Schizophrenic’s Guide: Tournament Results…
I, Daniel Trump, attended a Warhammer 40k tournament yesterday. I arrived at nine-thirty for a ten o’clock start time. My friend Terry was in the room, getting ready with his son — the organizer of the tournament. Phillip showed up at ten o’clock just before the pairings were up, wearing a Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt and a headband. We were told the air-conditioning didn’t work so it would be hot in the afternoon. We would play three games of Warhammer 40k in this one-day tournament. I have never won one of these things.
We sat down for game one. A friend, Blaine, had shown up with his two teenaged sons, Finn and Puck. I drew Finn in the first round. He had a moustache and was skinny and wore a t-shirt and plain pants. I had my Custodes — an elite army with thirty-four elite models. He had Chaos Space Marines, an elite army with ten terminators, four obliterators, and three forgefiends. I had to do damage to that army quickly to whittle down its firepower.
I then put my terminators and another unit in deep strike. That decision immediately cost me terribly. On turn one he attacked the middle of the board with his terminators and his obliterators, putting them in position to take the middle objectives and attack my units. I attacked with two units, trying to overwhelm the terminators. One unit failed the charge, leaving a depleted warden unit as the only unit charging. Ouch. That unit alone wasn’t enough to take down a 500 point terminator unit. I lost the wardens after killing three or so terminators. Eventually my terminators showed up and finished off his terminators and Abaddon, but they had a fight-on-death ability which they used to kill almost all of my terminators. I had nothing left and he finished my remaining forces with ease.
Game one: loss.
Phillip got mad after game one. He lost, too, and he wasn’t used to losing game one. He usually won at these things.
“I lost before turn one even started,” he said. “That’s a bad game design.”
We went to lunch at a chicken place that just sold chicken fingers. We ate said chicken fingers over a lunch that lasted an hour and a half because other people took a long time to finish their rounds and eat their lunch. Phillip was mad because his opponent had a Forge World unit that slowed his units and made it impossible for them to get into melee. He didn’t feel that he had a chance. We hung out at Target and I bought a book that I intend to read sometime.
Game two: I had a bye.
I don’t remember having a bye before. I got a free seventy-five points because of the bye. I didn’t play anyone round two. I sat around and watched Terry play Blaine. Terry’s tyranids were designed to hurt Custodes and therefore won the game cleanly. I hung out and did nothing for a couple of hours. I even reread a bit of my novel that I’m rewriting.
Game two: bye.
Game three I played against Blaine’s other son, Puck. He was a nice guy who played drukhari — aka dark eldar, aka the dark elves. He had a ridiculous number of dark lance shots that would kill one of my elite units in a shot. I had to worry and kill a lot of those units quickly.
I did so.
The terminators killed a couple of talos round two and two of the gunboats round three, ravaging the middle of the board. Two of my units of custodian guard killed a gunboat on the right side of the board, and my unit of guard on the left killed a unit of scourges. Then I got eight points for taking my opponent’s main objective with the terminators by killing a third gunboat with them.
The mission required us to place objectives in the middle of the board. Since I had a lot of little custodes units I was able to place a lot of objectives in the middle of the board and max out primary. We had a fun time and I was able to pull out a win.
Game three: win.
Then Phillip and I went to eat sushi at a revolving sushi bar. It was fun and delicious.
Overall I went 1–1. I am 6–5 at 10th edition Warhammer 40k. I have only played Adeptus Custodes.
I had a fun day of playing games. Obviously I want to play smarter and be a strategy genius, but I am consistently winning games and am proud of myself for that.
Thanks, and take care, friends.
