Well much fun was had this weekend @ the 40k Meltdown tourney hosted by Knoxville's Death Jesters gaming club! The tourney name turned out to be rather prophetic as the venue's AC was completely inadequate to the task. Barring that, it as well run (far batter than any Gamesday GT that I've attended), had excellent & large quantities of it on all tables (again surpassing the Gamesday GTs). The only change I would make would be to either extend the time per round or reduce the point total. I fielded a horde, and faced a horde in all three rounds meaning no games exceeded turn three. Barring that though, it was a flawless run show!
In advance I'd like to apologize for the lack of/poor quality of my photos. I'm starting to think that my camera is defective. The multitude of features are more a hindrance than a help, the anti-shake feature is worthless, white balance is marginally effective, and the setting or close up shots is only effective @ less than a foot, as most of my close ups were blurry beyond recognition. I shouldn't be required to use a tripod & light box for every photo!!! And the owner's manual online manufacturer's trouble shooting is worthless. My grandparents digital camera by contrast (which is no more sophisticated & older) is a simple point, shoot & everything looks great like a digital camera should be. As such there were 4 salvageable photos of the 20 that I took. Grrr....
(edit: 2 hours of looking online has shown me that Vivtar is now almost universally despised, unless you just want a cheap camera. Apparently they were bought out by a Chinese company some time back and the only thing that stayed the same was the name, as for quality...well, see for yourself...)
Anyways, the Meltdown, Round 1 vs. Orks fielded by Chris Staples (who took the best themed award)
Yes, that blurry thing in the back really is a flying Battlewagon, Ghazghkull Thraka willed it and it was so... (actually the trees were steel rods & wouldn't bend to allow the battlewagon to fit)
Spearhead setup, 5 objectives (which explode on a 2+ is there are no troops models within 3". End total: Chris: 22pts, Me: 0pts.
I've only faced the 4 Ghazghull with Big Mek/KFF and 4 Battlewagons with deff rollas list once before, and I had nothing for it, sadly, I still don't. The dice weren't too kind to me either with a self inflicted body count of 8 in that game (of which my commissar lord was responsible for only 1). About the only things that went right for me was I stole initiative & wiped out a small bike squad on turn 1, and a vet with meltbomb death or gloried a charging battlewagon, stopping it in it's tracks! (then Ghrazghull disembarked & much unhappiness ensued). Had this gone a full six rounds I'm sure I'd have gotten tabled (had I lasted 6 rounds). Really mad about the photos as it was a really pretty Ork army!
Round 2 vs. Imperial Guard fielded by Murl of the 13th Cadian, yes we drove 100 miles to play against each other, our games are just that good!
The Highway of death!
Pitched battle deployment, each side had to move a potentially explosive objective into the other's deployment zone. End Total: Murl: 10pts, Me: 13pts.
Given the brutal heat, this game was fought in downtown Miami. I stole the initiative again and the diced had warmed up at this point resulting in our usual bloodbath! Both objectives made it out into no-man's land in the middle, and no further. We found mid game that only troops could move the objectives, and with both sides having platoons making a hard turn to recover stalled objectives. Murl was in reach of his when I had 1 guardsmen in range to charge his platoon, pulling them back for 'some hot platoon on platoon action'. Don't think in all of our games we've ever had merged platoons locked in HTH. His command section which had an officer with powerfist charged in causing havoc, but my commissar declared 'Tarpit!' and we went nowhere. So we tied primary & secondary objectives, and I squeaked out the teritary getting a win. It was an ugly win, but I'll take it!
Round 3 vs. Sergeant Zombo's 'Crimson Guard' themed Imperial Guard.
A veritable sea of Guardsmen!
Pitched battle deployment, first round night fight, had to hold the center objective. End total: Sgt. Zombo: 0pts., Me: 22pts.
Turn one was basically a whole lot of moving in the dark followed by turn 2 which was artillery hell as a seemingly endless onslaught of basilisk rounds came falling down! Merging my infantry squads into a 40 man mob with the commissar lord thrown is was still a game winner, as they held the objective despite being the 40 guardsmen being reduced to just SIX! Favorite moments of the game were a shaken hellhound tank shocking two enemy squads. The first failed & a meltgunner was squished, shoving the rest aside (think in hindsight we did that wrong, but we were kinda fried @ that point) and the 2nd squad's meltagunner blowing up the hellhound, resulting in 28 Crimson guardsmen being in range, 15 wounded, and 9 KIA!
That and while leaning across the table to see where to put his first basilisk barrage, he spotted mt Command HQ, stopped, looked, and asked 'is that a chef?' (he spotted Major Blunder's bodyguard & personal chef, Sgt. Pepper). On paper he only destroyed 1 tank, while much else was badly chewed up, it was still on the table & holding the objective, so I got full points for the game! THAT said, my mini case was about half full of casualties, and I'm not sure how much longer I could have lasted under that barrage (by game end there were still 4 basilisks firing).
All in all a good day though. I won a door prize of a gale force 9 curved needle nose pliers and took 6th overall. Not sure how, i guess the army's appearance made up for its lack of performance, but either way I'm happy with the result!
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