Golden Rhino Tournament 2016

The time has come.  Will I be able to pull off wins two years in a row?  Read on to find out!

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Game 1

Opponent: Andrew – Riptide-heavy Tau

Mission: Time is of the Essence – Dawn of War deployment.  Beginning on turn 2, objectives score points = current turn.  After the game, lose one point for each of your units destroyed, cannot go below zero.

Game started off good, as Leonidas and the Terminators got a turn one charge!

 

However, their victory was short lived.  Reducing the unlucky Riptide to one wound, the Riptide commits suicide by using its Nova Charge!  With the Riptide removed, the Terminators are vulnerable to a charge.  Worse, the Ironclad is lost to overwatch fire during a charge.  In the end I was completely tabled by the bottom of turn 4.

In the end, I didn’t have what it takes to kill three Riptides and a Stormsurge.  Worse, this Riptide formation let them re-roll a huge amount of their failed Nova Charge checks, and gave them a one turn feat to shoot even more.  Honestly, I’m not sure how to make a tournament list to deal with this sort of Riptide spam.  Some people mentioned the right psychic powers, but I didn’t have the points for a psyker this time.

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Game 2

Opponent: Zach – Tyranids on foot

Mission: Maelstrom of Confusion – Vanguard Strike Deployment.  Gain 3 Maelstrom objectives each turn.  At the end of your turn, after discarding, any objective not scored is SCORED NEGATIVE AND DISCARDED!  Objectives 11-16 are from the book, not your codex.  Any D3 for scores for objectives is assumed to be a “2.”

Zach’s Tyranids somehow brought an Aegis Defense Line, and hid behind it.  This was no match for charging Terminators and Drop Pods.  The highlight of the match was a deep striking Mawloc eating all five Terminators, right behind Leonidas!

However, at the end of the game, only the Swarmlord and his buddies the Tyrant Guard survived.  Zach drew the absolute WORST objectives, and did not score until turn 5, whereas I drew like a god and scored positive every turn, with one turn scoring 7 points!

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Game 3

Opponent: Michael – Imperial Guard with Creed and a Stormlord Superheavy tank

Mission: Right Place at the Wrong Time – Hammer and Anvil deployment.  6 objectives.  When an objective is identified, roll a D6.  On a 1, it explodes and is removed!  On a 2-3 it is removed.  On a 4+ it is identified as a Mysterious Objective as normal, but all results of “1” are re-rolled.

To start us off, all 3 objectives in the deployment zones were fake, revealing the three in the center as real!  I rushed in to smash the Guard quickly.

Most of my army converged on the Stormlord, inside of which was all but 2 of the guard squads.  When it exploded, most of Michael’s army went with it…

I tabled Michael by the top of turn 3.  It was insane.  I have played Michael with a list similar to this before, but I’ve never seen a victory this one sided.  This is what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket.

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Final result:

I got 7th out of 16 players.  Ah well, it was pretty fun!  the winner was Josh, who played his Tau with lots of marker light drones and moving defense buildings!

Big thanks to Ian and Dawn for organizing this insanely complicated event.  Thanks also to all of my opponents and fellow players!

Next: painting hopefully!