In the Hall of the Mountain King - Tournament Recap

Over the weekend I attended my first ever Warmachine tournament at a local game store called Imaginary Wars. I had a bit of apprehension going into the event just based on what I had heard from other people about how cut throat Warmachine tournaments can be and how if your list doesn't match up well with your opponent then it's basically an "Auto Lose". I decided to go into this event with a different mindset then I normally do. I had spent the months leading up to this practicing a whole bunch of super competitive lists, trying to minimize my weaknesses then at the last second I just said "fuck it" and submitted a list of something I just really wanted to play and see on the field knowing I would be lucky to win even just half my games. This is the list I used:

Winter War is Upon us!!!

Over the weekend I attended a 20 person tournament at a local game store. The tournament was 1500pts and allowed Forgeworld (40k approved), Allies and Fortifications with no comp scores which meant no limitations. I know for many of you this might sound like a nightmare situation when going to a tourney because you will expect to see the most heinous, “Ard Boyz” type lists imaginable. I personally had a totally different take on it. In my opinion 6^th ed is so new who is to say what is overpowered and what isn’t? What type of list is “offensive” and what isn’t? It’s just so early in the edition everyone is still learning how to play it so penalizing players for trying things out doesn’t see right to me. When I talked to the organizer and he said he just wanted to open the doors to everything and see how the chips fell as this was his first 6^th ed tourney and I think that was the perfect way to go. You know the funny thing is? This tourney was one of the most balanced, evenly represented tournaments I had been too lol. There were no “Ard Boy” type lists at all which was great. Even though people had the option to bring any Forgeworld nasty to the table they didn’t. Good to see that putting faith in your gaming community pays off once and a while lol. 

Welcome to 6th Edition...The Tournament!

Over the weekend I attended a great little tournament at my local game store (Imaginary Wars). The tournament was on the smaller side with only 14 people attending and despite the low-ish number it was one of the more competitive tournaments I have been to in ages. All the armies were painted really well and there were tones of variation in the armies that showed up.

Dark Eldar Invade Real Space at Winter War!

Over the weekend my local game stored held a small tournament (16 spots…but only 10 showed up since this is Calgary where Fantasy rules the roost). The one really neat thing about this tournament though is that it used the rules from the GW supplement “Spearhead”. I know most of you probably groaned when reading that but after playing a couple of test games and then this tournament I have to say it’s actually really fun. The thing I liked about it was the fact that it breathes some much needed life into an incredibly stale game since there are so many different types of Spearheads that drastically change the game and really make you think outside the box as both how you want to set your army up and planning on what could potentially come your way. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Spearhead I am just going to do a quick rundown for you:

- The game is played from short edge to short edge so the long board edges would be the sides you outflank from (if you can). This means that the range of your weapons really comes into play since you are using all 6 feet of the board
- The Force Org chart is changed so nothing is mandatory (so troops would be 0-6 for example). The main change is that ALL Tanks and Walkers can score in addition to your Troops section and any Spearheads that you take also can score (so my first opponent had something like 22 scoring units lol)
- The addition of Spearhead Formations. These fit outside the main Force Organization and normally are built towards Walkers or Tanks with some for troop transports and skimmers (18 in total). How they work is you have to take up to 3 Units of Tanks/Walkers for a specific Spearhead and they all have to be the same unit (so 3 Predators for example) but they don’t have to be armed the same (so you could have a “Dakka” Pred, a Lascannon Pred and a Pred with an Autocannon for example). You pay a certain amount of points ranging from 15 points to 90 points and it gives you special abilities like a 5+ invulnerable save or the ability to fire all their weapons once before the game starts, etc. As long as the units within the Spearhead stick with in 4” of each other they are also able to fire one more weapon then they would normally be allowed and they can fire that weapon at a different target if they want (so a Chimera could move 12” and still fire it’s multi laser, or move 6” and fire its multi laser at one target and heavy bolter at another for example).

With all that in mind it took me a while to decide on what type of army list I wanted to take for my Dark Eldar. When looking at the different Spearheads there seemed like a massive potential for some soul crushing Alpha Strikes if you didn’t win the first turn or depending on the Spearhead before the first turn lol. With all that in mind I decided to do a Hybrid reserve bomb army using a Web Way Portal and one of the dirtiest Spearheads, which is Mechanized Assault (choose 3 transports which outflank turn 1…along the long table edges…right in the middle of your opponents deployment zone with a web way portal). I also chose a Spearhead called “Skyfall” for my 3 Ravagers which allowed them to come in via Deep Strike and shoot all their Dark Lances against the side armor of anything they are shooting at regardless of facing to represent them shooting as they are landing. Here is the list I used:

HQ

Haemonculi - Web Way Portal

Elites

Trueborn (4) - 4 x Blasters

Troops

Wyches (10) - 2 x Hydra Gauntlets, Hekatrix w/ Agonizer, Haywire Grenades
Wyches (10) - 2 x Shardnets/Impalers, Hekatrix w/ Agonizer, Haywire Grenades

Fast Attack

Reaver Jetbikes (6) - 2 x Heat Lances
Scourges (5) - 2 x Haywire Blasters
Beastmasters (4) - 10 Khymera, 2 Razorwing Flocks, Clawed Fiend

Heavy Support

Talos - twin linked haywire blaster, chain flails, extra close combat weapon

Mechinsed Assault Spearhead

- 3 x Raiders w/ Flicker Fields (both wyches and trueborn with haemonculi in here)

Skyfall Spearhead

- 3 x Ravagers w/ Flicker Fields

So how the list works is everything gets held in reserve with the Wyches and Trueborn outflanking turn 1 into my enemies deployment zone for me to drop off the Web Way Portal. After that I now have the option of having stuff come out of the WWP in my enemies deployment zone or to come in via reserve or deep strike (in the case of the scourges) on my side if there are units there. I was a bit nervous going into a “Tank Tournament” with so little ranged anti tank (I have 238pts into a unit that is ONLY anti infantry in the form of the beast pack) and so few scoring units since Dark Eldar don’t have any “Tanks” or “Walkers”. My other big worry was how this army was going to fair with so little on the board turn 1 right in my enemies face while everything else in my army comes in piecemeal. There was a big chance that my stuff would get shot up in little chunks leaving me with nothing to retaliate. My hope was to win at least one game while having my mighty TALOS do something (in which case I would yell “TALOS!” in my best heavy metal rocker voice).

Game 1: Mechanized Guard

Le Sigh. So my biggest “nightmare army” is obviously my first opponent (and surprisingly the only army at the tourney where I didn’t give myself much chance lol). We actually joked before the game on how I was just going to flail all over his army while he just shoots me to bits. At least there was virtually no terrain on the board lol (again…le sigh). Even before the game started I knew what kind of up-hill battle this was going to be and decided that while I will probably lose I will try and take as much of the Imperial scum with me as I could.

The scenario was 5 objectives, one big one in the middle of the board with 4 others in the middle of each quarter. Every scenario for this tourney had a special rule and the special rule for this scenario was the middle objective was an alien weapon of unknown origin that shoots a massive laser (str 9, ap3) in a random direction at the start of each players turn. I figured that worked in my advantage since I only have open topped, low armor vehicles…wait…dammit! Here is Cory’s list (keep in mind I don’t know it exactly since I haven’t played the current Guard very much and when you are faced with a million chimeras it all looks the same lol):

Cory’s Army:

- 9 Chimeras with command squads and an infantry platoon
- The one infantry platoon forms into a blob squad with two auto cannon heavy weapon squads
- Mechanized Assault w/ 3 Chimeras w/ vets in them (2 melta squads, one flamer squad)
- 2 Basilisks

So when looking through that list he has 12 (yes 12) chimeras all with Multi Lasers and Heavy Bolters (so 36 shots of EACH a turn). It doesn’t really matter if I even blow up half of them in one turn because whatever I don’t kill will easily be able to shoot my tanks out of the sky…or so I thought. I managed to win the roll for first turn in which I gave it to Cory so he would effectively lose one turn of shooting while I would still have 5, so here it goes!

Highlights of the Game:

- I managed to get the side I wanted for outflanking which was RIGHT beside his massive Guard Blob which happened to be a huge piece of terrain to hide my stuff. Cory was smart and popped smoke on all his tanks to protect them from what I had incoming. My Trueborn managed to hit all 4 times and then penetrate all 4 times on his Command Squad’s Chimera (they had 4 flamers…do not want lol) and then he proceeded to make ALL FOUR cover saves lol. In fact he didn’t fail a single smoke cover save the entire first round which helped my cause immensely lol.
- I completely underestimated the durability of the massive guard blob squad. My Wyches charged in, did something like 25 wounds (he made almost half his saves on a 5+) and did quite a bit of damage back. In fact, after a couple turns he had whittled me down to the point where I just didn’t have the power to fight back and they managed to kill 20 wyches in close combat.
- Turn 2 my Skyfall Ravagers came in and changed the game to the point where Cory wouldn’t recover. Basically I managed to Stun/Weapon Destroy/Immoblise/Wreck 5 tanks on the turn they landed creating a complete pile up in the middle of the board making sure that almost anything that could fire back at me would give me a cover save. At the start of turn 3 I looked Cory in the eye and said “just so you know all 3 of my Ravagers WILL be here at the start of my turn”. He scoffed and got onto rolling. By the end of the turn taking an entire parking lot worth of shots which included 3 melta guns in melta range and a basilisk shell I lost a single Dark Lance from the squad. That’s it.
- The “Alien Artifact” blew up 3 of Cory’s tanks, while doing nothing to me lol. He just had SO MANY tanks in the middle of the board you just couldn’t draw a line out without blowing something up. My Talos got hit at the end of the game but I already had a pain token so I laughed it off.

Final Result: Victory! I ended up winning the game 2 objectives to 0 with a mad dash right at the end of the game (start of turn 5 he had 4 objectives and I had none with only 5 minutes to do my entire turn). I managed to contest the middle objective with my Jet Bikes and kill the squad of guard on the other with my Talos. My scourges came in turn 5 and wiped out another squad of guard on an objective in my deployment zone while both my remaining Ravagers turbo boosted to grab the two un-contested objectives. One thing I really enjoyed about this game is that Cory is a very smart player and really focused on the objectives. So many times in games I find people going after the stuff that doesn’t matter (aka not scoring units) but he kept his focus and went out of his way to remove any and all of the things I had that I could use to win the game (just 2 out of 9 scoring units of mine left at the end of the game). This was an incredibly hard game to win and to say I was surprised that I came out with a victory is an understatement.

Game 2: Salamanders

This game was against a fellow named Anthony Dalla Lanna and his Salamander list. Every since I got into the tournament scene here in Calgary Anthony is one of the people who basically win everything (mostly best general and overall) so I knew this was going to be a super tough game. I had two things working in my favor for this game. The first is that he didn’t have any spearheads at all and the second is before I saw what he brought I already knew exactly what was in the army since he has been using the same force since the 5^th ed Space Marine book came out and to be honest his list hasn’t aged well (only two scoring units).

Our mission was a modified Kill Point mission where you also earned Kill Points for each unit of yours that were still functional in your opponents half of the table. This obviously is a MASSIVE advantage for me since my entire army will be coming out of his half of the table lol. This was the only mission that didn’t have any really crazy rules so it was just business as usual. As with the first game I won the roll off to see who goes first (which is massively important playing Anthony) and I made him go first.

Anthony’s Army:

Vulkan
7 Terminators + Land Raider Crusader
2 Tactical Squads (one combat squaded in a Razorback w/ a twin linked heavy bolter, the other in a drop pod with flamers and a multi melta)
2 Iron Clad Dreads in Drop Pods with Hunter killer Missiles
2 Vindicators

Highlights of the Game:

- First turn the Trueborn managed to blow up a Vindicator. On Anthony’s turn he deep struck his Ironclad right beside them flaming them with a heavy flamer (he figured he would just wipe them out not realizing the Haemonculi gave them a pain token). Two managed to live and they passed their panic test. The following turn (my turn 2) they blew up the Land Raider (got a “6” on the damage chart) and killed a Terminator in the explosion. 108pts well spent lol
- The start of his turn 2 he fired his Land Raider at my two turbo boosting Wyche Raiders and managed to blow them both up with a Multi Melta and Assault Cannon. Lost only 2 in the explosion (the other one was just wrecked) and they both managed to pass their pinning tests
- We talked for a minute about what happens when someone rolls “double 1’s “ when assaulting through cover as the rules state that you can’t be within 1” of an enemy if you aren’t in combat. So I said obviously the charge would fail. I then roll my difficult terrain roll for the Wyches assaulting his 5 man combat squad (I figured a quick pain token) and then of COURSE rolled “Double 1’s”. What are the freaking odds on that lol?
- My Beast pack showed up just in time and rushed his Terminator squad. They managed to kill 6 Terminators and broke Vulkan (who was escorted off the board by my Scourges that showed up the following turn). They were completely ace this game.

Final Result: Victory! I won the game 15kp to 5kp as I had my entire army in his half and I had earned more kill points then he did. Basically from turn 1 I had Anthony on the ropes and he was just playing the “reaction game”. The Web Way Portal in particular messed him up since he couldn’t get far enough away from it or surround it. Overall, like the first game, it was a really hard fought and more importantly fun game.

Game 3: Grey Knights

Grey Knights are an army I have only faced once and have heard complete horror stories about. There are a bunch of things that (in my mind) are totally broken in this book like Auto Cannon Dreadnoughts, Grenades and Paladins. Good thing to note that my opponent had all of those lol. What was even better was that his Autocannon Dreads were in a Spearhead which gave them Tank Hunter lol (so now they were each firing 4 x Str 9 twin linked shots against vehicles). Good times.

Our Mission was probably the strangest one of the day. It was 4 objectives, 3 minor, 1 major and the 3 minor are placed in one board half while the lone major objective was placed in the other (the minor ones are worth 1 each while the major is worth 3). The “weirdness” comes into play turn 4 since the 4 objectives are supposed to be fragments of an alien ship or something and you have to randomly roll to see if any of them explode (one explodes for a large blast of Str 10, ap1 while the other three do an EMP pulse which causes a glancing hit to anything within 6”).

My opponents name was John and he drove all the way from Grand Prairie to be there. The list was actually pretty fun to play against despite my earlier run down of the negative fun options of the GK army once you boil it down and he was a great opponent to play against. Here is his list:

John's Army:

Librarian (sanctuary and something else…he never used either so it didn’t matter lol)
Inquisitor w/ grenades (ugh)
Paladins (7 believe, all with halberds, 1 hammer, 2 psycannons)
3 x 10 Strike Squads w/ Rhinos, 1 demon hammer, 2 psycannons)
2 x “Psyfleman” Dreads (dual str 8 autocannons) w/ Tank Hunter Spear Head
(all squads had psy-bolts to make their storm bolters str 5)

Highlights of the game:

- This game for me was all about controlling the objectives by limiting my opponent’s movement since he was castling in a building in the corner of the board. I went out of my way to focus all of my anti tank firepower on his Rhinos and I managed to blow them all up early on in the game. This one thing decided the game.
- The rest of the game was about maiming his regular Grey Knights while either avoiding or distracting his Paladin squad.
- My Ravagers came available for deepstrike on turn 3 and scattered about 5” away from one of the objectives JUST in time to get “EMP’d” at the start of turn 4. Luckily only one Ravager was in range for that glancing hit…and un-luckily my opponent rolled a “6” on the damage chart wrecking it lol. What else was nice was to see the large Str 10, AP1 blast be RIGHT beside my unit of wyches that were near the middle objective. The best part of that is they made all their cover saves lol. Strange stuff.

Final Result: Victory! This game was won during deployment as I ended the game with 4 objectives to his 1. John never once tried to get to the other objectives and just camped his lone one (I think the farthest either of his Dreads moved was up or down one level). He also took all the “bait” I offered him like charging my beast pack into the middle of his army in an attempt to pull the Paladins off his home objective (which he did). John opted to leave his basically unstoppable Paladin squad on his home objective instead of moving them to the far objective in his half of the table which my Web Way Portal was sitting on. He just shot down a raider or two or tried to kill my scourges at range. John was a great guy to play against though and like the other games was really fun and I would happily play him any time as I voted him “best sport”.

Final Tournament Result: First Overall!

I managed to win all my games and had the highest marks for painting (don’t know how I did in sports but hopefully I wasn’t a massive douche lol). It felt like to me that nobody was prepared for the type of list I was bringing to this tournament since everyone else just had a stand up and fight type army. I was determined to play this game on my own terms and dictate the flow of the game (which is, as a player, typically how I win) and it worked perfectly.

Despite there being only 10 people at the tournament there still was quite a bit of fierce competition with some pretty tough lists. I think I am the only one who actually won all 3 games. The tournament was also run fairly smoothly with only a couple weird things on some scores and whatnot but it was all pretty minor. One thing that was nice and a big change from most 40k events you go to lately is how laid back the atmosphere for this one was. Even normally really competitive people were just letting thing slide and taking everything in stride (myself included).

As far as the special twist for the tournament (aka using Spearhead) I would have to say it was successful. The armies were all really fun to play against, lots of challenges and it really made you think outside the box and change how you approached the game. Kind of sucked that I was the only non-imperial player there (2 blood angles, 2 space wolves, 1 marine, 2 grey knights and myself) but alas due to GWs release schedule for 5^th ed (6 imperial vs. 3 xenos) that is the climate we live in. I think it is really good to participate in this type of tournament every once in a while just to keep things fresh and for me it keeps me sharp. I am also REALLY pleased with the performance of this army as this was their first tournament and they haven’t disappointed. I hope you enjoyed the battle report and hopefully I can get more in (both tournaments and battle reports) and get them posted up on the site.

Waaagh GT 2011 USS Hornet

That was an interesting tournament. It had its ups and downs. First of all, here's our venue, the USS Hornet Aircraft Carrier in Alameda, CA. Awesome stuff.

No we weren't on the deck but I was able to sneak up there on Sunday to see what they had. An F-4 Phantom, an F-14 Topgun Tomcat, and ... I think a Skyhawk or a Raider. I forget which. Its at the front on the steam catapult if you can see it.

But enough of that. Down in the storage hanger, we did battle...

Battle 1: Orks.

Highlights: Playing against Orks for the 1st time. Some REALLY cool conversions and builds. This guy actually won player's army choice at the end, so I was glad I got a good up close (too close) and personal look at it. A really cool Godzilla theme. Also neat was that Orks are an even crappier shot than my IG, so it was a nice change... until they got into H2H with me.

Lowlights: Well... I wasn't as aquainted with the rules as I thought. The guy was very understanding and nice, which was cool. But it was really hard to figure out how to defeat a battlewagon with an invulnerable save and a pile of orks around it. Also hard to know how to defeat motorcycle nobs. They are just plain complicated and kind of cheesy frankly since they can put wounds on each individual model etc. etc. Either way, I got kicked to the curb.

Lessons Learned: I need more horde control? Learn the rules AND play a game or two BEFORE attending a tourney.

These squigs are in fact boyz in the buggy. Cool idea I thought, and he was true to fluff and didn't shoot them once! Also notice those accursed Nobz. I didn't know how to unload my Ogryns properly for the all important charge, so they did crap all, as did the flamer.

What happened to that lovely blob of 30 infantry?

Game 2: IG Vendetta Squadrons of Death!

Hightlight: Able to play against another Guard player so see what he was going to do. Also a nice player.

Lowlight: The entire game. This was the lowpoint of the tourney actually. The guy was nice enough although he was a bit snippy about bases. Really cool paintjobs on the Vendettas though.

My army started getting blown to crap, and I after turn 2 I sat there wondering if my poor little army that I'd spent so long painting was going to be able to do anything more interesting in this tourney than just die. It was to the point where my army took more time to setup than it did to get killed. We can't shoot, we can't assault, we can't move... If the rest of the tourney was going to be like these two games, what's the f*@&$ing point of me playing 40k? I obviously don't "get it", and never have... blahdie blahdie blah.

Lessons Learned: Don't shoot with Ogryns if you are about 4-6" inches away or you may not be able to charge if you gun the front row down. Also, after speaking with the guy afterwards, 2 Valkarie/Vendettas might be useful. Vendetta is dedicated gunship. Valkarie carries the veterans to deploy.

Holy crap! 6 Vendettas and a whole pile of melta guns!
The Ogyrns exit their burning wreck of a Chimera to shoot ripper guns at those juicy veterans. Alas they were too effective and shot them out of charge range! A good lesson there.
Oh dear. That fact that he insisted on putting lots of flame on my vendetta kind of ticked me off, but I tried to keep smiling.

Game 3: Gray Knights

Highlights: Best game of the tourney. This guy pulled me out of my funk from the 1st two games. We voted each other most fun player. Again I got blown to crap, BUT NOT TABLED. I actually make this a 6th mission for the tourney. I did not want to get tabled by ANYBODY no matter how badly a lost points wise. I look forward to playing this guy next year. I really hope I can make it. We pronounce this game "the party table" since we were both 0-2 and sure as hell weren't going to win any prizes. Just there to have fun. Oh, and my battlecannon missed and blew up my entire platoon commander. We high fived on that one as a sign of how fun the game was.

Lowlights: Well I was a bit tired, and sat down. He noticed and shouted "don't get down on me Chris!", and I realized. DON'T SIT down at a game. It lowers the whole energy level of the game. Even if you are tired, it just looks sh&@#ty.

Lessons Learned: Gamewise, was still getting used to flank moves with the sentinals and vendetta as well as how to charge with Ogyrns. They got eaten again. At least I killed his librarian. Also, terrain is really nasty for Guard. All the tables were terrain heavy and those cover saves KILLED me, since even my lascannons and battlecannons were less effective.

Ha! At least I killed 2 rhinos... SUCK IT!

Day 2. Game 4: Blood Angels

Highlights: The guy was really nice. He voted me his move fun player, which I appreciated. My Ogryns were running defense in the back row ready to try to intercept/counter charge an assault marine deep strike. They were too far from the objective though.

Lowlights: I think he took the true line of sight thing WAY too far shooting through 10 jungles and 3 units to try to hit my LR. Yes you can do it, but come on... He took me to the cleaners as was becoming usual (but DIDN'T table me. SUCK IT!) I still don't know how to handle Assault marines. Especially super hero Blood Angels. I also couldn't hit crap. I think I killed all of 1 unit the whole game. Things were threatening to repeat themselves from the previous day. But I kept smiling, because I'm here to have fun...... kind of.

Lessons Learned: Instead of holding my blob back where they would die, I decided to run them forward. This actually worked well.. except that his assault marines then dropped in behind them.... So perhaps not for this game.

Final Game: Eldar

Highlights: This was a fun game actually. The guy and I had met on Saturday and were looking forward to gaming against each other. Sure enough I was 0-4, he was 0-1-3 so we were fighting for the bottom. I'm happy about this one because I was able to pull off a TIE. The mission was to get your scoring units into the opponent's deployment zone.

Lowlights: The guy was a little silly with the true line of sight, but not really any lowlights. I felt like I had a chance with this game, and that really helps to make it more fun. Nothing sucks more than thinking that your army has no chance. My luck was SHITE this game, but that's ok.

Lessons Learned: Eyes on the prize. My blob just said screw it, and ran forward. The order "Move move move!" REALLY helps with this. My lascannons sat on a hill and hit zero. My vendetta swooped in, and tried to pick up both the senior and junior command squads to take them to the deployment zone for a win. The other guy only had a couple of scoring units so it was fairly easy for my Ogyrns to run interception (Which they ROCKED at). This guy was my skill level. Although his army wasn't painted totally, I voted him my player's choice because I'd already voted on my favourite player.

The blob moves into cover. They keep running. Next time I'm not taking any heavy weapons with a blob. Maybe I won't do a blob again. Time to paint up those Chimeras and melta guns...

Conga line of Ogryns running interception on those eldar. We sent that Warlock packing. Go Ogyrns. Pity their Chimera got a track blown off in the opening turn.

Junior command squad move move moves for the tie! The vendetta couldn't move after its engine got blown off, so it couldn't pick up the senior/junior command squads and fly them into the deployment zone.

Really nice guy's Black Templar army. Met him at the beginning. I didn't get to play against them, but if I ever get to paint my BT, I'll look for him.

Waaagh GT 2011

Ok, so tomorrow will be the Waaagh GT.

I couldn't play last year because of work issues, and my army wasn't ready anyway.

This year I finished the army back in February so we're good there, and work has been lighter so I can make it...

Anyway, since I don't attend tourney's like this EVER, I have 4 things to accomplish:

1. Win most fun player
2. Win best painted army (or maybe coolest theme since there are some REALLY good armies in there)
3. Get good idea of IG strategy that isn't just sit in gun line and blast away hoping to kill the inevitable space marine charge in a land raider before they reduce my boys to jelly.
4. Defeat a player who is about my skill level or better.
5. Ok 5. Re-aquaint myself with the 40k rules so I know what I'm doing and won't look like a doofus.

I'll take lots of pictures of the aircraft carrier etc. That reminds me, I have to see the deck of that thing this weekend.

The Great Devourer Descends on Red Deer!

Over the weekend I participated in only my second tournament this year. I missed out on all the big events at the beginning of the year because of work. My wife is giving birth to our first child next month so I am trying to cram in some gamin’ action while I can. I know I said I wasn’t going to be taking the “mighty” Tyranids to another event, but alas, I just couldn’t get the Dark Eldar up and running in time, so bugs it is.

The Tournament in Red Deer was being run by a gaming group called “Da Grots”. I have seen a couple of their members at some of the events in Calgary, but by and large, I know almost none of them. I therefore thought it would be a good chance to get in some games against people I have never played before. The tournament was a standard 3 game format, each game being a combination of missions and deployments from the main rule book (so standard stuff). Despite only being 10 people at this tournament there was a really wide variety of armies. There were 2 Nids, 2 Imperial Guard, 2 Space Marines, 1 Necron, 1 Ork, 1 Tau and 1 Demon. So almost all the armies were represented. There were supposed to be a couple more but I think there were some no shows.

The Tyranid List:

HQ

Tyranid Prime – Dual Boneswords, Scything Talons, Adrenal Glands

Elites

Venomthropes (2)
Hive Guard (3)
Zoanthropes (3)

Troops

Termagants (20)
Tervigon – Cluster Spines, Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands, Catalyst
Hormagaunts (25) – Toxin Sacs
Genestealers (5) – Toxin Sacs, Broodlord Upgrade (BL – Scything Talons)
Genestealers (5) – Toxin Sacs, Broodlord Upgrade

Heavy Support

Mawloc
Mawloc
Trygon – Adrenal Glands

Total Points – 1849pts

Game 1: Capture and Control, Dawn of War vs. Blood Angels

Let me start off by saying that this game actually shouldn’t have taken place. What I mean by that is my opponent was a 13 year old kid with a barely painted army who couldn’t grasp the basic mechanics of the game, let alone enough to play in an actual tournament. Before we even set up I knew the game wasn’t going to be close. He placed his objective in a building, fairly close to the center of the board and I placed mine on the complete opposite side in a crater. Since he won first turn he combat squaded the Tact Squad in the building with the objective, placed his Chaplain on a Bike in the middle of the board on the center line and infiltrated his scout squad about 13” from my board edge. Everything else came in on turn 1 except Astorath and the DC which he opted to deep strike. I in turn just held my entire army off the board to walk on turn 1. Here is Nick’s list:

HQ

Chaplain on a Bike
Astorath

Elites

Sanguinary Priests (2) – Power Weapons, Combi-Meltas
Furioso Dread – Dread CC weapon, heavy flamer, scatter cannon (or whatever it’s called lol)

Troops

Tactical Squad (10) – Missile Launcher, Flamer, Power Fist
Scout Squad (5) – Sniper Rifles
Death Company (5) – Assortment of power weapons, thunder hammers, inferno pistols, etc… (basically everything you could give them…it was crazy how much this squad cost)

Fast Attack

Baal Pred – Assault Cannon, Heavy Bolter Side Sponsons
Scout Bike Squadron

Heavy Support

Predator – Autocannon Turret, Las Cannon side sponsons



High Points:

- The game lasted 45mins of the 2 hour allotted time.

Low Points:

Sigh, where to begin?
- I knew Nick would only focus on killing me, so I brought out the 20 strong squad of Termagants onto my own objective and sent 1750pts worth of Tyranids at his objective.
- Nick decided to deep strike his death company squad 6” from 1450pts worth of Tyranids which were wiped out to a man the following turn after being charged by a Trygon, 25 untouched hormagaunts with Catalyst and 12 Termagants I spawned (as this is all I could fit in base to base)
- The one stealer squad wiped out the Scouts turn 1
- By turn 3 almost my entire army had swamped his objective and the only kill point he managed was killing 2 Venomthropes because I couldn’t make a saving throw to save my life





Final Result: Tyranid Victory. I held both objectives and killed him to a man by the bottom of turn 3. This is the type of game that just shouldn’t happen in a tournament. Nobody has fun when one person gets trounced especially to this degree. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Nick had any concept of what was actually happening, but alas he didn’t. He just seemed confused at every point and was flustered even by the concept of rolling dice. I would have to say it was easily one of the worst games I have had in a tournament as it was literally a “bye” to the next round.

Game 2: Kill Points, Spear Head vs. Sons of Medusa (aka Space Marines)

This game was against my good friend Jon Wong and his optically devastating Sons of Medusa. I knew what was in his army before hand as we had been sending lists back and forth so I knew that this was maybe the worst combination of missions and deployment as Jon has nothing by long ranged anti tank firepower. Jon set up his parking lot/gun line in a line about 15”-20” away from the center while I set up everything but the two infiltrating stealer squads and the Trygon as close to the center of the board as possible. I knew Jon had an ultra death Sternguard squad with 8 combi meltas so I was trying to figure out how to have my Tervigon live past turn 1. I noticed I had a building with no windows or doors, so no line of sight, so that is where he was set up. I then infiltrated my stealers closer to the back side of his army, 18” away where if Jon wanted to shoot at me he would HAVE to shoot through cover. Jon gave me first turn so off I went!

Sons of Medusa

HQ

Lysander

Elites

Sternguard (10) – 8 Combi Meltas, Sergent w/ Powerfist, Drop Pod
Dreadnought – Auto Cannon
Dreadnought – Plasma Cannon

Troops

Tactical Squad (10) – Melta Gun, Missile Launcher, Serg w/ Power Fist, Rhino
Tactical Squad (5) – Melta Gun, Razorback w/ Twin Linked Las Cannons
Scout Squad (5) – Just CC weapons I think

Heavy Support

Land Raider – Chronos Upgrade (so BS 5)
Predator – Autocannon Turret, Las Cannon Sponsons
Predator – Autocannon Turret, Las Cannon Sponsons



High Points:

- The Genestealers were Ace this game. The first squad managed to fleet 6” the first turn, reaching cover and being very much in charge range to the battle line for turn 2 (which it did, wrecking one of the predators). The other squad took a full round of shooting from the stern guard using “Bolter Drill” from Lysander (ie re-rolls all misses) and they used the “Ignore Cover” ammunition. The Broodlord was all that was left with full wounds.
- The Hive Guard just had their way with Jon’s battle line. Every time they shot something died…every…time.
- Mawlocs wrecked havoc on the parking lot, sending tanks in multiple directions, immobilizing one of the preds and just getting in Jon’s face.

Low Points:

Well, all these belong to Jon lol
- The previous game for Jon was against a Necron army with THREE Monoliths. Chronos by himself wrecked 2 and immobilized one lol. So, naturally, this game he missed 3 of the 4 shots in the first two rounds (this is on a 2+ with a re-roll)
- That luck continued for the first round as I either saved all incoming shots (Zoans never failed a save, took about 6 or 7 of them from Las Cannons) or he just flat out missed.
- I think the biggest one was how he deployed his Sternguard Squad. He was far too aggressive with his deployment of them, trying to force them into place to kill a high priority target on turn 1. He shot at the one stealer squad which just due to the nature of the 5 man unit is virtually impossible to kill with that squad (on average you need to do THIRTY wounds to kill the 5 guys, I will explain later :). He should have either deep struck the squad BEHIND my lines in hopes of killing the Hive Guard or deployed them in his battle line to help defend against things like the Mawlocs or Trygons.





Final Result: Tyranid Victory. By the time the Trygon came up on turn 3 Lysander and the Sternguard were almost dead and only the tact squad, Chronos and one of the Predators were still functional. I still had almost my entire army so Jon just conceded (but not before we figured out how long Lysander could last lol). Overall it was a fun game, Jon was a great guy to play against and took everything in stride, and when stuff goes wrong, dice wise, it can be difficult to do lol.

Game 3: Seize Ground (5 Objectives), Pitched Battle vs. Tyranids

This game was against the OTHER Tyranid player in the tournament. I thought it was pretty cool that at this point the only two armies that went 2-0 were Tyranids. Tyler’s army was awesome. It was perfectly designed to take on imperial armies with a combination of lots of bodies and massive toughness. His was the army I knew would give me the hardest time. He has significantly more toughness then I did (including a 700pts Deathstar Squad and a Tyrannofex) and my Mawlocs are almost useless against him. It was 5 objectives which was good as my stealers really gave me an edge. I knew the only path to victory was side step and bait his Hive Tyrant Death Star while putting all my focus on killing all his troops (killed 8 units of troops by the end of the game lol) and try to outlast him.

Tylers List:

HQ

Hive Tyrant – Bonesword, Lashwhip, Venom Cannon, Old Adversary, Regen
Tyrant Guard (3) – Lash Whips
Tyranid Prime – Dual Boneswords, Regen

Elites

Hive Guard (3)
Hive Guard (3)

Troops

Termagants (10)
Termagants (10)
Tervigon – toxin sacs, adrenal glands, catalyst
Tervigon – toxin sacs, adrenal glands, catalyst

Fast Attack

Gargoyles (27) – Toxin Sacs, Adrenal Glands

Heavy Support

Tyrannofex – Rupture Cannon

High Points:

- Genestealers won me this game. I infiltrated both squads, one of which was on one of the objectives in his deployment zone which was on a high bastion tower. There was physically no way he could get up there so the squad just went to ground the whole game for a 2+ cover save basically eating up 5 full turns of shooting from 6 hive guard. The other squad I botched their deployment and they served as a speed bump for the Gargoyles (but, making them take tonnes of dangerous terrain rolls).
- Trygon earned his keep. He killed a squad of Termagants , a Tervigon and a squad of Hive Guard by the time the game ended
- Tyranid Prime did extremely well this game. He “bonesworded” a Tyrannofex and then a turn later “bonesworded” the last remaining Tervigon which was Tyler’s last troop unit

Low Points:

- I had the perfect placement for my second unit of infiltrating Genestealers then at the last second I doubted myself and moved them to a spot where they were just devoured by Gargoyles. I think if I had left them where they were it would have been a much quicker game
- My Zoans did virtually nothing this game. I killed a couple termagants, did a wound to a Tervigon, then they took 5 impaler cannon hits failing every single one
- I miss-placed a unit of spawned termagants which ended up opening a lane for Tyler to engage my Tervigon with his own Termagants. I thought this was going to be the end but due to some inspiring rolling from my tervigon I ended up fighting off the Termagant swarm.









Final Result: Tyranid (mine) Victory. The game ended on turn 5 with me holding two objectives to Tyler’s zero (he had no troops left at this point). Overall I played this game very well using my Mawlocs to distract the Deathstar away from my own objectives and I had a great use of counter attacks with my different units. The biggest thing is I ONLY attacked his troop units while he spread his focus too thin on my supporting units that didn’t matter. I think this game also helped me prove two of my opinions on this army. 1) Tyrannofex’s suuuuck lol. He killed virtually nothing and got chopped to bits by my Tyranid Prime (so a 100pt model killed a 265pt model in cc). 2) Venom Cannon’s are the biggest waste of points on a Tyrant. Tyler spent most of the game shooting me with the Venom Cannon instead of running his insane close combat unit forward. This one thing more than any other won me the game as it left his Tyrant too far away to effect the game.

Final Tournament Standing: First Overall, Best Painted. I won every single category I could (since it was just most games won and best painted). It was one of the most dominating outings this army has had to date.

Army Thoughts: The list worked incredibly well as it was very flexible. It just feels like the most complete army I have brought to a tournament to date. 5 scoring units really helps as well. The biggest thing though is this army is FUN to play. Lots of interesting units and massive synergy.The only things I would change might be switching the Mawlocs to Trygons. That’s about it. The one group of units that surprised me the most were the min sized Genestealer Squads with the Broodlord. These squads are incredible. They have two main things going for them.

1) They are so small they can infiltrate virtually anywhere. The only reason I won that last game is because the squad was just small enough to infiltrate out of sight onto an objective.
2) Due to their small size they get forgotten and aren’t a priority target. This happened almost every game. Against Marine armies this squad is very deadly. They still get 17 WS6-7 attacks on the charge that re-roll virtually all wounds with rending. You end up getting something like 3-4 rends on the charge. They can threaten vehicles and small units alike. I love them lol

Tournament Thoughts: I am going to go on kind of “Rant” so bare with me here lol. When I first signed up for this Tournament the poster with all the information on it said “Prizes for first place, second place, third place, best painted and best sport”. So I figured I would at least have a shot at best painted and best overall. After driving an hour and a half to the event I ended up talking with one of the guys that runs the game club and he informed me that “In order to make sure people don’t bring ‘Leaf Blower’ type lists we are just going to ‘randomly’ give out the prizes”. This made me do a bit of a double take as it meant there is no reason to do pretty much anything. Nothing the players did had any impact on what would happen through the day. It transformed the event from a tournament to a club game day. I also thought since if the organizers were so worried about this type of thing that they would have had some sort of comp score or have other soft scores impact the final overall score (like painting, sports, etc.). The “Tournament’s” only scoring method was through battle points. So they wanted a soft score type tournament when they set it up to be Ard Boyz.

Another strange thing was after the first round the fellow running the event called my name out for best painted, but then called another guy’s name as well to come get a prize (with NO indication of what he might of won). So he got there first, getting the prize I wanted so I ended up getting stuck with a box of Wyches (which was the worst prize there). There was no more mention of prizes and I figured they would do the “draw” after the last game but once I finished my last game I noticed everyone already had their prizes. The thing that REALLY bothered me was they just gave out the prizes to their own members with no “random draw” at all (nether Jon nor I received any of these “random” prizes). So the first kid I played (who plays blood angels) got a Storm Raven, and so on. The prizes ranged from a Space Wolf Battle Force (the best prize, who was “won” by someone playing IG who came in the middle of the pack) to a box of Wyches (the worst prize). If I am speaking honestly I felt cheated and I felt that it was under handed to just change everything about the tournament on the day of the event to better benefit your own members. If they wanted a “Members Only” event then they should have put that on the poster. Another great thing is that I had to pay an EXTRA $10 over everyone else just to participate. Sigh lol.

One thing I wanted to ask is how would you guys feel if you travelled 150kms to an event to have everything about it changed (very much not in your favor)? Am I over reacting as far as being “irked” over how things went down? I would love to hear from you guys

Great Devourer Comes to March Madness!

Over the weekend I was able to attend a tournament for the first time this year. It was a smaller tourney (only 16 players) that had a bunch of my friends going, so it promised to be a good time (and it didn’t disappoint). The day was split up into 3 games, with missions from the main rule book all with “secondary” and “tertiary” missions that add up to a lot of points (10pts for the main objective, 7pts for secondary and 4 for the tertiary). To also spice it up even more there were “Secret” objectives that were also worth 4pts so a possible 25pts total per game (although it was almost impossible to get it all, which was good). One really interesting thing though is that Marines only made up HALF of the players! There were 2 Demons, 2 Eldar, 2 Orks a Tau player and a Tyranid player (aka me!). **Disclaimer! My Phone died right before the first game so all I had was my iPhone so I applogize in advance for the horrible pics :( *

Here is the list I took:

The Tyranid Army:

HQ
The Swarmlord + 2 Tyrant Guard

Elites
Zoanthropes (3) – Mycetic Spore
Hive Guard (2)
Ymgarls (10)

Troops
Termagants (15)
Tervigon – Catalyst, Toxin Sacs, Cluster Spines

Heavy Support
Carnifex Brood (2) – Dual MC Devourers
Trygon – Adrenal Glands

1800pts on the dot




I had two goals for this tournament, even above that of winning any games or prizes. 1) Fire a full salvo with the Carnifex’s every game and 2) Get into a meaningful combat with the Swarmlord just once!

Game 1: GRUDGE MATCH! Tyranids vs. Space Marines! - Objectives

The first game everyone was able to issue a challenge to someone else in the tourney. I issued the challenge to my friend Scott West and his super tough Space Marine army (he went 6-0 at the last major event here in Calgary). The mission was 5 objectives, with kill points being secondary. My secret mission was “Kill all Fast Attack” and Scott had none so I automatically picked that one up (ah thank you!). Here is Scott’s list:

HQ :
Master of the Forge

Elites :
Assault Termies (5) – Thunder Hammer/Storm Shields, Land Raider Redeemer
2 x Iron Clad Dreads in pods

Troops
Tact Squad (10) – Plasma Cannon, Melta Gun, Sarge with Power Fist (I think)
Tact Squad (10) – Plasma Cannon, Melta Gun, Sarge w/ Power Fist – Drop Pod

Heavy Support
3 x Dakka Dread (due to master of the forge)




Hi Points:

- Trygon charged the first Ironclad and got SEVEN penetrating hits, blowing it smithereens then charged the Land Raider, got 1 hit (due to needing “6’s” to hit), penetrated and rolled a “6” for damage, blowing it to bits (then got shot to crap lol)
- Dakka Fexes gunned down a 10 man tact squad then blew up a dread in CC
- Zoans wiped out a 10 man Tact Squad that was out in the open in one turn with warp blast (got all 3 hits with the blast templates)

Low Points:
- Only one I can think of is my Ymgarls rolling like crap to get out of difficult terrain to make a charge on the Terminators

Final result: Victory for the Tyranids. I achieved almost all my objectives. Scored the main (objectives), secondary (Kill Points) and my secret. Scott was an awesome guy to play against and until my Fexes hit is main battle line holding the objective it could have been really close. Also, he was just WAY too timid with his assault Termies, which I think ended up costing him the game (maybe just too timid in general).

Game 2: Tyranids vs. Space Marines! – Kill Points

This game was against my friend Kevin Kent. We have met many a time in battle during tournaments and he always gives a tough game and this was no different. The mission was Kill points with the secondary being two objectives with the deployment of Spear head. The terrain was somewhat sparse on this table and he had the second shootiest list in the tourney. I reserved my Carnifexs and Trygon as they would be just shot to crap and I was hoping to get him to focus on killing the Swarmlord, who I was going to present as a major threat to him (ie running him down the middle). There was a piece of terrain in the middle which I chose to have my Ymgarls charge out of. My Secret Objective was making sure my Tervigon didn’t die…which he didn’t. Kevin’s List:

HQ
Master of the Forge – Conversion Beamer, 2 Gun Servitors w/ Plasma Cannons

Elites
3 x Dakka Dreads (dual Twin Linked AC)

Troops
Tact Squad (5) – Razorback, twin Las
Tact Squad (5) – Razorback, twin Las
Tact Squad (5) – Razorback, twin assault cannon

Fast Attack:
Land Speeder Tornado – Multi Melta, Heavy Flamer
Land Speeder Typhoon – Multi Melta
Attack Bikes (3) – Multi Meltas

Heavy Support
2 x Devastators (5) – 4 x Missile Launchers
Thunder Fire Cannon

High Points:

- My Swarmlord was a complete beast. He literally took almost 5 full rounds of shooting from most of the army. It was madness. He also earned me 3 kill points in the process.
- Trygon popped up, gunned down 2 remaining devastators from one squad, charged in and killed the master of the forge and the thunder fire cannon, awesome stuff.
- My lowly Termagants managed to immobilize the one razorback with their Fleshborers RIGHT before the Swarmlord charged making it so all his attacks auto hit then surrounded the tank to force an emergency embarkment which meant the unit inside was auto-pinned.
- My Carnifex unit were stars again in this game. They killed a unit of marines on the objective after blowing up their transport with their Devourers. Good stuff.

Low Points:

- I 100% botched my Ymgarls. I had a choice between the attack bikes in the open or his devastator gun line in cover. I chose the gun line since they were doing so much damage and completely screwed the difficult terrain roll. This one thing alone cost me the win in this game
- My rolling was starting to slip. He shot his last unit that could shoot at my Trygon (which was a Dakka Dread) and wounded the Trygon 3 times and I failed all 3 armor saves on a 3+ which ended up tying the game.
- Those attack bikes went on to kill my zoanthropes and contest one of the objectives (so in essence they cost me 11 points)

Final Result: Tie. Despite the complete pounding I took to the mountain of firepower Kevin had I still managed to do just enough damage to pull out the tie. I focused on the transports and the small marine squads as they were an easy 6 KP. This was one of the most fun games I have had in a tourney and Kevin is just an awesome guy to play against.

Game 3: Tyranids vs. Eldar – Capture and Control

Ah, my old nemisis…Jason Hall and the Eldar. The mission was Capture and Control (aka Hurry up and “Tie”) with Dawn of War as the deployment. The tertiary objective was “Hold Everything In Reserve” so I figured “Why not, the Swarmlord gives me +1 to my reserve rolls”. OH MAN! Was THAT a mistake haha. I was anxious to see if the “Eldar Curse” was still alive (ie. Every game I have against Eldar they roll amazing and I roll so poorly). Good to see it was! I had just the most horrendous rolling I have ever had in my life this game. I am not kidding or trying to hide behind this an excuse. I mean it was to the point of being comical how bad it was. The Secret Objective was to NOT kill Jason’s Falcon. Jokes on you Eldar! I COULDN’T KILL ANYTHING! Lol. Before I go into more detail here is Jason’s list (easily my fav elder list I have seen):

HQ
Yriel
Eldrad
Warlocks (8) – 3 Spears, 4 Destructors, 1 Enhance, 1 Embolden – Wave Serpent – Scatter lasers, Spirit Stones

Elites
Fire Dragons (5)

Troops
Dire Avengers (10) – Bladestorm, Dual Kats – Wave Serpent – Bright lance, Spirit Stones
2 x Guardian Jetbikes (3) – Shuriken Cannons

Heavy Support
Falcon – Holo Fields, Spirit Stones, Eldar missile launcher
2 x War Walker Squadron (3) – Dual Scatter Lasers (so 48 str 6 shots a turn lol)




High Points:

- I didn’t get tabled. You might laugh reading this but I am serious. I am SO LUCKY there wasn’t a turn 7 because at that point all I had left was a unit of 10 Termagants on the objective and a single Hive Guard.
- My Carnifex’s saved the game again. I managed to get one halfway up the field and I gunned down his one jetbike squad (only did one unsaved wound on 12 twin linked str 6 shots lol). The Jetbikes that were holding his objective broke right off the table (rolled an 11 for his leadership test and then 15 or something for their fall back)

Low Points:
- Oh man, how can I even put this into words? Well, let me try!
- I managed to get only half of my army onto the board from reserves when rolling on a 3+. The stuff that DID come in I really didn’t want in (ie Ymgarls and the Zoans since I went first and nothing was on the board at this point)
- His first round of shooting had one unit of War Walkers do 9 wounds to Ymgarls in cover (4+) which I failed 7 of the 9 armor saves. Then I took one more wound from the jet bikes and failed that too (so 8 failed on 10 rolls).
- Zoans got turned into mulch from the Dire Avengers Bladestorming
- Turn 3 I had to make 4 reserve rolls on a 2+ and failed 3 of them. The only thing that came in was my Termagants. My Trygon, Carnifexs AND Hive Guard all failed the roll.
- No less than 5 times during the game I was required to make 4 x 3+ armor saves and failed ALL of them. Literally every time the war walkers opened up I lost a Monstrous Creature.
- I had to make 3 cover saves on 3 termagants who went to ground…and rolled 3 x 1’s


Final Result: Tie. HOW I managed to tie I will never know. The only thing I COULD do this game was just focus on the objective and hope that I get the small amount of luck needed to kill his troops. I think Jason was too focused on all the secondary objectives (including the secret) that he lost sight of the overall objective. Despite having the worst rolling game of my 40k career I still had fun. I knew what kind of game I was in for after the first round of shooting so I had nothing else I could do but laugh. We joked around a lot as he just murdered the shit out of me.

Final Tournament Result: First Overall. To say I was surprised that I won first overall is an understatement. I was already starting to head over to get my gear when the Tournament Organizer read out my name for first place. I think the only way I would have been more surprised is if I woke up the next morning with my head sewn to the carpet lol. One thing of note that I found out later is my games were against the top 4 players ONLY. I played the 2nd Place finisher (Kevin Kent), 3rd Place (Jason Hall) and 4th Place (Scott West). So it was a VERY tough and brutal path to top place lol.

Final Thoughts:

The Tournament: Overall it was a pretty fun day. I really lucked out by the fact that I only had to play friends and they were all awesome to play against (was genuinely difficult to figure out a best sport). It was the tournament organizer’s first time running an event and it did show. Things took quite a while to get going and all the score cards weren’t clear as to what things were out of etc. Despite those couple of hick ups the day went very well, all games ended before time and the prize support was huge for the size of event. Another really sweet thing was the Terrain was great. All the sections with trees actually blocked line of sight and there was great coverage on all the tables.

The Nid List: After 8 tournaments with this army, 5 Best Overalls and 3 Best Painted, I have to say it is time to retire these guys for the for-seeable future. The number 1 thing I found is that I NEED a change in play style. As far as the list goes I don’t think I would take the Swarmlord again. He literally did NOTHING that a normal Tyrant couldn’t do for 100pts less. Heck, a Tyrant with Armored Shell would have been infinitely better for this tourney as volume of fire killed him 2 out of the 3 games. I won’t be doing any tournaments until my Dark Eldar are ready so that might not be till the later half of this year as the wife is due in July.

As Far as my two goals went I did manage to fire the Carnifex’s every game and they did something awesome every game. The surprising thing is that they were consistently the best unit in the army, despite what math-hammer and the internet says. That being said 2 more Trygons would have been much more powerful. As for the Swarmlord he got into combat with an Ironclad dred and 2 x 5 Man Marine squads..that’s it. Sigh lol. BENCHED!