Well, I did it. I jumped back in to the competitive tournament scene with both feet, and swam surprisingly well despite having been almost 2 years since my last "major" tournament. I played with my mechanized Volscani 4th traitor Imperial Guard in the Buckeye Battles RTT today along with a couple of other guys from the Armoury. Richard and Tim. While I can't remember score specifics, the both did really well too.
Game 1 is always an unknown in these things because you start out with no indication of how your day is going to go. Contrary to my usual negative self, I decided that dammit, I was gonna have a good day, socres be damned. Brian, my first opponent played eldar from a flotilla instead of a craftworld. He called them the "Featherblade Strikeforce". I really liked his cool teal color with a warm bone trim. Nice army, super nice guy. While I don't remember specific units he had one wave serpent and one falcon, the rest was on foot. I won first turn and started peeling his infantry half a squad at a time. The deployment was a slightly modified spearhead with a 9 inch radius center circle. Table quarter deployment allowed me to place poor Brian's foot eldar mostly in the open. Since there were 5 objectives I had decided to hold 3 and blow him off the other 2. This worked out well until turn 4 when his stupid fast tanks flew right over to my objectives....grrrr. Long story short I managed to pull a minor victory, but killed enough of his stuff to make it a major victory. Max score of 50 first round.
Game 2 was against Eric from the Soldiery, another FLGS in north Columbus. Three objective mission with 12 inch long board edge deployment. He had Nurgle chaos marines. 3 10 man plague marine units on foot, lord with nurgle mark and daemon weapon, 6 obliterators and a unit of 10 terminators with reaper, combi flamer and combi melta. Lots of sickness...no pun intended. What should have been a much harder game for me turned easier thanks to Eric's astoundingly bad dice rolls. I think he killed one tank the whole game....in close combat....Game over after 5 turns, 2 objectives to none, major victory for me.
Game 3 saw me *GASP* in a 4 way tie for first place!!!!! WOW that has NEVER happened to me before. I drew Jason Garner as my last opponent...oh no, my unicorn....(long story). He plays Eldar with Eldrad and a 10 man council.....ICK. This was a kill point mission, with 16 inch long board edge deployment. I can give up 25 kill points the way this mission was written, so it was dicey to start. Since I had 2 psyker battle squads, a full 320 of my 1750 was completely useless before we even deployed. Eldrad has runes that force psychic tests to be 3 dice....'nough said. Then he got first turn and killed both Demolishers before I could use them.... it did go reasonably well from there, but I just could not recover from the first turn handicap. In the end it was 10 kill points to 4, a 10 point Major loss.
I loved the tournament and had a great time. Apparently that showed because I took home the best sportsman award. I think that was the best award there, and I am extremely proud of it. You all humbled me by awarding me with it, so a hearty thank you, I am glad you had as good a time against me as I had playing you!!
So what did I take away? Simple 2 things, play to enjoy it. It shows and if your goal is fun, then you win regardless of your final scores. 2. im dropping one psyker squad and the HQ I took this time for a smaller HQ and adding either an executioner or a second Manticore.....my prize for the day. Haven't decided yet. LOL
Thanks to the guys running the event, Chris, Parker, Daniel, Doug, and all the rest. It was well run, smooth and above all FUN!!! (oh and MegaDave you still owe me that game!!)
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