Participated in my first BIG tournament this past weekend in Reading, PA. The tourny was a lot of fun and a big hats off to Mike "Steel Thunder" Biancone for organizing the event. They brought in 50 participents and was a big success overall.
I brought my Tau army and had a fully painted army to play. I finished my Broadside just in time to play and highlighted, decaled and varnished the rest of my main forces too (will have photos up soon for each unit). I was very pleased to receive a lot of great painting comments from the players at the tournament and actually recieved a few votes for the Player's Favorite Painted army competition too.
I also submitted my Blood Angels Stormraven in the Golden Grot competition and won 2nd prize overall, winning a $25 gift card to The Adventurer's Guild in Harrisburg, PA. The winner, a huge Tyranid dragon, was beautiful and got my vote for best of show too.
Gameplay wise I did OK. It started out VERY rough. My final tally was 1 win, 1 narrow victory (technically a Draw) and 2 losses (one of which I got tabled!!!) Luckwise things didn't go my way either, every game I got first turn the opposing player Seized the Initiative (facepalm).
First game was Dawn of War, which between the night fighting and the fact that I had to walk my Pathfinders from the table edge (not letting them able to shoot markerlights) didn't make for a very good start. It was an objectives game and my opponent was Alex Scheiler's (sp?) Space Wolves. He was smart and had a heavy weapons team that destroyed one of my Crisis Teams pretty quickly. I shot up all his tanks but he was able to sit on the middle objective and the objective in his deployment zone without me getting to contest them so he won 2 objectives to my 1 objective. Also both our Generals survived. The final Victory points tally was 1250-750 which was a Minor Victory per the Tournament's scoring scale.
The second game was an Annihilation Victory Points match versus Wilson Badillo Jr. from Maryland who played a Khorne Chaos Space Marines army. Oh, and this time, the ENTIRE GAME was Night Fighting (more facepalm). I got first turn and he Siezed the Initiative so I knew this was gonna be a badddd game for me. He deployed near the center of the board and then turns 2 and 3 all his deamons teleported in and ate all my Tau. One morale victory though is my Broadside was a Close Combat beast lasting basically 3 turns in close combat with his Deamons thanks to his 2+ save. He proceeded to table my army.... I don't wanna talk about this game anymore heheh. Though to his credit, Wilson did go on to win a bunch of prizes and best overall army/general so I dont feel TOO bad about the devastation heheh.
My third game was a Capture the Flag game versus Stephen H. (forgot his full last name, sorry) and his Sisters of Battle army. From a morale standpoint, I REALLY needed to win a game and I did much better in this game. We basically had to capture 2 objectives and if we brought that objective back to our deployment zone we got double points. We both retreived 1 objective each but combat wise I was the clear cut winner. I think he killed 3 pathfinders and immobolized my Devilfish but otherwise my Tau were unscathed. I destroyed his Exorcist tank and wiped out 3 squads of his sisters.
My last game was a great game versus Levell Harmon's Tyranids (beautifully painted by the way - I'm a sucker for the earth tones!). I got first turn and he Seized the Initiative but chose to go second (he had a deep strike/outflank army). The first 2 turns I really had nothing to shoot at... then turn 3 almost all his stuff (except his gaunts) came in at once. But fortunately my Tau (and markerlights!) shot well and I almost wiped out his entire Gene Stealer squad (which destroyed my Devilfish). The next couple turns we went back and forth. I shot up his Tyranid Warriors, he wiped out a Firewarrior squad, my Crisis Suits forced his outflanking gaunts to flee and then his Trygon Prime jacked up my HQ/Crisis Suits. In the end only his HQ was left standing and my Hammerhead, Broadside and a unit of Firewarriors was left. Because his HQ was SO expensive I only won by about 20-30 points (apparently his army was only 925 pts he said?) so my victory was only a Draw technically. Still, it was DEFINATELY the most intense game of the day for me.
Overall it was a great day, again hat's off to Mike Biancone for organizing the day. I won a box of Dark Eldar Kabalite Warriors in the auction so now I'm musing a new Dark Eldar army and I have a pretty cool idea for a theme for it. Probably gonna pick up a new battalion box in June.
Can't wait until next years event and now my goal for next year is to show up with my fully painted Blood Angels army which will definately be better suited for a small quarters assault tournament.
Oh, here's a bonus pict of a nice Tau themed board at the event:
