War of the Roses England ETC Tournament!!

Off we go!
Today is the War of the Roses - an 1850, 5 game 2 day tournament run by the England ETC team (Big Mike in particular) and has basically no comp at all.
This will, undoubtedly, lead to some horrible armies and a sneak peak at some of the playtesting/lists for the England team - always interesting.
NOTE: With a toe or two still in the camp, I do know these already, but I refer to the general tournament attendees.

It's looking reasonably well attended with around 35 players.

That'll do me - this is, shockingly, my first 2 day tournament in OVER A YEAR! Wow!
The last one was the Caledonian Uprising 2014!
Man, that was SOOO long ago!
I ended up, officially 34/35th I think after a big ol' points deduction for a list change last minute, busting me from, in Battle points, high teens (out of 110 players).. which was a real shame, but ...my own fault!
I also won Most Sporting which was nice.

More recently, I took Best General and 2nd place overall at the recent LazrBlast single day event in Norwich.

I find myself quite excited! I've not gotten a weekend of geekery in for bloody ages and the chance to see top level play again helps to keep me excited and up for this game.

I'm running a SM Bike and Centurion Pod list using Flesh Tearers Strike Force.
(Again, I'm keeping some of the blog's Blood Angel roots alive! I really like the BA book and with Pods becoming a major focus for me over the next few months... we'll see more of it! Interestingly, note Torrent of Fire and Nick Nanavanti toying with an excellent unit - the Frag-Furioso!)

The other lists have not been published as yet and the first round match ups are not out yet, I assume they are being done on the day...today... I forget I'm writing this in advance!

My list is:

Khan (Warlord)

3 x 5 Bikes with double Meltaguns and a Combi-Melta

3 x 5 Bikes with double Gravguns and a Combi-Grav

2 x 3 Centurions with Grav Cannons, Hurricane Bolters, Omniscope

 

Mephiston

5 Bolter Scouts

3 x Drop Pods

This allows me to drop Meph and both units of Cents in on the first turn with the scouting bikes to create a truly lethal Alpha Strike.

Going second, I can scout/deploy the bikes out of sight or range and try and get the first strike myself using speed and pods.

Maelstrm is in use here and although you can only score 2 tactical cards per urn, the speed and positioning of the army allows me to maximise opportunities to score.

I was going to run Adamantium Lance with Astra Militarum allies, but as there is currently a vote in play to ban/allow Ad Lance and the iKnight codex from the ETC, I thought it would be better to run something that is more likely to be seen as practice for the England boys.

So - fingers crossed. I'm hoping for a Top 10, but that means pushing someone in the England set up out of the picture... so a tough, tough nut to crack!
Given my recent lack of experience at tournament level, perhaps I should aim for something more like going 3:2 over the weekend!

Wish me luck and I'll provide feedback on the lists and the games next week!