This past Saturday (January the 26th, 2008), there was a substantial Warhammer
40k tournament held right here in Victoria,
BC. The fellow running the event was a local
GW employee (read: redshirt). I had decided to enter said tourney and see what my Tyranid army was really made of. The tourney was organised into three rounds. Each round was a battle against a different opponent using a unique mission.
-Pre-Tournament preparation-
I had already decided to use my Tyranid army. This army is completely painted, so I’d not have to worry about any last minute assembly or painting flurries. I’ve been cutting a bloody swath with my new Nid army for the last few weeks now with a lot of wins both at home against my close friends and at my
LGS. My only loss was very close. It was downtown at
GW to a seasoned Ultramarine player. I had tried numerous configurations and variant lists each it seems with more success than the last. The only main restriction I placed on myself is that the army consists of close combat units only. No Dakkafex’s, dakkarants, gunfex’s or any other shooting units at all in my army. I guess if you had to classify my army it would be considered a stealer-shock army. Anyway, here is the army list I decided to field at the tourney:
-The Morning of the Tourney-
The tourney was being held in a study hall at the local university. I had agreed to arrive early to help set-up all the boards. I had also brought with me a huge bin of my scenery from home because the organiser was going to be short of scenery. There was to be 12 tables set-up in all and I was going to supply scenery for 4 of them. After we arranged the hall and hauled in all the boards (thick, heavy flocked particle boards) the rest of the players started arriving and unpacking their armies. I had a chance to walk around the room and meet a bunch of the players (while simultaneously scoping out the competition). There were 24 players in all. I personally knew and/or played against about 10 of them before. I was a bit surprised that approximately ½ of the armies present weren’t fully painted. And some weren’t even close. There were even a couple of guys frantically assembling some last second forces to use! The players represented a decent mix of armies. There was 4 Ultramarines, 2 Eldar, 2 Tyranids (including myself), 1 Necron, 3 Chaos, 1 Tau, 2 Orks, 1 Sisters of Battle, 1 Dark Angels, 2 Space Wolves, 2 Imperial Guard, 1 Blood Angels and 2 Vanilla Marine players.
-Round 1-
In the first round I was scheduled to fight one of the Eldar players. The first thing that struck me was how gorgeous his army looked. I’m not kidding these things were pretty much golden demon level. We played on one of the tables I supplied the scenery for, which in theory gave me a slight advantage? The table represented a rural farmstead. It was fairly open. He had a mixed force which consisted of some kind of
HQ squad on jetbikes, another jetbike squad with lances, a Swooping Hawk squad, a Warp Spider squad, 2 Dire Avenger squads, a Wave Serpent with some Fire Dragons loaded and three War Walkers with scatter lasers. Given the open table and the shooty nature of his army I knew I’d be in for a rough first few turns.
The mission we fought required that we each secretly assign victory points to specific terrain pieces on the board. We had 750 points to allocate and no one piece of scenery could be allotted more than 375 points to it. These objectives couldn’t be in your deployment zone either (long table edge, 12” deep). Since the scenery was relatively sparse we agreed that it would be legal to designate the centre of a ploughed field as an objective even though they we just for show. I nominated the small pick-up truck near the centre of the board and the farm house just beyond it and assigned 375 points to each.
I deployed my army centrally while my opponent tended to concentrate on my left flank. I resisted the urge to react to his deployments and load up that flank because I knew he had the speed to race over to the other flank and leave my army out to dry (as it turned out my deployment was sound as he was indeed trying to sucker me into the flank). The only thing about the deployment I wasn’t satisfied with was that my Broodlord squad didn’t have anywhere decent to infiltrate so he ended up deploying just forward of my lines.
The game was very interesting from start to finish. He started out very strong and did considerable damage to me with his shooting. I rolled very poorly for my fleet of claw moves and it wasn’t until turn three that I impacted his lines. He had thrown his two Dire Avenger squads in front of me as a speed bump while his army moved to either side of my horde and continued to shoot. It very nearly worked. As it turned out I slaughtered his centre on turn four, Split my force in half and chased down both his flanks with some great consolidation and fleet rolls. By the last turn I had lost over ½ of my army. But I was sitting on both of my objectives and the Eldar had lost more. He was playing for a draw at that point but he couldn’t muster enough firepower to rob me of both of my objectives. Consequently he failed to claim his (seeing as they happened to be very close to my own). In the end he had only the remnants of the Swooping Hawks and the Wave Serpent left. Solid Victory for me.
He was a great opponent and a wonderful sport. I scored him very high in all categories (as did he for me).
Some Pics:
-Round 2-
In round two I was to fight the Necron player. I had faced my friends’ Necron army many times in the past so I knew what I’d be dealing with. His list was a solid Cron force consisting of two large squads of warriors, two Lords, two squads of 4 Destroyers, an Immortal squad and of course the ubiquitous Monolith.
We were to fight on a ruined, urban board (not one of mine). The mission was a bit strange though. Before deployment (and after determining deployment zones) we each rolled a die. The winner had the option of nominating an enemy unit to begin in reserve. The other player then reciprocated. Afterwards both players rolled off and the process was repeated until the winner chose to end it. In this manner it was possible for each player to selectively choose a number of enemy units to be in reserve. I ended up winning the first roll and promptly put his Monolith in reserve. He responded by placing my Carnifex in reserve (which I was more than happy to do). We rolled off again and I won a second time. I declined to continue for fear of my Hive Tyrant being put in reserve and we deployed.
We both put our forces basically directly opposite of each other slight to left of the centre of the battlefield. There were some barricades and small ruined buildings in between us. I placed my Flyrant and the Raveners over towards my right flank and my Broolord squad infiltrated on the left (12” away from one of his squads).
It turned out to be another close, bitter hard fought battle. The standard pattern developed, my army surged ahead recklessly while my opponent desperately tried to whittle down my numbers before close combat was joined. I managed to impact his lines on turn two (he deployed bit too far forward in his zone if you ask me) and it started to look good for me. Unfortunately his Monolith arrived on turn 2. The rest of the game followed a pattern. I would crash into his units doing moderate damage. He would regenerate about ¾ of those lost and pull his units out of combat with the Monolith and the Lords Veil. He would then shoot the hell out of me causing serious damage. On my turn the pattern would start all over. It was a grinding war of attrition but I was slowly winning. By turn 5, he was in dire straits. He only had one unit of warriors with a Lord and the Monolith left. My Flyrant had yet to take a wound; My Broodlord squad was still hacking. I had one reduced Hormagaunt and one Genestealer brood also. In addition my Carnifex was finally in position to charge the Monolith on my next turn. Most importantly he was only two models away from phasing out (which would give me cheesy automatic Victorious Slaughter result for this round). Unfortunately, we apparently ran out of time as the organiser announced that the round was over and we had to end our games there. So it was destined to be recorded as a draw.
My opponent was extremely friendly and a pleasure to play against. We had no arguments or debates the whole time and we both had a great game (despite the repetitive meat grinder aspect of it).
I had about ½ hour before the next round so I stepped out to stretch my legs and get some refreshments. When I returned 30 min later I was miffed to discover that there were still people playing their games from round 2! When I asked the organiser what’s up he explained that they were just finishing up there last turn and we could afford to wait another 15 min or so. Damd, we definitely had time to play out turn 6. Especially since he most likely wouldn’t have had a chance to play his last turn (due to phase out). Oh well, it was too late now. Lesson learned – don’t stop playing unit a judge shows up at your table and demands that you finish now.
Some pics:
-Round Three-
In the final round I was put up against the Dark Angel player. His army was a balanced force of shooting and close combat. He had a jacked up
HQ command squad in a Rhino, a shooty Dreadnought, 2 Tactical squads, a Devastator squad, a Vindicator and a Predator. The board was another ruined urban sprawl (my own scenery once again).
The mission had secret deployments. We divided our long table edge deployment zones into 6 equal 12”x12” squares. We then secretly wrote down which of our units were to deploy into each of these zones. After that we deployed as usual, but when we deployed each unit we had to put it somewhere inside the zone that we had designated for it. There would be no infiltrating (boo!) The mission also used loot counters – 3 each. One would go in your opponent’s deployment zone; one in no mans land and one in your own deployment zone. Each loot counter would be worth 300 points. We ended up placing them in a regular rectangular pattern across the centre of the board. Once again I went with ol’ reliable - a central deployment. My Flyrant and Raveners went over to my right again. He put his command squad, his dread and his Vindicator in the corner of the battlefield on my right flank? His
tac squads, Devastators and predator went into cover deep in his deployment zone covering the centre.
The battle was over quickly. I went first and quickly advanced my horde. I managed to unleash a string of exceptional fleet rolls (all of them 5 or 6) while simultaneously keeping most of my broods hidden behind or in cover. His first round of shooting was desultory and killed only a handful of Genestealers. On round 2 some of my Hormagaunts just got into hand to hand on the left while the Raveners hit his Rhino wall he had erected on the right. They didn’t achieve any great results but they tied him down until the rest of the army arrived. My army shrugged off his round 2 shooting and for some reason he committed his command squad to the fray and beat down the Raveners. On my turn three I hit him hard. All my stuff except the Canifex got in. I sent the Broodlord squad after his Dread. A Genestealer squad dealt with command squad handily. My Flyrant hit his Devastators. My Genestealers and Hormaguants dealt with his
Tac Squads. After the rending carnage ended, His army was shattered, having suffered at least 80% casualties. On turn 4 what he had remaining was destroyed and I claimed a Victorious Slaughter and all the loot counters.
This battle was okay. There were no major problems during the game, but we did disagree about a few things here and there and checked the rule book at least once a turn. I can’t really complain though.
Pics:
-The Results-
At the end of the day my combination of laid back play style, fully painted, decent looking unified army and my battlefield performance earned me 3rd place overall (out of 24 players). 2nd Place for best General. 2nd Place for best sportsmanship. 3rd for army appearance. Overall I had a blast and actually did much better than I thought I would. I’m pleased that my army was able to compete effectively even though it is not considered to be an ideal tournament list. I must give thanks to yuenglingdragon from the
40k Online forum for the great strategy help he took the time to provide me with my list. I met all kinds of great players and scoped out some awesome armies.
Check out these pics:
-The Worst for Last-
There were a few things I didn’t like about how the event was run.
It’s a pity that all of the scenery used wasn’t at least spray primed black and dry brushed grey. Some may think it’s a minor thing but for me the presentation of the game is huge. I find unpainted scenery a particular eyesore that detracts from the game.
The scoring system was taken from
GW’s Hall of Heroes system. Each battle you would rate your opponent for army appearance, army composition, sportsmanship and honour. The honour score was especially troubling because no one really knew what it was for. Some guys were just giving each other an automatic 4 points while some people were being a bit more modest. In the end there was only a few points difference between the top guys. It’s a shame to miss out on placing higher simply because you didn’t have the fortune to play someone who automatically dishes out top points in honour each round.
The time issue was critical. I feel that each round should have been monitored closely for time and ended appropriately. The tourney was supposed to be from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. As it was we ended up starting late, each round tended to drag on a bit, and we took a massive lunch break. The end result is that I didn’t get out of there till 8:00 pm. I don’t mind staying late but this had detrimental effects on the scores. A few people were forced to leave before they could complete the last game. When a players walks out of a game it counts as a forfeiture, which results in a victorious slaughter for the other guy! The overall top general got a crushing victory in his first game, he LOST his second game and his opponent in the third game had to go to work and so he scored an automatic victorious slaughter (which just edged me out on points for top general). Not amused.
I don’t want to sound like my experience in the tourney was negative. The experience overall was overwhelmingly positive. I’ll definitely sign up for the next one. I hoped you all enjoyed reading this rather long winded post.
