Today the local Hobbytown hosted a Warhammer 40k tournament. The turn out was just ok! It drew only 4 people but a bunch of others came in late. The issue was people did not hear much about the event due to some issues with the dates and turning in the army list before the day of the event. I am sure the next event in April will have a much better tournament turn out. It was a 1250 point game. Annihilation was the game type and standard deployment. The strange part of the scoring was what you had left on the board at the end of game.
The 4 armies were
John-- Orks. I have never played John before, I have seen him up at the store before and I knew he had an Ork army. However since I know Orks really do not stand much of a chance against my Eldar, I didn't pay much attention to his army. Well today I had the wonderful opportunity to play John in the 1st round.
Johann-- Eldar. Great the other only player that plays Eldar in the local area comes up to my Tournament! He has the audacity to play the Eldar. PPPFTT! His list was different then mine. It was full of bikes, a seer council on bikes, and a few fire prisms.
James-- Dark Eldar. I figured for sure James would be playing blood angels but he decided to play Dark Eldar, When I heard that I damn near begged to play him in the first round. I have no issues playing the darker side of the master race. If I have initiative, I would rape his armor off the board.
Me-- Eldar. I was feeling very uneasy about this list but after seeing the mission type I knew I can play extremely aggressive and use my speed to my advantage. My list was.
Avatar
3 squads of fire dragons 8,8,7 all in wave serpents with scatter lasers.
2 dire avenger squads of 5 both in Falcons with scatter and Pulse lasers.
1st round match up Johann vs James, John vs Me
I was busy playing my game but Johann vs James was a 6 turn blood bath. I believe both had less then 200 points standing and the victor was James and the Dark Eldar. Johann rolled horribly with the seer council and didnt take out much before it became a melee war.
John had won initiative I was just fine with that. His list was.
BattleWagon with a big nasty smelly ork with a forefield. ( most aggravating thing in his army)
Truk with a big gun.
3 small meks
1 big mek
big stinking ork on a big chopper bike. ( pretty cool model.)
30 man squad of dark green orks.
Before the game I noticed John was aggravated with some road rage issues on the way to the game. Could I use this to my advantage? John kept his army in one tight group. Moving them together in every turn. His big bike guy would run around to get his 3+ cover save. He targeted my Avatar early and often. My first turn was nothing short of poop filled shooting. Nothing destroyed nothing gained. John had to be happy about that. If it was not for that stupid force field I would of popped both trucks and his bike guy. He made at least 6 saves to saves his armor.
2nd Turn He spent more time moving his guys than anything else. Blah blah move together, shoot zap gun. If my armor was 11 he would of glanced it all day. However its 12 and the sounds of ding, ding, ding continued ringing off my tanks for his shooting phase. He did throw another would on the avatar which was stupid. My 2nd turn is where the fire works started popping up. Boom, goes the truck! couple more wounds on the big biker, a small mek pops and explodes killing a boy, and the avatar charges in killing 2 more small meks. That god damn force field cover save did save his other meks another round or 2 (5 more saves).
3rd turn John moves all together to try and kill the avatar which he spent way to much resources to do but he killed it. That was really it. My 3rd turn I basically moved in some dragons as bait to open more chances for my others to get some more points. I tried to blow up the battle wagon, but a full squad of fire dragons tried blowing it up but the cover save ate up the shots. very disappointing. Killed some more orks, but nothing big.
4th turn John kept turtling but, he took the bait. I lost the fire dragons but I was able to reposition some stuff to take down more points. He also blew off one of my Pulse lasers and a scatter laser from wave serpent. I moved around killing 2 squads of Orks, giving me the point advantage. Took the big bike guy down another series of wounds.
5th turn he moved shot and hit nothing, ding, ding, ding. and I shot some more orks and won the game by 80 points. A very close game but it ended on turn 5. If he had a chance to gain points on force field cover save attempts and converts he would of won.
3rd place game John vs Johann. John won, he steam rolled the Eldar while lol'ing in his trucks.
final Me vs James.
I had the I tinitiative. Set up in case of a steal, When he did not I knew I had this. I moved everyone just enough for some decent range shots. His raiders and ravager had 5+ cover saves with a night shield i believe it was. Well I opened fire, playing very aggressive. I broke 2 raiders and killed some troops. Took the main weapon off the ravager and was smiling from ear to ear. I ran the Avatar up to basically eventually tie up the dark eldar troops till all the armor was destroyed. James said, well at least I got 2nd place and 50bucks. I was like yeah man. He took some shots and they were all saved or went DING!
2nd turn, I kept moving forward. Shooting down the ravager and more ground guys. I took away some shots to basically reposition everyone for some just in case something goes wrong. I charged the Avatar in killing a couple guys but since I rolled 3 1's on damage rolls 3 people lived. The avatar took nothing back but tied up one squad. James really knew the game was over. He just wanted to play it out for morale, He wanted to kill the avatar. Good luck. 50 attacks on the Avatar, and he took 1 wound. That Archon bitch is a joke. The Avatar hit her 5 times and got nothing with her stupid 2+ save. Fire Dragons took down some warriors on both sides leaving the assault with the avatar left.
3rd turn James was 8 models away from being tabled. I moved in all my fire power to make a hornets nest around the melee. The Avatar killed 5 more guys. But was taken down on the opponents assault. After consolidating. They turned around to see 16 fire dragons, 3 wave serpents and 2 falcons ready to fire on their position.
4th Turn. As I picked up my dice to open fire, A hand was extended across the table signifying a defeat to the Dark Eldar.
The hard part was choosing the items I wanted to buy with my brand new gift certificate. A Wave Serpent and a box of Fire Dragons.
