So I took my drop pod list (45 marines, 5 terminators, 3 dreads, and 10 pods) to an RTT and came in 3rd overall, tied for second but lost second due to having 2 fewer battle points.

 

The tournament makeup was really bizarre. It looked like this roughly:
4 Eldar players (Biel-Tan scorpion/fortune/fire dragon cheese, Sam Hain with Nuadu and 12 vypers, a rather nice looking but fairly friendly straight Eldar list with no falcons, and another Eldar list with random crap)

4 Tau players - almost all with at least a few vehicles and a bunch of crisis/stealth suits. Only one had any kroot.

2 Black Templars with lots of vehicles, rather generic but not too bad

2 Necrons

1 Space wolves

3 misc shootie marines

1 Tyranids

3 IG players - 1 horde of infantry, 1 armored company and 1 Schaeffers

1 Word Bearers

 

There were a few others but I can't recall them offhand.

 

Game 1: Shootie black templars, playing Gamma Seek & Destroy.

I picked both deployment and made him go first. He took two turns moving his forces out across the board, and had las/melta squads in opposite corners on his side in 4+ cover. I got a couple dreads, termies and a 5 man melta squad. My shooting was rather ineffectual but I did stun a tank and pop a rhino with meltaguns which had expended its smoke for some reason on the first turn. He countershot and stunned one of my dreads and started moving his guys over to tackle my dudes. He assaulted my 5 man squad and wiped it out. I dropped almost all of the rest of my force next turn (all but one melta squad). I wasted the squad that had killed my meltas (a 20 man crusader squad) with shooting and assault. Shot one of his las squads with a dread and made it charge out of cover, then the dread punked it in close combat. My other dread baked the squad that was entangled out of the rhino and forced them to charge him, then killed most of them in hand to hand over several turns. I made one tactical error by dropping a squad to go attack his other las/plas squad and pop a razorback (got the razorback, but a mistake in my Librarian's fury shots forced him to charge the squad that dropped. That'll learn me . However I won in a crushing defeat but I didn't get enough table quarters to get all the battle points, and did not touch his command unit with an apothecary, chaplain, emperor's chump, company chump, and marshall.

 

Game 2: Mobile Tau playing Take and Hold, Alpha.

I won first turn, he chose deployment but it didn't really matter. I made him go second. He moved everything to the objective and wagon trained, but since he's in skimmers it did him virtually no good. I got 2 dreads, termies, a flamer squad and a meltagun squad in the first set of reserves. Meltas killed a jammerhead from the rear, flamers baked a squad of stealths down to one, dreads killed a hammerhead and mangled a squad of crisis suits (down one model). Termies popped out in 4+ cover, killed a hammerhead, feared a crisis HQ squad back 12" and made the stealth suit run. In his turn the stealth ran off the board edge due to being next to a pod (ha). He killed a couple of my termies with plasma after rallying, flailed ineffectually at my venerable dread with the other suits. He dumped all 30 fire warriors, who annihilated the flamer squad and killed a terminator. I got the rest of my army except for a flamer squad. Killed a devilfish, stunned another one. One melta squad romped some fire warriors, flamer squad that dropped killed another squad, Libby and his one remaining termie mugged the other squad while furying the back of a devilfish into stunned ness, then charged that squad and wiped them out in assault. We played the game out but all he did was get 4 bonus battlepoints and deny me my termies/libby with crisis suit shots, so he turned a 20 pt win into an 18 pt win just by killing that squad (fark!).

 

Game 3: Thousand Sons in Omega Recon (haha).

He goes first? Boggle, no idea why. Recon is always best to go last. anyway.

He had 4 squads of dudes, 2 in rhinos, one in rhino with an LOC, a daemon prince, defiler and tri-las predator with all the trimmings. This game went wrong for him in every way it could, and I deserved to have a much tougher time winning.

 

I'll just highlight it:

1) Squad of Tks with a powerfist charges a squad of 8 marines with a powerfist. I kill one, he kills one, his powerfist whiffs, mine kills 3 TKs.

2) His daemon prince forgot to buy frag grenades, charged a dread in cover and got scythed in half. S10 4tw.

3) His vehicles died any time they got shot at. One dread shoots defiler, defiler dies. Libby and termies shoot predator, predator dies.

 

And then I drop podded everything in his deployment zone on the 4th turn and that was the game.

 

Game 4: Misc Eldar: Omega cleanse

I make him go first.

He had: Dark reapers, storm guardians, some defenders, 2 x 9 scorps (one with a farseer) in wave serpents (one krak, one bright lance), a vyper with a bright lance, a night spinner, and 2 wraithlords and an avatar and some swooping hawks (it's like a who's who of friendlier Eldar units).

 

This game could have gone badly, but it was yet again one of the absolute best scenarios for me. I made several big mistakes, but I still won. Big mistakes include: having a single warlock kill a dreadnought, letting a dread get charged by a wraithlord, putting my termies next to a starcannon wraithlord.

 

The second turn (first reserve set), I dropped 3 dreads, libby, and one melta squad. I put meltas and pod behind a waveserpent and didn't even touch it...woulda annihilated all the scorps too. Fek. Libby made a squad of guardians with a starcannon run off the board, killed an avatar and made the only dark reaper left alive after the dread had his way with it run away (and off the board). Dreads on the other side were ineffectial, killing some guardians and putting a wound on one wraithlord. The guardians and wraithlord charged both of those dreads and killed them both, but the dread finished off the wraithlord and the explosion of the dread #2 killed the entire guardian squad except for the warlock (who survived until the last turn on his damn 4+ ward).

 

Some more highlights:

His swooping hawks drop in my deployment zone. I drop some flamer marines on them and butcher them.

My Librarian retreats from a CC with a wraithlord, regroups, joins another squad and then throws fury all over the place for the rest of the game (yay, General lives!)

On the last turn he tries to secure a quarter by throwing everything (one TL bright lance) at my venerable dread next to  his DZ and moving a waveserpent 24" to another corner. My dread goes "glancing 6? but I am really old dude" and is only stunned, then walks into his DZ for 1000 pts. Huzzah.

 

So my friend Charlie comes in first with his barely painted Biel-Tan that are not painted like Biel-Tan because he went 20/20/19/19, and got more theme points than I did (boggle...not painted like Biel-Tan?) and the same painting scores (had a dozen unpainted units, to my 10 unpainted backpacks). My pal Ethan gets 2nd with his unbased Necrons, and I get 3rd because they used battle points instead of painting scores as the tiebreaker. We had the same Sports. So I get 3rd. Yay.

 

Good tournament, very good sportsmen. I got perfect games, great matchups, and never had to play anyone tough except the TK guy (but he made a few critical errors and had horrible luck). I probably should have gotten my usual 2 wins/2 ties, but everything just went right and I am getting way better at playing my pods.