500 point Doubles Tournament

The dust has now settled on the 500 point doubles tournament that I just took part in. As I've not played a game of 5th ed WH40K my intent was to just watch and have a few beers but a week ago I was called in as someone partner had dropped out. No better way to cut your teeth than with a mini tournament I suppose.

The limitations for the tournament were as follows:

• both players use only a 500 point list. (together you make a 1000 point list)

• You need at least 1 Troops choice

• No 2+ save models

• No vehicles with a total armour of 35 points or more
  

• Only 1 HQ choice allowed.

A reasonable balanced set of restrictions I thought (but with one glaring omission that comes to light later).

Obviously my Deathwing were out of the picture for this one so someone kindly allowed me to use their Imperial Guard this was the list I came up with:

Company Command Squad: 145
4x Melta gun
Chimera - Multilaser, Heavy Flamer

Veteran Squad: 90
Grenade Launcher, Autocannon, Vox Caster

Veteran Squad: 90
Grenade Launcher, Autocannon, Vox Caster

Veteran Squad: 90
Grenade Launcher, Autocannon, Vox Caster

Veteran Squad: 85
Grenade Launcher, Autocannon

Unfortunately the person I borrowed the models off "doesn't do tanks" so I just had to the best with what I had available. To make things more interesting my partner had only just started up his army and so his selection was also quite limited:

Chaplain: 120
Jump Pack, Melta bombs

10 Tactical Marines: 175
Missile Launcher, Flamer
Sergeant - Melta bombs

9 Assault Marines: 202
Sergeant - Powerfist, Combat Shield

All in all not bad lists but far from optimised but hey this was a casual tournament so I wasn't going to fret over it too much.

First Game
The first opponents were a team of Orks and Tau, quite a nice combo of close combat and shooting. The main concern from my standpoint were the unit of Nob Bikers with Warboss and Painboy which would take a horrendous amount of firepower to whittle down. Unfortunately this was somewhat of a non-event as due to a cock up in what the deployment rules were we didn't actually get past turn 3 (the games were limited to 45 minutes). Some Guard got charged by some Boyz in a Trukk who then promptly got wiped out by the Heavy flamer on the Chimera, the Nob Bikers and the Assault Marines had a good scrum in the middle and the rest of the forces just took potshots at each other with relatively little effect. In the end a draw.

Second Game
Next up was a combined Space Marine force. To be honest I'm not sure what these guys were trying to achieve as their lists were all over the place. From what I remember they had: Librarian (Avenger + Gate of Infinity) with Tactical Squad, 5 Sternguard in Assault Cannon Razorback with Chaplain, Vindicator, AC/Las Predator, two Scout Squads and a Combat Squad of Marines. With three objectives on our side camped on by a Veteran Squad each they really didn't have the firepower to shift me off them. The Assault Squad rolled up one flank and took care of the Librarian and chums and the Vindicator (which they used far too cautiously) and my Chimera rolled up the other flank and dealt out flaming goodness. All the while my Veteran Squads just pummeled the rest of their forces into submission. By the end all they had left was the Sternguard a few Scouts and an immobilised Predator, two objectives to nil a win for us.

Third Game
It was the last game that the glaring omission in the tournament limitations came to the fore. We went up against this Daemon list:

Skarbrand
Bloodthirster
Daemon Prince
Minimum Bloodletters
Pink Horrors with Changling

That's right 3 Monstrous Creatures with 4 wounds each! I knew we would be bang in trouble of those bum chums got to our lines and I was right. The game itself was quite interesting but it was effectively an exercise in damage limitation. In short we managed to take down the Bloodthirster, Daemon Prince and Bloodletters but by this point the damage had been done and our opponents had already accrued 6 kill points, as thier force only had 5 we called it at that. Two squads of Veterans and half a Tactical Squad was not going to bring Skarbrand and a unit of Horrors down in one turn.

Overall it was an enjoyable tournament and we came 3rd which is respectable considering I haven't played WH40K in about two years and have never played a game of 5th ed before. I can't blame the Daemon players for what they did. They found a way around the limitations of the tournament and played to their strengths, that's just being smart and they were really nice guys to boot. I have made a very strong suggestion that if anything like this is run again that there should be a wound limitation of 3 for any single model and that Special Characters probably shouldn't be allowed either.