After Action

So I went the the escalation tournament this weekend and got 2nd, losing out to Don and his orks (that ran my ass off the table in round 2, but more of that to follow). It was a good little tournament with an excellent turn out. We filled that little place up, that's for sure. I actually went home a little delerious, and sore as hell. But that happens all the time to me when I play. I need to learn to chug water all day, but I run my mouth too much.

First round I played Chris's wolves in a 500 pt mission. I brought a squad of crisis, a piranha, and a squad in a devilfish. I ended up doing ok, but I couldn't kill his 18 marines on the objective. Very damn difficult to say the least! I ended up getting 12 out of 20 points (and he got 14 out of 20). A loss but a close one.

The next mission I played against Don's Orks, and probably had the most shocking thing done to me in a year or two of playing. He ran 3 battlewagons w/20 orks in each and grazgull(sp?) right at me. I fired away with railguns for the entire length of that time and didn't do anything. At the end of it, after running to the end of the board I lost a good 60% of my army in HTH in one turn. My commander, 2x crisis suits, 1x broadsides. The hammerheadx2, 2x kroot (in outflank) and a squad of firewarriors managed to escape the carnage by simply not being there. It was... brutal. I manged to game the mission and take the objectives, so point wise it was a victory (12 to 6) but I tell you what, it certainly didn't feel that way!

The last game was against tyranids and it was one of those all or nothing games, either I was going to get tabled, or he was. Luckaly for me Tau gunfire at point blank range is pretty deadly, and I manged to pick up a huge amount of stuff, getting max points. However, watching that list made me wonder, would more tyranid warriors in pods be more effective. I don't know about other armies, but tau certainly would have a hard time dealing with 9x warriors at point blank range. We simply do not have enough str 8 to kill that many of them, sadly.

All in all a wonderful tournament, and a lot of fun. And congradulations to my mate Don from Columbia on winning it, the way he ran his orks up my ass, he deserved it. I was glad for the learning lesson not to mess with a 27 inch charge. Rematch! Rematch! ;-)

So I am shelving the Tau until their next codex, when I will dust them off and bring them back. I carefully put them in their cases and the back of the house, and picked up a few more vets and a predator for my continuing marines. I have what is left that needs to get painted by the next tournament as well.

Speaking of which, my wife is in school, so it will probably be may before I am able to attend another anyway. On to continued palytesting of my marine army, lead by Gabriel Martel, Chapter Master of whatever the hell I will name my chapter!