Labyrinth Comics and Games Tournament

Just finished playing in a tournament at the lab near downtown Ann Arbor. I used my Mech Pedro list and managed with a little last second luck to get a 1-1-1 in my three games. The winner of the tournament brought an Ork Horde army with like 100 boys and 30 lootas. I did not play him but I think that the tight time limit for these type of things make this army better than it should be. If you can only get through 3 turns in 2 hours it is nearly impossible to make a dent in that type of army. It also appeared that peoples list were set up for more anti armor than anti horde. None of my opponents had any problems destroying my vindi and predator before they could do much.

My major lesson learned is never use Pedro's orbital bombardment out of the Rhino of vanguards as their first turn. The turn lost moving pretty much holds the unit back to far to get stuck in when their Rhino gets shot out from under them. It might be a good tactic to try if the Rhino gets immobilized and you try to get it to self repair.

Game 1: Mech Eldar
Mission was 5 loot counters with Spearhead deployment. Mech Eldar with 2 serpents and 2 falcons, small dire avenger squads, scorpions, banshees and warp spiders. This was probably the best board for me that I played on all night. Since Marines lack skimmer tanks the type of terrain is important. On this board the terrain was several large pieces so their was still room to move the tanks without tons of terrain tests. The other boards had many small pieces which really limited the tank movement.

I had first turn so I lined up the my tanks to try to move forward with my sniper scouts sitting on an objective near the center of the table. He left his men out of their transport afraid of them exploding before they moved. He had forgotten that in 5th you cannot move flat out if someone embarks that turn.

He stole the initiative from me and them started to work over my tanks. He had the advantage most of the game but a lucky shot from my scout missile destroyed a waveserpent with dire avengers far from any objectives. I got lucky and got few members of a tac squad onto an objective in his zone and was able to contest most of the others getting the win. If he had played the mission a little more and not just focusing on killing my units he probably would have won.

Game 2 Tau
This mission was Kill points and pitched battle deployment. Pretty balanced Tau list with excellent range of different units. I again had first turn but made a horrible mistake in deployment. I tried to keep my army together and avoid the big impassible base in the center of the board so I set up in one corner. He responded by pretty much setting up in the other so I ended up doubling the distance I needed to get to him. I was already in a hole since I have a lot of kill points to give with the tanks. He then stole the initiative from me and proceeded to wipe the floor with me. His 2 broadsides made quick work of my tanks while his ion cannon trashed the transports. I think the final result was like 6 to 1 with all my tanks and transports dead and my scouts dead with me only managing to eliminate a small crisis team. I have no doubt that he still would have won if I had not messed up deployment but it might have actually been a contest.

Game 3: Thousand Sons
Capture and Control with Dawn of War deployment. Enemy list was tooled up daemon prince, 2 rhino mounted 1K sons squads, 10 man termi squad, 2 oblits, Defiler. He had first turn and started both Rhinos and Daemon prince on the board. I started scouts on my objective and tac squad in rhino hiding. He then proceeded to methodically move up the board essentially abandoning his objective to destroy me. 1 Oblit immoblized my predator while the other killed my vindi then proceeded to assault my scouts. The daemon princed killed my tac squad's Rhino but the squad was able to get him back the next turn before being AP 3 boltered to death. The sternguard moved up one flank but ended up running into the terminators and retreated back. As turn 5 started, he was moving toward my objective while running a 1k unit back onto his after their rhino got destroyed. I had to use my vanguard to kill his oblit still locked in combat with my scouts so it would not contest my objective.

I ended up with a litte area around my objective clear at the end of turn 5. I had 4 scouts surrounding it with a rhino shielding them from fire from the termis and defiler just off screen. I also had 2 scoring Sternguard just in the building covered by the rhino and the vanguard surrounding the objective on the open side. My other suriving rhino was trying to block the path of the other 1K sons. The game ended at this point with me holding my objective at least at the moment clearly and him just barely making 3 inches to his objectives base. I think this is something everyone always needs to remember that all objectives need to be the same size either, 25 mm base or a 40 mm base or a point location. This is the second time where differences in objectives influenced a game. Had the game gone onto a the 6th turn he had a good chance of getting something to my objective with some good fleet and terrain rolls and wiping me out on a 7th turn.

Overall it was a good time but I am just not that good with tanks. I think I might try a Shrike based list next or maybe actually work on my nids so I could actually try them.