[redbeard]

Sunday, it's the adepticon championships. By now, we've put in 18 hours on the gaming tables, and here we are, starting a new tournament at 7AM.

I brought a mech eldar list.

Autarch
2x 5 dire avengers in wave serpents (brightlances, starcannons)
2x 8 fire dragons (flamer exarch) in wave serpents (scatters, shuriken cannons)
2x Fire prism w/ upgrades
1x Falcon w/ upgrades, scatter laser.


Of course, by now, I'm so brain-fried that I'm not even thinking about taking pictures - so for that, I must apologize.

Round 1:

I play a Chicago Firefighter named Greg Swanson. He's got a very similar list:

Autarch on bike w/ lance, fusion gun
10 guardians w/ scatter laser in wave serpent w/ missile launcher - I tease him for bringing civilians to what is obviously a military training exercise.
10 dire avengers in wave serpent w/ scatters
6 pathfinders
6 fire dragons
2 fire prisms
1 falcon
2 brightlance vypers
8 spiders, exarch w/ stuff

Mission has us deploy in opposite quarters. One of the non-deployment quarters is marked as 'on fire' - all movement through it is considered dangerous terrain.

Objectives are victory points, table quarters, and getting an HQ into the command center.

There's not too much terrain, but we both try to hide our stuff. He wins the all-important first turn roll, and all his firing results in my falcon immobilizing.

I go after the easy, dangerous targets first. Drop the guardians, and vypers, and try to plink his fire prisms at least stunning them, but to no avail. We dance around for a few turns, and I start to get the upper hand. My harlies take out his spiders when they try to take an opportunity shot at a serpent. His autarch survives being shot by 7 meltaguns, and kicks the dragon's butt for trying. I get lucky on a couple of turns, dropping his falcon and one fire prism, and then we're both racing for whatever objectives we can get. I take the primary and secondary objective, no one gets the tertiary.

Round Two

And I end up in another training mission with yet more eldar.

This time we have:
The Avatar
Maugan Ra
10 dire avengers
10 guardians w/ a missile launcher
2x 8 pathfinders
10 harlequins, incl. master&seer
wraithlord w/ brightlance
wraithlord w/ brightlance & starcannon
wraithlord w/ brightlance & missile launcher

My opponent doesn't seem to know his army very well, and certainly not how to play against a mechanized army. We have 12" deployment zones, and he deploys one wraithlord far to the left, one center, one to the right. He surrounds the avatar with pathfinders too, costing him a turn of firing when he eventually needs to move the avatar.

I discount most of his army - the pathfinders, harlies and avengers post almost no threat to my army, while maugan, the avatar, and even the guardians aren't much of a threat. The wraithlords are clearly the targets - and yet, they're also the hardest part of the army.

I deploy hiding all my guys behind one large building that was conveniently left in my deployment zone.

The mission is to take vertical table quarters (so, his deployment zone is one, mine is one, and there are two more in no-mans land.

I win the roll for first turn (Yay autarch), but give it to him. He moves up the wraithlords, and mostly does nothing. I proceed to kill one of them, and use opportunity fire to kill the avengers.

He manages to down a fire prism, and my brightlance serpent, but that's really about all he manages. I take him on a bit at a time, and just seem to have the right tools - although I screw up and try to kill the avatar with fire dragons. Whoops. Fortunately my harlies were on-hand to do the job. I end up with all the objectives, and lots of points.

At this time, I'm thinking that as long as I get a decent matchup, I have a good shot at winning the tournament. I've got solid sportsmanship scores, excellent painting scores, and my battles are going well.

And then I see the table assignment for

Round three

I draw the worst possible matchup for my army. I know it's over before we even start deploying.

He's running a Necron destroyer wing.

1 Lord w/ Teleport&Orb
3x 10 necrons
14 destroyers
2 heavy destroyers
monolith

I try to give him a game, but if there's one thing I cannot handle, it's 45 shots/turn that glance my on sixes, on platforms that won't die (he makes every single We'll Be Back roll) and that are as mobile as I am. I drop the monolith on turn 1, so that in case I can get into combat, he can't teleport away. And, I try to chase him with the harlies falcon, but in the meantime, just about everything I have is either shaken or crashing.

I finally get close enough to get a charge on his warriors. They're a long way from any followup, so I try to kill a few so I can get closer into the fight with my pile-in, and do a good job at that, but he luckily fails this leadership test too, stranding me with only a 3" consolidate move instead of a pile-in, and leaving the harlies in the open. So my chance to run through his warriors and force a phase-out that way is gone, and with it are my hopes at winning the event.

I get a big fat 0. See, I will post my losses too

But, that's how it goes. In the gladiator, I got lucky matchups, and never had to face one of the hellhammers floating around, which would have decimated my orks. I got an unlucky matchup here, and there was really nothing I could do to win the battle.

I dunno what place I finished in, or what the final scores were, I imagine they'll post them at the adepticon site later this month.

And, so ended 3 days of gaming, 26 hours at the tables. Even with the final loss, it was a great weekend, and I highly recommend the trip to anyone who can make it next year. There were over 800 attendees, between the 40k and fantasy tournaments, as well as some specialist game events, seminars and painting competitions.

[Grandpa Ducky]

And yet another great report from you, Redbeard. (And another first post from me. =-P)

Again, looks like a blast, even with the nasty eleventh hour loss to those 'Crons. Congo ratz on the first two wins, though. The first round sounds like it was a pretty close game that required true skill to take. Good job, there.

Thanks for sharing all of these awesome reports,

-Grandpa Ducky

[Guitardian]

how did it turn out? inquiring bros wanna know

[Yriel of Iyanden]

+1 Karma awarded Redbeard. Great stuff!

- Yriel

[redbeard]

Originally Posted by Guitardian

how did it turn out? inquiring bros wanna know

Dunno, I didn't win any awards. The full results will be posted online later this month, I'll update this post then.