Hey All! Moros here!I apologize for the lack of updating as of late, I've been crazy busy getting ready for the 2011 Cabin Fever Tournament and shoveling snow!
Well my first tournament was an experience that's for sure! It was really great to hang out with some fellow gamers for the weekend and throw down the dice. I personally want to thank Rich for running the event and to our own Todd Roy for whippin' up my favorite part of the weekend, the food! Thanks for all the hard work and for being willing to serve instead of play. It is much appreciated!
There was some really good competition out. There were showings from Dark Eldar, Eldar, Sisters of Battle, a few Tyranids, an ork, and a lot of Chaos Space Marines. I got to play my first game against Imperial Guard ever and it was against a good buddy Ross Famous. But believe it or not, there wasn't a single Blood Angel OR Space Wolf player at the entire tournament! I was amazed, I figured that was all I would see.
Lancashire's favored son Brother Cornelius represented well! He amazingly went 4 and 1 and managed to pull out 3rd place overall and best space marine general with his Dark Angels army! Way to go! For your first tournament that is amazing!I however didn't fare so well. Not to be surprised my Thousand Sons themed list was an abysmal failure! I knew from designing the force that I just wouldn't have enough troops to be able to play the objectives of the matches. The real quandary is that if I take enough troops to play objectives - first of all they still can't play objectives cause they aren't really a threat, and second I would lose all the support elements of my army because of the massively overpriced nature of my chosen theme. So, not matter how the cookie crumbled, I was pretty much screwed. So I decided to, in true Chaos fashion, error on the side of killing :)
I stuck with the 3 defilers and the land raider with terminators in support of my 2 thousand son squads with Ahriman. Pretty much the least competitive list ever. I honestly expected to get tabled ever game. But I was surprised how much I did hold my own in pretty much all but one of the games (Ross is a jerk! :P) When it came to the actual fighting and playing portion of the matches I did very well, I for all purposes tabled 3 players (2 of them had a handful of models left and one was tabled 3x over). Which is really surprising to me. I thought sure I would be cowering in a corner the entire weekend under a merciless barrage of guns and assaults and just blown off the board by turn 3. So in that regards I did better than I thought I would which is nice!
But, as I sadly realized... this tournament had nothing to do with actually fighting the enemy. It was pretty much all about objectives objectives objectives and mission shenanigans netting you undeserved points. For instance, getting 500 points for NOT bringing a heavy support choice to a mission changed my draw to a loss. So, I take a risk and bring heavy support choices and am punished for it if I lose a single one whereas my opponent automatically gets 500 points for taking NO risk at all by not fielding any. Honestly, with the newer armies you don't need heavy support options at all, your troops can handle the roll pretty well in most cases. It is a flaw in the mission imo and should be looked at. But hey, that's how it was and that is fine!I did play against two Nurgle Themed armies that spammed Plague Marines all over the place! It was a blast to play against the other chaos codexs and I did very well vs them gaining my only wins of the tournament. I went 2 and 3 for the weekend taking losses to Imperial Guard (Ross!), Steel Thunder Mike's Orks, and the loss to the Space Marines that didn't take a heavy support.
I might be shelving my Chaos Space Marines until they get an update tho, they are just completely inefficient vs any of the newer armies. Especially with my theme. Probably will only be seeing them in a non-competitive nature from now on.
Overall I had a blast playing in the tournament and glad I went. I may not be going to a tournament in the future that is based on point totals tho. I was really put off by the system and felt like it rewards those in "the know" and punishes new players or people that want to do something different. A straight win/loss tournament is something I would like to try next to see how it varies.
-- Here are some Pics from the weekend --
Fighting against the Death Guard in game 5! I still can't get the stink off!
Ross Famous' Imperial Guard command squad holding a fortified position!
