Feast of Blades Coverage - Sunday and Wrap Up

Final day of the event.  Lets see, how best to describe how it started...oh yeah!

The ear-piercing sound of the ?!$& fire alarm waking me up at 6:15 in the ?!$& morning!!  I swear, if I ever find out who tripped the alarm, I will find them and commit unspeakable acts of torture to...to...  Okay, no I won't, but I will think very mean thoughts.

After that false alarm was over, I made the mistake of falling back asleep and just barely made it to the first round of the day.



Game 4 versus Chaos Marines with (corrupted) Ork allies
Yay, I finally get to face the new codex!  Too bad we both turtled for the first 3 turns.  I took out a Mauler fiend by glancing it to death, as well as intercepted the dakkajet he allied in.  We exchanged a bunch of long range fire up until Draigo and crew got a little close for comfort for him.  The Paladins and Draigo took a lot of punishing fire, but wiped out an Oblit squad, where I finally got to use the Titansword for the first time ever.  At the end of it, Draigo had one wound remaining, had challenged and killed both a squad champion, and the Chaos Lord, with the final turn finding Draigo encircled by 19 plague marines, but still alive!  This game was a draw on the secondary objectives and he won the smallest of the primary margins by 2 victory points in one table quarter.

Game 5 versus Grey Knights
He brought to the table two Storm Ravens, a librarian in one with terminators, and just terminators in the other, along with three minimum strike squads in razorbacks and a dreadknight.  He took my Vindicare out early, so my strike and interceptor squads took turns manning the quad gun to wreck and destroy both of his storm ravens, killing his librarian warlord with the explosion of one of them.  Them strength 10 hits inside exploding fliers were not kind to him.  He was able to outflank me with the terminators that did survive and the dreadknight, though.  I gave up control of my defense line to retreat to the center of the table that had an objective in a pile of ruins.  Holding there, I took the secondary objective of objectives, while he claimed the primary of table quarters by 1.

Game 6 versus Blood Angels
Okay, that Skyshield Landing Pad is a pain in the arse!  He brought that, 3 squads of assault marines, two librarians, drop pods, two dev squads, two storm ravens, and it seemed like almost everything but the kitchen sink!  He castles in his landing pad, and I castles in my defense line until the storm ravens were gone with everything but Draigo and his squad.  Those guys I took to the center of the table as quickly as possible to camp on the center objective there.  They danced around a bit for shots and to avoid the dev squads, but they got there.  I snap-shot both storm ravens out of the sky with the my dreads and various psycannons as he destroyed my quad gun in turn 1.  The Vindicare was kept busy, however, by pin pointing librarians to soften them up, as well as taking out dev squad sergeants.  The missions were objectives as the primary and kill points as the secondary.  I took 7 kp from him and he only claimed two from me...one being Draigo.  Him and his squad took so much fire from the dev squad that camped on the Skyshield platform, by the time he got me into close combat to try and push me off the center objective, all that was left was the Apothecary who weathered 14 wounds to stay and contest the center objective.  I had the back two objectives, and shot one of his combat squads off of another, making them jump off the board.  I won this one by a large margin, taking both primary and secondary missions.

I have to say, all three of my opponents today were some of the best tournament opponents I could ask for.  I would happily and eagerly play each of them again given the chance.

Feast of Blades was a new experience for me.  Some things that set this event and tournament off from others would be:

1. The game-store like atmosphere of the whole event.  They had a DJ spinning all weekend long in the main hall, arcade games that didn't cost a dime and a very laid back feel to the whole place.  Maybe I'm too used to the sheer size of Adepticon, but this was an atmosphere I'd love to see mimicked at other venues.
2. They had achievements that you could earn throughout the tournament for doing things like killing a warlord with a squad leader, controlling the opponents fortification, destroying at least 2 fliers in one game with snap shots, and more!  When you got one, they gave you a purity seal you could pin to your shirt, of a good size too.  Got enough of them, and you could trade them in for a bigger one...which I have one of, by the way.
3. Everyting ran on time.  Even when they were running a little late on Saturday, everything still ended on time.  They were extremely conscientious of those of us who had to catch flights, and the awards ceremony today was done on time, and shuttles were there to help us hoof it to the airport.

Feast of Blades was very well done.  You could tell that while it might be smaller currently than some of the larger GT events out there, they are growing, and ambitious about their growth.  They truly want to put on one heck of a gaming experience for everyone who attends, so that they all bring their friends the next year.

Now I just need to figure out where the funds for next year are going to come from so that I can make it out again!

- Tim