Tournament victory! WHOOT!

Afternoon guys,
This Sunday gone (holy crap, it's actually Sunday AGAIN! I take so long to write things now!)  I attended an 1850, 3 game local tournament with 40 players at Aftermath Games in Norwich.
Ive not attended a "Lazrblast" event, this was number 7, and I have to say it was a smoothly run and well organised affair with very solid terrain and prize support.

I won all three games, the first two quite resoundingly but the third was a bloodbath - I controlled the points the whole way through, but had to do a lot of work to not get tabled! Just left with Khan in the end..

But still, walked away with Best General, the Sons of War (me, Steve/Bringer of Death and Adam B) won Best Team and I came second overall - apparently sportsmanship let me down, funny...I won Best Sportsman at the last Caledonian Uprising so I'm just viewing this as the other guy was a complete fucking legend!

Missions were all Maelstrom. So ... fast, ground based ob sec would win the day...

I designed my list around this... I think many others were just designed to "hulk smash".
I wanted to control the movement phase and therefore point scoring on Maelstrom as well as having the ranged support to clear dudes off objectives without having to go in for the kill in CC.

I ran:
White Scars
Khan
Chapter Master - eternal, bike, fist, auspex
Grav/FNP command, meltabombs
3 5 man bikes with triple melta
2 5 man bike with triple gravs
3 Grav/HBolter Centurions

BA allies (well, this is a Blood Angels blog lol)
Captain on Bike, SS, Fist
5 bolter scouts
Drop Pod



Game 1: Vs Chaos Marines
Dual mauler fiends, Khorne Lord on bike with axe of blinding fury, legion Typhon siege tank, fire raptor, dreadclaw with melta marines, triple melta Raptors, rhino with melta marines oh and dual ccw contemptor dread.
So... Immune to melta, av14, 6HP and a primary weapon that fires 48" s10 ap1 ignores cover ordnance.
Joy.
Luckily, I went first, scouted aggressively and smashed it with grav.
I had "mathed" this out and balanced my force appropriately, he deployed out on the right and therefore I could only get 75% of my force on it...so the other 25% proceeded to smash both mauler fiends with short ranged melta and Grav. Was not expecting both maulers turn 1, but I guess melta can that for you...

From here it really was a wrap up as my, very sporting, opponent took the hits on the chin. The Fire Raptor was a pain in the arse but frankly could be ignored for a while. Then I got the Cents to launch a volley and scored a coule of 6's to hit and grav. Follow with a 2 to crash and burn and bye bye fire raptor...The killing blow/icing on the cake etc..

Lost a fair few marines to the Axe of Blinding Fury before I powerfisted him to the face with my chapter Mater and his BA Captain buddy.

Sporting opponent whose nickname was "Cheddar" but I found his particular vintage ... Mild.
Top lad. Game finished something like 28-7 or 25-5 ...max points whatever. This put me on top table for game 2 ...

Game 2: Vs Sisters with AM Pask Allies
So I looked like I was going second in this one. Rolled to seize.....seized ;)
My opponent was not happy.
He was already aware of the potential danger posed if I did seize. I talked down the possibility and pushed it in an inverted kinda way...he reserved Pask and his buddy tank as well as outflanking two immolators and deployed snugly inside his Aegis in a corner of the board. Of course, there was only 1 of 6 objectives in his corner...
I scouted and positioned myself so that the limited return fire wouldn't be too bad.. In case I hadn't seized, but I did and to be honest that initial punch, whilst not a knock out, meant I took very little damage turn 1 and in turn 2 I pretty much wrapped up what I needed to.

The game finished 21-0 and Max points again.

Game 3: Grey Knights allied with Imperial Knights

Tough game, but I went first and tried to nuke the Knight, failed and it stomped a whole load of bikes over the game and didn't die until it 6'd my Chapter Master...who simultaneously took it down.
Going first enabled me to get on objectives and therefore generate more maelstrom cards. My opponent had an elite GK list of just 2+ saves and deep strike reserved 1/3 GKT units, had one GKT unit in a storm raven and the third on the table. 2 Dreadknights and a Knigt Titan made up the rest. So  I pushed my scout move up front of the Knight, dropped the grAv Cents beside it in an alternative shield arc......and scattered wildly.
Despite all my fire power that jerk just ran amok!
Luckily I just bombed about grabbing objectives and wiping termie units out with grav.
I lost a whole load of dudes over the game, all bar Khan... But I maitained and extended the mission point lead all the way and won.
My opponent Zack was a top lad, good player who knew his army. His dice let him down on invulnerable saves and that made a big impact later in the game...but I think it made up on dice karma for my first turn alpha strike that failed to kill his knight.... Lol.


Overall, the list performed superbly. I went first naturally in 2 games and seized in the 3rd. This was important for me having such an "alpha-capable" force. However, the match ups did not have major turn one bloody noses for me, so going second I would still be confident of decent wins.
Of course, it is easy to say that with hindsight...I was not looking forward to the Typhon Siege Tank going second...it would literally slaughter an entire unit of bikes turn one before I could get to it!
I would have of course placed the Command squad with the Eternal Warrior 3++ upfront, but who knows how long that run of luck would last LR even if he would target them...

Anyway, considering the highly "comped" nature of the event, I feel I brought a strong list and played it nearly immaculately..even in game 3 where I almost got wiped out! I ensured I had an incredibly strong VP margin from early on and scored a very "below par", statistically speaking, number of hull points against the Knight Titan on my scouted turn one... I do think I could have improved my play in  game three to keep some more dudes alive... But that's just the game isn't it? Marines die.
Eternal Warriors die to lucky 6's on stomps... 😜