A weekend of travel and Warhammer 40k
Jonas and I travelled to Nottingham on Friday to take part in the Goonhammer 40K tournament. Initially 69 People (I think) started in the event, by Sunday evening we were down to 65.
It was exhausting, but a lot of fun. Playing 3 games a day, 3 hours each, most of the time standing, takes a toll. But the venue was great, a sports hall from a High School provided enough light and air to make this pleasant enough.
There were some good looking armies, but most of the armies I looked at were, let’s say, battle ready. 3 colours, more or less.
This was the first bigger tournament we went to, so there was a lot of learning to do. The BCP app works well enough, the Battles app works good for keeping score, the main learning was: what are all those guys on the other side of the board capable of…
Saturday, 29.10.2022
Games started at around 9:10, a tad later than planned. I brought my Chaos Knights.
Game 1, Ben with Chaos Space Marines (31-91 loss)
Tide of Conviction
This was a fun game, because Ben was a great opponent, we were joking the whole time. Abaddon, a Demon Prince, 10 Terminators, 3 Dreadnoughts, 5 obsessed… This was the first game of learning. I was afraid of the dreads, as they have weapons that hurt. So I brought my Desecrator with 2 Moirax on the left side of the battlefield to deal with them, and the rest goes against the rest of his army. Big mistake. I committed 700points to deal with 400, and they were missing to deal with the unkillable block of terminators. My Abominant took care of the demon prince, was killed then by Abandon, who fell later against a Wardog. But I just lost on points badly, because I had 3 knights playing shootout for 3 turns and getting no points at all.
Game 2, Reza with Adeptus Custodes (88-64 win)
Death and Zeal
This was a really fast game. He had 20 mini’s, I had 9, so each turn went really fast. My Desecrator took care of most of his tough units, all my units have objective secured, The Abominant soaked wounds and killed stuff in close combat. Maxed on primaries, did well on “a Fitting challenge” by killing all my targets, and maxed “Ruthless Tyranny”. Fun game again, Reza was a great guy to play against.
Game 3, Matt with Necrons (37-86 loss)
Secure Missing Artifacts
Matt had a Silent King, a C’Tan and a bunch of destroyers, also a large regiment of Lychguard. I was scared, had the first turn and only “waited”. Positioned a bit, but did not advance. Big mistake. Matt had no intention of fighting at all, all of his moves the whole game long were only designed to buff his units and sit on the objectives. By the time I realised that it was too late to remove his units from the markers or make points on my own. Learned a valuable lesson here, I just need to push into the centre, score my primaries early and hope I have enough left in the last turns with the army I am playing.
Sunday, 30.10.2022
Game 4, Aaron with Imperial Fists (85-38 win)
Tear down their Icons
Aaron played Crimson fists, and his army was painted accordingly, every one had one crimson fist. Nicely done. He had the first turn and moved his dreads and his Predator to shoot at my knights, with little success in the first turn. In my response, the desecrator killed the Predator (love that weapon), and one dread went up in flame with 2 brigands shooting him down. Now the only heavy unit he had left was one venerable dread and 7 devastators that were in the drop pod. Which landed in turn 2 in front of my Abominant, took like 12 dmg out of him, and in return he charged and killed the unit. Game was over after that.
Game 5, Nigel with Tau (90-78 win)
Recover the relics
Nigel had 2 Hammerheads and 2 Ghostkeel Steahlsuits as the only threatening units. He rolled miserable most of the game, at least he complained about it. He had some bad ones though, as I have to admit. His biggest mistake was in turn 2 where he ported the second Ghostkeel into my deployment zone, and then the Desecrator killed him. That one was worth 5 points for a fitting challenge, by the end of turn 2, both Ghostkeels were done. I then killed one hammerhead and just stood on the objectives.
Game 6, Marcin with Deathwatch (76-64 win)
The Scouring
This was a learning experience. Marcin used a “one trick pony list” that had some surprising combo. In turn 3, he turned it all on and rolled more dice to shoot than I have ever seen. He killed 4 Wardogs in that shooting, as my big guns were luckily for me positioned not in his favour. In turn the Abominant and the Desecrator tried to get revenge while the last 3 dogs took objectives. This was a complete surprise to me – I had no idea that Deathwatch can churn out so much firepower. I got lucky I won this game.
And the winner is…
Jonas scored 2 second places for best painted army and best painted miniature (Shadowsun), he lost more games, but I believe this counted more for him. The winning army was a stunning imperial knights army. I placed in the top third with my record which I think is a good showing for a first bigger tournament. As I have no BCP subscription I can not see the event anymore, I only remember that a Chaos Space Marine list with a bunch of noise marines won the tournament.
This is winning army (in terms of painting).
