Tournament Report: June 4th, 2011 40K Tournament at Sci Fi Genre

This past Saturday, I attended a 40K tournament at Sci Fi Genre.  Not having played 40K in a good long while (about six months), I didn't know what to expect going in.  Overall, it ended up being a lot of fun.  I don't have any pictures, but I thought I'd give a quick run down of my games. 

I took some Blood Angels, who I have been slowly painting, as I hadn't tried the new book.  I didn't really have an interest in running a tough net list or anything, and wanted to run the more punchy version of the BA, along with some fast vehicles.  It was an 1850 tournament, and I had:

A No Upgrade Librarian with the 5+ Cover Save and Fear of the Darkness Power
Two Sanguinary Priests, one with a Jump Pack
Two Ten Man Tactical Squads with Missile Launcher and Flamer
A Ten Man Assault Squad with Jump Packs, Power Fist, and Two Flamers
A Ten Man Assault Squad with Jump Packs, Power Fist, and Two Plasma Pistols
An Eight Man Assault Squad with No Jump Packs, Power Fist, and Melta Gun
A Vindicator
A Predator with Lascannons on the Sides and an Autocannon up top.
A Whirlwind
Three Rhinos

All the vehicles had extra armor.

Game One

I played Bart and his Eldar in the first game.  He had:

Eldrad
Maugun Ra
Dark Reapers
2 Units of Fire Dragons, both in Transports
2 Units of Dire Avengers in Transports
Rangers
Striking Scorpions

His tanks all had holofields or the like, which made them hard to kill.  The scenario was kill points, but there were also two objectives to hold.  Bart got first turn and shot forward with Ra and the Fire Dragons.  We had deployed relatively closely on one side of the board.  His first shots all did nothing to me (phew!), and I killed his tanks that had come forward.  He did pop my Vindicator by turn two or three with the Fire Dragons, but the Assault Squad killed Ra, the Fire Dragons, and the Striking Scorpions.  My stuff retreated, and he couldn't get the job done with Eldrad and the Reapers from a distance.  I won the kill points, but he got the secondary objective by contesting one objective and holding the other.  So a pretty good win to me for the start. 

Game Two

My opponent in my second game had a Space Wolf list that I think is a pretty basic internet Razorback spam list.  He had a couple Rune Priests, Long Fangs with Missile Launchers, and Razorbacks with Las/Plas turrets.  Our objectives involved getting things to the middle of the board.  Sadly for my opponent, I made my smoke cover saves and managed to get all my stuff to the ruins in the middle of the table, where there was plenty of cover.  The high point of the game for me was when, in succession, I had an assault Marine's pistol blow up a Land Speeder, which cleared a shot for my Predator to blow up his one Rhino, which contained a Wolf Priest and Wolf Guard.  Fear of the Darkness then made that unit run off the board.  The long and short of the game is that I controlled the middle of the board while he had to shoot ineffectively from a distance, and I ended up taking all the points in the game. 

Game Three

The objectives in my third game involved holding four strategic points.  I played an Imperial Guard player who I think again had a pretty typical internet tank list.  I had let him choose our table, and with a sinking heart noticed that he chose the one table in the store that had zero terrain in the middle of the board.  He had:

A Manticore
3 Valkyrie / Vendetta (the kind with the Twin Linked Lascannons)
Three or Four Lemans
A Couple Chimeras with minimum troops.

The deployment was in opposite corners of the board.  I was in the cover of some buildings, but had absolutely no ability to cross the board and get to him.  Fortunately, I had two objectives in my buildings, and a third was nearby. 

This ended up being a really weird game of 40K.  I'm not sure that my opponent had a grasp on the scenario (grab objectives), or perhaps he was just used to ignoring scenarios and blowing his opponent off the table completely.  Apparently, this is what had happened in his first two games, and in several games before.  He was really surprised that I wasn't dead after the second turn.  Our game was pretty much him sitting still and dropping template after template on me, and my guys hugging cover like crazy and controlling the objectives.  The game had a random length, and could go 5, 6, or 7 turns.  On turn five, I controlled two objectives to his zero, but the game didn't end.  On turn six, I controlled three objectives to his one, and the game didn't end.  On turn seven, I finally failed a bunch of 3+ cover saves and was tabled.  I was happy with the result, as I think I outplayed him in what was a terrible set up for my army, but sometimes the dice give out on you.

Anyway, I had a ton of fun playing some 40K.  I was really impressed by the resilience of the Blood Angels army.  The game as always felt a lot less aggressive than playing Fantasy, but I enjoyed it all the same!