Tournament results: Swords and Superheroes

Last weekend I ventured out Kingwood's Sword and Superheroes to participant in a small RTT. I was actually going to let my minis see the light of day and do more than Theory Hammer.
This is going to be more of an overview than a turn by turn battle so I hope you all enjoy.

This was my first time visiting Sword and Superheroes and I have to say I felt quite welcomed by Glenn at the store, who seemed to be a veteran of the hobby. The store had over six tables available for us to play with the average amount of terrain you would find at a FLAGS. For me I think the most appealing aspect of the store was the fact that I was able to play a game while watching The Last Dragon. For you kids who aren't familiar with that movie, go ahead and Google it. You will be doing yourself a service by meeting Bruce Leroy.

Unfortunately only two other players and myself appeared for the tournament.Glenn decided that we would play round robin for the prize money. The other two players that showed are both very active in the Houston 40k community. Dat has been involved in the Warhammer 40K Houston Facebook making posts about different strategies, showcasing his works, and helping newer players learn the game. John is a seasoned GT player that often TO's, who created numerous amounts of LOS blocking terrain for tournaments, and who in generally has help grow the community. Also on a personally note he is one of the reasons I started my blog.

John supplemented the stores terrain with his own and every table was packed to the gills with Tau tear inducing LOS blockers. We rolled off for the first games and it came down to Dat and me.

I brought my standard list which can be found here http://northofthegoldenthrone.blogspot.com/2013/10/tournament-results-montags-games.html . It is basically a flying circus list with Heldrakes. I don't remember Dat's list point for point however it was a White Scars list that was close to this

Khan on bike
Super Chaptermaster on bike
Command squad on bike with grav guns
Bike squad with grav guns and multi melta x4
Bike squad with multa guns and multi meta
Thunderfire cannon x2
Batman Tau Commander with super punch you fist
Fire warriors x 2

We were playing an interesting mission that was a modified purge the alien game. In this mission the unit that killed another would be worth one more kill points once it died. So a unit could keep racking up points then be killed to give those points to your opponent. The secondary was objectives. We played Vanguard strike and Dat went first.

Dat was a great opponent that I would love to play against any day. He was very tactical with this movement and manipulation of Independent Characters to spread them around where they needed to be.This is was my second time fighting the White Scars and I didn't make the same mistake I did last time but I could have avoid combat for longer. In hindsight I should have assaulted a unit of bikers with two monstrous creatures to avoid just being feed one sergeant and letting him hit and run away.

Dat covered the field in marines and I was being attacked from all fronts. I ended up spreading out my creatures instead of focusing them on one flank at a time. My Tzeentch prince did a lot of damage and scored five kill points. He was also my downfall as the moment he died Fire warriors it swung the game by six kill points to my opponent. My Lord of Change was all but invincible but it only adsorbed damage and wasn't able to really inflict a lot.

My Heldrakes did what Heldrake do but Dat was able to move around his invulnerable saves to mitigated the damage he took. I think if I had three Drakes the game would have gone a lot differently but this does show that marines don't just automatically fall over to Heldrakes. Dat took the win and the next game was between him and John.

John's list was focused around a Dark Eldar beastpack Deathstar ,with the Eldar components there to capture objects and buff the army. This is approximately his list.

Eldrad

Farseer on bike

Jetbikes x 5

Swooping Hawks

Wraithknight with cannons x 2

Night spinner

Baron

Kabalite warriors

beastmaster x  5

Khymerae x 24

I was being a bad reporting during this game and all I really know is that it was an objective game played with the football field deployment. Dat reserved a large amount of his army and stole initiative which he later regretted.

John set up a defensive formation across the entire board with his beast pack to force Dat to engage it before he could get to anything else in his army. This was a fierce battle that had two very fast armies going head to head.

There was a lot of hitting and running in this game as both players were doing it in almost every combat. In the end the resilience of the beastpack won the day. Fortune on a 4++ save, along with the other psychic powers lethality can not be ignored.

It was time for me and John to step into the ring. I wanted to redeem myself after losing to him in my last tournament against his necrons. I knew this list would be brutal as it has been all the rage in the UK meta. The mission was primary relic, secondary kill points, tertiary to have more units in your opponents deployment zone. The catch was that there were three relics and the players get to place them. John put one his deployment zone, I put one in mine, then I put the last in dead middle of the field.

I think John rolled the perfect powers with him having prescience, misfortune, invisibility, doom, and fortune. My powers were so so, the most notable one was that I got puppet master on my Tzeentch prince. So with all the LOS blocking terrain on the board, John going first, and his ability to redeploy with Eldrad I still put my Deamon Prince of Tzeentch right out in the open. The only protection he had was a 5++ save and a smile on his face. John redeployed his Wraithknights and on turn one evaporated my Tzeentch prince. So I began my turn 345 points down, not a good start at all. I told myself that would be my only stupid mistake of the game. If I come to play, I should come to play right.

I approached  the game exactly like I would any other deathstar. I bullied his troops and tried to slow down his deathstar if I could. My Heldrakes put in some major work game. They were my most valuable unit hands down and burnt all of Johns vulnerable units to a crisps. My Lord of Change tanked a lot of damage and after taking out a Wraithknight forced John to turn his army on him instead of advancing into my ranks.

He finally made it into my troops holding the relic on turn five and he easily ran through them but by that time I had also decimated all this troops. I rolled to see if the game would continue and it ended with me staring down his beast pack with ten cultist in one corner, a scattering of cultist in the other corner, and my Heldrake owning the skies.

We tied on the relic, tied on kill points, and John pulled it out on tertiary with having his beast pack in my deployment zone. It was a magnificent game that put my skills to the test. This was exactly want I wanted to get from a game of 40k.

John won the mini tournament and was awarded 30 dollars in store credit. However being a scholar and gentleman he offered me the prize as there was nothing he wanted immediately. I graciously accepted to get my Guard army back on it's feet and bought another Vendetta.

Later that night John realized that he had made a mistake in our game and contacted me the next day. He miscounted what I killed. I actually won the game in kill points. After looking back at it, I did win. He was only able to take 6 kill points from me and I should have had 8 from him. My Chaos clawed victory from the jaws of defeat in a breathtaking game.

Instead of possibly having three OK games I was awarded two amazing games from two great players in my community. I will call this tournament a success but I can't wait to bring my Chaos out on a bigger field and see what they can really do.

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