Warhammer 40K Tournament- 26 July 2003

I brought a Kult of Speed army to this tournament, but instead of Bob leading the way, we used Big Mek Goober - my hope was to save some points on the HQ and pack in more troops.

This list was 1850 points, this allowed me two battle wagons, 15 'ard boyz, 3 trukk boy mobz, 10 tankbusters, a guntrukk (zzap), 4 warbuggies/warbikes, and three warbike outriders. Every unit had a nob, all but two with powerklaws. The Big Mek had his own trukk, and three mekboyz, two with burnas and one with a kustom force field. We came in 8th of 22 players - winning one battle, and loosing two, one close (my mistake), and the other a complete slaughter of the green skins by the most incredibly unbalanced army list I have ever seen. For official results, see the DAKKA DAKKA STAT PAGE.

Ok - now on to he battles.

Battle 1: A very close loss to Dark Angels. This was a table quarters game, and I got to go second, which is perfect for me, just what I like. What did me in was that we only got to play 5 turns, and my sneaky plan was to contest table quarters in the last turn. I had hid two trukks out of range of his whirlwind, and I was going to run them up full speed on my last turn - but I didn't get that last turn! This is nothing against my opponent - he didn't stall, the game just took longer than we expected.

	Initial deployment, da boyz are ready to rumble!
	He was set up across the table, by the end of the game we had killed the devastator squad, dreadnought, razorback with squad, land speeder, two attack bikes, his chaplin, and another full 10 man tac squad.
	It's assault time! the 'ard boyz got hard pressed, but with some support by a trukkboy mob, they quickly choppered the 'beakie boyz down. Below, the warbike nob continued his rampage - In just one turn alone they shot and killed two devastators with fireing, charged the dreadnought, and the nob took him down with his power claw. Being the only one left, the nob consolidated into hand to hand with the remaining devastators. They would only last two more hand to hand rounds, freeing up the nob to continue his trail of destruction.
	Alas, I lost both battlewagons to pesky razorbacks, and a predator. those two squads of trukk boyz in the back were my ringers; a shortage of time did me in!

Battle 2: This was the most fun of all the battles, not just because I won, but it was a perfect ork versus ork mission! That's right, I got to face a nicely painted army of foot sloggin orks, in the ideal mission - Fued Fight! The premise was that two rival Warmasters meet to finally duke it out - and every turn, your HQ had to be closer to the opponents HQ! Could you imagine a better, more perfect orky mission?

I was a little nervous about sending my Big Mek up against a massivly tooled up Warboss and retinue, but it worked out in the end.

	He deployed first, setting down his zzapp and rokkit battle wagon. When it was my turn to place my heavy choice, gee, I wonder where It should go? With two identically placed battlewagons facing off, first turn was going to be key.
	The table had a large, central hill. He deployed the full length of the table, and I did as well - but heaver on one side, with my trukkers in the center for support, and fast movers (buggies and guntrukk) on the far side. This strategy worked for me, as on turn one I ran my buggies back to the other side of the table, basically focusing most of my army against half of his. A slugger boy mob, his gretchin, and some burna boyz basically never saw combat; and with the greater speed and range of the warbuggies, we were able to kill two of his warbikes per turn with only one buggy taking it in return.
	Well I got to go first, and I rolled my battle wagon up 7 inches, and proceeded to overheat with the Zzap gun. Not good. Fortunately that wagon was carrying the tankbustas, who amazingly put three rokkits right on target, destroying his battle wagon outright. His slugga boyz unloaded, and here they are being cleaned up by the 'ard boyz. His tankbustas, despite being shot to pieces by my other wagon and bikes, still managed to destroy the battle barge before the bikes wiped them out in turn two.
	His boss descended that staircase to get into hand to hand, but it didn't work out for him. This is the end, with my command squad standing triumphant. Assisted by the remaining 'ard boyz, and a trukk boy squad, they amazingly made short work of his HQ. This can be attributed to the power of the WAAGH, and choppers - just like fighting terminators, mega armored nobz go last with their power klaws and only get a 4+ save. What also made it nice was that his warboss never got into base to base contact with my models - he was stuck on a step, and had to die from the trukk boyz nob's power klaw attack! Instant kill, hooohaaa.
	One of his slugga boy mobz is finally getting close, but this was the last turn. I didn't assault with the bikes, just sat there and shot him - he had burnas, no big shootas in the mob. This is after his HQ was crushed, and the remaining 'ard boyz were heading that way.
	'Here's the other side of the table. After ripping off the battle cannon off of the Russ, it got popped by a big shooter glancing hit. His Burnas did the same on the rokkit trakk, but as you can see in this shot there is still the battlewagon with tankbusters, two full trukk boy mobz, a buggy, and the spider trakk. My opponent John McCool was a great guy, and ended up winning best army! Well deserved!

Battle 3 : This was a crushing loss to the Eldar. Now I want to say a few things here. Just like the last tourney that I played in, I was facing Eldar, on the same table, in the same mission, where you could warp one unit per turn, and deployment zones were shallow "L"s on opposite corner. What differed here was that I face the most horrifically unbalanced Eldar army I have ever seen. Again, I play Eldar as well, but this list, while legal, was outrageous, and the mission and table favored him. He had 3 wraithlords, an avatar, and no less than 3 full dark reaper squads, each with an missile launcher exarch.

Basically, this meant that I had to charge a full table length, straight down the barrel of 4 bright lances, 6 str 8 range 48 missiles hitting on a 2+, and 24 str 5 range 48 reaper shots. I lost every vehicle on the way in; the kustom force field helped a little, but not enough. I tried warping units, and lost a truck boy squad immediately; the 'ard boyz went next when the wagon got blasted (I figured they would never make it by walking), and drew some fire before they got wiped out; the tankbustas went next after their ride was destroyed; they did manage to eliminate one dark reaper squad by killing 3 with rokkets, a failed morale check sent the remainder of the reapers off the table.

I finally got my big mek into hand to hand with the Avatar, and he managed to put one wound on him before he got smooshed. The only heroes I had were the warbikes, due to wrecks they had to reverse direction and didn't' get into combat into turn 6. When they did, though, it was felt. They shot up a damaged reaper squad, killing it, assaulted his scouts, killing enough where they fled the table, and consolidated into hand to hand with wraithlord. On his last turn he attacked with his Avatar, and between the Avatar and wraithlord, two bikes went down. The nob had his say though, putting two more wounds on the avatar.

You will notice that I haven't cried cheese yet, for although by any definition his army list belonged deep in the heart of Wisconsin, it was a legal list. It was horribly unbalanced, as shown by what happened when my bikes finally got in close. A different table and mission would have helped too.

I did learn two things from this mission though. The 1st, if ever facing a mission like this, don't move. I should have sat there and made him move to me, or just sucked up a tie. It would have been cheesy, unfun tactics, but there you are. The 2nd is the looted Leman Russ. I'll never leave home without it. If I had it this mission, I could have sat out of range and just blasted him to smithereens. I took the gun trukk with the Zzap gun instead, but the truth is that the orks need a long range, effective shooting weapon, and the russ is just that.

	After leaving my initial deployment, I divided my vehicles into two forces around the central hill. I was hoping that by having to divide his fire something might actually get through.
	I tried to sneak through terrain, but to no avail - I ended up blocking other units due to wrecks.
	I was getting closer, as here the warped walking 'ard boyz drop in to say hello. You can see his deployment zone, and the plethora of dark reaper launchers!

Thanks again to DAKKA DAKKA!