On Saturday, October 22nd, we set out from the Tampa area to invade the Games Workshop grand opening event the store was holding.
Outside shot.
At first we had five people going and with luck will have it. One of my friends had to work and another opted not to go after he said he would. Oh well! Andrew, Lee and I met in Brandon and drove about 2 hours to Orlando to play in their 1500 point elimination tournament.
Upon arrival the store was packed! I mean wall to wall gamers and their wives, girlfriends or parents in tow. The store itself was a standard GW store, the new metal tables with the GW Realm of Battle Boards on top of each table. The store is staffed by only one employee at this time and GW sent out a special guest from the Memphis HQ to assist, teach painting and help judge the painting scores of the armies. The store was well stocked and was fairly easy to get to.
The tables, light on scenery!
The throng of people packing the store.
There was some special merchandise on sale such as book covers, dice bags and flags that they advertised on their website. I considered a flag for 40k but by the end of the day they were sold out of them. No huge loss, I did receive one of the special Terminator Patches that are only at the store on the grand opening that they gave to each player in the event.
Flags and dice bags on display.
Terminator Patch
Here is my 1500 point list from memory: Sorcerer and Demon Prince with Wings both have the mark to allow them to take Lash. 3 squads of Chaos Marines of ten with two plasma guns and a Champion with a power fist, a 5 man Chosen squad with 4 plasma guns and 1 melta gun and 5 Obliterators in a group of 2 and 3 each.
My first game was against a Grey Knights player that was a very cool guy. He ran out of glue the night before and had to use blue tack to hold some models together and he had not event started to paint his army yet. The games were all kill points and 12” deployment on 3x4 tables. I won the dice off, setup, he setup his army.
His list was Crowe, 2 Storm Ravens with the usual multi-melta and twin-linked lascannons. Two Rhinos and two Dreadnoughts with psyammo with TL Autocannons (pair) and 4 units of 5 Grey Knights with 2 Psycannons and halberds for the others.
He failed to seize and it was game on! I moved up. Ran some into cover with a few units and the Oblits knocked one Raven down making it immobile and the other was blown apart killing a few. I dragged the squad forward. At this point he was down his fastest flyers and the game went back and forth with close kill points. His bread winners were the psycannons and the psyrifleman racking up the kill points. He had Crowe by himself and ran out into the open and was promptly gacked by plasma guns and bolters. By the end of the game he only had a single immobile Storm Raven, one squad hidden in a Rhino and I think that was all. May have missed something else but if another unit was alive was the single guy.
The Grey Knight Grand Master
Deployment
First turn.
Dead pile about turn 3,
There was a dread there!
Top die is my kill point total,
Chaos advances on the Grey Knights.
You don't see me!
Total up towards the end.
Out of my choice I lost the Chosen, one unit of Oblits and one Troop choice along with the poor Demon Prince that got toasted on turn 1 by psycannon shots. Taking the win and moving up into round 2. My next match was against a Blood Angels player.
He had this: Land Raider, Storm Raven, Dread with Blood Talons, Tactical squad with flamer and missile launcher, assault squad with jump packs, Librarian with another assault squad with no packs in the Raven with melta guns. A unit of terminators with a heavy flamer rounded out the list. Again, I won the toss, took the best defensive side and setup. He placed most of his stuff on the table except the Jump packs and Terminators. I held the Chosen Back to flank. Facing a single Raven, Land Raider and a combat squad Tactical for deployment with the Raven holding the assault squad, Libby and Dread.
Game was ugly again kill points went back and forth for a short moment and then I managed to get a two point lead and hold it for the game. He made some bad tactical choices the Dread tore up one squad and then ripped into the Chosen that shot down the Raven on turn two with a blaze of glory. The Dreadnought lost and arm fell back behind the Land Raider to avoid giving up a kill point. I was surprised he didn’t try to go through cover to take out the Sorcerer that was planting melta bombs on the side of the immobile land raider. When we reached the end of our game the dice called it stop on turn 6 and I had a strong lead on kill points again. I was down just two Chaos Marine squads and the Chosen along with the Demon prince. He was down his HQ, one assault squad, two combat squads, and a storm raven making a close win towards the end. Another win to the third round with 4 final players. One other major downfall for my opponent was his reserve rolls; both arrived late in the game which allowed me free reign to bash his army.
The Blood Angels Captain.
Deployment
His deployment.
CHARGE!
Dammit! Hold still!
Near the end of the game.
Terminators and Assult Marines show.
Chaos stands against the Red Tide!
The last round was against tough bug list that my friend Andrew played first round and lost to with his Traitor IG list. Again it was kill points and 12” deployment.
He had for his list: Two big bugs that pooped out more gaunts, a Hive Tyrant with swords and one guard, two Hive guard with the STR 8 guns, two Zonathorpes in a pod, two flanking Genestealer units with a Broodlord to each and a small unit of Gaunts with guns with two Venomthropes with the gas cover power.
He won the dice but opted to give me the first turn. We had full tables now so it was 6x4 now to work with! I hauled in 19” both ways! FLANK ME GENESTEALERS! YEAH! By this time I am brain dead and tired of making it to the third game. Lee was facing off against a meched up Ultramarine army with his Orks.
The game went really well for me at first, the big guys fell and things just worked in my favor. Then when I had the lead, I got greedy as Lee put it. I should have used lash to push the stealers away instead of shooting them. Twice I had very poor dice rolls that resulted in not enough kills to remove the unit. After the dice turned on me near the end and the tactical choice of pulling the Brood Lord in ended the game poorly for me with just the Lord and a pair of Oblits duking it out with a Genestealer Lord (with one wound), and a pair of Zonathropes. Nothing else was left. At the end it was painful. I got tabled by some bad dice in the end. Ugh! I should have fallen back and used lash to push his stealers away and used the last Oblits to shoot him slowly apart.
Meet the Hive Mind!
Near the end of the game!
A battle to the finish!
Just prior. The Sorcerer was assulted.
The end of the game. This was just all that was left!
Lee mauled the Ultramarine player and faced off against the bug player in the end. At this point the Clay (the GW manager) said to roll the deployment and mission. They got the each place one objective and the pitched battle. Lee rolled over the bug player and crushed him with his Ork Horde; I don’t think he lost a single unit during the entire game. Mind you several was at half or below half but he had the win in the bag with the grots going to ground hidden behind the Lootas holding his Objective with the Warboss with Snikrot keeping the bugs away from theirs.
Here is Lee with the GW manager Clay with the other guy that won the Fantasy Tournament. The Fantasy tournament was a poor turnout with just two players. In some ways I wished I would have packed together a Fantasy army to help out.
Lee with GW Manager Clay.
Clay with Lee and the Fantasy winner.
I felt pretty good about placing in the third round with eliminations and I can only blame the dice and myself for not facing off against Lee in the end. Lee was very disappointed and was looking forward to seeing how the dual lash would have worked. Granted he would have pasted the one Demon Prince with the Lootas quickly and moved on to maul the rest of the army with the boyz.
Here is some shots from the painting table that John (from Heavy Metal) was painting:
Amazing stuff!
Wow!
Crisp paint job!
A few new books when home with me to enjoy reading!
The store has tons of unused space that could expand into a small battle bunker (which would rock) or at least into a larger store with more tables. I figure that while I am working in Orlando over the next few weeks I will be dropping by to play a game or two after work.
Good post, it was great meeting you there.
ReplyDeleteLee did indeed maul me but it was a blast! -Rory, The Ultramarines Baby Seal
The Ultras looked great and that Ork list is tough as nails to take on if you don't have the right stuff like Thunderfire cannons, Vindicators or Whirlwinds for example.
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