As promised here is a run down of my experience at HB2009, a 3000 point Epic Armageddeon Tournament held at Beaconsfield in VIC on 14/11/09...

When Matt (Dobbsy) told me he was running a EA tournament this year I jumped at the chance to get involved. EA Tournaments are few and far between down here in VIC, the last I'd played in had been Komplete Fanatic back in 2006.

Tournament Preparations:
The first decision to make was which army to bring. I've painted up three over the years but my Chaos Space Marine force had yet to be fielded in a tournament so the decision was easy in the end. The event allowed a wide range of lists so I decided to structure my army using the Black Legion list and focus on a force with a bit of staying power in the form of lots of traitor marines. My basic thinking was to have an army with plenty of activations that would perform well in firefight assault engagements. After a few test games the list I ended up using was as follows:

Chosen [6 Terminators] (Undivided with Chaos Lord)
Retinue + Bezerkers + Rhinos (Khornate with Warlord)(BTS)
Retinue + Rhinos (Undivided with Sorceror Lord)
Raptor Cult [6 stands] (Khornate with Chaos Lord)
Forlorn Hope + Rhinos (Undivided)
Forlorn Hope (Undivided)
Armoured Company [6 Predators] (Undivided)
Assault Company [1 Deathwheel] (Undivided)
Assault Company [1 Decimator] (Undivided)
Swiftdeath Formation (Undivided)
Helltalon Formation (Undivided)

Happily I'd been working on this army since 2006, so I had plenty of formations painted up and didn't need to do any last minute additions. The army paint scheme I'm using is based on the "Warp Ghosts" Chaos Space Marine chapter, a relatively new addition to the ranks of Chaos. To keep with my self imposed theme I decided to forego the use of any daemons and keep the focus on infantry formations as reflect the forces' lowly status in the eyes of the older chaos traitor legions.

The Tournament Begins:



The big day arrived and 17 of the 18 players arrived ready for battle. The venue proved to be fantastic, with a large modern hall equipped with airconditioning at our disposal until that afternoon. Funnily enough, the hall was also booked for a wedding reception straight after our event completed,leaving us little room for error in scheduling the games. The order of the day was to play quickly and finish on an even number of player turns if we were unable to finish in time. I immediately decided my default tactic would be to go for the throat of the opposing army in Turn 2, hopfully setting up for a win in turn 3.

The field itself had a fairly vaired mix of armies, made up of the following:

1 Black Legion (me!)
1 Tyranid
1 AMTL
1 Orkamedies Gargant Big mob
1 Ork
1 Blood Angels
1 White Scars
1 Minervan IG
1 Yme-Loc Eldar
2 Codex Marines
3 IG Steel Legion
4 Biel-Tan

Game 1: Black Legion versus ORKAMEDIESÂ’S GARGANT BIGMOB ORK ARMY
Player - Alex
I'd only played a single game of EA versus Ork once before, so this was very much the unknown for me. Alex's army was the Ork equivalent of a Imperial Titan Legion (lots of Gargants, but few formations in total). I decided to focus on attempting a win by taking his Blitz home objective and another Ork held objective on my right flank.
The opening turns delt me a few harsh lessons in Orky firepower, with my Armoured company being mauled by a Stompa Mob defending the Blitz and my Decimator being decimated by a Gargant Supa Zzap Gun. I eventually managed to seize the Blitz and another objective by turn three but lost my BTS Retinue Formation to an ill considered FF assault in a fully shielded Gargant. Alex also advanced onto my side of the board and took all three of my objectives with his Gargants and a Landa full of Ork Infantry.
Result - Turn 3 Loss, 3 victory conditions to 2. (I forgot to take pics from this game, sorry!)

Game 2: Black Legion vesus TYRANID PHASE IV HIVE FLEET
Player - Jayden (Fattdex)
Jayden's army ended up winning best painted and it was a reward richly deserved. The whole force looked stunning and included some pretty scarey looking critters. I deployed spread across the board and decided to adopt a more defensive strategy in the early game.


It was my first outing versus the 'nids so I decided to see how that matched up against my marines before deciding which objectives to go for.
By turn two events came to a head when I redeployed the bulk of my army to try and stop two Synapse groups advancing on my left flank to take two 'nid objectives in that area. I then initiated the mother of all FF assaults which maximised supporting fire from the neighbouring formations to maul the lead Synapse group.

After a prolonged series of assaults I'd lost my raptors and Jayden lost one of his groups in return. With time rapidly running out we only had time for one more game turn which saw both sides thwarted in their attempts to take enemy objectives.
My last activation of the game broke one of the Hierophant Bio-Titans in a firefight engagement with my BTS Retinue and gave me the Blitz, but it was too little, too late. The game ended with one victory condition to Chaos, but you need a minimum of two to win. It then came down to a tiebreaker caluculation and I managed to get over the line on victory points.Result - Turn 3 Tiebreaker Win due to time constraints.

Game 3: Black Legion versus WAR HORDE ORK ARMY
Player - Kevin (Chroma)

For those that don't know Chroma is heavily involved in the fan support for EA and one of the people responsible for the continued development of the game rules and army lists. He's also a Canadian - but we won't hold that against him (just jokes, he's a great guy) He was out in Australia on holidays and brought his Ork army along so he could play in the tournament. Another game against the Ork menace threatened to again challenge my understanding of their list, but I stuck with my tried and true tactics and sought to engage the greenskins in FF assaults whenever possbile. The game proved to be another great experience with several twists and turns. It looked grim for chaos early on but Chroma's dice seemed to desert him mid game and several of his formations refused to rally at the end of turn 2, giving me the chance to attack the Ork Blitz. Casaulties were high on both sides and it was only the resilence of my fearless Beserker Stands that prevented Chroma from achieving the BTS goal.
Result - Turn 3 Win, 2 Victory Conditions to 1.

The End Time:
After rapidly packing up the tables and the hall rapidily being prepared for an impending wedding reception we awaited the tourny results. I was chuffed to have played three great games against three great opponents and had managed to snag fifth place. Results as follows:

1st - Scott - Minervan Imperial Guard - 30 points
2nd - Adrian - Biel-Tan Craftworld - 26 points (8 objectives total)
3rd - Russell - IG Steel Legion - 26 points (4 objectives total)
4 - Peter W. - Iyanden Craftworld - 24.5 points
5 - Glenn R. - Black Legion - 24 points
6 - Neil - IG Steel Legion - 22.5 points
7 - Brent - AMTL- 22 points
8 - Andrew - Codex Marines - 20 points
9 - Kevin - Ghazkull's Orks - 18 points (4 objectoves total, 4330 VPs)
10 - Alex - Orkamedies Gargant Big Mob - 18 points (4 objectives total, 2800 VPs)
11 - Phil - Yme-Loc Craftworld - 17 points (4 objectives total)
12 - Troy - Blood Angels - 17 points (2 objectives total)
13 - Peter N. - Biel-Tan Craftworld - 16.5 points (4 objectives total)
14 - Andreas - Biel-Tan Craftworld - 16.5 points (2 objectives total)
15 - Jayden - Tyranids - 13 points - BEST PAINTED
16 - Glenn B. - IG Steel Legion (superheavy) - 11.5 points All hail ... GOLDEN GROT!

I managed to grab a couple of quick pics of most of the group. If I missed anyone I apologise, but the hussle and bustle of the wedding preparations didn't allow much time for photos. The photobucket link to the complete set of images as follows:
http://s1011.photobucket.com/albums/af2 ... ed/HB2009/


Lessons Learned:
I was pretty happy with the way the list performed. I definately struggled a bit to deal with enemy Titans, but the infantry heavy chaos marine retinues proved to be a solid choice. I think next time I might use some more cult upgrades to improve the resilience of the second retinue and also strengthen the armoured company by using some Landraiders. I loved the speed of the DeathWheel and I think next time I will run two of them instead of using a decimator. The chosen terminators also proved to be a bit of a gamble and I might try leaving them at home and fielding a bike company instead.

Great read, thanks

_________________
AFK with real life, still checking PMs

T'was a good game, Reddeth!  Very enjoyable, even without any luck on my side.  *laugh*

Hope we get to match up again some day!

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Excellent report mate.

Oh!Reddeth, there's only one picture in that photobucket link - even if it is a photo of the handsome tournament organiser hard at work 

great read
i've not attended a lot of EA tourneys, so how did the point system work? we've had a few tourneys around here but none w/ keeping track of points.

MNB - the point system turned out to be very easy to use. I've never written a tourney points sytem before so I'm very happy what I did make worked well. I'd like to thank Rargh (from WargamerAU) for helping me sort this sytem out. Thanks mate!

Basically it was

Win 8 points
Tie Breaker Win 6 points
(Dead Heat was 5/5 for a tie on points, objectives and then VPs) - no one managed this unlikely event
Tie Breaker Loss 4 Points
Loss 2 points

At the end of each round any ties in Points was then followed by a countback for Objectives captured total each round, then if still a tie VPs countback.

Sportsmanship was not included in the standings through the rounds(to make it all about gaming), instead being added at the end of the tourney to make sure folks played nicely during play (it added up to 1/5th of your total score overall).

Whoops, photobucket link in original post updated to include all the pics I took.

Tah

thanks dobbsy for putting the point system in there. here on the east coast of the U.S. we are finally getting some tourneys in and all the ones i've been in so far only counted up the total objectives throughout the day. which isn't fair for some of the more slower/defense type of lists.

Great report, nie to see tourny's underway and with such a good turnout

Might have to have a trans tasmin show down with air tickets so cheap now


Cheers  

Tim NZ

It'd be great to have you over for next year's event Tim. Maybe we can get a few NZers to come over.