TOURNAMENT REPORT: TWIN EAGLES 2016

That's their logo.  Pretty cool right?

Howdy howdy folks!  I am fresh out of the most recent tournament here in sunny Winnipeg and it was a good one.  As with previous years it was held at Comicon, unlike previous years, they they were set up in an awesome space.  There was tons of room between tables, free bottled water, and a god damn massage station!  Yeah, each player got a ticket for a free 15 minute message on one of those fancy message face down chairs.  Oh it was as glorious as it sounds, and we also played Warhammer.
There was a shit ton of prizes, which were all raffled off, and plaques for players who won at stuff.  So not me...

SPOILER ALERT!

The Twin Eagles event is a little different, being a team tournament with some restriction on army creation.  You and your team mate are considered Allies of Convenience regardless of your actual faction, each players bring 1000 points, and that army may consist of only 2 detachments that are from the same faction.  The missions are all custom, and each table has it's own mission and has Maelstrom cards as a secondary mission.
I actually got a call from my buddy and team mate, Garth, about a week before the tourney.  Turns out the Twin Eagle guys had a drop out and needed a filler desperately.  Garth, always one to help out the gaming community stepped up, and dragged me along.

My list was a Black Legion Detachment made up of a Warband Core and a single Spawn as the Auxiliary, and finishing it off was a Cyclopia Cabal with three lvl 1 Sorcerers.
My team mate brought a First Company Task Force with 2 Sternguard units and a Vanguard unit in drop pods, and a flier formation with 2 talons and a raven.

GAME 1:  Sean(Necrons) and Jon(Orks) Heavy Metal Waaagh!  These guys were super fun to play against.  Very laid back and just there to roll some dice and have a good time.  The mission was to kill your opponents 4 wound Vindicate assassin that both sides got for free.

Sean had a Reclamation legion with Wraiths and the Spider that gives them Reanimation so I knew they had to go ASAP.  As we got the first turn we dropped the 2 Sternguard units right in front of the Wraiths in hopes of crippling them and failing that at least pinning them to the corner they were deployed in.

Only one Wraith survived

But before we did that I had to roll for my 2 free boons and Lo and Behold I got myself a free Daemon Prince!

I was using the Mhara Gal as my Daemon Prince

 I also got to use my other neat trick, the Shadow of Deceit.  Since the Necrons had almost no shooting, I decided to take over a unit of Lootas and used them to kill a Wraith.

Our game plan pretty much went as we hoped with the exception that Garth's Fliers didn't come in until the end of the game.  Garth was able to hang on in combat with the remaining Wraith and the Spider for the entire game pinning nearly the entire Necron army in the corner of the table and I was able to take out the Orks in a 1-1 battle.
We were finally able to take out their assassin in the last turn of the game for a fairly sizable win for us.

GAME 2:  Immortal Wolves.  I'm sorry, but I can't remember your guys names.  Looking at their army terrified me.  They were playing Necrons and Space Wolves and the Space Wolf player had a unit of Thunder Wolves and 2 units of Wulfen.  The Necron guy had some Immortals and Warriors, a Ghost Arc, and 2 Doom-flying-pastry things.  A very odd shaped army.
This mission was actually a choice of 3 different objectives that you were to keep secret from your opponent.  One was kill points, the other was something, the third, and the one we chose, was table quarters.  Basically, have more scoring units in a table quarter to control it, Obsec units count as 2, and the player who controls the most table quarters obtains their objective.  They chose kill points and we ended up both achieving our primary objectives.

We gave them first turn as they had very little shooting.  They moved up and I don't think did anything else.  Garth decided to drop is 2 units of Sternguard right in front and hammer one of the units of Wulfen hoping to put enough wounds on them to kill them.  This did not work as a combination of bad rolling for Garth, and good rolling for the SW player sees a single wound put on the Wulfen unit, even with Death Hex giving them a -2 to their Invul save.  All of Garth's units promptly got eaten by Wulfen and the Doom-crescents which both came on on their turn 2.

Now you see them...

Our turn 2 saw Garth's fliers come on, boy was I glad to see that.  They worked on shooting down those damn Necron fliers and did a pretty good job, but not before I took one over with Shroud of Deceit and made it shoot some Wulfen.  That, combined with my units which moved up and fired away with reckless abandon, I managed to kill 1 whole unit of Wulfen and leave the other with 2 models left.

Now you don't.

Turns 4 and 5 saw my surviving Rhino's scatter to the corners as I sacrificed a couple units to keep the Thunderwolves at bay, and we ended up getting our Primary and just squeak by on the Maelstrom secondary which gave us a win.

GAME 3: Kyle(Daemons) and Brendan(Grey Knights) the Fluff Breakers.  These guys showed up to fight.  They had 3 Dreadknights, 3 Soulgrinders, Fateweaver, and some other stuff.  Unfortunately they came off a pretty hard game 2 and were a little disheartened.  Boy did We make them feel better. It turns out that I can't kill 3 Dreadknights and Garth can't kill 3 Soulgrinders!

 In the end we got 1 point, and that was when I killed Brendan's Warlord!  Take that Brendan!  In turn we got tabled.

So there you have it.  My 3 games in a quick recap.  So lets go over a couple things I learnt.
Two free rolls on the Boon table is actually pretty fucking awesome.  I was a little concerned that this just might not be enough to make the Warband formation in the Black Legion Detachment worth it.  However at the end of each game I had a Chaos Lord who started off at a measly 130 points either a Daemon Prince, or with enough upgrades he could kill almost anything.  Except a Dreadknight, he couldn't kill one of those...
Which brings me to my second point, Chaos have a hard time killing shit.  Think on this, the best gun our infantry can get is probably a plasma gun or a melta gun.  What the fuck?  The Warband is geared to be a shooting style army with the massed infantry and lack of assault vehicles but with a lack of really decent firepower.  I'm going to have to add a significant amount of killiness for my next game.
If you have very few psychic levels and you are playing an army with plenty, focus on blessings.  You are not going to get a Psychic Scream off on a Dreadknight when your 3 dice are competing against their 15.  Then when you do cast a blessing, toss all your dice at it and risk the Perils.
Finally, and most surprisingly to me, Raptors are not terrible.  Everyone gives them such a shit rap because Imperial Assault Marines are shit but Raptors have a much better arsenal available to them.  Every game they did something useful and since they were only 115 points, I felt ok to use them as bait and a speed bump.  They are fast and with their 2 melta guns able to get somewhere quickly.  In the last game they deep struck and killed the only Soulgrinder that died.

Now, I know at the start of this post I said I was fresh off the tournament, but a quick peak behind the curtain, it's now a week later.  However, that does not diminish the fun I had, even when I was getting stomped.  I'd like to thank Garth for picking up the dropped ball and handing it off to me for a touchdown...I got lost in a sports cliche there for a second.

Finally I'd like to say thank you and good job to the Twin Eagle guys.  It was a great event and a great atmosphere.  My only critique is to shut up that damn announcer.  Yes we know that William Shatner is here and I don't fucking have time to get my picture taken with him and I sure as hell don't have the cash to get an autograph, I play Warhammer.

Until next time, keep them dice rollin.