Last Sunday saw me going to my first ever tournament - Normally i don't care much for competitive play but the regulars at this store are a great bunch and i knew that there would be a friendly under-current to even the most closely fought games!
Each player brings a 500pt list, the two lists together must satisfy the
foc chart with a couple of exceptions:
Each player must have at least one troops choice - although this is waived if both players are using the same army; then one player can bring both troops choices, leaving the other free to stock up on special units.
The whole army can have no more than one choice from each of the
HS, E,
FA sections of the
foc. This is, again, waived if you have a choice from each section. (If you bring 1xFA,1xE,1xHS then you are allowed to choose another for and section. I guess this rule was to stop people bringing 3xlandraider and some stormtroopers etc...)
Only one player had to bring a
HQ choice, although two were permitted.
Our Lists
I brought my
SoB 
Canoness -
MC Eviscerator, Inferno pistol, jumppack, cloak of
St.Aspira, Mantle of Ophelia, Frag grenades, Book of
St.Lucius.
SoBx10 - Meltagun, H.Flamer, veteran superior, Rhino w/extra armour.
Exorcist
My accomplice brought his space wolves
8xGreyhunters - Meltagun, plasma pistol, power weapon, Mark of the Wolfen, drop pod
8xGreyhunters - Meltagun, powerfist, Mark of the Wolfen, drop pod
Landspeeder typhoon
The field was relatively small with about 14 teams playing. We were all randomly assigned a first round opponent going into a swiss system afterwards (matched on battle points and victory points). Missions were standard ones from the
brb.
Round one
Deploment: Table quarters
Missions: Take and hold
Opponent:
IG - He was going to be playing
SM but his partner didn't show up. He was kindly loaned an army by one of the other players.
His list consisted of a
CCS with master of ordnance, a platoon with lascannon, a squad of vets with Harkon, 2xExecutioner with plasma sponsons, and a plasma sentinel. Bah.
He wins the roll and elects to go first, deploying everything on his objective except for Harkon's squad which will outflank.
Faced with 11xplasma cannons, i decide to put everything into reserve and hope for the best
Turn one IG
Nothing to shoot at so he edges his tanks a little closer to my deployment zone.
Turn one SoBSW
I drop pod the powerfist squad directly behind his tanks and manage to immobilize one with melta fire. Just about the worst result i could have got with a penetrating hit :( Not to worry though, at least i'll get some cover from his firing next turn and the lascannon platoon is perched on a building and, hopefully, too far away to get any shots in.
Turn two IG
He opens fire on the wolves; out of 8 plasma cannons he gets 7 hits on the scatter dice and rolls snake-eyes when he does roll an arrow :( Amazingly, after the smoke clears one greyhunter is still standing.
Turn two SoBSW
At this point, my partner turns up and stares wide-eyed at the board asking me what the hell happened to the army. I explain that's it's all in reserve, and he calls me a crazy fool. I point at the wall of plasma cannons and he finally nods in agreement
Reserves rolls are kind; the
SoB rhino zooms onto the board behind a building, the Canoness accurately deep strikes behind the command squad and into cover, the second drop pod is also accurate, landing near the tanks. Melta fire stuns the immobilized tank and that's us done.
Turn 3 IG
His outflanking squad shows up and gets a lucky roll to be able to run onto our home objective. His plasma cannons manage to miss a couple of times this turn; one shot vaporizing a couple of guardsmen. The rest of his firing kills 3 wolves.
Turn 3 SoBSW
Time for some damage. The remaining
GH from the first squad charges the stunned executioner blowing off it's turret with a krak grenade. The canoness charges and wipes out the lascannon platoon. The
SoB in the rhino drive up to the command squad and kill the lot with one H.Flamer blast. The wolves try to charge the un-touched executioner but fall agonizingly short. The Exorcist makes an appearance and blows the weapon off the sentinel. Our landspeeder is still hiding in reserve :(
Turn 4 IG
His executioner stays put and blasts the
SW out in the open killing all but 2. The sentinel makes a line for our deployment zone and fires it's
HK missile at the
SoB rhino wrecking it.
Turn 4 SoBSW
The remaining wolves finally kill the damaged executioner while the canoness, despite getting a melta hit and 4 auto-hits on the undamaged tank only gets one glancing hit which is, of course, a 1 :( The exorcist fires on the outflanking squad scoring five wounds, they go to ground, in the open, and pass four of their saves. Gah. The landspeeder finally shows up but misses badly with it's missiles.
Turn 5 IG
Nothing for him to do here; the sentinel moves about a bit and he forgets to move his executioner.
Turn 5 SoBSW
We realize that we've made a bit of a mistake as our landspeeder is too far away to contest our home objective this turn, meaning that if the game finishes now it'll be a draw. His executioner is clearly the most blessed of the emperor as it withstands an assault from the remaining wolves and the canoness suffering only one penetrating hit which is, naturally, crew shaken :/ Both the Exorcist and the speeder fire into his remaining squad and whittle it down to 6 men who pass their leadership test.
We roll for another turn and the game finishes :(
Primary: Draw
Secondary: SoBSW: 500vp's
IG: 0vp's
So many if's and maybe's from this game! Our biggest mistake was dropping the wolves onto his side of the board instead of onto our home objective, closely followed by putting the landspeeder too far away to contest on the last turn. Facing that much plasma is pretty scary though and seeing as the board was mostly devoid of cover (apart from a large structure is his quarter and a forest near the middle, i think deploying from reserve was the only safe option. In hindsight, we really should have got a win here but were foiled by some lucky saves (four 6's from an Exorcist barrage) and a seemingly indestructible tank that survived 7 hits from a chainfist, 3 from a powerfist and a 3 close range melta blasts :(
Next game: Space marines.... tbc
1500pts
