I figure I'll post this before the week starts and while I've got some caffeine in me...I went to Baltimore and played in the finals of the Ard Boyz tournament and won. I was stunned and exhausted but obviously very happy. I played three strong opponents and had a great time. During locals and regionals there were a lot of players that made up for ignorance with belligerence. I figured correctly that at the top level most players really knew their stuff so most arguments were short and quickly resolved. I learned a few things that will improve my game, but thankfully didn't cripple me during the finals.
I qualified with two of my buddies at our local hobby store in Fairborn Ohio, The Bookery. We decided to travel to Cleveland, TN for the regionals at Dicehead Games. We did well there and two of us advanced, despite some disgruntled players trying to get my buddy DQ'ed. The owner and judge was a level headed guy and knew the game, so issues were resolved quickly and decisively. We made a few new friends and had a good time overall.
The list I used for all three tournaments:
Lord with res orb and solar pulse,
15 Destroyers
10 Warriors
11 Warriors
6 Immortals x 3
3 Monoliths
Friday afternoon the finals started in relatively good time while the GW guys set up for the GT on saturday. My first round I was paired against a friendly guy named Ashleigh from Texas. He was running Thousand Sons with many 5 man marine squads, 2 biker squads, 2 predators, 1 defiler, 5 raptors, a demon prince and I'm not sure what else.
The mission involved dicing off for one of two special characters that would join your army, the loser got the remaining character. A rock hard Space Marine Captain lost his favorite teddy bear to a potent Farseer named Dedelf, who is convinced the stuffed animal is a Chaos artifact. They will join any army that furthers their goals of recovering/destroying said bear. Each character is worth 1000 VP to the opposing player. 12" deep deployment zones, and we placed almost all the terrain on the short board edges. I won the roll and took Dedelf.
I set my army up in my standard formation, centered on the long edge. Three monoliths on the deployment line. An immortal squad between the monoliths, and one behind the center monolith. Lord behind the center monolith with a warrior squad strung out on either side. Three destoyer squads side by side on the table edge. Dedelf stood next to my lord.
Ashleigh spaced his small troop units along his deployment line, defiler on his right flank, predators on his left, bike squads and raptors on along his left side. Space marine captain tagged along with his rightmost troops.
I won the roll for first turn, pushed out six inches with my whole army, and opened fire. I concentrated on the bike squads, the defiler and predator with lascannons. I busted up the bikes pretty well but not the vehicles. His turn one he rolled everything out but the tanks and turbo boosted the remains of his bike squads. Defilers and predators fired to practically no effect, and the sorcerers used some sort of psychic bolt at strength 8 on my monoliths, also to no effect.
It took me a couple of turns to scrub the bikes, but I rotated my liths to prevent anything but an end run on my troops. I glance destroyed his defiler on 2 or 3, got the predator around the same time and whittled his troop squads. He changed tactics with his marines when he was in rapid fire range and tried to kill my troops, but it wasn't enough. By turn four he still had not rolled to get out his demon prince, and on five I killed the last of his icon bearers. I shot the squad with the Captain to death and he followed soon after. I eliminated all his army.
I thought the game was timed, not six turns, so I lost out on the bonus point for units in opposing deployment zone. I think this actually saved my butt, as 23 points kept me from playing some real killers. I ended up on table four versus the Mech Eldar player who beat the friend I traveled in with.
Round two next...
