CVinton's post tournament round up.

(everyone kept saying my army looked like german panzer tanks)

First and foremost, thank you mi40k for putting this primer on. It was great fun, and I knew things would go well when I got there are found an out of order meter to park at (i.e. free parking)

Since we've got a trend here I'll keep it going and give an over view of my 3 games.

Here's what I brought:

1850 Pts - 5th Edition Roster

Company Command Squad Meltagun x1; Plasmagun x3; Officer of the Fleet

Chimera Heavy Flamer

9 Psyker Battle Squad

Chimera Heavy Flamer

Veteran Squad Plasmagun x3

1 Chimera Heavy Flamer

Veteran Squad Plasmagun x3

1 Chimera Heavy Flamer

Veteran Squad Plasmagun x3

1 Chimera Heavy Flamer

Veteran Squad Meltagun x3 Demo doctrine

1 Chimera Heavy Flamer

Veteran Squad Meltagun x3

1 Chimera Heavy Flamer

Hydra Flak

Manticore

Manticore

Vendetta

Vendetta

Game 1; primer mission 2

I had first turn but was seized.

I played an IG player who's list was a mix between gunline and mech. He had 3 leman battle tanks, one with pask, a handful of heavy weapons teams, primaris with a company command squad in a chimera, a platoon with grenade launchers and a platoon command squad with a medic, standard, plasmagun, 2 heavy weapons teams, an armored sentinel with plasma cannon, 1 vet squad with melta and demo, 5 ogryns.

He was there just for fun. This guy said he hadn't played in something like 3 months and was told by some friends about the tournament. Really great player and I feel bad for backing him in a corner and just putting the Mech IG pressure rush on him. After the game he jokingly said he felt like a high school girl who was tricked into a dark alley. I managed to get all three objectives; HQ in the center, more quarters claimed and more KP.

Overall I learned not to put my manticore shots so close to the board edge. I think I ended up losing 2 or 3 missiles off the edge, but I had to take the risk because he had his tanks so close to the edge.

I also learned that vendettas are always juicy targets for people. It freaks them out and they want to shoot them down, bad, and when your melta squads are in them, they want to shoot them down even more. I think this will be the last game I ever put guys in my vendetta that have a job to do that is more than a special-weapon-squad-with-3-flamers-just-because-its-fun job. Both my vendettas were immobilized early and then I had to play chimera taxi cab to get the meltaguns over to some armor.

Game 2; primer mission 3

Had first turn

sigh....allow me to stand on my soap box for a moment.

First, the guy I played was a good sport, he really was. I'd play him again, no problem at all. (Though, I don't know if he'd play me)

Now, to the soap box; WYSIWYG. It means your stuff has to be modeled. It means flamers don't count as melta, it means a sergeant model isn't your grenade launcher, it means that heavy bolter on your chimera is a heavy bolter.

I lost this match bad, I scored no points. (Que voice-over reflection statement) I recognize that this rant might seem like I'm just being a sore loser and have thought of that. Upon reflection I'm not and here is why.

Wysiwyg is not in a tournament so that people who have nice looking, correctly modeled armies, like me, can look down their nose at people that can't paint, or are gaming on a budget, or whatever the reason your stuff might not be modeled as-is. Its not meant to put one group of people above another. Its there to prevent confusion and to save time.

Because of the extent to which this army was not wysiwyg we managed to only get in 3 turns. A lot of time was spent in the start of the game explaining what was what.

I know that it doesn't seem like a big deal but I find it easier to focus on the mission objectives when I can look down at a model and say ok, that has a multi laser and heavy bolter and not have to think to myself "Is that the one with the flamer and stubber or is that hellhound without the turrent the one with the stubber?" I allowed myself to get frustrated and loose track of the objectives and even turns because I had to spend my energy and ADHA brain powers on keeping track of the list.

The final nail in the coffin for me, which was outlined as a tournament no-no over on mi40k's blog was the army list. I wish I took a picture of it but it was basically like this:

ccs 50

m 30

pcs 35

f 20

is pw com pw

is

200

((total))

130 hellhound (Sratched out)

pcs fx1 -15

100 vets 3m

220

((Total)) stratched out

95 straken

ect.

LRBT

LRD

I had a slight idea what was going on with this list but imagine if you didn't play guard. I totaled it up and I could only get it to somewhere around 1650. And who knows, maybe he played his first game with the list without the scratch outs maybe not.

And the bolters for flamers on his chimeras is what killed me. As a word of advice for you non-IG players out there; Don't let this go. If its a bolter on the model, its a bolter; if it's a flamer, its a flamer. He told me mid game when I called him that he said his chimeras all have flamers (all modeled with bolters) The reason its cheese is that its a free swap on a chimera. You say their flamers one game if you're playing a horde army and then next game, play bolters as modeled if thats on your chimeras and its to your advantage. And if its not marked on the list that their chimeras have upgrades to flamers, and their modeled with bolters then they come with bolters, sorry.

I could go on for days, but I'm over it, I vented and what I learned from this is don't stretch wysiwyg and don't let your opponent. I'm not letting it go anymore; whats modeled is whats there and you better have it written on your list (unless its standard equipment) and you better have paid for it.

/soap box.

Game 3; primer mission 4

Had first turn, was seized

Another awesome player. He had a fully painted salamanders army and it looked good. His list was mech and I wish that he had freed up points to put his dread in pods. Sadly, he was walking them across the board. I think it would have been a much different game if he podded in his dreads.

His list was vulkan, cato, command squad with apoth, standard, champion, 2x melta in rhino, 2x 10 man tac squad with flamer in rhinos, 3x multi melta dread with heavy flamer 3x TL las, spons las predators.

He did make a bad mistake right in the start and tried to spot light me with two of his preds instead of trying to spot me with his empty rhino and then shoot me with his preadators. He missed with both lights but it still allowed me to freely shoot his preds. I was able to fire my two vendettas at the two preds and still shoot my manticores at this 3rd pred (only with an extra d6 to scatter but of course they hit because they were on fire at this tournament). Despite him having first turn this gave me the alpha strike on his very important, very costly units and lost him board control of having first turn.

He lined up sort of lop sided and I was able to press a flank. On top of that, I had a tall building running perpendicular to my long board edge on the same side as his strong side that gave my vendettas cover from most of his army. Because of this I was able to shoot at his predators while only be fully exposed to those predators and in cover or out of sight for the rest of his army. Being able to isolate his predators and take care of his major long range anti-tank made the rest of the game a systematic break down of target priority. Firstly taking out the dreads and then killing his scoring units and their rhinos.

I had a spot of bad luck and was unable to bring down (stun, immobilize or wreck) a multi-meltaless dread with 3 twin linked melta guns and he charged into me to prevent me from claiming 2 of his objectives and get all three mission objectives. I ended up with 2 points, killing over half his army and holding my 3 objectives.

Conclusion:

It was a great time, and a fun tournament. Even my round two, though it was frustrating, shouldn't have stopped me from doing well and did not stop me from having fun. I felt bad being a little bitch about it but it frustrated me and I was within my rights to stomp me feet. I didn't push to have him thrown out, I just pointed it out to a judge after the game and never mentioned it again. In normal games I can keep track of proxy stuff just fine. I think what happen was I wasn't in the mind set to have to deal with proxies and just wanted to focus more on the missions because they were more complicated than the book missions. I gained a new respect for WYSIWYG and will stand behind it even more in tourneys.

Get Your Game On has some great players. I'll definitely be looking forward to some more tournaments in the area! Everyone is really excited about what the new location will bring and so am I. I definitely see potential in the store to do good things, especially with the new location being even more in the downtown area.

Thanks again for putting it on and maybe one day mi40k can finish above DFG.....