tournament report - Bloomington 3-26-2011

I played in a tournament this past weekend down in Bloomington.  I got three games in against some fun opponents, and had a great time.  The turnout was pretty bare, so I figured I had a good shot at going home with a prize.


You can see my Tyranid army above.  Behind the Hive Tyrant is a Carnifex with twin Devourers in a Mycetic Spore.

Game 1 was against Meric, a Traitor Guard player that I faced at a past tournament.  The mission was Victory Points with Pitched Battle deployment.  I dropped my Spore Mines in the center of his deployment zone, forcing him toward the outside edges.  He took his first turn to position his tanks and clear the field of Spore Mines.  His infantry units were still hunkered down in cover near the board edges when my Genestealers began outflanking.
My Genestealers had to charge into cover, but still had little problems clearing out the area of Guardsmen.  My problem with this game was that IG does not give up Victory Points easily.  Their infantry are easy to kill, but very cheap.  The expensive tanks do not die very easily, especially when I don't bring a lot of ranged anti-tank.

In the end, I managed a minor victory.

Game 2 was against Lukas, an Ork player that bested me the last time we faced off.  Feeling good from my last game, and wanting to redeem myself from my last minute loss in our previous encounter, I knew that I could show no mercy.  The mission was Kill Points with a Pitched Battle Deployment.  Again, I dropped my Spore Mines in the middle of his deployment zone pushing him toward the outside edges.  Lukas placed a 30-man Slugga squad on his flank, bubble-wrapping his more vulnerable Loota and Shoota squads.  His vehicles were in his center, blocking the randomly-floating Spore Mines from getting to his infantry.

My reserve rolls were good, and I charged in with 2 squads of Genestealers, killing 17 of the 30 Orks.  A further 10 would fail their Fearless wounds, leaving 3 Orks to fend off 15 Genestealers during his turn.  The Zoanthropes were able to drop in and stop one Battlewagon, while the Carnifex charged and blew up the second one.  At this point, the weakened remains of his army were surrounded by my entire force.

The result was a massacre for me.

Game 3 was against Chip, a Blood Angels player that I had not faced before.  Having little experience against BA, and knowing that Chip was also 2-0 at this point, I was a little worried about this game.  He had Astorath leading an 8-man squad of Vanguard Vets, all with storm shields.  Mephiston and some Sanguinary Priests were scattered around the force for support.

The mission was a home-brew variant of Seize Ground, with Spearhead deployment.  Each 2x2 board square had an objective in the center of it that could be claimed by any model with a WS value and carried with that model.  When the model with the token died, he dropped it immediately.  I dropped my Spore Mines near the center of the table to try and dissuade Chip from moving directly towards the center of the board.  Fortunately for me, he strung out his Vanguard Vet squad to bubble-wrap his jump assault squad and Mephiston.  He left this squad too close to the board edge, however, so when my Genestealers came in from the side edge, Astorath and the Sanguinary Priest were too far away to get into base to base contact.  The Hive Tyrant dropped in near this squad and cast Paroxysm, also buffing the Genestealers with Preferred Enemy.  It took several turns of combat, but the Vet squad eventually went down.  The Hive Tyrant had a lucky round of combat against Mephiston, and insta-killed him with his Bonesword, and the Tervigon ran around the backfield spawning units to grab objectives.  Upon losing his heavy hitting units, Chip decided to try to go out in a blaze of glory and charged his remaining squads into hand to hand.

Again, another massacre to me.  I ended up winning the tournament by two battle points over the 2nd place player.  The tournaments in Bloomington are a great deal of fun, and although they are less structured than the ones I have grown accustomed to here in Indy, I still find myself gaining some valuable experience from them.