Here's a quick report from me, had a great day as per usual, 3 fun games against 3 great opponents
I thought the standard of painting was the highest I've seen this year which was nice, almost every army would be worthy of a best painted award, it was hard to pick my favourite, although I fell in love with the siegers and voted for those
Game 1 - Chris Steel (Codex Marines)
Chris had dusted off his salamander army for the tournament which was full of classic models and neat conversions, he had (IIRC) a tactical+supcom BTS, thunderhawk full of assault marines, teleporting terminators, a vindicator formation, a whirlwind formation, a warhound, tbolts and devastators, it was a refreshing change not facing a spaceship and drop pods!
Turn 1 was very cagey with some sniping at each other going on, I probably got the better of this exchange, although chris managed to break my vultures
turn 2 saw chris assault with his thunderhawk and maul my regimental HQ, he also blasted my vultures with his warhound after they had knocked its shields down, fortunately this bought it into range of my lone shadowsword who did 2 points of damage and a critical, slaying the beast
Turn 3 saw neither of us able to win decisively, and due to our cagey first 2 turns, there wasn't time for a 4th, we counted up VPs and I won by 620, giving me a winning draw, I was fairly confident I could have won on turn 4 as chris was running out of formations whereas I still had both warhounds and both mechanised infantry formations remaining.... ah well, still a fun game!
Game 2 - Rob Hutson (Saim Hann)
Rob's army wasn't quite finished, with a borrowed storm serpent and some basecoated falcons and bikes, but the standard of his painted units shows what an awesome army it will be when finished!
he had 2 jetbike formations, 1 with lots of vypers, a shining spear formation, a storm serpent, vampire hunter, 2 falcon/firestorm formations, fire prisms and revenants
I set up my objectives deep and on opposite sides of his deployment zone, basically I tried to think where I wouldn't want a wraithgate if I were playing!
Turn 1 saw me grab the initiative, I immediately zipped my vultures forwards and blew his storm serpent up, meaning his 3 bike formations only had 1 gate to use! Rob made heavy use of the hit and run rule and I couldn't catch him easily, he then ground attacked with his vampire and being relatively new to the game (but with a very sound tactical brain) I offered him some advice on how to hit his target and avoid my flak... cue 1 dead shadowsword....
![:{[]](./images/smilies/headbang.gif "Headbang")
Turn 2 was equally cagey, but I made a huge mistake, I had left my infantry company mounted up and flak rushed his vampire, he then doubled his revenants forwards and killed 6 chimeras and the hydra, which also killed 12 units of infantry too.... ouch!!! his vampire also swooped on and blew up a baneblade from the SHT company, although my Tbolts intercepted and shot it down. I also regretted pointing out the avatar having commander as he was able to use him to combined assault my warhound with his jetbikes to maul my warhound
Turn 3 I had very little left and was only able to double my Reg HQ into his half to deny him TSNP and DTF, as they were also my relatively intact BTS, he grabbed T&H and Blitz to win 2-0 in turn 3. I've never seen such luck from anyone, but that shouldn't take away from a well deserved win!
Game 3 - Mark Preston (Codex Marines)
Mark had a warlord, 2 terminator formations, a thunderhawk, assault marines, tactical marines, devastators, tbolts and 2 lots of scouts
Turn 1 was very cagey with mark trying to whittle my vultures down to save the shields on his warlord, he was able to kill 1 for the loss of a tbolt to ground flak, the rest of the turn was lots of positioning and sniping where possible. he also ground attacked with the thunderhawk terminators, breaking my mech infantry company, although he lost two terminators in the attack. His assault marines attacked my SHT company but were wiped out in short order, his warlord managed to put a single blast marker on my lone shadowsword, but this was enough to prevent it singling and zapping his thunderhawk
Turn 2 saw him teleport his terminators in who then failed to engage my warhound, I then went all captain ahab and tried to bring the warlord down at all costs, after the vultures, shadowsword and SHT company were done, it had taken 3 damage and was teetering on 7 blast markers, cue the plucky sentinels dashing forward and breaking it... oh the shame!! he withdrew to his blitz
The mist lifted on turn 3 and I remembered the rest of the game was going on, despite both our efforts, neither of us was able to gain an advantage and we ran out of time, agreeing on a flat draw
overall I came 14th out of 18 and won a basing kit and some citadel clippers in the raffle, which will both be going on ebay in short order!
if I can wrangle it, I'll see everyone at the GT in 5 weeks!
