First Independent Club Tournament Report

Picture stolen withought any courtesy from the Invulnerable blog

We interrupt the Necron frenzy program to present you with a long overdue report of a tournament I attended on the 25th of September. Don't know why it took me so long to write, I guess I wasn't in the mood. There is an excellent report also from the Invulnerable blog. Get your butts over there and read Markador's excellent overview and then come back to read my bitter, bitter ramblings.Withought further ado, here we go:

You remember when I asked for help with my tournament list a while back? Well I decided to throw all caution to the wind and go with a Green Tide army. My friend George (the owner of the now defunct FLGS) is to blame though, he gave me the idea. I ended up with this list (had to borrow 80 boys from him):

Ghazgkhull Thraka, Ammo Runt...228
5 Lootas...75

5 Lootas...75

5 Lootas...75

30 Ork Boyz, Nob (Power Klaw, Bosspole)...220

30 Ork Boyz, Nob (Power Klaw, Bosspole)...220

29 Ork Boyz, Nob (Power Klaw, Bosspole)...214

29 Ork Boyz, Nob (Power Klaw, Bosspole)...214

29 Ork Boyz, Nob (Power Klaw, Bosspole)...214

29 Ork Boyz, Nob (Power Klaw, Bosspole)...214

Yeah, madness, I know. George helped me a lot though. He gave me a lift with his car to the venue and also helped me with deployment/movement (just moving the little guys). I don't know if I could have made it without it so I would like to thank George, Manos and all my opponents for helping me in the my movement phases. I managed to play 4 turns in my first game and 6 on the second and third game. That's pretty good if you think I had to push 190 plus models around every time. Moral victory to me then!

My first game was against Nikos and his Salamanders. I was a bit anxious about it since he got a few twin linked flamers and heavy flamers (also Vulkan, 5 TH/SS Termies in a Redeemer, 3 Drop Pod with Tacticals and Dread and a few land speeders) in his list (and that's bad news for orks if you didn't know) but at least I got the first turn. We played Capture and Control in Pitched Battle. I placed Thraka and 60 boyz on the left of the board to walk slowly towards his objective. Joining thraka with the boyz squad was obviously a bad idea since it really slowed them down.

I think my opponent panicked a little bit seeing all those models on the board so he rushed in for the kill a little bit too quickly. He deep striked his drop pods very close to my units. He inflicted a lot of casualties with all these twin linked heavy flamers of course but after a few brutal multicharging counter attacks from the orks he lost his most important (and scoring) units. I thought he would have played more aggressively with his Land Raider but he only charged me on Turn 4 in an awkward position for him, leaving the Termies ripe for a counter charge. I really wondered why he didn't defend his own objective (which I never reached by the way) and opted to attack mine instead. By the end of Turn 4 have cleared everything (except the LR) on my side of the board so I got the one objective and won. I don't think I played particularly well and I own my win to Niko's bad strategy.

Second game was against a young fellow with Imperial Guard. From the top of my head, he had Straken with a pimped out Command Squad in a Chimera, Manticore, Chimeras with Veterans, Sentinels and a Ventetta. We played Dawn of War with Seize Ground. I went first and deployed 2 of my big units and Thraka as close to his side as possible. The rest of the battle basically was me trying to get to his stuff and him trying to shoot me off the board. Nothing exciting tactically and I must admit I played really bad. Pushing 190 models every turn (with some help admittedly) was starting to take it's toll, tiring me mentally. Bad deployment choices (should have started my units inside terrain), calling Waaagh! on the wrong turn and many more mistakes. I've  kept a unit of boys in reserves and it arrived on the fifth turn (lazy bastards). It was a large enough unit to be able to capture both the objectives in my deployment zone but I didn't see that at the time so I only went for one. On his last turn he moved his Vendetta to capture it. I charged with my boys and rolled enough sixes to hit and then another six to immobilized it. I told him that it's wrecked now.

My opponent then claimed that the Vendetta hadn't moved more than 12'' although it was obvious to me it had. We tried to figure it out but there was no time for it so I told him we should roll it off and proceed to lose the said roll. I then got ready to auto hit it with the nob since it was now immobilized but he told me that's not the case. He called the judge who also said that it had to be immobilized since the last turn in order to be able to auto hit it. This is wrong of course but it was the judges call so I couldn't do anything about it. So I lost. When I later confronted the judge after the game he admitted he was wrong but it was too late. At least I know that even playing so badly I could have gotten a draw if the judge had made the right call and if I wasn't braindead at the time my unit came from reserve I could have even won it.

With a slightly bitter taste in my mouth I went to play my last game. There was no chance to win the tournament now so I went with a very relaxed approach to it. I played against a bubbly chap with Black Templars. He had a Terminator deathstar with the Emperor inside a Land Raider, some Tactical squads in Razorbacks, a Predator and a Vindicator. Something like that. We played spearhead with kill points. Again, it was a matter of running across the board and catching his units in close combat. I was lucky enough to pull off a Waaagh! on the second turn and charged his Land Raider with Thraka and a unit of Boys which they easily destroyed. Then they got charged by the Terminators and died of course but it was good fun. We ended up with a draw but it was a very pleasant game.

I ended up 17th out of 38 people for victory points which is not too bad I guess. However there was also a separate rankings list with some added points for sportsmanship. I didn't get any so I did much worse in that one. I think I am a nice and fair enough opponent but I never try to be too nice if you get my meaning. I usually am myself and I am no pushover also, I guess that's not sportsmanship award material. 

If I drew on that second game (which was just a bad judge call away if nothing else) I don't know how I would have fair. Maybe I'd have lost my last game so it would be the same. I think I'd be a bit more driven to win in this case though but who knows.

Overall impression of the tournament was good. It was in a nice hotel, pretty close to my place and in a lively part of Athens so there were no issues with finding food etc. The hall we played in was spacious and well lit, probably the most comfortable place I've ever played a tournament into.

The organisers put a lot of work into making the terrain. There were some impressive themed tables:

Picture courtesy of the Invulnerable blog (I guess...)

While some others were cringeworthingly thin on terrain:

Imagive playing here second with Dark Eldar!

My biggest criticism though is the way opponent pairing worked. There were a few conditions when opponents were drawn. They couldn't be from the same team, have the same army and play in the same table as before. I can understand that these conditions were used in order to maximize the participants enjoyment and I can see how this is a good thing for the first turn.

However the same conditions were used on the same turn as well. The result was that the people that had two wins in the previous turns played with opponents that had one win/one draw or even one win/one loss. Even the people who turned up in the first few spots on the ranking list. You can see the problem there. This really compromised the credibility of the event and more than a few people complained about it.

Bottom line is that I liked the tournament. There is room for improvement of course. More useful terrain on some of the tables, better opponent drawing system and a bit more diligence from the judges and it's going to be in a very good path to success.