I had a great day, a neat little venue and working with local restuarants for lunch is a fantastic idea! I hope we'll be back there next year (or sooner) preferably in the colder months as it started getting quite....cosy.... later in the day :p
As usual thanks to Steve for organising, and everyone who attended, as well as the venue staff, for another great day out!
Game 1 - Duncan and his Vanaheim
Seeing a forgeworld vanaheim army deploy is always an intimidating sight, as it tends to completely fill the deployment zone! as he had no war engines, I decided to shoot my deathstrikes and blow up a couple of valks to slow a formation down, cue a double 1 to hit for the first activation of the tournament, Duncan and Tim at the next table shook my hands and offered their congratulations
I was able to work within my flak bubble for much of the game, although his marauders shrugged a great deal of hits off throughout the game, each taking about 4 hits before they went down! I was able to use my dug in troops as an anchor to work around and he had to commit a good deal of resources to an attack, which meant I could then pounce on his grouped formations, my manticores were stellar, raining death on the first turn and chopping a mech company in half, then on turn 3 after rallying on full strength, they were lethal at hitting and breaking his stormtroopers, my own stormtroopers were able to flap over, hit his Reg HQ BTS (which failed to do anything for two solid turns....) hard, then move back to contest an objective, after a lot of luck (good for me, bad for him) I was able to grab a 3-0 win (T&H, DTF, HTL) on turn 3, Duncan had a big smile on his face throughout and earned my nomination for most sporting in the face of such abysmal luck!
Game 2 - Kev101 and his codex marines
After game 1, I found myself inexplicably in 2nd place, and facing Kev fresh off the back off a 4-0 win on the top table, we started to deploy, him with his warlord titan, me with my deathstrikes, we took one look at each other and could tell this was going to be a cagey game......
this played out with very little actual casualties throughout the first 3 turns, kev was able to repeatedly break, yet not kill, the deathstrikes, he ignored my infantry companies on the objectives for the most part which was perhaps a mistake.....
On turn 4 I was able to double a warhound to his blitz, followed by stormtroopers when the useless dogbot wiffed its attacks, then in desperation a hydra battery.... alas, I couldn't quite break the devs, and there was not enough time to play turn 5 (despite us rolling for it) so we counted VPs up, which ended up with me ahead by a mere 80-something points, so it ended in a flat draw
Game 3 - Jon and his Iyanden
this was a masssacre..... Jon was able to do a one-two with two vampires loaded with wraithguard on my left flank, wiping out my stormtroopers, artillery, a warhound, and an infantry company in the process, I was hanging on for dear life and attempted to destroy as many of his activations as possible with the stuff I had left, on turn 3 I was able to nab his blitz with my Reg HQ and contest the T&H objective he was holding in my half with the deathstrikes, dragging it out for another turn, I did as much as I could, but couldn't prevent those blasted skimmers zipping around and breaking formations and claiming objectives, which meant Jon took a 2-0 win in turn 4, considering how things were looking in the first half of turn 1, I wouldn't have guessed I'd be able to keep it to a 'mere' 2-0 loss in turn 4, testament to the tenacity of the guard I suppose!
3 great games, and an eighth place finish, my first time finishing 'in the points' even if it's only a single championship point, I can be glad I earned it and not through all that fiddly list chopping and changing! it was actually one of my goals this year to earn a championship point so I'm well chuffed with myself!
I probably won't make the expo due to work and family commitments, but I'm aiming to make it down to Counterattack in the summer, with my shiny new marines in tow!
until then....
