Okay, I meant to post this earlier but I quickly became carried away with my delving into the mystical arts of Khemri (plus my warpstone addled brain usually suffers from terrible attention deficit problems). So here is a quick rundown of my Adepticon trip.
I took my Iron Snakes Sternguard Spam list to the 40k single player tournament in hopes of maybe finally breaking into the double digit rankings. I knew this was rather ambitious though as historically, I perform very poorly at any national tournament, much less one in Chicago where I've never placed higher than 130 (and that was during the old GW GTs!)
So anyway, my list boiled down to Kantor, two sternguard squads in rhinos, an ironclad in a droppod, some tactical squads in rhinos/razorbacks, a predator, and a whirlwind. Oddly enough the most compliments I received all weekend was due to me being ballsy enough to take a Whirlwind. I figured it would work great if I managed to pull some Tyranid horde lists or Orks. Little did I know that traitorous bastard had already planted the seeds of my destruction. So here is the breakdown of my four games over the course of a very pain-filled day.
Huzzah! Tyranids! I should do geat since I have a whirlwind right? WRONG. My opponent's list had a large unit of genestealers, several units of the hive guard, some Tervigons, a unit of gaunts for screening, and a hive tyrant. I started with everyone out of the vehicles since the genestealers were dangerously close. The Ironclad dropped down and flamed the genestealers and killed several. I shifted my battleline away from the genestealers and sent my speeders down the flanks. First turn he wiped out a tactical squad with the genestealers and he immobilized the dreadnought that happened to be looking away from the rest of teh tyranid army (I forgot the hive guard can shoot through terrain). End result of this game? Pretty much tabled by the end of turn 4. I managed to kill most of the genestealers, put a couple wounds on some tervigons and that's it. It really was a horrible game. My opponent wasn't a bad guy, I could tell he actually felt bad stomping me into the ground. So the first game I lost largely because, while I figured I was well suited to face tyranids, I've only ever played against the new codex a single time before going to Adepticon.
Game 2 - Blood Angels
Let me say this first, Brian (Of Brian Carlson Miniatures) is a great guy with a beautiful looking Blood Angels army. That being said, I think I could have won this game had the dice been a little friendlier and if I had deployed a little bit more coordinated. So Brian's army consisted of Dante, Sanguinor, two units of sanguinary guard, some priests, and some assault squads that he chose to combat squad. I think that's everything. So he deployed Sanguinor and both squads of Sanguinary Guard in the extreme corner of the table. I deployed my sternguard and one tactical squad directly opposite him with my land speeders on the far flank and the other tactical squad in the center. All squads were in vehicles. He started across the board and I struck down a model here or there with my pot shots. When he got close I jumped the gun, rambled forward 6" and disembarked both squads of sternguard in his face. Fail. I did do a large amount of damage. I wiped out a whole squad of sanguinary guard, severely damaged the 2nd, and killed a priest. but... not enough. he got off the multi-charge and they slaughtered me to a man on that flank. Amusingly enough, my ironclad had dropped in the middle of the board on an objective and chased off or shot down an assault squad that tried to deep strike near him. However, end of the game he had Dante and another combat squad in my deployment zone and I had two landspeeders and a dreadnought. He won the victory, although, as I mentioned the battle could have gone either way for most of the game. Very fun game, very nice guy. He even offered me a beer from his magical cart!
Game 3 - Tyranids... Again
After my schooling in game 1 I was very cautious playing against tyranids again. That probably held me back somewhat and I know I could have deployed better in this game. My opponent (a girl!) possessed a hodge podge of Zoanthropes, guants, stealers, two trygons, some warriors, hive guard, and a tyrant with tyrant guard as well as a single tervigon. Game started off fine. I kept killing wave after wave of bugs and she had terribel luck with reserves. I actually had most of my army left at the end of the game but she had 1 more point than I did (damn created gaunts). Again, if I had deployed not like an idiot, I would have done better. Oh, and how many models had the whirlwind killed over the course of teh day considering this should have been ideal matchups (minus the blood angels). 4 models. All stealers. So a decent game, although hardly fun. My opponent kept being so indecisive that we barely finished 4 turns of the game and... she always seemed to scowl at me. Admittedly I'm pretty shy around new people, especially women, but I don't think I was being a dick. Still, maybe I was acting like one of those guys who was bragging when winning and whining when losing, although I doubt that. I really thought I was winning up until we were pointing up the sheets at the end of the game.
Game 4 - Yup, you guessed it. Tyranids again.
Sonnuva... *grumble, grumble, grumble*. Another damn bug player? So my opponent this time had a wonderful blue tyranid army. He had the swarmlord which made me very nervous, two tervigons, a tyrannofex, some hive guard, a bunch of gaunts, and a venomthrope or two. We started with two troops and an HQ on the table so he set up his swarmlord and both tervigons practically breathing down my neck halfway across the table. I turtled in a corner with Kantor and the tactical squads. First two turns I killed both tervigons with little loss. This meant everything coming in from his table edge had no synapse present! The swarmlord turned around to go babysit the newcomers so I shot the crap out of the gaunts, the venomthrope, and the tyrannofex. Last couple turns I mounted up and swarmed over or came as close as possible to all the objectives. End result, I held two objectives to his one plus I had some of the bonus objectives for the other victory conditions. I admit I was probably so elated at finally winning a game that I was probably too happy and *might* have come off like a prick. Still, I did give the guys kudos for one of my two favorite games of the day and for having a beautifully painted and modeled army.
So given that I faced 3 tyranid armies guess how many models the whirlwind killed? If you guessed higher than a dozen you'd be wrong. I think all total it killed 9 models all day. Four of those were genestealers, the rest were gaunts. So, over the course of 3 games... it still barely paid for itself. Needless to say I'm looking into alternatives and am considering a typhoon landspeeder at this point or another predator.
My heroes of the day? The Ironclad and the Predator. Both paid for themselves in every game except the first and the Ironclad probably would have done fine except for my absent-minded professor moment of forgetting hive guard guns fire through terrain.
Disappointments? The whirlwind obviously was the key point of failure. I'd say the sternguard disappointed me but I think the key problem there was my lack of practice using them on the tabletop. I am definitely going to replace the whirlwind with another predator tank. My only decision to make at this point is whether I want another autocannon/lascannon bunker or if I want the autocannon/heavy bolter tank for dealing with hordes. Also, I'm used to playing armies with fast vehicles so rhinos perplex me. If I just want to move 6" and fire why wouldn't I just get out of the transport and walk to begin with?
So final thoughts? I need more practice for 40k. Moreover, I need more practice with the army I plan to take to Adepticon. I had played only a single game of 40k with the Iron Snakes before Adepticon and that was against space wolves where, the likely outcome had we been able to finish the game, would have been a draw or possibly a minor victory for his or my army.
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