The Scenic Route: I spent all yesterday with a few ard' boyz

Yup only the ardest play in the swamp.

I couldn't sleep all night friday I was so pumped to get to play some games of 40k that weren't against the same people I play every week around here. I stared at the alarm clock until 4:30 in the morning then gave up and watched infomercials till the ass crack of dawn and carpooled with 3 other local guys a few hours up the road to Sarasota since the gaming stores around here didn't have the pull I guess to hold a prelim round.

Lost in the city we almost missed the start time looking for a place for breakfast and I was ready to strangle people because of the, no chewing tobacco in the car rules.... me and my addictions.

Finally got there with 15 mins to spare pulled our armies out and jumped in with both feet.

Here's some shots of the games and a brief overview of how they went.

Game 1 and I get long fangs and thunderwolves. The store ran out of craters so the cardboard in these shots are blown up tanks. This shot was taken around the top of turn 3 when I remembered, "Hey I have a camera in my pocket!" I told you I didn't sleep much.

This was the kill point mission and I was worried going into this one because I had filled my entire FOC and crammed as many vehicles in there as I could. The space wolves got the first turn and spread across their deployment zone. I deployed everything on my right flank. The night fight helped me out allot and combined with some flickerfields I had no losses in the first turn. I used my bike squads to try and speed bump the long fangs off the table early in the game and was largely successful throughout the game harassing 2 of the squads and causing him to direct allot of fire their way.

He deployed the traitor in a rhino on the opposite flank that I was on and just ran as fast as he could toward my deployment zone. I wasn't as concerned about that as I was the 3 razorbacks and rhino full of runepriest love on the other flank so I let that one go. I gave the trueborn the task of taking out the wolf lord with the thunderwolves. They take out landraiders for a living how hard could it be right? Wow was I wrong. Overall i shot them with 33 blasters and over 100 splintercannon rounds, those bastards were still kicking. I lost my trueborn, venoms, ravagers and jetbikes. I got 2 razorbacks, 3 squads of grey hunters, a rune priest, 2 long fang squads, and a lone wolf lord on thunderwolf that was running around by himself. We got a tie 10 -10 kill points. Total battle points went 15-13 me.

Round 2
My evil eldar silently slid up to the next table and found it infested with bugs. I played these guys last time I went to Sarasota and fought hard for a tie. Unfortunately the scenario neutered his army from the first dice roll.

He had to deploy his geanstealers on the board since there was no outflanking. so It was just a matter of me gliding forward with my finger on the trigger hosing the ruins with splinter fire.

He scooped in the bottom of turn 3. He was pissed, not at me but at GW for the crap scenario that took the wind out of his sails completely. I say it again he is a great guy but it wasn't a fun game, just a matter of time here.

Heres a full shot of his army out of the ruins

So I'm sitting with 39 points going into round 3 chatting with the other guys from my local that made the trip with me and they start calling names. What I'm on the top table??? really? So I head over and its a grey knight---- You all know how I feel about grey knights, I wont go into a fit of rage again I swear.

So night fight deployment. We both decide we are walking everything in on the first turn. That's when it happens.

VROOM VROOM SUCKA!!!

His list had 3 storm ravens, 3 dreadnoughts, 6 squads of henchmen, 2 tech priests, a librarian, a vindi assassin, and cotez. Hes on my side of the board and I haven't even deployed yet. crap.

I was so stressed 'catching' the storm ravens that I didn't snap another pic till top of 2. My jetbikes speed bumped his assassin, I moved in spread out in the center to get maximum devastation from the darklight weapons and I think I only stunned one of the ravens. His turn he dropped 2 of the dreads and flanked with one of the ravens. My bikes... what losers. They spent the entire game in vein trying to pop one of his dreads. Eventually they all died around the bottom of 5 or 6.

I eventually drop the 2 ravens in the center under the weight of fire from my S8 guns. It still took way to many shots to do it. As the henchmen dropped out they were met with splinter fire en mass to deal with the crusader saves and all the cover from the dozens of craters we made. it was a stressful game filled with ups and downs. Me fighting for my life against a opponent that is used to steam rolling everyone and him realising not everything he has heard about the dark eldar was true. We had no idea who was winning, I don't think we even remembered what the mission objectives were. It was just survival and hatred that got my warriors through. In the last turn was when my dice finally decided to take a big dump. he was down to 1 immobilized raven and I got 3 trueborn around the corner to take on his dread where the bikes had failed. I had 8 darklight weapons shooting at the downed raven. to hit *roll* 1,1,2,1,2,2,2,4 hey I hit *roll* 6, sweet a penetrate *roll* 1 GAH!!!! ok against the dreadnought *roll* 1,1,2. GAH!!!! I threw down my hat and stomped it and my opponent and even the judge were almost rolling laughing at my horrible luck. I thought it cost me the game so we got down to the victory points.

1774-1103 I won a minor victory. He definitely killed more quantity but my units were dirt cheap compared to his and I squeaked by the grey knights in a tournament again.

So I won on the top table. We were done early so instead of packing up I walked around the other tables to see what was going on. The guys on the 2nd table were almost done, that was going to be a massacre. Then the next one down was another massacre with full battle points. Hmmm I don't think I got it I didn't win big enough. So I sat around talking and laughing with the guys. Its good to get out of town and hear other tales of tabletop glory. Then they made the announcement of the winners. The grey knight I played got first because he was so far and away higher at the start of our game and I got 2nd place. So semifinals here I come. Whoohooo another month of rampant playtesting.