Gamer's Sanctuary 40k Tournament Wrap Up

Cereberus, Valace2, and I attended a WH40k tournament at Gamer's Sanctuary on Saturday. The tournament was for 2250 point army lists with standard FOC. It started out a bit rocky as there was a heated discussion about allowing Forge World Imperial Armour units. I personally do not have an issue with them in any game, but the rules link on the calendar stated no IA units allowed. So I sided with those arguing against including them this time. Sorry Joe, no 3x Lucius Drop Pods for you!

I have had success lately with my mech Blood Angels in tournaments with top five placings. For this tournament, I decided to try double Stormravens one more time to see if I could get that elusive 1st place. From my original practice list against Mike's Tyranids, I decided to swap out a Land Raider for Mephiston for fun. It felt epic enough to include a high cost character at this points level. The rest was the usual fast and furious stuff that Blood Angels are (in)famous for. I like to run balanced lists between shooty and punchy.

2250 Blood Angels
HQ:  Mephiston, Lord of Death
El:  Sanguinary Priest
El:  Furioso Dreadnought, Blood Talons (Contemptor counts-as)
El:  5x Assault Terminators (4x TH/SS)
Tr:  5x Assault marines, Melta, Razorback TLAC, searchlight
Tr:  5x Assault marines, Melta, Razorback TLAC, searchlight
Tr:  5x Assault marines, Flamer, Razorback, LasTLPlas, searchlight
Tr:  5x Assault marines, Flamer, Razorback, LasTLPlas, searchlight
Tr:  5x Assault marines, PW, Melta
FA: Baal Predator, HB sponsons
FA: Baal Predator, HB sponsons
Hv: Stormraven, TLMM, TLPlasma Cannon
Hv: Stormraven, TLMM, TLPlasma Cannon
Hv: Predator, Lascannon Sponsons

Sadly, like many tournaments in the twilight of 5th edition, there was a lot of power armor in attendance. From the 9 players that showed up, only two were not MEQ (3x Grey Knights, 1x Blood Angels, 2x Codex Marines, 1x Chaos Marines, 2x Imperial Guard). I play at Gamer's Sanctuary a lot. It was nice to see some new faces along with the regulars (even if they showed up with GK!). Here's some highlights from my games throughout the day.

Game 1 - Blood Angels versus Chaos Marines
Mission - Primary-Kill Points, Secondary-Table Quarters, Tertiary-Claim Opp Deployment Quarter
Deployment - Spearhead

I got lucky NOT drawing Grey Knights in a kill points game. My opponent had two land raiders, Kharn, Abbadon, 2x noise marine squads, thousands sons squad, obliterators squad, and 2x dreadnoughts.  I have had a lot of success in the past against Chaos Marines players, but I made sure not to be overconfident. My opponent was a veteran who usually plays Orks and won tournaments with them. I won the roll to go first and deployed everything in my table quarter.  My opponent decided to reserve everything.  For the first two turn I scooted about waiting for his reserves.

I setup on the side with more terrain - it was very light on his side

Tanks popping smoke and Stormravens going flat out on top of turn 2

Turn 2 shooting from the oblits and dreadnought was pretty good, popping a razorback and immobilized a Stormraven.  Kharn popped out solo and started doing "Kharn" stuff. However my shooting counter attack was brutal on his army. I was able to focus fire as his army trickled in the following turns.

Blood Angels counter attack shooting was brutal to his army

The Furioso managed to tie up Abaddon this game while I shot up the rest of his army

The game went to turn seven and I won the primary and secondary objectives. I almost tabled his army (only Abaddon was left). One low point for me was his TS sorcerer wounding Mephiston then killing him with his Force weapon! It was the beginning of a bad day for Mephiston. Overall, a fun game and my opponent was a great sport. Chaos will have their revenge soon, I think.

Game 2 Blood Angels versus Grey Knights
Mission - Primary-Objectives (6), Secondary-Kills points, Tertiary-Opponent's Table Side Objectives
Deployment -Dawn of War

In game two I was matched up against Valace2 and his Grey Knights. He was running Coteaz, a Librarian, tech marine, 2x Stormravens, Vindicare Assassin, Terminators, 3x strike squads?+razorbacks,2x Dreadnoughts with 2xTLAC.  Valace2 won the roll to go first, but gave me first turn. I find Dawn of War awesome for mobile Blood Angels. I did make a big deployment mistake sticking Mephiston out in the middle of the table. The game started out rough for me but I managed to turn the tide around turn 3. Valace2 had some bad dice luck this game as Perils of the warp did a  lot of self inflicted wounds to his army.

Pew pew - Air superiority war between Red and Silver Stormravens

Oops, Mephiston learns Mindstrike missiles are defensive weapons that cause PotW

My FNP Assault Terminators were good against Str4 shooting, not so much against massed force weapons

Amidst the wreckage of the air war - ground forces duke it out

This game came down to me losing a lot of assaults, falling back from Termies that couldn't pursue, and counter attacking with massed shooting.  I don't think I stayed locked in a single combat, which worked out great for me. Valace2 had some bad dice luck, but ultimately I had more scoring units driving around in fast metal boxes which helped me win this high objective game.

Game 3 Blood Angels versus Grey Knights
Mission - Primary- #Units Opposite Deployment, Secondary-KP, Tertiary-Center Obj HQ only
Deployment -Pitched Battle

My opponent was playing a Draigowing list with 20 Paladins (with unique wargear), Librarian, Vindicare Assassin, 2x Dreadnouts with 2xTLAC. This was my first time against Draigo and his wound-allocation-Paladins (outside of Apoc), but I have seen it played enough to know what to expect. I was pretty concerned with my lack of ranged Str8 shooting for this game.I hoped to at least take out a few by launching all my Bloodstrike missiles at them.  I didn't get the chance though because I won the roll to go first, but my opponent seized the initiative. This was a good indication to me of how his dice rolling was going to go this game as his rending rolls were out of this world. Boom boom from the vindicare and dreadnoughts, one Stormraven wrecked, the other immobilized.  Psycannons from the Paladins wrecked a Baal and immobilized a razorback.

Super shooting Paladins, with stealth, in cover.....Awesome times, NOT

Ominous start to the game as Grey Knights seize

 

I am no Mathhammer expert, but I had a lot of WTF moments this game watching the results of his dice

March of the Penguins Paladins starts on turn 3

Things started getting a bit heated this game and the TO was involved a lot. My opponent did claim before the game that this was his fourth ever time playing 40k (LOL, what?), but never asked anything about my how my army worked and seemed to know most of the rules fairly well. Though I made a mistake thinking I could match guns with him at range 24", I was smart enough to know that the primary objective was getting more units (scoring or otherwise) into the opponents deployment zone. His left flank was completely open and I pushed just enough stuff into his deployment to park there while he hosed down the rest of my army with psycannons. Mephiston did launch an assault on Draigo at one point. I knew Mephy would die, but Draigo had taken one wound and I thought Mephiston could put three more before he got waxed. No matter, as my opponent laughed and confidently made all five invuln saves from wounds Mephiston put on him . So the game went on with his intent of taking the secondary and tertiary objectives (kill points, and center HQ objective claiming).  As a good sportsman on turn six, I told my opponent that I could contest the center objective held by Draigo by my moving my Predator flat out to within 6". This caused him a lot of grief, even though it was pretty clear in the mission packet and confirmed by the TO.  Nonetheless, he still had one chance to wreck it in assault from Draigo by hitting on 6s. Thankfully, his dice finally failed him and I won on battle points 16-15 on turn seven.  Since he seized, going last actually helped me this game with that last flat-out objective contesting.

Whew, what a day. Anyway, wow I came in first place! First time in awhile for me. MVPs of the day were the Baal Predators. Why did I stop taking these?  There were definitely putting the hurt on more than I remember.  As for Mephiston, back in the case for now.

Hope you enjoyed the wrap up.   Next up on the my 5th edition bucket list, win a tournament with Tau!!!