Gladiator Tournament: Mkerr’s Journey

This was my second Adepticon Gladiator Tournament and it was just as much fun as the first. Although I didn’t place as well as Bigred, I had four great games and met some fantastic players.

Three of my games came down to single die rolls for the primary objective and every point I gave up was hard won by skilled generals with highly tuned lists. I would love to play each of those players again and am very proud of my results.

For those of you who wanted to know how the Terminator Assault Squad worked; in general it worked like a charm. When I got the squad into combat, I devastated my opponent. I was happy to have the Grey Knight Grandmaster, but I missed the Librarian’s ability to soak wounds. If I did it again, I’d go with the Librarian instead.

Game 1: “A Show of Force” against a Trait Space Marine player (3 Venerable Dreadnoughts and lots of Thunder Hammers). On the surface his list didn’t look that tough, but each of his units was tough as nails and expertly played.

The primary mission objective was to be the player with the highest priced model or unit within 6″ of the table center. I chose to Deathwing Assault my opponent’s weak flank. The Ravenwing scout move and Deathwing Assault took him (and every opponent throughout the day) by surprise.

The Terminators teleported precisely into position and the Ravenwing squad hit his line exactly where I needed them to. The result should have rolled up his army, but the dice gods frowned on me and six wounding hits resulted in six dead Terminators. His Marines had clearly been trained to aim for the eye holes in my Tactical Dreadnought Armor.

The fight for the center was hard pressed (thanks to my fast moving Ravenwing and Rhinos), but in the end he snatched the primary objective by reducing my units below scoring status and holding it with his Master which was more expensive than my remaining Attack Bike (in this particular mission ICs could hold objectives). I held won the secondary and tertiary objectives and walked away with 16pts. It was a fun start and my opponent was a great player.

Game 2: “Hold at All Costs” against a gorgeous 13th Company army. I’m not tossing around gorgeous lightly here — the army was stunning. The mission used the “short-handed” special rule which allowed my opponent to put a single unit of his choice in reserve. The unit arrives automatically on Turn 4. He wisely chose my Ravenwing Assault Squadron and I poorly chose his Rune Priest.

His army had THREE units of 14 Fenrisian Wolves, in addition to 8 Plasma Guns, 6 Meltaguns, and 4 heavy weapons. The mission used table quarters so the 42 Fenrisian wolves started 18″ away from my lines. They had the 13th Company Scout ability so they closed that to 12″. He won the first turn and was able to assault my gun line with all three units. It was all down hill for me from there.

This was one of those games that I could have won if I played differently. My mistake was not knowing my opponent’s army rules well enough (knowledge is power). I assumed that I’d have a turn to shoot at the weakly armored wolves.

In the end, he won the Primary and we tied the Secondary and Tertiary (thanks to my Ravenwing). Very cool guy and a very cool army. I walked away with a few points and a very valuable lesson.

Game 3: “Coming in Hot” against Speed Freaks. This was one of two games that I wouldn’t repeat from the weekend (not bad out of eight games), but I have to admit that I didn’t enjoy this game or the player. I have no idea why he was there actually — neither of us had much fun.

I hate to bitch about individual players, so I’ll just comment that I was plagued by bad dice rolls (my 4 Meltaguns, 2 Multimeltas, and single Assault Cannon failed to destroy a single buggy for 4 turns) and he won the Primary and Secondary objectives. Few things are more frustrating than losing a game against a bad opponent and I would have happily traded all of my wins for the weekend to have crushed him in that game.

Game 4: “Warp Drop and Roll” against Eldar. This was a very cool mission and one of the most challenging games of the weekend. This game literally came down to the last die roll and was full of drama and tension. Although neither of us had a chance of placing at this point, we both played hard to win. Great fun for both of us.

Again I was plagued by bad armor saves on my Terminators. By this time I was used to it and laughed it off, but they might as well have been wearing Carapace Armor for the tournament.

My opponent had two large squads of Warp Spiders (with Exarchs) with a tough Autarch attached to each squad. Those Autarchs made short work of my marines and ended up taking out three Combat Squads before the game ended.

I won the Secondary and we drew the Tertiary objective, but I lose the Primary objective on the last turn. He managed to drop my unit that held the Warp Gate below scoring status (by a single wound) and the Gate warped right under one of his squads. Argh! Very cool ending to a very fun game.

So after all four games, I ended up in the bottom half of the pack (infinitely far from Bigred in 5th place! Mos beat me soundly, with the help of his Titan. And I tied with Aventine Crusader’s Lost and the Damned army. Could have been worse!