Octoberfest 2016 - 40K Tournament - Part One

October is here and so is the bi-annual 40K tournament at the club. Five rounds of 1000 point goodness for the 18 participants to enjoy. Back in May, at the previous event, I had done reasonably well with my Iron Hands (2 wins, 3 losses). This time I decided to air my Plague Marines, with one of these new fangled formations which seem to very popular at the moment. (My three Hellbrutes could deepstrike as one, but roam the table individually. They always suffered from the Crazed rule, but gained It Will Not Die).Victory points were similar to usual tournaments, but, you scored an extra point for every objective secured by a troop choice. 

Above: 1000 points of Nurgle foulness. 

My list was as follows:

HQ Chaos Lord 65
Mark of Nurgle 15
Power Fist 25
Melta Bombs 5
[110]

Troops
Plague Marines 120
Flamer 5
Plasma Gun 20
Rhino 35
[180]

Plague Marines 120
Melta Gun 10
Flamer 5
Rhino 35
[170]

Plague Marines 120
Plasma Gun 15
Melta Gun 10
Rhino 35
[180]

Elites (3 Hellbrutes taken in the Mayhem Pack formation)
Hellbrute 100
Power Scourge 10
Reaper Auto-Cannon 5
[115]

Hellbrute 100
Combi-bolter 5
Missile Launcher 10
[115]

Hellbrute 100
Twin-linked Las Cannon 25
Thunder Hammer 5
[130]

Total 1000

This, I know, is not an optimised list. With toughness 5 and Feel No Pain, my very expensive infantry will hang around for sometime, but with only 16 infantry models, a very weak Commander and the Hellbrutes only having 12 armour on front and sides, if I avoid being tabled, I would be happy. Fluffy it maybe, But the force does contain six 'objective secured' units, so I hoped to score some additional victory points through them. Having learnt nothing from my previous competitive 40K tournament, I again had no specialised anti-air weaponry. 

(I knew what the day had in store because of a practice game at the club on the previous evening. David P. played a Necron army with a Tesseract Vault. This is one of those models which has me reaching for the paracetamol). 

Above: The Vault about to bring the pain.

Above: High water Mark in Necron game. (The casino dice mark the objectives). 'Lets all pray to Papa Nurgle to end the game on turn five........gee thanks for nothing Dad!'

It was good to see what the Vault model was all about, but you needed to have a strong constitution as this thing floated around the table seemingly removing my models at will. If the game had ended at turn 5 I would have achieved a small victory.......but, we went to turn 7 and by that time I was all dead. I got a more reasonable second practice game against my long term Spacehulk co-conspirator Dave G playing Henchmen. And happily, my Smelly Marines held out for a very narrow win.

Above: Second practice game and Nurgle face-off against one of two Land Raiders in the Henchman list.

Onto the tournament.

Game One - Hammer and Anvil, six objectives, scoring 3,3,2,2,1,1, or +1 if the objective is held by an objective secured unit. Opponent - Dave G. with his Inquisitorial henchmen list, two Land Raiders + Coteaz. 

Fate decided to pit me against my Space Hulk chum in game one.

Above: Armoured rush to the central objectives.

It was safe to say Dave had a mare. Before one particularly important combat Coteaz forgot to put on Invisibility, and unsurprisingly, the combat went my way. Long story short, I achieved a good victory in the game, 12 to 3 in victory points. 

Above: A combat about to go bad for the Imperium.

Game Two - Crusade - Vanguard Strike - Zach - Tau.

Zach had decided to take an army that everyone feared to play, 5 Riptides. Just the 5 Riptides.

Above: 'Call that a gun line? This is a gun line.'

Above: A better field of fire needed?

Above: Two Dreadnoughts left to win the day.

This was probably the worst of what 40K is capable of. Here is a quick summary; Tau keep rolling dice until everything is dead. 

The Riptides inflicted 14 wounds on themselves from overheating weaponry, but none of the big beasts fell. I inflicted a grand total of no wounds. It finally finished after four turns with a 12 to nil Tau victory. Everyone rightly feared meeting this army.

With two games down, we all broke for lunch. I shall return next time with a report on games 3, 4 and 5.

Happy wargaming everyone.

Alex