Mini-Tournament Brief Report

This was a small local tournament (I think 14 people showed up for it) so I could play with my unpainted Imperial Guard army which was a very good thing. It was raining heavy today and it was hard getting out of bed but I couldn't let this stop me. I took a taxi and headed down to Fantasy Shop Kallithea.

So my first game was Seize Ground (5 objectives) with Spearhead. I played against a young guy (I guess less than 20 years old but who knows with kids these days) who had a Space Marine Librarian with 5 Assault Terminators inside a Land Raider (damn, now that I think of it they couldn't all fit in there, right?), 2 Tactical Squads with Rhinos, 5 man tactical with Razorback, 3 Vindicators, and Land Speeder Typhoon.

I started well Scouting the Vendetta with the Company Command Squad near the Land Raider and blowing it up. My luck went downhill from there and I just couldn't kill any of his vehicles. I don't think I rolled anything higher than a "3" for about 10 damage table rolls. We didn't have enough time so the game ended on the 3rd turn with each one having 1 objective. Not very good since the list seemed easy to beat. In retrospect the game went so slow because the guy was questioning rules all the time, i.e. he thought Terminators could do sweeping advances and other similar stuff, so we ended up losing valuable playing time looking through the rulebook. I think I should be firmer next time I have an opponent like him. After a couple of times I proved him wrong I should tell him to suck it up and keep on playing. Sounds harsh, I know, but I think it's unfair not finishing your games properly because of this.

Second game I played against Space Marines again in a Secure and Control with Dawn of War mission. Vulkan, loads of Razor backs and Rhinos with Sternguard and Tactical squads filled with meltas and flamers and 2 Vindicators (do people think Vindies are good?).

I manage to flank him using a few bait units and reserving my troops. In the beginning I was really failing to penetrate his vehicles but still managed to stun lock them. In the last few turn his right flank (where his objective was) completely collapsed after I killed all his 3 Razorbacks that were parked there and the units inside failed their Pinning tests one after another. He had really bad dice rolling at that point. That took me the chance and contested his objective and I denied his other one with a cheeky Chimera.

Last game I played against a really cool guy (well he knew of Nordor so he must be cool). He played Daemons so he was at a major disadvantage against me (with Officer and the Mystics and the shooting and stuff). He had a Bloodthirster, a Keeper of Secrets , 3 x 7 Plaguebearers, 2 x 3 Flamers, 3 x Daemon Princes of Nurgle.

Haven't played Daemons yet with my guard but the principle of beating them seemed simple to me. I just deployed pretty much everything in one side with the Vendetta (Inquisitor embarked) at about 10'' from my heavy hitting tanks. That would deter him to deep strike anywhere near. I placed the Bane Wolf and a Chimera on the other side of the board to bait him.

Bait seemed to work since he deepstriked everything quite far away. This gave me enough time to shoot at everything before they got the chance to get into close combat with me. The rest of his units arrived piecemeal (-1 to reserves) and got shot before they could do anything. By the end of the game he had a few Plaguebearers left and he killed only one unit of mine.

I finished second at the tournament, which is good enough I guess but I am not happy about the first game. I have to get my act together and learn how to play fast enough for tournaments. Overall a good experienced even though I got completely knackered again.