Zen 40K: September 2012

A couple weekends ago I drove out to beautiful Pullman, WA for a first year grand tournament put on by the DMB club. It was a great weekend of gaming with a bunch of enthusiastic folks. The tournament was located in a community center gym with lots of open space for air to circulate. The format was great, with five missions straight out of the book (left out Emperor's Will) and overall scoring being 1/3 battle, 1/3 sports, and 1/3 painting. This format harkened back to the old Game Workshop sponsored GTs that I enjoyed so much in my youth. I decided to bring the Ib Dynasty, as the army was freshly finished, and my current favorite. Here is the list I used:

Destroyer Lord w/ Sempiternal Weave, Mindshackle Scarabs, Resurrection Orb

Troops

10*Immortals w/ Tesla

5*Warriors w/ Night Scythe

Fast Attack

7*Canoptek Scarabs

6*Wraiths w/ 1*Coils

Heavy Support

Annihilation Barge

Doom Scythe

Allies

Rune Priest w/ Living Lightning, Jaws

5*Grey Hunters w/ Meltagun

=2000

Game 1 * Crusade * Dawn of War

v. Armour 13 Wall Necrons
James had an awesome Stargate themed Necron army with a bunch of vehicles.It consisted of two Overlords in Barges, 4x 7 Warriors in an Ark, 5 Warriors in Scythe, three Annihilation Barges, and two Doom Scythes. So that meant I was playing the only other army there that had three flyers or more and basically the closest thing to a mirror match there was there (except his was much better head to head, for sure). A basic flaw of my army is the ability to deal with armour 13+ beyond the Destroyer Lords and the Arks were just too much for me. He killed the Wraiths and Lords turn 2 (they wrecked a single Ark and didn't make any Everliving) and then it was pretty much done. I plinged a ton of S7 off his armour as he whittled down what I had left. His flyers proved to be better dogfighters than mine. I ended up getting Warlord and Linebreaker (with a bottom turn Scythe disembark) while James claimed three Objectives and got all secondaries, winning 12-2.

Game 2 * Big Guns Never Tire * Vanguard Strike

v. Space Wolves
Fernando had an awesome Space Wolves army with a bunch of Grey Hunters (in Rhino, Razorback, and Land Raider) backed up by a Rifleman, a couple Long Fangs (missled out) in an Aegis and lone Thunder Lord; all led by Rune Priest Loki! (below). A large building cut LOS between our deployment zones. I got two objectives in my zone while he got one in his. Fernando had Turn 1 and performed a general advance, moving his Thunder Lord up behind the building and the bulk of his Grey Hunters bearing down on my troops (one squad held back with Loki). My Wraith unit hopped on the Lord and killed him in a couple rounds (his AP3 combat weapon meant most of his hits bounced off the Destroyer Lord).

Turn two my flyers came in and I used the LOS blocking building to avoid Interceptor fire from his quad gun. The Doom Scythe iced his Land Raider and Razorback and the Immortals cut some swathes out of his Troops. The Wraiths, having won their combat, started pressuring his objective and charging Long Fangs. The game was mostly over Turn 3 as I had negated his ability to deny my deployment zone objectives. 8-4 win for the Necrons (2 Primary+Linebreaker/First Blood v. 1 Primary+Warlord).

Cleaning up them Wolves

Game 3 * Purge the Alien * Vanguard Strike

v. Mech Guard
Played against Pat and his awesome Imperial Guard on this sweet @$$ Necron-themed board. Pat had a bunch of squads in Chimeras, a couple Veteran units in Vendettas, a couple Demolishers, Psyker Battle Squad, and some Mortar teams. My Immortal squads didn't do much this game, just hung back and avoided death. The Wraiths, Destroyer Lords, and Scarabs ran at his line and absorbed a bunch of fire power. I insta-killed most of his heavy weapon squads with Tesla destroyers (one for first blood).

Closing in on the lines.

Our flyers had a pretty brutal dogfight with mine gaining the upper hand (through jinks and timely leaving of combat airspace) and the Death Ray going off on his mechanized lines (wrecking 3-4 vehicles). My Wraith/Destroyer Lord unit got into his lines, absorbing 2+ turns of his entire armies shooting, and wrecked two Demolishers. 16-9 win.

Soaking up the firepower.

Game 4 * Relic * Hammer and Anvil

Slay the Warlord!

v. Salamanders
Dan had a great Salamander army with a Terminator Librarian, ten shooting Terminators (double Assault Cannons), three Tactical Squads (one with Rhino), a Thunderfire Cannon, a Predator, a ten man Devastator Squad with missles, and an Aegis with quad gun. For my Warlord trait I got scoring on one of my Destroyer Lords, with first turn this meant I'd be able to grab the Relic immediately. I prioritized his quad gun first, but unfortunately this meant I did not get First Blood. Turn 3 I torrented his entire Terminator Squad and Librarian to death (seen above).

I hadn't played Relic before this game (30+ games of 6th and I hadn't ever rolled it!) and did not realize that you did not control it by being within 3" of it. This meant I didn't realize how important placement of the Relic within my unit mattered. This meant that the Immortal holding the Relic (which I held the whole game) was sniped out at the bottom of turn 5, the game ended, and I snatched a draw was from the jaws of victory 1-1 (First Blood v Warlord) draw. It was still an extremely fun game and Dan (Winterman on many forums) was a great opponent.

Game 5 * The Scouring * Dawn of War

v. Tyranids
Not much to this game really. I was super tired and my opponent seemed pretty put off by the match up, so I was telling him ways to screw my army as we were playing. I'm not sure why I was doing it so much, but it was fun shooting the sh*t. The main thing I did was encourage him to roll rulebook psychic powers (Biomancy) which he hadn't done all day or ever before. The result was enfeebling my Wraith unit and insta-killing them. I also didn't exploit Jaws on him like I could have (only killed one Tervigon). To be completely honest though, even I hadn't helped him this game would have been extremely challenging; my army list just doesn't have enough scoring bodies at 2000 points.

Overall this event was awesome. It was in it's first year but still had 30+ people from three States in attendance. I loved their scoring system (especially their one question Wheaton's Law sports scoring- hahaha) and they were really on the ball. All the rounds started promptly and we didn't have to wait around at all for the final results. The terrain was all top notch and I'm sure it will be even better next year. As for results, I ended up winning Best Painted. There was one army with a higher paint score than mine (a beautiful Black Legion army) but he ended up winning Best Overall, so painting went to me! Here is the awesome Purity Seal award I got: