Labor Day BBQ/Tourney

So, yesterday I attended the Troll Country Games Labor Day BBQ/40k Tournament with several other War College members. It was a load of fun, and we got to cram our faces with some decent BBQ through most of the second round!

It was a 2,000 point tournament with BBQ-themed missions. Here's a quick battle report of the event:


Here was my list:

2,000 Points - Blood Angels - Razorback & Predator Spam

HQ
Reclusiarch

ELITES
Sanguinary Priest (Power Sword)

TROOPS
5x Assault Marines (Meltagun, Power Weapon, Razorback with Las/TL-Plas)
5x Assault Marines (Meltagun, Power Weapon, Razorback with Las/TL-Plas)
5x Assault Marines (Flamer, Power Weapon, Razorback with Las/TL-Plas)
5x Assault Marines (Flamer, Power Weapon, Razorback with Las/TL-Plas)
6x Death Company (3x Power Weapons, Power Fist)
Death Company Dreadnought (Blood Talons)

HEAVY
Predator (Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons)
Predator (Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons)
Stormraven Gunship (TL-Multi-Melta, TL-Plasma Cannon, Extra Armor)

FAST
Baal Predator (TL-Assault Cannon, Heavy Bolter Sponsons)
Baal Predator (TL-Assault Cannon, Heavy Bolter Sponsons)

38 Models, 17 Kill points, 4 Scoring Units

Round 1 - Dawn of War/5 Objectives - vs Carl L. (Eldar)
Due to some issues on my part, I was late to the game with Carl but thankfully he wasn't bothered at all, and the tournament organizer still gave us the full amount of time to play the round. Carl won the roll to choose deployment zones went first. He didn't deploy anything and neither did I, and so we began the game.

In Carl's first turn he turbo-boosted everything onto my left flank and took positions behind several ruins. In the first turn I moved my entire army on the board, spacing things out a little bit so I could have decent fields of fire. I turbo-boosted my Stormraven across the table to get the flat-out cover save and to open-up options for movement later.

In his second turn, he proceeded to position his skimmers around my tanks and pop two of them with Bright Lances and some disembarked Wraith Guard. In my second turn, I positioned my vehicles to get some decent shots off at several of his wave serpents but failed to hit and penetrate with nearly everything (due to his flat-out saves combined with the Wave Serpent's Energy Field) and only ended up shaking one Wave Serpent. I also fired at his Wrath Guard and did nothing (thanks to Fortune).

In his third turn, Carl continued zooming around the board and shooting at my tanks, though he disembarked his Fire Dragons right next to my Stormraven and shot it out of the sky (despite it being immune to the melta effect). I disembarked my Death Company Dreadnought near a Wave Serpent and put my Death Company right next to the Fire Dragons. Carl followed up by a charge with some Banshees on my now disembarked Assault Marines. In the combat phase, the Banshees took heavy casualties but had initially dealt several power weapon wounds to two of my Assault Squads, making the one with the attached Sang Priest run off the board. For my third turn I swung some vehicles around for a focused volley of fire on a few key Wave Serpents while also grabbing two objectives with Razorback units, and I fired at the Wraith Guard that were now sitting in the open. I finally picked up four of them and the Farseer that was with them, and managed to shake and stun some more Serpents. I also managed to finish off the Banshees in combat and was able to consolidate a single survivor (my power weapon Assault Squad sergeant) to within 3" of an objective and within area terrain.

In Carl's fourth turn he shot at my dreadnought with his last Wraith Guard but missed, and continued to shake/stun/weapon destroy several of my tanks. He fired at my lone Assault Marine and I saved everything. For my fourth turn, I spread my fire as much as possible to try and finish off a few units. I killed the last Wraith Guard and assaulted the Fire Dragons (and attached Farseer) with the Death Company, picking them all up with 11 power weapon wounds and 2 normal armor saves.

Right at the end of that fourth turn, I was up 3 objectives to none, and won the game with a Major Victory. Had the game gone on for another turn, I would have been on the receiving end of some Fritz-specials.

Round 2 - Pitched Battle/Capture & Control - vs Steven A. (Grey Knights)
Steven and I rolled off for turn order, and I won first turn opting to deploy everything right on the forward edge of my deployment zone. He deployed fairly far back on his side, and huddled his two Purifier units, Psyflemen Dreads, and his Dreadknight behind a huge hill. I scouted forward with my Baal Predators, and Steve tried to seize the initiative but failed.

In my first turn I moved everything forward and fired at his army like a madman. I downed one of his Psyflemen dreads, immobilized another, immobilized a Razorback, and killed a Grey Knight that was out in the open. In Steve's first turn he flew down my left flank with his Purifiers and the Dreadknight, and advanced in the center of the table with his other Razorback. After he was done shooting with everything he had only managed to shake a single vehicle.

In my second turn I turbo-boosted my Stormraven to the left to be closer to the flanking maneuver while still being in range of his other Psyflemen dread. I moved all my tanks up again and opened fire, killing a few more Grey Knights and wrecking one of the Razorbacks. I also destroyed his other Psyfleman dread. In his second turn, he continued advancing as well, and again only managed to shake/stun a few vehicles, but he surrounded my Stormraven on the front and sides, and assaulted with the Dreadknight. Since he needed 6's to hit, he only hit once, and was only able to shake the Stormraven.

In my third turn, I continued the blitzkrieg and moved my Stormraven 12" to my right after disembarking my Death Company dread (to have a DC Dread vs Dreadknight showdown), disembarked the Death Company, and continued to fire at everything. I weapon-destroyed the last Razorback, picked up the Grey Knight unit that was in the open on turn one (that also had Coteaz in it; they were holding his objective), and assaulted the Dreadknight. I made a huge play mistake with my Death Company and failed to get them in range to charge, but I put 3 wounds on the Dreadknight in hand-to-hand. Thankfully due to "None shall stay my wrath", my DC Dread was unharmed. In Steven's third turn, he continued advancing around my left flank with a single Rhino full of Purifiers, and dumped out his other Purifier unit next to my Dreadnought (in hopes of using his attached Techmarine to double-hammerhand and make use of the Psychotroke Grenades). He continued firing at my vehicles with psycannons from the last Grey Knight unit (that was thrown out of the other Razorback), disembarked Crowe from the nearly-wrecked Razorback, and assaulted my Death Company with him (basing my Reclusiarch). His Purifiers only broke one arm off of my DC Dread, and the Death Company picked up Crowe in one round of combat.

At the moment I'm not 100% sure of the order of play for the rest of the match and it's kind of fuzzy, but I continued to completely devastate his army. We played through all five turns and rolled to see if there was a sixth and there wasn't. The only thing Steven had left on the table at the end of the game was a single Techmarine with a Warding Stave (who had been in combat for a few rounds, picking off Assault Marines), while I had only lost the DC Dread, roughly 6 Assault Marines, and some Death Company Marines. It was another Major Victory for me.

Round 3 - Spearhead/Annihilation - Jeff O. (Dark Eldar)
I had played Jeff before and lost (he was using the exact same list in fact), so I knew exactly what I was in for. Jeff got the first turn and deployed first right on the forward edge of his deployment zone. I deployed as far away as I could, hugging the corner tightly. I tried to seize and failed.

In Jeff's first turn, he was unsure whether to go flat-out to gain field advantage and the cover save, or move up 12" and fire at my AV13 Predators. He chose to fire (though he turbo-boosted with his Venoms) and only shook and stunned two vehicles. In my first turn I took advantage of his mistake and fired as much as I could at the Raiders I thought were most important (his Bloodbrides and Incubi). I managed to shake one, stun another, and down a Ravager.

In Jeff's second turn, he shifted around but still advanced, and put the hurting on my army. He cratered a Predator and shook/stunned several other vehicles. In my second turn, I moved 24" forward with my Stormraven and continued to shoot as many of his open-topped skimmers as possible and mostly just shook/stunned a few more Raiders.

In his third turn he started opening up my Razorbacks and got really close to my Stormraven. In my turn I capitalized on this by assaulting Baron and his skyboard friends with the Death Company, and shot down the Incubi's Raider and assaulted them with the DC Dreadnought. Things finally started falling in place.

To spare you from reading more of "he shot me, I shot him, he shot me, I shot him" garbage, I'll just say that I ended the game winning 9 kill points to 4, which was a Major Victory for me, again.

I ended up scoring 91 points being one of two to go undefeated which put me one point behind first place (92 points) and one point ahead of third place (90 points, also undefeated). I took second and $28 in Troll Country store credit. I am pretty pleased with how my list did, despite how utterly boring it is, but I think I might try out my Terminator Death Star list now to see how it does.

Here's the spread at the tournament:

1st - Chris - Space Wolves (Longfang spam)
2nd - Dave G. - Blood Angels (Razorback and Predator spam)
3rd - Colin L. - Space Wolves (Loganwing)
4th - Toni G. - Space Marines (Salamanders with Vulkan)

Jeff O. - Dark Eldar (Raider spam)
Matt W. - Orks (Ghaz & Nobz, standard)
Steve A. - Grey Knights (Purifiers, Strike Squads, & Psyflemen)
Bryan - Tau (standard)
Carl L. - Eldar (Serpent Spam, Aspect Warriors)
Ash A. - Space Marines (tacticals & 3 Dev Squads)
Tyler C. - Necrons (standard)
Dave R. - Chaos Space Marines (Khorne & Slaanesh)
Zakk B. - Space Marines (10 Termies, pod dreads, scouts & storms)
Matt O. - Space Wolves (standard)

14 players, 10/16 codexes represented