2 Day tournament - Day one

This tournament is tun by the Australian defence force wargaming club, and it is the firs one of theirs that I have attended. In an effort to make it a more friendly environment there are only certificates as prizes, and missions are only published a few days before the tournament to encourage more balanced lists. The missions used a Maelstrom mission and an EW mission, with even some of the Chapter Approved missions used too. And there were minor modifications to the missions too.

Many different game systems are run in the same hall, and there were around 40 people signed up for 40k, and finished with 32 at the end of the 2nd day.

The list I ended taking is as follows.

Brigade, Aerial Wing and Aux Support detachment, 2000pts, 15 CPs

HQ
3x Elysian Company Commanders with Lasgun and Auxiliary Grenade Launcher
- 1 Warlord with The Laurels of Command and Master of Command
- 1 in Valkyrie

Troops
6x Elysian Drop Trooper Squads, 10 lasguns each

Elites
2x Elysian Command Squads, 4x plasma each
1x Elysian Command Squad, 4x melta (In Valkyrie)
1x Elysian Special weapon Squad, 3x melta (In Valkyrie)
1x Astropath (In Valkyrie)
1x Officer of the Fleet
1x Callidus Assassin

Fast Attack
3x Tauros Venator Squads, 2 Venators with lascannons and hunter killer missiles

Heavy Support
2x Elysian Heavy Weapon Squads, 3 mortars
1x Elysian Heavy Weapon Squads, 2 mortars, 1 Heavy Bolter

Flyer
1x Valkyrie with 2x Multiple Rocket Pods, Multilaser, 2x Heavy Bolters
2x Twin Punisher Vultures

With 25 drops I deployed 12 units by Aerial drop. This meant in every game I set up my units on the table after my opponent had finished deploying.

On the table I had the 3 Venator squads, all out of sight, the 3 flyers with Valkyrie containing units as noted above, and the 3 Heavy weapon squads.

Game 1

Deployment: Spearhead assault.
Objective #1:  Eternal War:  Frontline Warfare (Marker 1-4)
Objective #2:  Maelstrom of War: Contact Lost

After the introduction by the tournament organiser, and the 40k TO games were announced, and first up I was against a Mechanicus army with a knight. I have only faced mechanicus once before as none of out local players field them.

So he got first turn and shot some my stuff, but not doing much. I the moved up with my flyers, unloading the meltas in front of his knight. The Astropath got some good rolls and did 4 mortal wounds to the knight, the venators fired at the knight, and the vultures fired at some smaller tracked things. The knight survived but was badly wounded, and the last surviving tracked thing ran away due to morale.

His second turn he fired some more, but not killing much, mainly knocking some wounds of the flyers from memory.

My second turn I dropped on my plasma behind his robots, my assassin near on of his HQs and infantry where required. The knight went down to shooting upon when he played a car to make it explode with a 2d6" range. This killed most of the meltas, the assassin and maybe some other stuff.

From here it was just cleaning up, which did take till turn 5 due to my losses, but finally his Dominus fell giving me the win with the maximum of 20 points.

Game 2

Deployment: Vangard Strike
Objective #1: Eternal War: ETC Resupply Drop (ALTERED, 2 remaining Markers)
Objective #2: Maelstrom of War: Deadlock (3 cards per turn scoring cap)

With my strong round 1 win I was facing other armies in a similar situation, and my next Opponent ran a pure Custodes list. This is my first time facing Custodes but I had read about how tough they were. He had the -1 to hit banner, and for the first few round everything was in range of this banner.

I actually managed to seize on him, but it didn't help, and after shooting all I had done was damage one of his landraiders.

Whereupon he moved up and started killing my units one-by-one, charging my flyers with his jetbikes, and killing everything else with his bolters. By the end of turn 5 I had 1 guardsman left hiding in a corner, and had only killed one of his jetbikes. a few of his characters were badly
wounded but he just moved them to the rear so they couldn't be shot. He got the maximum of 20 points for this game, as even though he hadn't tabled me he had enough points from the missions.

Game 3

Deployment: Search and Destroy
Objective #1: Eternal War: ETC Secure and Control (ALTERED, Marker 1-6)
Objective #2: Maelstrom of War: Cleanse And Capture (3 cards per turn scoring cap)

So after a big win and a big loss I was back to the middle of the pack, and my next opponent was a knight army, 3 of the big ones and 4 smaller ones, Armigers I think. As it was getting late in the day I forgot to get many pics during the game. I deployed as usual and he want first.

He advanced up with one of his big ones and some of the Armigers, and in response I almost killed the big one with melta, and as he had played rotate Ion shields on that one, I put my lascannons into his warlord knight at the back so quite a bit of damage as well.

Round 2 he killed most of the melta guys and some other stuff. He also told me that he didn't want me to think him a dick but he was going to try and table be. I don't think he realised exactly how much I had to bring in. I brought in the drop plasma and 4 squads of drop troopers to FRFSRF his warlord. 160 lasgun shots and only 3 wounds on the knight, even with his 3+ save.

Anyway the game went on, with some of the Armigers and one of the big knights dying. His warlord knight got some very lucky rolls and survived to the end. So come the end of round 5 and 3 of the objectives were contested between some guardsmen and one of his knights. He then came up with a rule that Knights count as 10 objective secured models. I was a bit sceptical and asked where this was written and he spent 10min looking through his book not able to find it. Other people had heard of this rule but no one knew where it was. So because he couldn't find it I got the 3 contested objectives, and came away with a minor win. It would have been better but he got lucky with the maelstrom cards and had more kill points.

Later on I did find the rule he was referring to, it is a relic banner that knights can take, the only applies to that model. And they had something similar in 7th edition.

So that was day 1. I didn't know my exact position on the scoreboard, but was most likely somewhere in the middle of the pack. I was pretty happy overall with how the army performed and I am liking the combination of Laurels of Command and Master of Command on my warlord, and sometimes use the strategem so he can get a 4th order off. FRFSRF rerolling 1s to hit and wound is pretty nice.

Read part 2 here.

https://422ndelysians.blogspot.com/2018/12/2-day-tournament-day-two.html