So it goes, the Combat Patrol. How I took 5th.

Saturday Night I signed up for the Combat Patrol and was excited to play, it would be my only game of 40k this year at Adepticon, which was fine with me as I had plenty of other things to do this year. It was a welcome break from other things, and all the matches I had were pleasant, including one which took me by surprise. However everything was not hunky-dory this time either, but at least I did not feel cheated by the tournament runners and I left with a good feeling. Not only from how I played but the compliment I got on my DKK and the pictures some fellow gamers took of them!

My list was as follows:
Troop 1: Vet Sqaud, 3x Plasmagun, Chimera
Troop 2: Vet Squad, 3x Grenade Launcher, Missile Launcher
Fast 1: Scout Sentinel, Autocannon
Fast 2: Scout Sentinel, Autocannon

A nice and nasty list if I may say so myself, originally I did not have the ML in there but with the addition of the possibility of an opponent taking a Dreadnought I was not taking chances. Only one person in our tourney did but I did not happen to run across him.

Also, I was surprised by the variance in players this year, personally I faced 3 different ones, starting with Space Wolves in round 1.

This round was an interesting as my opponent took a drop pod and made my day busy right from the start after my round one. I immobilized his rhino on my turn and he responded by dropping the pod right behind my chimera which was full of plasma guns and had popped smoke, and he blew it up, killing exactly 50% of my squad, thus giving me a chance to regroup. After that it quickly went my way, shooting this or that and controlling the “objectives” which were pieces of terrain and could be controlled by anyone standing completely within the terrain. My opponent unfortunately misread the objective and thus lost this round to me via the secondary objective, the primary was to control your opponent’s deployment zone which we tied on. (Yes, I know this means I had to move around a lot, and no I was not happy about it.) My opponent was a little upset with the fact he had misread the objective and I felt bad for not telling him, but a good sportsman I may be, but foolish I am not.

Second round was perhaps my favorite, and not just because I wiped my opponent off the board. In reality I enjoyed it so much because of what a good sport he was, playing Blood Angels and just getting back into the game he was a bit rusty, didn’t know all the rules very well, and unfortunately for him, thought that Rhinos were not allowed, thus his foot slogging squads, while a plenty, were not much match for my overwhelming firepower and plasma guns. Also his dice were horrible, he could not roll to hit with his lascannon to save his life, let alone pen. I eventually wiped him by turn 5, had all objectives secured but his, unfortunately I did not get full points (only 29 of 30) due to the fact I failed the roll to go on to turn six thus securing his objective and giving me that 1 bonus point to make it complete and the fact that wipeouts did not grant full points (I was a bit upset about this after the next game). At the end of the game Mike (my opponent) asked me if I wanted a drink after the butt kicking I just gave him, a bit shocked I looked at him, and he grinned and said “because I want to win that battle box” I nearly died laughing, here we played the entire game and he did not reveal he knew about the little DFG contest until the very end.

Third round I faced Dark Eldar, the primary objective was to kill a armor 8 objective in close combat, not to hard a task for my opponent, a whole different thing for me. I kicked my opponent all over the board, but we both had fun with it, only losing a single sentinel in the process and a couple guardsmen. Unfortunately my opponent, partially due to a good move on his part, and hugely on my failure to roll a hit with my scatter die (I will never use your scatter dice again Captain Obvious), was able to engage and destroy my objective as we only had to glance it. The next turn I did the same to his, and then wiped him from the board, yet because he had killed my objective, I was unable to get full points, still playing him was fun, and if he had been a bit more experienced as a DE player I might have gotten really worried.

Fourth round was just silly… the objective and table setup was designed for a draw if the opponents wanted. I played an amazingly well painted Eldar army with a unique setup that really put the hurt on me. If this had been an ordinary game I might have fared much better, but since the big objective was to get your commander off the board along with your most expensive unit, and the fact I started halfway up the board, AND my opponent but all his stuff in reserves… well.. I walked my guys right of the board before he even got on it, thus securing at least a tie, and hoping for a win, unfortunately for me, giving up all those plasma guns meant I was without the firepower to take down his HQ when it finally came in and thus we tied once his jetbikes zoomed across the board and out the other side.

If I had had a bit more luck and a better draw the first round and last I think I could have won at least best general, if not best overall, as it was I took 5th place proudly out of the 50ish people in the tourney. The first place person was playing Space Wolves and I think I might have come out ontop against him thought it would have been a nasty knock down fight. Anyhow, thanks everyone for reading, and thanks to all who I played, I am excited to once again next year!
Until next time, burn some heretics, kill some mutants, and do it always....

FOR THE EMPEROR!