to me is very fulfilling. Also, my opponents were nice and good sports with great paint jobs (#3 had hand-painted angels on his storm raven wing that were awesome). I feel a bit dirty about running as AL instead of WB but my pride will heal and 9th edition will probably be here soon enough.

Next: 2K pt tourney, 2 months.