The Hagvarian betrayal- intro and ruminations

So the time had come to head off to my first tournament, it was a Friendly team- tournament hosted by the Great hosts of the Verangian heresy.

Now i've never been to a heresy tournament, nor a mini's tournament at all, but the fact that it was narrative driven and the fact there was a clear focus on good spirit and a welcoming Engaging from both the TO and the participants itself made me feel like it would be a cool crew to sacrifice a weekend going to. Now for sacrifice i mean the fact that i was heading into unchartered waters here, i'm as eager to roll the bones as anyone else, but heading away from my family and mates and actually leaving the basement crypt i dwell in to be social means that i like to know who i play against. So this is a bit of a plunge.

and over all one i was glad that i did.

Now the rules of the tourney was loosely as follows

- One LoW allowed, but no ranged D strength weaponry
- One allied detachment that i believe was allowed to be 250 of your 2500 pts allowance
- two members to each team, 2500 for each person
- No primarchs chosen or leviathan force org.

I played with a mate from SLG warhammer in oldtown, Jimmy who ran his hammer of olympia armor ( a lot of Artillery and a lot of footsloggers)

While i ran my Alpha legion armored breakthrough

2500 points, no games won :D

Basically

Troops:
Predator with HB sponsoons and one on top
Predator with HB sponsoons and one on top
Predator with HB sponsoons

HQ:
praetor with digital lasers, paragon blade, power dagger and cataphractii armour and volkite charger
four bodyguards in cataphractii plate, bannerman, one combi-melta and two chainfists one Power fist.

Heavy support:
Predator executioner with PotMS and lascannon sponsoons
Sicaran with lascannons
scorpius

Elites:
Tenman vet with two HB, all meltabombs, nuncio vox, sergeant with Powersword and artificer armor. With a rhino that had a MM. Marksmen veteran tactic

Tenman vet with two meltaguns, all  nuncio vox, sergeant with powerfist, power dagger and artificer armor. With a rhino that had a MM. Marksmen veteran tactic

Two quad mortars with shatter shell

Two rapier lasers

Lord of War:
Suborbital strike wing consisting of
One avenger striker fighter with lascannons, and autocannons, with Tankhunter and a 4++ against missiles.


The idea was simple. i was the armored spear against the bulwark of my allied friend. All my fast tanks would go and cap points, advance ruthlessly, and take ground while shooting a lot of shots against infantry, while my veterans outflanked and gave my artillery good lines of sight. The praetor went straight up the middle with my tankhunters. While also tying up any potential deathstars.



Now, in short, here are some quick lessons.

• Play the mission, read the mission pack. READ IT. 

in our first ,mission we had to deploy in small triangles in the corners, but the TO was keen on pointing out that our "table edge" was the long edges. Which meant jack-all to me. But in reality it meant that ALL reserves, ongoing, could walk into your opponents backfield. Which if i had remembered it would have saved a lot of suffering. 

• Tanks are great. Dying aint-

Yeah, so fast predators, looked GREAT on paper. The problem is that Av 13 front and 11 back is not hard to kill. As a matter of fact i died to sniper bolt fire more than once. And losing scoring troops HURT in an objectives game. More so when you only have three. But again, i had my two veterans.....who also died. Still supporting my armour with infantry worked a lot better than it would have without it. 

• One flyer with AV 12 front, two HP and av10 back is basically giving away points.

Yeah. That's pretty much it. The avenger looked great since it could hunt tanks and ALSO mow down power armor with the AP3 gatling gun. But it died instantaneously in ALL Games. giving away betweem two to four points. (don't ever forget price of failure) 

beyond that, did i have fun?

Fuck yeah

I've travelled a lot, i've hung around roleplayers, PROSEC people, bartenders, competitive sportsmen, photographers and a lot of weird subcultures with a lot of peculiar rules. And most are welcome, but usually you get a sort of informal. but not really. Pissing contest. "oh, you've only done X for how many years? and you do your Y how? well at least you're trying kiddo" None of that here.

Everybody was real sporting, from the guys losing horrendously to the guys winning tremendously. I had a really good time and everyone was super accomodating. 

So i'll move on with my games.