Warhammer 40,000 1,000-point tournament

Today we had a great 1,000-point tournament in Dreamers Vault, Minneapolis, Hiawatha Avenue. If you ever happen to be in the area, please come down there! It's a great place with awesome people. An excellent community who's always willing to have a game with you and teach you the rules. And it so happened that they held a 1,000-point tournament today, for the regulars to have fun!

And it was fun.

I came late, not expecting to be able to take part in the tournament. After all, it was slated to begin from 10am to 6pm, and I had stuff to do in the morning. So I arrived in the afternoon with nothing but my Valkyrie sprues, ready to buy glue, a new Citadel case (because the old one broke), and spend it building my Valkyrie. However, I was allowed to participate in the tournament later in the afternoon because one of the guys had to leave and they were generous enough to offer me his spot. So I took it. But I didn't bring my army, so I had to borrow one from someone. Again, one of the guys was kind enough to lend me his Imperial Guard army because he was playing Space Marines. I really appreciate it, and I can't express my gratitude enough.

I borrowed 4 Leman Russ tanks to build a Spearhead Detachment and give them Objective Secured. Heh, come on. All of you know by now what a big fan of tanks I am. I've been playing Armored company since 7th Edition. And then I rounded up the points with a Valkyrie assault carrier. My list comprised of a Tank Commander in a Leman Russ main battle tank with a lascannon and multimeltas, 3 Leman Russ Executioners with plasma cannon sponsons - 2 with lascannons, 1 with heavy bolters. The Valkyrie came with Hellstrike missiles, a lascannon and 2 heavy bolters.

Match 1

My first opponent was Chaos Space Marines, Word Bearers Legion that featured a Bloodthirster, a Daemon Prince, 10 Cultists, Chaos Spawn, a Hellbrute with multimelta and a single Chaos Predator with autocannons and lascannons. The mission was Cleanse and Control/Conquer or something like that, where we drew 3 tactical objectives and try to fulfil them as the game went on. Every time we accomplish one objective, we generate a new one. Stuff like that.

My opponent drew control Objective marker 1 for 2 turns, Blood and Guts (Destroy a unit) and another control Objective but roll a D6 to decide which one, and if he snatches it from me, he scores D3 victory points instead. I drew control Objective marker 2 for 2 turns, Blood and Guts as well and Assassinate (kill a character).

I ended up going first, and without further ado, I opened up all my tanks on the Chaos Predator and destroyed it. First Blood, and Blood and Guts for me. The heavy bolters on the Valkyrie cleared off a few Chaos Cultists, maybe half of them, and then the last Executioner put a wound or two on the Hellbrute.

My opponent then moved all his guys forward, advancing his Daemon Prince and Bloodthirster. His Hellbrute opened fire with his multi-melta on one of my tanks, only to roll a 3 to wound. So nothing happened. He captured Objective 1, but of course couldn't claim it until the next turn. As for the random objective, he rolled a 4, which was the objective one of my tanks were sitting on. Objective Secured Leman Russ tank, I might add.

With the Bloodthirster so close to my tanks, I got super-nervous, and pumped every shot from my 2 tanks and Valkyrie into it. Despite having a 5++ invulnerable save, it only made 1 of those out of more than 12 (maybe 18?) wounds, and died. My opponent's rolling was so horrid and unlucky I actually felt sorry for him. Meanwhile, the heavy bolters erased the remaining Chaos Cultists, and my last 2 Leman Russ Executioners blew up the Helbrute, leaving only the Chaos Spawn. That netted me Assassinate and Slay the Warlord, and by now I had controlled Objective 2 for 2 consecutive turns. I had generated capture Objective 3, but obviously there was no way I was going to move my tank forward. Speaking of which, he had a single Daemon Prince capturing Objective 3, and the poor guy died to plasma as well. By the end of my shooting in turn 2, the only unit my opponent had was Chaos Spawn, who couldn't do anything - even recapturing Objective 1 would result in them being shot to death by my Leman Russ tanks.

I had all but essentially tabled my opponent. Not only that, he failed to put a single wound on any of my tanks. The only damage my Leman Russ tanks suffered were the mortal wounds caused by me supercharging plasma cannons and Executioner cannons and despite the Cadian re-rolls of ones I ended up rolling those ones a second time. Oh well. That was pretty one-sided to the point I felt absolutely sorry for my opponent and wished he had made more invulnerable saves rather than the single one for the Bloodthirster.

Match 2

This time my opponent was Tyranids. He brought a Swarm Lord with Genestealers, Hive Tyrant, Tyranid Warriors, Hormagaunts, a Carnifex and a Mawloc. This time, the game was Big Guns Never Tire. That made me nervous because my army was essentially Heavy Support based, hence giving away a lot of points to my opponent.

Even though I was supposed to start first, my opponent stole the Initiative, and then moved and advanced his Tyranids toward me. His Mawloc Deep Struck but I rolled 2 ones in a row and it failed to put any mortal wounds on them. Holy Terra, thank the Emperor. But now I had a monstrous creature in my backlines bearing down on 2 of my tanks. The Genestealers charged, and I killed a couple of them in overwatch. Not bad.

My turn came and I basically killed the Mawloc and the Carnifex with lots of shooting. I also wiped out the Genestealers and took out a couple of Hormagaunts. Obviously I refused to budge, but with a bunch of bugs descending upon my tanks' positions, things weren't looking good.

The Hormagaunts charged, and I used Defensive Gunners Stratagem, and wiped them out in overwatch. Yeah. Hilarious. The Swarmlord charged, and this time it wasn't funny because it made it in. The Hive Tyrant and the Tyranid Warriors failed their charges, though. The Swarlord than ripped my poor Leman Russ Executioner open in combat, leaving him with just 2 wounds.

I then had my injured Leman Russ Executioner fall back toward the Tyranid Warriors, and opened fire. I annihilated the Tyranid Warriors and Swarmlord. But because the Hive Tyrant was out of view from 2 of my tanks, I couldn't fire on him.

In the third turn, with only the Hive Tyrant remaining, my opponent used smite to destroy my injured Leman Russ Executioner. He then charged my Tank Commander, and I used the Defensive Gunners Stratagem again. This time, I killed the Hive Tyrant in overwatch, and...that was it. My opponent was tabled by turn 3. Another fairly one-sided game, but at least this time my opponent succeeded in taking out a single Leman Russ tank!

So I ended the tournament with 2 victories and 0 losses. Not bad. I was pretty lucky to come up against fairly new opponents. If I had been matched against experienced, skilled opponents like the Tau guy who has always been beating me in the past, I would have lost. Speaking of which, I should prepare for my rematch against him next week. I have yet to post Battle Report 17, but that was a match where I lost to him last week. I was too busy last Saturday and over the weekdays to write abut it, and when I wanted to write about it today, I had to update the blog on today's tournament.

Once again, I welcome you guys to visit Dreamers Vault for Warhammer 40,000 stuff and games. It's a great place, and the people there are really nice!