Warhammer 40k Tournament Complete Coverage - Part 1

Hello Everyone!

It's tournament day out here again, and we're going to try something a little ambitious: I'm going to put up round-by-round updates on the event! Let's get started with the basics:

The tournament runs for three rounds, with two hours and fifteen minutes allotted for each round. The scenarios are based on missions from the book, each with a random roll for deployment. Terrain for each table is pre-set.

Here are the missions:

Round 1: Ground Control
This mission uses objectives to determine the winner, as described in the 40k rulebook, under the Seize Ground mission. Players roll a d6 to determine deployment at the beginning of the match: 1-4 - Spearhead, 5 - Dawn of War, 6 - Pitched Battle
Scenario Objectives: Destroy all the enemy’s scoring units; Your highest-point-cost HQ survives the battle (choose before the game in case of a tie); No enemy Fast Attack units are in your deployment zone at the end of the game (your table half in case of Dawn of War)

Round 2: Hold Out
This mission uses objectives to determine the winner, as described in the 40k rulebook under the Capture and Control mission. Players roll a d6 to determine deployment at the beginning of the match: 1-4 - Dawn of War, 5 - Pitched Battle, 6 - Spearhead
Scenario Objectives: You have more units in your deployment zone than your opponent does at the end of the game (your table half in case of Dawn of War), Control of the enemy’s objective, At least one of your Elites units has not been destroyed at the end of the game.

Round 3: Seek and Destroy
This mission uses the Kill Points Victory Condition as described in the 40k rulebook under the Annihilation mission with the following modification: HQ units are worth 2 KP. Players roll a d6 to determine deployment at the beginning of the match: 1-4 - Pitched Battle, 5 - Spearhead, 6 - Dawn of War
Scenario Objectives: Destroy the enemy’s highest point-cost HQ unit (choose before the game in case of a tie); Destroy all of the enemy’s Troop choices; Destroy all of the enemy’s Elites choices

Standard Battle Points for all rounds are as follows:
Win - 17
Draw - 9
Loss - 5
Scenario Objectives - 1/ea.

That makes for a max of 20 battle points per round. Sportsmanship is scored 0-6 on even intervals, and comp is a simple 'thumbs-up/thumbs-down'. Painting is scored by the judge (yours truly), with at least one other non-playing party to determine top three.

We had a turnout of eleven players, with the following armies:

• Tyranids
• Space Wolves
• Space Marines
• Blood Angels
• Witchhunters / Sisters of Battle
• Imperial Guard (Armored Co. style)
• Imperial Guard (mix)
• Chaos Space Marines (mix)
• Chaos Space Marines (Thousand Sons / Chosen)
• Black Templars
• Chaos Daemons

Unfortunately, we did not have a ringer available, so there will be a *bye* each round. The *bye* receives a victory with no bonus points in BP, and default 'thumbs-up' and max Sportsmanship scores.

First Round Pairings are as follows:

• Imperial Guard (mix) vs. Chaos Space Marines (mix) - Table 1 (Ruined Desert City)
• Black Templars vs. Chaos Space Marines (Thousand Sons / Chosen) - Table 2 (Stone Mesas)
• Space Wolves vs. Sisters of Battle - Table 3 (Canyon River Crossing)
• Blood Angels vs. Chaos Daemons - Table 4 (Desert Wasteland)
• Tyranids vs. Space Marines - Table 5 (Ruined Imperial City)

One table, a snowfield, remains open to avoid players seeing the same battlefield twice.

They're all at about the half-way point of round one right now:

• Table 1: IG has been hammering the CSMs and seems to have the upper hand, but the Chaos forces are starting to get close..
• Table 2: Templars have halted all the CSM vehicles, but the Daemon Prince is still up and flying...
• Table 3: An Eversor Assassin cracked the LR with a well-placed melta-bomb, straight away, but the Space Wolves are almost on the Inducted Guardsmen...
• Table 4: The wrong half of the Daemon army showed up, and all of them scattered horribly, so it's been a relatively easy ride for the BAs. Looks like the only foregone conclusion of Round 1.
• Table 5: The Hive Tyrant just died to bolter fire and some terrible armor saves, but the bugs are getting very close and these marines are all on foot...

That's it for now, I'll be back in a bit with a full rundown of Round 1 and the match-ups going into Round 2!
-Dis.