Rapid Fire 40K Tournament (Part 2)

Okay, time for part 2 of my Rapid Fire 40K Tournament coverage that happened at Game Vault in Fredricksburg, VA last Saturday. After Game 4 we broke for lunch. I was feeling pretty good, I had 3 wins and 1 loss. I was smarting from my loss and wanted to get back into the win column. That unfortunately was not to be.

Battle Reports (continued)

Game 5 vs Mike's Chaos
Mike had a pretty nasty army comprised of 2 squads of Plague Marines each in a rhino. Also the table we were on was kind of rough, lots of high rocky hills with deep valleys and a rock bridge across some dangerous terrain. I deployed the Noise Marines on the bridge, my 10 man squad on some rocks, with my rhino squad behind them. The mission was kill points again.

Turn 1, I moved the Noise Marines up and to the right. The Rhino squad moved to the left and the 10 marine squad dug in and opened up on one of the Plague Marine rhinos. However it was deep in cover and made its cover save. Mike charged his army forward hoping to close quickly and get inside the reach of my guns. Turn 2 was much the same, I shot at him while trying to move to his flanks and he moved forward. Then he got out and started blasting. I took some injuries but actually made most of my armor saves.

Then I fought back, firing the full squad of Noise Marines with a hit from the Blast Masters template, and the point blank shooting of what was left of the 10 man squad into his front squad, doing a good amount of damage. He charged with both squads into the remains of the 10 man squad. At the same time he with drew his rhinos. My next turn, I moved my Rhino squad to their flank, hopped out and vaporized a rhino with a metal gun. At the same time the plague marines killed off the end of my 10 man squad and both squads rolled high for their consolidation roll.

Not sure I would be able to kill the plague marines with just 5 marines, I headed out after the second rhino, getting into mine. That was my mistake. Mike managed to charge out after me with the plague marines and catch my mounted squad. He assault and destroyed it rolling a 5 on the damage table. However in the process he had managed to surround the rhino and the squad was destroyed too as they dismounted the wretched vehicle. Sigh. 3 wins and 2 losses.

Game 6 vs Seth's Orks
Seth had a massive ork horde that took me by surprise. He had two large squads ork boys with shootas, one lead by warp head. He also had a Deth Kopta and some other stuff (sorry I do not remember what else was in his list, it did not really have alot of effect on the game). This was the army mine was designed to fight. I had purposely pulled alot of the special equipment out of the orginal version of my list so that I could better concentrate on massed fire. I deployed my army as one big gun line. Firing round after round into his boyz. However the board put the game in his favor, providing him cover saves all the way in so that I only killed a small precentage of his boyz before he reached me. Also early on he got my Rhino with the rokket on his Deth Kopta. With no where to manuever and an inability to kill enough boyz the game was over as I was wiped from the board. 3 wins and 3 losses.

Game 7 vs Frank's Space Marines
Frank's army consisted of two 10 man squads of marines each with an Assault Cannon Razorback and containing a Plasma Cannon. The mission was Capture and Control with the setup of Spearhead again. Frank chose to combat squad is marines giving him two 5 man squads in the Razorbacks and two 5 man squads with the plasma cannons firing at me. I did not have enough AP stuff to take out the Razorbacks that were leading out ahead of his force while the Plasma Cannons stayed back and shot. I got shot up pretty good and needless to say lost the game. 3 wins and 4 losses.

Game 8 vs Ben's Space Wolves
Ben's list was let me see, strong. His army was a squad of Bikers, each with wargear and equipment making them nearly impossible to kill. In addition he had a squad of Grey Hunters to hold objectives. The terrain allowed him to setup in cover, out so sight fo my guns. Turn one he turbo boosted towards me staying mostly in cover. I shot him with a Krak missile and thanks to a piece of wargear the biker managed to live. Sigh. I then charged him with the Noise Marines, dumb dumb dumb. His bikers wiped them out with no effort at all. Turn two saw them assaulting the 10 man squad and they were wiped out too. Top of turn 3 it was all over. Wow that was a beating. 3 wins and 5 losses.



Game 9 vs Russell's Orks
Russell's list consisted of 2 big squads of boyz, 2 tracks with Rokkets, 2 Killa Kans, and a squad of lootas. I thought I had a good shot. The mission was kill points again and I deployed much like I had against Seth, in a gun line. Russell came charging at me with his boys supported by the tracks and kans while the lootas sat back and shot. This time however there was a lot less terrain and I managed to get in some good shooting. In the last rounds of the game I had wiped out both big squads of boyz, killed one of the tracks, and destroyed one of the two kans. He had wiped out the 5 man squad, damaged the rhino, and wittled down my other two squads. I was in a good possition sitting on 2 Kill Points to his 1. Then my luck returned, or rather lack there of. He opened fire killing of my last few marines with the lootas, Killed the last Noise Marine with a rokket from the Kan, and got the Rhino with another rokket from the remaining track. He wiped me out. Ouch. 3 wins and 6 losses... Sigh.



Wrap Up.

Well I had fun though I dropped my last 6 games. There were several list at the tournament that really out shown everyone elses. Ben, my opponent from Round 8 ended up winning the whole thing by winning 10 of his 15 games played. In additioned he tied 2 of the remaining 5. Casey and his nasty one unit army, 18 plague marines took longest winning streak with 8 in a row (actually he went lossless for 10 games but had 2 draws in the middle). As I mentioned in Part 1 Bill took best painted with his Tzeentch Daemons (nice job Bill), and to round it all out Don Mondo took best conversion with his Lizardmen IG army.

Other list to watch out for were Perry's Eldar which I played in round 4 and Jeff P's version of it that got him into 4th place overall that used a mix of the shooting of the warwalkers with some faster elements to help take objectives and out flank better. Kevin Farrell also had a nasty list using two big squads of Genestealers and a lictor which he used to win himself 8 games over the course of the day and secure himself a strong position as second place overall with 14 games, just one less then Ben. Me, I placed a disappointing 18th out of 24. Sigh. Next time I will have to take a stronger list.

A chance for you to get in on the action!

For everyone who enjoyed reading this summary that missed out on the action you are in luck. The Iron Fist League will be running another Rapid Fire Tournament at Games Day Baltimore. I will be posting more info as the event gets closer but you too will have a chance to battle it out on the fields of battle. Just do not forget to bring your forces with you to Games Day and I will see you there. If you are there come by and say hello, I will he helping out at the Rapid Fire tables all day.

Until next time.