Diversity In Your Gaming Space

Results from the tournament are in…..I didn’t win. Not a big surprise, but I would have liked to have seen a little more details on how I placed overall. Biggest comment: I need to get out more. I defiantly felt the pain of playing against the same army over and over again in my casual games.

Game 1 – Dark Eldar
Results: Loss
This guy was really nice and fun to play against. He had an unpainted and not completely modeled army, but it didn’t bother me because he was so casual. We played a table corner kill point game. I chock this loss up to my own ignorance more than his tactical brilliance. The first thing is my setup was flawed….I completely didn’t account for dark shields. He was able to take out a lot of my anti-armor threats before he moved into range. Next was my lack of focus fire. I probably shot on 3-5 different squads in the early game, when I should have been shooting till completion. Last thing is we spent a lot of time looking up rules, and we ended up hitting the round time at turn 3. This really hurts my army, I run a shooting army so I am never going to win in one turn, I always need time to let my shooting work.
Game MVPs:

• Chosen – I caveat this by saying they never shot, and died trying to bury their noses in the ground. But regardless of their output they always sit on the board as 150 points of “Gotta Deal with Me” on a flank somewhere. They accounted for diverting half of the assaulting force just so I didn’t get around the back of my enemies transports.
• Demon Prince – He countercharged 10 Wyches and killed over half of them in two turns. Warptime >>> Lash of Submission, nuff said.
  

Poorest Performers:

• Vindicator – Taken out first turn....and it only took one shot

Game 2 – Eldar
Results: Win
He walked in thinking he was gonna lose….self-fulfilling prophesy. This was an objective based game, one in his deployment zone one in mine. I surprised myself by realizing that as an elder he could run the entire table to my objective but I would never get to his if it was far away. I set my objective as close to his as possible. I set around my objective and waited for his initial push. My game plan (for most of the tournament actually) was to wait for the first push, let it break over my shooting, then counter-push late game. He ran at me haphazardly, and I tore him up with my shooting. His striking scorpion infiltrators were murdered by noise marines, obliterators and a CSM bolter line. He then unloaded his transports with fire dragons, howling banshees, and his independent characters. Again they got murdered by shooting, mostly plasma cannons rocking on tightly packed troops. At the end, with his back broke, I secured my objective and ran a suicide run of a vindicator and a rhino to contest his.
Game MVPs:

• Obliterators – Plasma cannons rock

Poorest Performers:

• Vindicator – Scattered off with the first shot, got killed after. He seems to be underperforming.

Game 3 – Marines
Results: Win
This guy was cool, but was on the wrong end of a 20 hour gaming marathon. He played with a lot of troops, a lot of assault marines, predators and dreadnaughts. It was a dawn of war setup for kill points. I set up in a defensive position and let him come at me. By the end of the second turn I had almost my entire army was in position, he had very little on the table. As his army came on piece meal, I was able to hit his transports and force him to run. Then I was able to break him down with templates, even if the opponent is spread out, these rock. Especially when they are at least AP 3 like mine are. I broke him down till he capitulated, probably because he would have rather been sleeping, but I had him pretty much beat.
Game MVPs:

• Noise Marines – They killed transports, chopped out holes in marine squads, and then even pinned them. And that was just one weapon….when they get in close the sonic blasters are like supper bolters.
  
• Chosen – came in from the side killed fools with meltas and then locked up another squad.

Poorest Performers:

• CSM squads – Didn’t really do anything, that’s tough at 600 points total. I guess they would have done a lot more if he got closer, but you always like to see 255 of your force actually contribute.

I’m not sure if I will update this list because I doubt I will be playing a lot of 2250 lists. The only thing I am iffy about is my vindicator. He was always meant to be a close gun support on the defense or a column head on the offense. With my new wait out an attack and push later strategy I doubt that I will be using him as a column head. He seemed a little to fragile to really pump out fire support. It’s surprising because I have seen them used to great effect by other people.

Rix