Mini-Tournament
This past Sunday I got the opportunity to run a tournament at Discordia Games in Bremerton, Washington. The tournament was using the 40k in 40 minutes ruleset, and I brought along a Ringer army, just in case there were an odd number of people. It was a good thing that I'd painted up my Genestealers, since 9 people showed up. So, not only did I get to run a tournament and meet a bunch of good guys, I also got to play some fun games!
I used a Tyranid force for this tournament. It consisted of:
1 Brood of 7 Genestealers.
1 Brood of 17 Spitters (Mutated Gaunts with Leaping, S4, I5, A2 and Bioplasma) with one Hive Node.
There seemed to be a pretty good mix of armies, though it favored marine types. One Eldar (Iyanden) 1 Imperial Guard, 2 Necrons, 1 Space Wolves, 1 Blood Angels, 1 Chaos Marines and 2 Codex Space Marine forces, I believe.
1st Opponent: Space Marines.
10xTactical Marines w/MSL and a special weapon
Chaplain with Crozius and pistol
5xAssault Marines, vet sgt w/Plasma Pistol and Powerfist.
Scenario: This is Heavy, Doc! (Random gravitational fluctuations each turn. Add or subtract 1d6" movement.
I set up behind some cover and worked my way forward. Random gravity got my Gaunt squad stuck in front of the Assault Marines for a turn, but he didn't take the bait, just shot at them. (I'm sure he didn't want to get closer to the Genestealers or let them charge him outside of difficult terrain.) When the Gaunts were able to move again, they whipped past the Assault marines and into the Tacticals with the Chaplain, while the Genestealers managed to get into contact with the Assault marines. A couple of turns later, the Veteran Assault Sergeant managed to make the last two Genestealers run away and gunned them down, while the Chaplain finished off the last of the Gaunts which had finished eating the tactical squad. Loss, but about 270 points, so not bad.
2nd Opponent: Imperial Guard.
1 Platoon of 3 Squads and a Command Section.
(Cmd Section had Bolters and a Lieutenant w/Powersword, Squads had Missile Launchers, not sure about special weapons.)
Scenario: Planetfall. Players alternate deploying, but use Deepstrike for every model. Any models that would be lost in the warp or deviate off the board are put in reserve to enter later.
Since he only had 1 choice on the force organization chart, he would have had to all deploy at once. I didn't feel this was totally right, so I let him split it up. He dropped a squad on a hill and I dropped my Genestealers nearby, hoping to use the hill to block Line of Sight to other squads. He then dropped the command squad in between the Genestealers and the 1st squad. I took the bait and dropped my Gaunts nearby and he then dropped the other 2 squads about 24" away.
Although he got in a turn of shooting (no assaulting after deepstriking) the Genestealers went against the command squad with fairly predictable results. (Though the Lt. Managed to kill a Genestealer and survive for a couple of rounds, then run away, leading the Genestealers further from the battle. Notably, they didn't get to rejoin the battle, so they really only took down the command squad. The Gaunts zipped forward and engaged the first squad, eating them quickly, and only taking a little firing before being able to engage the far two squads. The Gaunts took down everybody else, though a badly outnumbered but plucky missile team managed to take down 2 gaunts right before the end. I think I ended up with 2 Genestealers and about 9 Gaunts in this battle, but they ate his entire army. A win with 390-some points. This battle would have been a harder win, but his dice deserted him. Of something like 8 Missile Launcher shots, precisely 1 hit. At one point, I insisted he use my dice instead, and he got slightly better results.
3rd Opponent: Iyanden.
Warlock with Enhance (since he couldn't field a Farseer, I felt it was in the spirit of the tournament and rules to let him field a single Warlock to guide the Wraithguard)
10 Wraithguard(I think it was 10)
Scenario: Carpe Ranam (available here at Warpstorm!) A figure that is placed in the center of the board is the objective. Although you can move nearby the figure, any shooting or assaulting within 6" of it will cause it to jump 2d6" in a random direction.
His Wraithguard and Warlock set up centrally on his side, and I set up to move around a set of central obstacles and flank him. He got in a single turn of shooting at the Genestealers, but it wasn't enough. Between them and the Gaunts, who nickel and dimed him to death, the Wraithguard and Warlock slowly died, though not without taking out all the Genestealers and about half of the Gaunts. A win with 390+ VPs.
A very close tournament The First place winner was only 12pts ahead of 2nd place and there were a lot of good sports out there, but only one got max points on his sportsmanship! (Still only won by a point, though) The Guard player I had in my second game was the best sport and, personally, I think he'd make a great Outrider. Overall, this was a good tournament with pretty good support from the store. It had a nice turnout and fun people, and they were all excited enough about it that I'll be doing it again on June 20th, so if you're in Bremerton then, stop by 810 Sixth Street (the big greenish-blue building) and go through the door next to the 7-11. Discordia is just upstairs and we'll be starting at 12:30. Tell them I sent you.
If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know