I was able to attend the 'Ard Boyz tournament again this year at Hobbytown in Charlotte. The past 2 years there has been a turnout of around 12 people, with only about half of these being pretty good players. Well, Saturday a group of 6 of us showed up and were part of a 22 person turnout. This was huge for this store and they had to set up tables outside to accommodate everyone. This took 2 hrs and made the start noon instead of 10:00 as we were prepared for. The players consisted of 2 IG, 2 Ork, 1 Necron, 1 Dark Eldar, 2 Grey Knights, 1 Chaos Daemon, and the rest Space Marines of some flavor, mostly Vanilla and BA with little to no SW. I brought the following list to throw down with.
Vulkan in Landraider Redeemer with Multimelta, HK missile with 3 TH/SS & 2 LC Terminators
Shrike with 10 TH/SS Terminators
3 x 10 man Tactical Squads in Rhinos with Meltagun, Missile Launcher, and Combi-melta
1 x 5 man Scout Squad with Combi-melta/meltabomb in Landspeeder Storm with Multimelta
2 Landspeeders with Multimelta, Heavy Flamers
3 Attack Bikes with Multimeltas
1 Multimelta Dreadnought in Drop Pod
All in all a decent list with enough variety and tricks to get the job done. I use the dreadnought and scouts to alpha strike opponents and slow down there parking lots. The 10 termies tarpit and Vulkans crew cleans up. Good plan with everything goes well, I was of course hoping to play against some marine variant every round. This was a good plan after seeing 75% of the field were marines.
Round 1 I drew a Space Marine player with Cato and Chapter Master and a variety of other units. He had only been playing 6 months and started with the stuff he liked, deciding to do 'Ard Boyz just to see what it was like. He went first and advanced killing little. I was then able to drop the dread within inches of his landraider and wreck it on his side of board, just in front of my Shrike unit. His next turn killed nothing.
It went downhill for him after this. My termies marched through much of his army, mostly the Legion of the Damned and 2 shooty termie squads he dropped in front of them. Shrike walked through 3 full 10 man tactical squads by himself. This game ended up being textbook seal clubbing. I kinda felt bad tabling him for full battle points and receiving all 6 bonus points. He was just not prepared for a tournament level list.
After this round I was sitting in first with 26. Two closest players had 23 each. Next round I drew the only Chaos Daemon player. This sucked bad as I was prepared to shut down mech list mainly and this was completely different. Also, having only played Daemons once ever, I know almost nothing about the list. He brought to the table the following:
Fateweaver
Skulltaker on Bloodcrusher
Herald on Bloodcrusher
2 units of 8 Bloodcrushers
1 unit of Fiends
4 units of 5 Plaguebearers
3 Daemon Princes
At first glance, small army with minimal troops. This was ok as I drew him in the only objective mission, but the rest of the army is tough as nails. Not knowing the rules hurt a little on this game, as this player didn't share any non-beneficial Daemon rules. I didn't know Fateweaver had to take leadership test after every wound, and of course he didn't share this. I also didn't know Daemons could deepstrike into cover with only consequence being dangerous terrain tests. Still not sure if this was correct, I think should have mishapped. More issues I had with this player included the fact that whole army was on square bases, the Bloodcrushers had no riders, only based Bloodletters scotch-taped to the bases. He would also, conveniently drop wound dice off the bases of all multi-wound models during movement and then pick these up to roll quickly. This was annoying as I was constantly replacing dice on his models. And apparently all daemons move 7" per turn, plus the little for square base corners. Pretty much the most annoying game ever. This dude was probably only 20, but was already playing like the beardiest 40-plus year old basement dweller I have ever seen.
I didn't play a bad game, but still got massacred, which was no fun. I should have just concentrated on Plaguebearers and let his army chew on mine, but stood a good chance of being tabled by Bloodcrushers if I didn't do anything to them. I charged one unit of Crushers and a Prince with Shrike and termies. I was rolling my invulns hot and killed all after a couple turns. I was happy only losing 2 guys from this unit, so I charged another full unit and a Daemon prince, but also threw Vulkan and his boys into the fray. This one didn't do so well. I lost both units and both HQs in this one, only killing a couple Crushers. He was able to walk through the rest of my stuff then, killing everything but 2 full tactical squads on objectives. Unfortunately, he contested both of these. He then had all three others with Plaguebearers, giving him 7 to 0 and the massacre.
This dropped me down to 9th for round 3. After looking at the scores, I decided to drop for Game 3 and just watch a couple friends play on Table 1 and 2. The daemon player was playing Grey Knights on Table 1, so I watched most of this. Luckily, for the GK player he knew some of their rules, so he was able to make better progress than me. They ended up with draw.
The final results at this store were Vulkan Space Marines in first with 63 pts, Horde Orks in 2nd with 60, and the Daemon player in 3rd with 57(winning tie-breaker by 400 VPs) and the Grey Knight player in 4th.
We all had a great time, even with no one in our group placing. We will all play again next year I'm sure, even though it's not the most competitive event around. It is a good way to play in a tournament without having to drop a lot of cash on a GT somewhere. I would prefer a more competitive venue as the players would be better people, with nicer armies, instead of some of the thrown together stuff you see at 'Ard Boyz.
Any one else's store have 75% marines with only 1 making the cut. I thought this was odd, but in this situation, both the Daemon player and Ork player were very liberal with their rules interpretations and measuring. Most people don't play these armies often, so just take the opponent's word for their rules. I know some people don't think measuring is a big deal, but between movement and running they can gain an inch per turn, which can be everything in assault-based armies. Oh well, beardiness aside, it was fun to actually get in some games and I'll do it again next year.
If you're interested, check back last two posts, I have tons of Warmachine and Fantasy Orcs for sale.
