I'm going to make this brief (haha, which means it'll be super long knowing myself), as details are already more faded than they were, and I failed to take pictures from any of the games. Me and a couple of the guys I regularly game with attended a local tournament in late April called Death and Taxes, that is put on annually by a great group of gamers known as the Maryland Wargaming Collective. The tournament format was 1500 pts, with an optional 300 pts sideboard (full units, not unit upgrades). The games were also timed, with Chess Clocks allotting an hour per player to prevent slow play.
I brought a fairly cookie-cutter competitive Necron list with Chaos Marine Allies (in the form of a Helldrake) which is as follows:
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| Evil space robots, I love them. |
Destroyer Lord - Mindshackle Scarabs, Sempiternal Weave, Warscythe
6 Wraiths - 2 Whipcoils
4 Scarabs
3 Nightscythes with 5 Warriors Apiece
3 Annihilation Barges
1 ML1 Sorcerer - Meltabombs
10 Cultists
1 Helldrake - Baleflamers
GAME 1 - Vs. Space Marines
My opponent John, brought a neat space marine lists that was as follows (these are all to the best of my remembrance)
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| You got something on your mind? |
Tigurius
2 Tactical Squads in Rhinos w/ Flamer/Multi-melta combo
1 Tactical Squad combat squaded w/ Missile Launcher
5 Scouts w/ Sniper Rifles
2 Stormtalon Gunships
1 Stormraven
5 Terminators (in Stormraven with Tigurius)
The first mission was Crusade, played with table quarters, and an objective in each quarter plus the middle. There was no nightfight, mysterious terrain, or mysterious objectives for any of the missons. Normal secondaries were in effect (Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker, First Blood) were still in effect.
He setup his scouts infiltrated onto an objective, and powered his rhinos forward. I was able to take out the scouts and wreck a rhino, gaining me FB. One rhino/tac squad ended up in a large combat with the wraiths and scarabs. We had several dogfights going between Stormtalons and Night Scythes, which ended up with me killing both Talons, and him downing one scythe and knocking of the Helldrake's baleflamer. The Stormraven dropped Tigurius and the Terminators who charged into the Wraiths in the middle. Through combined shooting from the barges and dropping onto objectives I was able to claim all but one objective at the game end, giving me the win.
Game 2 - Vs. Dark Eldar
My 2nd opponent, John was a really cool guy who used an awesome Dark Eldar Army. Unfortunately the 2nd mission we played was Purge the Alien for kill points which REALLY hurts Dark Eldar (since they have so many transports as well as general unit fragility). He went on to do really well in his 3rd game, and I believe he came in 3rd place overall. His army was as follows (I'm unfamiliar with Dark Eldar, will list it as it seemed)
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| We are evil! |
Succubus
3 Venoms (2 w/ 5 Haywire Wytches, 1 with 5 Warriors)
3 or 4 Raiders (3 w/ 10 Warriors and Splinter Racks, 1 w/ 10 Haywire Wytches)
3 Ravagers (2 w/ Dark Lances and 1 with the S5 AP 2 9 Shots - not sure what its called)
A blob of Reaver Jetbikes w/ a Champion
It was the standard Dawn of War deployment. I won the roll and chose to go first, and clustered up in the center. He deployed directly opposite to me with the bulk of his main force, and the ravagers in opposite corners, and failed to seize. I focused on the venoms first, blowing up 2 of them, and moved my scarabs up behind LoS blocking terrain. He sent his forces forward (probably more cautiously than he should have) and was able to destroy an annihilation barge and several Wraiths through shooting. He also turboboosted his bikes and bladevaned the Wraiths, which killed another. I charged him my next turn with the wraiths and continued to shoot his transports. I did make the mistake of allowing the one raider full of Wyches to get to an Annihilation barge, which promptly destroyed it with a massive amount of haywire grenades. Highlights of the game included the Scarabs performing admirably vs. Wyches and warriors, as well as (doh!) a failed charge by one inch of my Destroyer Lord which allowed my opponent to punk him on the following turn. He was a great sport, and despite it being a bad matchup for him killed quite a bit, including my warlord, wraiths, 2 of the 3 barges, and the scarabs. This was definitely my most enjoyable game of the tournament as it was against a skilled player who played his best game and wasn't upset about the loss/bad matchup.
Game 3 - Vs. Chaos Space Marines
Whew, what should I say about this game? It is probably the roughest game I have ever played (not for my army but myself as an tabletop general). There was some drama in this one, as it was against my buddy and one of the chief people I play against. He had actually played against and beaten the list the previous night, and we had both discussed different strategies and ways to beat each others lists after. His list consisted as follows:
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| Mmmm, blastmasters, you likey? |
Chaos Lord - Mark of Slaanesh, Black Mace, Bike
Chaos Lord - Mark of Slaanesh, Burning Brand, Bike, Power Maul
x2 6 or 7-man Chaos Marine Bikers - Mark of Slaanesh, 2 Plasmaguns, Icon of Excess (FnP)
4 5man Noise Marine Units with Blastmasters
1 Helldrake w/ Baleflamer
The mission was Emporer's Will (one objective) with the Hammer and Anvil deployment. I won the roll off and chose to go second and did not try to seize. I identified right off the bat as he was setting up further back that he expected me to come to him while he could shoot me/then charge me with his bikes at the right time when I got close enough (which he had talked about doing in our discussion the night prior regarding board control/deployment). Instead I chose to deny him that strategy and set up my own force further back in their own deployment zone just outside of the reach of his Blastmasters. In essence I made him make the choice of either sending his bikes in to weather some shooting for a turn, or deal with Nightscythes punking his troops. In short, our game went very quickly. I did not start moving my force up until an initial pummeling from the Night Scythes in turns 2-3 which both put down his Helldrake and managed to blast away some noise marines. Instead of sending his bikes forward, he sent them after my own Helldrake, and was able to kill it. He conceded in turn 5 after the last of his troops had been killed.
This game in particular taught me a couple of things. First, it really displayed to me the power of board control. He, being wary of Annihilation Barges chose to keep his bikes just out of their threat range, which allowed Flyers, being notoriously difficult to deal with, to come on unhindered by any models (as there was nobody in no-mans land) and start clearing out his scoring units. The second thing, is that although it was the top table/final game in a tournament, and we were both playing to win, using certain strategies that shut down other players armies entirely (like I did in my final game) will not help you make more friends. I ended up winning the tournament, but felt like the last match left a bad taste in my mouth as it felt like with the combination of lists/deployment and terrain, it was broken matchup and situation for my opponent. In my defense, I did not anticipate that my strategy would be as effective and brutal as it turned out to be, and that he would react the way he would. As he became extremely frustrated as the game continued, as there was not much he could do, it was not a fun game for either of us....
I guess this is as good of time as any to go on this tangent. The internet is divided in a lopsided way, as many people feel that competitive gaming has no place in 40k. Usually the loudest people are the ones that you see on Dakka and BoLS yelling things like CHEESE, SPAM, and WAAC Douche. The internet tough-guys are not the people that go to tournaments. Most people that actually go to and play in tournaments have awesome things to say about playing in a competitive environment with skilled and knowledgeable players where a unbalanced metagame exists that dictates which units are taken, with often several top-tier builds emerging (similar to Deck archetypes in MTG) that will slowly change as new Codices and Editions of 40k come out (or more quickly if GW keeps this trend up). Necron Wraith-Scythe lists are a very powerful and effective competitive build right now that has fewer weaknesses than a lot of other armies currently in the meta (although I believe Tau are changing that to an extent). I would be happy to play this list against any kind of competitive list, even a list tailored to beat it, so that I could learn and get better at making the army work even in a "bad matchup" type of scenario.
I guess that this part is getting way too long and probably deserves its own article, but it basically all boils down to a matter of taste and philosophical gaming views of the players. The point I'm trying to say is, Play 40k your OWN way (whether its fluffy-casual forge the narrative and make up your own rules or hyper-competitive unit-redundancy city) AND make sure you play with like-minded people that also enjoy playing that way, but don't be surprised or upset when people that play differently than you don't like or approve of the way that you choose to play. If you don't want to play a competitive list, don't go to a tournament where you're likely to run into one. Be wary that if you do play a competitive army, there will be players that will brand you as a jerk and refuse to play you (even if they've never played you before!).
No matter what though, its safe to say that 40k isn't always about winning, which is why even when in a competitive environment, its important to be a gracious loser. 40k is about having a good time playing with super awesome painted man-dollies on the table top and rolling bunches of dice. I'm no hypocrite, I know that I have to work on my losing skills, I think most of us do. If you actually took the time to read this, thank you, you deserve a congratulatory wink ;)
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