Hello everyone, just finished the 40k regionals this weekend. Why were YOU not there? Next tournament it would be pretty cool if we got afew of us to attend. Ask anyone who was at the nationals, it was a fun weekend.

As is the case with tournaments it was exhausting and the heat didnt help either it was like a Dutch oven in that air scouts hall. Although as always it was fun and I learnt a whole lot, without trying to sound like a tool I think I played better at this tournament than I ever have in the past. Well as stated previously I am tired so lets jump right into it.

The tournament followed the normal 6 game format, missions and deployment was rolled for and if any of the same combinations came up they were rolled for again.

Win – 3pts
Draw – 1pt
Loss – 0pt

Game 1: Kill points, pitched battle
My first game was against space wolves. Perfect mission for my paladins so I played aggressively and deployed right opposite my opponents force with the idea of just marhing all 10 of the big bad paladins to sweep him away. I think it would have worked but I didnt take into consideration that my paladins would be tied down with muderous hurricane (psychic power, 3d6 S3 hits and the target unit treats all ground as difficult and dangerous terrain) I realised that I would be stuck in the middle of the board tripping around in the hurricane while his whole army shoots at the paladins. So time for a plan B. I hunker the paladins down and start using them as a fire base with my dreadnoughts and my inteceptors flying up the middle to punch some grey hunters in the face. So the dreadnoughts get blown by wolf scouts and to my horror the inteceptors are about as useful against the hunters. We got so into the game we werent following kill points, so when it ended and we added it all up we found out its a 5-5 draw – could be worse I suppose :p

Game 2: objectives 5, dawn of war
5 Objectives with my tiny army, dammit. This time I get paired up with Sidney and his space wolves, a really interesting list his only scoring units were a 5 man wolf guard unit and a 2 man wolf guard unit (troops since he took Logan), lots of thunder wolves and 2 wolf lords on thunderwolves. Ok so we begin and his wolves hit me like a sledgehammer was hardcore, my paladins break and fall back, but not before succesfuly taking out one of his scoring units. Sidney was particularly sneaky and consolidated the wolves right up against my falling back paladins meaning they couldn’t regroup in my turn they fall off the board with Draigo, thats 900+ pts gone. Now he only has a 2 man unit left though which is bad news for him. Next turn his pod with logan and some long fangs come in but lucky for me he forgot that I cast warp quake and his drop pod gets a mishap he rolled and I could place the pod where I wanted to. Those poor long fangs spend the rest of the game running around on the other end of the table. My inteceptors come on and manage to hold 2 objectives (I made them scoring) and wipe out his remaining scoring models. His wolves just just don’t make it into combat with the inteceptors (by 2 inches). Win for me 2-0

Game 3: ultimate draw, spear head
I get paired against a guy by the name of Ross and his deathwing, so its a terminator army v a paladin army, interesting. Ultimate draw is an excellent mission for me. Not going to go into much detail here but the highlight of the game was all 15+ of his terminators in combat with all 10 of my paladins. This was a combat of epic proportions but my paladins come out on top and start carving a way across the board to his objective by the time I get to his objective my paladins are all but completely wiped out but no matter since I managed to wipe out all of his scoring units in time. Win for me

So after day 1 I was feeling pretty confident but in my experience if you do well on the first day the second is going to be tough since you get paired with the better players.

Game 4: Kill points, dawn of war
Against Bernard and his Chaos, I usually play against his orks and I have been tabled in every single game, im hoping things go better against his chaos. As always Bernard was great to play against so I had a good game. He was running loads of bezerkers with dual lash and plenty of obliterators. I adopted a similar tactic to in my first game with similar results due to lash so I decide to rather just hunker down and use my paladins as a fire base. His oblitarators try to thin out my paladins but Draigo just takes all the lascannons with a smile on his face. Eventually his bezerkers get in and the powerfist on the champions really make me sweat and I lose a few paladins. As the combat goes on the Bezerkers lose their momentum from their charge I gain the upper hand especially with my inteceptors joining the fight. I wipe out all the Bezerkers and my paladins are the heros of the hour (again). Win for me 8-1

By this point im in second place right after Brindley, so it stands to reason that I will face him next. I must say I was pretty intimidated.

Game 5: Ultimate draw, pitched battle
I was right I come up against Brindley and his Blood Angels. Im not going to go on about it for long but let me just tell you that he is really good, I think he is ranked 2nd in the country at the moment. His list basically consists of alot of Razorbacks, some predators, Mephiston, and 2 flying Dreadnoughts (could you imagine how much of a surprise it would be to see a flying Dreadnought on the battlefield?). So he has alot of mechanised scoring units so I lock my objective down with all 3 of my dreadnoughts and 10 paladins somehow he still manages to outflank a Baal Predator up behind my dreadnoughts, it immobilises a dreadnought before it gets blown to hell. He keeps trying to make a gap so that his Razors can make a break for the objective, but my paladins held firm. At this point my inteceptors arrive to hopefully take his objective, ya that didnt work so well 10 inteceptors vs 2 dreadnoughts and Mephiston = 10 very dead inteceptors. So just when it looks like a draw my 5 man strike squad deep strikes right on his objective, but I dont have high hopes for them. Brindley commits his dreadnoughts to the 5 man squad. By some miracle the 5 man unit survives the charge and contests his objectives. Its the 5th turn and if the game ends now I will win the game! I roll and unfortunately thanks to my crappy rolling skills the game goes on for another turn and we draw. Dammit. So close.

It was a close game. I figure that if I win the next game and Brindley loses it I will still come 1st!

Game 6: 5 Objectives, spearhead
Last game is against Nigel and his Orks. This couldnt be a worse matchup, 5 objectives, orks, Nigel. Nigel always has a way of getting around anything im planning, its really annoying. I decide to play it safe reserve everything, in reply he does the same, great. So the game goes with not much killing going on, as the game reaches the higher turns and with some incredibly sneaky charging tactics with his Komandos as well some more sneaky moves with 2 boyz. He wins the game 2 objectives to 1. Dammit. I dont know how he does it but every dam time he gets me.
I ended up placing 4th overall with Brindley 1st, Nigel 2nd, and Quinton 3rd. Its the best I have ever done so I was happy and as I said I learnt alot. I also got a prize, oh ya what to do with my R100 voucher. It was a great weekend. I will get people in our club to attend the next tournament if its the last thing I ever do.