Greek GT Brief Report

This years attendance for Fantasy Shop 40k event seemed pretty good. I think 34 people turned up which is very good for Greek standards. Definitely the biggest tournament in Greece at the moment. It might not sound much compared to some tournaments in North America or Europe but don't forget that Greece is a small country and 40k is not that popular.

So, yeah, this year it probably the most fun tournament I've been in Greece. The place was pretty good. Very spacey and a good surrounding area near the metro station. The canteen was pretty bad though with slow service and high prices but you can't have everything I guess. Overall, I had a very good experience with all my games running very smoothly and having good fun with a lot of friends around. Special kudos to Kostis and his girlfriend who helped me move and pack my stuff since I was getting very knackered again.

My first game I went against one of the best 40k players in Greece. In the past he's been 1st, 2nd a couple of times and 3rd in other Greek GTs so you can bet he knows how to play well. He was using a Chaos Daemon army with a Bloodthirster, Keeper of Secrets, 3 x 5 Plaguebearers, 3 x Flamers, 3 x Daemon Princes of Nurgle. This was almost identical to the daemon army I played against in the mini tournament last week. Figures out he was lending them to his mate that weekend so he could have a go at them. The army was really easy to deal with my Imperial Guard (and a guy who is not used to playing with them) but with Orks it was a different story.

We played Secure and Control with 3 objectives and Spearhead deployment. His game didn't start so well since he got the part of the force he didn't want to arrive (that's the whim of chaos I suppose) so he started at a disadvantage. Things pretty much went as planned. His Monstrous Creatures proved to be inadequate killing my Battlewagon (having 5 Attacks and needing "6"s to hit) so I managed to get stuck in exactly were I wanted to. One unit of Boyz killed the Bloodthirster (with some lucky dice rolls mind you) and Thraka took down a daemon prince. By turn 4 I had killed all his troops so I was just trying to not let him deny my objectives. If the game ended on turn 5 or 7 I would have been contesting the most but it ended on turn 6 so we were tied. However I had 350 victory points more than him so I won the game. This was a good start considering who I was playing against.

Second mission I played against a young guy that I've known for a while. I've been trying to convince him to change his list (even his whole army of choice) for a while but he is not listening. He was using Chaos Space Marines with Dual Lash princes, 3 x Noise Marines in Rhinos, 3 Obliterators and 2 Defilers. We played Anihillation with Dawn of War. So for the first few turn I was rolling my Battlewagons forward and shooting at the rhinos and the defilers with my lootas. Turn 3 I did some massive multicharges with the boys and the Meganobz and started killing his units one by one. We stopped at turn 5 with his whole army gone and I've lost a unit of boyz and one Battlewagon. Clubbing baby seals as the Internets says but this was a tournament so there is no holding back.

Last game I played against my friend Leonidas with the infamous Dark Eldar. Never played a game against him with my orks so this was going to be interesting. We played Seize Ground with Pitches Battle. I placed my objective in the corner of my deployment zone so his Raiders wouldn't like be on it on the second turn (he called me chicken for that but I just call it tactical playing). For the first couple of turns I was just trying to position my Battlewagon away from his shooting and tried to kill his vehicles with my Lootas. They proved very effective making their points back triplefold, destroying one paper thin dark eldar vehicle after the other. I waited for the right moment to call my Waaagh!!! and attack the dark eldar units that were on his objectives. Thraka and the Nobz plus the boyz cut them down in short order. On my flank I was trying to hold back his advancement but I didn't care much since he didn't have any troops to deploy quickly enough and contest the objective. In the end I got his objective but he got more Victory Points than me (like 40). His mistake was getting caught in the bloodlust and forgetting what the mission was about.

So I had 3 wins in the end. Since the tournament had only three games in total that meant that Victory Points were going to be the decisive factor. Since I got the least of the four players that got 3 wins I placed 4th again. Fortunately the player that placed 3rd also got the award for best painted army so I got the 3rd place award from him.

For you Greek challenged out there, this means that I got 30 euros that I can buy stuff from Fantasy Shop with it. I showed this to a mate of mine last night and he thought I won 40,000 euros (he doesn't know what 40k is).  Kinda disappointing that I placed 4th again (like last year) but at least I got a prize this time. I still managed to do better than I expected since I don't think Orks are that good anymore. Next GT I will have my Imperial Guard ready so things will be different.