The rules were pretty straight forward:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1135293766588196/
1000 point tournament, CAD or Formation only, no unbound lists, Forgeworld rules not labelled experimental are allowed. $10 Entry Fee, 3 rounds, bring 5 copies of your list (1 for each opponent, 1 for yourself, 1 for the store/TO). Painting will be judged and included in tournament points.
I had every intention of having everything 100% painted...and then my birthday week happened along with OT at work. Needless to say, I did have just about all I needed for my list and even tried to put some paint on almost all the models. I knew going in I wouldn't win best painted but had hoped that I would get 3 good games to ease back into 40K. I mean it was 1000 points, definitely nothing stressful. I opted to stick to Iron Hands (as I knew how to play with Battle Demi Company and the Fist of Medusa in particular). I didn't want to go too over the top with the list but wanted something that would keep me in most games. Here's the list:
Fist of Medusa (Iron Hands Formation)
Core - Battle Demi Company
HQ - Chaplain (Auspex) - 95 points
Troop - Tactical Marines x5 (Melta Gun, 30 year anniversary Marine, Rhino) - 115 points
Troop - Tactical Marines x5 (Melta Gun, Rhino) - 115 points
Troop - Tactical Marines x5 (Flamer) - 75 points
Fast Attack - Attack Bike - 40 points
Heavy - Centurion Devastators (3x Grav Cannons) - 240 points
Auxiliary - Honored Ancients
Elite - Dreadnought w/ Drop Pod - 135 points
Allies - Inquisition
HQ - Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Toby (Mastery Level 1, Force Sword, Rad Grenades, Psychotroke Grenades) - 85 points
HQ - Coteaz - 100 points
1000 points on the dot! In general both the Inquisitors would join the Chaplain and the Centurions and form a mini Toughness 5, multi-wound "death star" of sorts. I'd be "fearless" due to the Chaplain, would get to knock off some cover saves with the Auspex, 5+ FNP from the Fist of Medusa detachment, and would get blessings from the Inquisitors.
3 warp charges weren't a lot but I made the most of them. Inquisitor Toby would roll on Divination for whatever plus Prescience and Coteaz would get 2 rolls on Telepathy to hopefully get Invisibility but mostly to have Psychic Shriek.
Flyers would most likely wreck this list. No sooner had I arrived at Strangeway Games that I noticed one guy had a list with something like 5 or 6 Vendettas. Luckily for me, I was never matched up against him!
The Games
Game 1 - Tau Empire (Anthony)
My first game was against Anthony, a guy I had met previously and played against at an old game store that has since closed. I hadn't seen him in over a year. He brought a mostly infantry based Tau list with Kroot, Fire Warriors, Pathfinders, Crisis Suits, and a mini stealth suit death star unit with Commander Farsight.
Per the picture above, most of his army was in the big cathedral in the middle. It was a Maelstrom Mission out of the rulebook where we had an escalating number of Tactical Objective cards. My Grav Centurions proved to be too much for the Farsight unit to survive, especially with the Psyker support from the Inquisitors. Prescience went a long way to helping me whittle down the units. Ultimately I kept him boxed in the Cathedral while I managed to secure 4 of the objectives for most of the game. Of note, I also seized the initiative on a 6 on the re-roll due to Coteaz's special rule (a common theme throughout the tournament). I believe I ended up winning 8-2 (he claimed one tactical objective card and had first blood). With that, I had gained a "Major Victory" and got a win for the day. Already I was happy to exceed my expectations and not go 0-3.
MVP of the Match - Coteaz. Arguably I could've given this to my Dreadnought for holding strong for nearly 3 turns but Coteaz and Psychic Shriek ensured that Farsight and her crew went down early. I seized the initiative due to his special re-roll and I even got to use his infamous "I've Been Expecting You" rule.
Game 2 - Deathguard Chaos Space Marines (Rew)
My next game came against Rew, a guy I had previously met and played against over at Dogs of War. Normally I'd see him field Imperial Guard but the new Traitor Legions book was too hard to pass up for him. It was a virtual mirror match as he had brought his Deathguard warband detachment that gave him re-rolls for FNP of 1 and he had roughly the same amount of bodies on the field as I had.
We played The Scouring from the regular book missions and set up with the normal deployment. Again, my opponent deployed first and I managed to seize the initiative on him with another 6 on a re-roll. If you'll notice in the picture, he had castled up behind a building on the upper left hand corner of the board where he couldn't get a Rhino through. I immediately dropped the Dreadnought in the Drop Pod in front of all the Rhinos to make him have to shoot through and blow up both units to have any chance of leaving the area. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't until Turn 4 that he managed to finally destroy both the Dreadnought and the Drop Pod and by then I had control of the rest of the board.
He deployed his Terminators and Sorcerer out on the ledge to avoid Coteaz's "I've Been Expecting You" rule. Instead of deep striking, he'd try approaching me on foot. Unfortunately I infiltrated my mini "death star" unit 18" away from him and walked them up first turn and unloaded Grav Cannon and Hurricane Bolter shots galore. By the end of the shooting phase, the squad and the sorcerer were gone.
After that I did advance my Centurions towards the remaining Deathguard marines but there was little they could do to not get shot up as I advanced and kept him boxed in. At the end of 5 turns, I had captured all but 1 objective and had scored an 11-0 victory.
MVP of the Match - Dreadnought. This guy served the Emperor well and while he did eventually die after 4 turns, he tied up Rew's bikes for nearly 4 turns and kept the bulk of his army in the same spot while I moved to control the rest of the board. Again, Inquisitor Toby kept it icey and provided some clutch Prescience buffs.
Game 3 - Dark Eldar/Harlequins (Colby)
Wow. So 2 games in, 2 "Major Victories" against my opponents. Some of it was definitely luck. Some of it was the perfect use of rules given to me (Infiltrate, re-rolling the seize roll, Feel No Pain across the board). I sat at the top table and was about to play a guy that had driven up from Vero Beach.
He had a combination of a Dark Eldar CAD (Archon with 3 Grotesques in a Raider, 2 units of Kabalite Warriors with a Blaster in a Venom) and a Harlequin formation that let him re-roll jink rolls for his bike units (2 wound dudes that seemed to play like Eldar Scat bikes) and a bigger Eldar Vyper looking vehicle with a Haywire blaster.
The mission was The Relic out of the rule book. I knew if I did not grab the relic in the first turn, he could easily move up bikes and block any chance at getting the Relic. The game would go to secondary objectives where I'd potentially lose to First Blood and Line Breaker (he had a fast, hard hitting, and mobile army). As in all my other games, my opponent deployed first and I went second and seized on him. Again, I gained the warlord trait to give me Infiltrate and I deployed 18" away from his Grotesque squad in a Raider and 6" away from the Relic. First turn I walked up with my Centurion squad and grabbed the relic. My opponent knew that it was pretty much game at that point. I was fine with sacrificing every other unit at this point. If I could destroy the Grotesques, I would be fine as he'd have to focus everything on trying to taking out my Centurions. He did have poison weaponry in spades. But Coteaz got what I had wanted all day.
Invisibility.
Turn 1 my squad was invisible. Still Colby charged his Grots into the squad and faced -1 Toughness and rolled a 2 for my Psychotroke Grenades. I auto-hit him (already almost a given as I had Invisibility). He could only hit at most 1 time with each guy. He was forced to fall back after the combat. I finished off his Grotesques and it was only a matter of time before the game ended with me holding the Relic. Even then, I had gotten First Blood and my Chaplain was sitting safely in the squad of Centurions. Final score 5-1.
MVP of the Match - Coteaz. This guy allowed me to seize. Gave me Invisibility. That ensured I would not lose.
So all in all I finished 3-0 and won some store credit for winning the tournament. I bought my Triumvirate of the Imperium set with the Belasarius Cawl (sp?), St. Celestine, and the female Inquisitor from the recent Fall of Cadia book. I had a great time playing all 3 games. I would say that I definitely had luck on my side as I successfully got the rolls and warlord traits I needed when I needed them. I also always had just enough rolls to force armor saves, morale checks, and made enough It Will Not Die or Feel No Pain rolls to keep my units up.
I think the owner of Strangeway Games (Skip) is great and I really applaud him for having built up the community there. I really enjoyed playing there and look forward to returning for other games in the future (not only 40K). Winning was definitely nice as I hadn't played since some time after BeakyCon last year and I didn't think I would do nearly as well as I did.
Hrmmmm...so far so good on my goals. I got 3 games in and I managed to play in a tournament. I know my yearly goals haven't kicked off yet but it doesn't hurt to get started early. I was really impressed with how well the Centurions performed. Lack of mobility definitely hurt me, but in most games they still had a decent threat range to at the very least cause my opponent to dedicate fire to them or avoid them. When I originally started thinking of the tournament MVP for my list, I had decided it was Inquisitor Toby...but his superior (Inquisitor Coteaz) definitely was the game changer. I can't depend on seizing every game (in fact, most games I'm content to go 2nd and figure out the objective situation). But in this case it allowed me to apply early pressure and never let up.
In general, there is a lot of utility with my 2 Inquisitors. This is definitely a list I'd like to flesh out a bit more. I do like my Command Squad death star and all it offers, but the Centurions give me some more firepower outside of close combat. Chaplain Royceefus performed well. He got some great Warlord traits and provided a good source of +1 to FNP all the while making sure my main squad never fled the battle field.
"Come at me bro..."
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