Eastcon Tournament Report

Eastcon tournament report: Some of you might have noticed that I seem to have fallen off the face of the planet last week. The reason: surgery. I went in for elective surgery on Tuesday morning and came out with 4 inches of stiches and a pile of drugs. I had hoped to get some painting done during the week since I was confined to my couch. That was not really to be. Between the drugs and the recovering I slept like a drugged koala for most of the week. My wife bought me Harry Potter Lego that I enjoyed a great deal when I was amongst the land of the living (I highly recommend it if you are fan of the books/ movies). I am glad that I had a majority of my nids done before I went in because I got very little done after.



By Friday I was off the codine and I was going through life with the slow and purposeful rule for real. I gave it a go and called my buddy Rojo for a ride for Saturday morning.

Got up tired and sore on Saturday morning and got stuck into Eastcon 2010. Due to a variety of factors Eastcon’s numbers were hit hard this year but 40 players still made the trip including a few interstaters, notably the winner of a major Sydney event called High Lords of Terra.

Round one: Mitch Wragg’s Tyranids. My buddy Mitch had been talking smack since the last time I played him forever ago and smashed him with my tzeentch daemons. As part of this he grudged me in the first round. I obliged. Mitch had a scary list with two trygons, a tervigon, a tyrant, lots of gaunts and lots of genestealers. I honestly though I would not be able to pull this off. The mission was an objective grab with two objectives. I deployed to the front of my deployment zone with all of my army in cover (Mitch didn’t have grenades) and played the waiting game. Mitch moved. I shot…. Blah… blah… first couple of rounds were fairly boring. Then The Doom dropped right in front of Mitch’s army. It syphoned off some gaunts and then more notably it sucked the life out of the Tyrant. SCORE! Same turn Mitch’s Ymgar Stealers were destroyed when they appeared in a set of trees my stealers were waiting in. Game on. I sprung my trap at this point and everything pounded across the board. By the end I had both objectives and more importantly I had not lost to Mitch. Sorry Mitch. I am always game for a rematch matey.

(My Doom of Malantai...)



Round two: Mark Morrison’s Deathguard. Mark Morrison is known for two things. One: he has been playing only Deathguard since his 2nd ed models were new and two: He is the TO of the largest tourney in the southern hemisphere. He is amazingly cool and I have been trying to play him for years. I was very excited. The mission involved a giant volcano in the centre of the board that never “went off” so I will not be mentioning it again. I played fleet the tyranid army around the volcano on both sides and chased a semi mechanized list. Mark brought his guns to bear and brought down my distractions (the Mowloc and the doom) before they did too much. The rest of my army got the job done and I moved on with two wins. As a side note warptime DP’s usually annoy me to tears but with shadow of the warp I was pleased to see one hurt itself by overheating its brain. Happy note number two… Trygons are hideous! I realised after this game that they get to reroll all of their misses because they have two sets of scything talons. YIKES!!

Game three: Steven’s Slaneeshi Daemons. Steve and I had been going to alternate tournies for a while so while he was a regular and had done well in many events, I had never so much as seen him before. He ran a Slaneeshi daemon list with two princes, a KOS, and lots of little fast irritating daemons. To be fair my meds from my surgery had run out during this game and I was miserable. My hands were shaking, I was apparently ashen, and I felt just horrible… Adding to this was an army that robbed me of my assault attacks, was faster than me in and out of cover, and had buckets of attacks with rending. This game was a haze of pain but as the dust cleared at the end of turn 7 I had my trygon with three wounds, two zoenthropes, and three genestealers… (and my very wounded prime). He had the masque. In my last turn I killed three units of daemonettes to take the win. I even charged with zoenthropes out of desperation and succeeded in killing two daemonettes. Hero of this game was the prime with its lash whip and the trygon that ate everything in sight.

I went home… ate… took meds… crashed…

Day 2: Game 4: Cam Auty’s Imperial Fists… AKA Thunderfire cannon spam led my Lysander..

I saw the draw and expected to loose. Marine gunline with 2 thunderfire cannons… OUCH! No cover of any kind to those cannons… Four shots each. Dawn of War, night fire turn one. I got my tervigon and a unit of hormigaunts in his face turn one when I seized the initiative… I never roll that! The rest of my army streamed on. The doom and Mawloc diverted lots of shooting and in the end I held the table. I even took down Lysander in the bottom of my last turn with you guessed it: the trygon. Now I see why people take two! That being said I should have been toasted eleven times to Sunday. Cam was a champ and should have won the game. Sorry man.


Game 5: Dennis’s bike marines. So I get the High Lord himself in game 5. This was over almost before it began. He killed my badly deployed trygon before I even went (holy crap he had a lot of multi-meltas in 27 models) and ran away from me the whole game.
I lost by one kill point but was in his deployment having killed his general and having him crammed in the back of his deployment zone. Null zone was annoying. Dennis was a pro and totally outplayed me. I almost pulled it back but it was not to be… NEXT TIME GADGET!!!

Game 6: Game 6: David’s Marine’s. Played David in my last game at Grots earlier this year and I think he beat my space wolves handily or we tied… either way I wanted a piece of his mech marines. He had Lysander in a pod with sternguard vets, a drop clad, tac marines in razorbacks, two preds, a vindi, sniper scouts, and a pile of landspeeder typhoons. The first couple of rounds sucked as he blasted my nids again and again. (we were playing to kill 75% of the enemy’s models) I pulled back on one side of the board and ran around the far side. A unit of genestealers somehow survived with four models to eat a vindi. The doom ate some tac marines and ate up a HUGE amount of shooting allowing my gaunts and trygon to get stuck in. My Trygon regenerated for the first time all tourney and healed 6 wounds over the course of the game. Best points ever! Hero of the match: One last genestealer who ate two tanks by himself before going down in turn 6. I broke David’s army and went on to win…. I never seem to get to 100 battle points in tournies and was shocked to discover that I had finished on 103 out of 120.
(Here I am figuring out how to stop getting shot)


I was even more surprised when I won… 1st place… Best General (my first ever!) and T.O.’s choice army painting.

Happy kid… Rojo thanks again for the ride man!

B

P.S. I just found out that the Doom works in my opponents turn and as well as mine... That would have been just abusive...



A marine scout has a bad day. :)