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While most games at the semi's were tough fights all around and required absolutely everything a player has in their arsenal to win, every once in a while somebody lets up a bit, or at least I did.

Round 3 (spearhead, capture center) - My ork horde is facing off against White Scars - Khan attached to an assault squad, Tigirius (sp?) attached to terminators, a cc scout squad, a full typhoon squadron, and all the bikes/attack bikes that could fit from there. Typhoons, Tigirius, and Termies start on the field, the remainder of the army outflanks. He wins first turn, so I get to see what is on the field, and what is being placed in reserves (and that it is all declaring as outflanking). Nothing in the army can tank shock, the assault squad is limited in their jump pack movement by the attached bike (still not sure how that was supposed to work), so nobody could fly over me. I give it a moment's thought before deploying, and elect not to take the freebies that had just been offered to me, lining the short board edge on turn one by turboboosting my twelve strong bike squad and running up a squad of 30 boyz. Statistically, 1/3 of his reserve squads would have died had I done so (without being able to legally deploy). Sure enough, Khan rolls that side, just like last time I faced Scars in a tournament setting, but this time he gets to live, as I remembered how crushed my previous foe had been. My opponent appreciated it, and felt a little better about having his "two year lossless streak" ended with a more fair fight than what I could have turned into a slaughter if I had chosen to. Despite pulling my punches, I still walked away with a massacre and reached a 3rd place finish from table 4 for my efforts (and to my great surprise, as well).

So... did anyone else back off from a more certain win for the sake of a good game? Or was it all just the cutthroat play we've been hearing so much about?

My 2nd round opponent kept forgetting to run with his daemons and would remember in the assault phase but it seemed truly dickish to tell him they couldn't since he'd already rolled a combat so I let him do it.