Standish Standoff 2016

This past November 19th I attended our local annual hobby event. Unlike the monthly tournaments they host, this event is focused on the Hobby as a whole. "Soft" point make up more than half your scores for the day (90 was the max soft score and 60 battle points). Its a great day as most everyone spends several months building and painting up their armies for the day and try and get everything in tip top shape. Beyond having a 3 round tournament, they also have a pure painting competition with entries in 4 categories (25/32mm single figure, 40-50mm single figure, 60mm + single figure, squad). I brought my Tyranid list I term "Boy Band" to the Standoff. I had run a  practice tournament at my home to get in 3 solid games and try and time my play. I was a little slow at that event but on track to get games done. One of the locals has a computerized routing device that can cut into MDF and do all manner of cool stuff. He made me up a bunch of movement trays that let me mass deploy the gaunts in clusters of 5 all max spaced. It made all my games go much faster. I hit at least turn 5 in every game this time. I always feel like I'm cheating my opponent if we don't bring the game to a natural conclusion, and in the past I typically would run smaller elite armies to ensure getting games done. This time I had 76 models to run around the table, 60 of whom re-spawned on a 4+, making the army play more like I had over 100 models.

My first game was against a perennial opponent, Marchello. I seem to face him at nearly every event and this year was no different. Typically we end up trading wins back and forth. He played Chaos Space Marines with Chaos Daemons, all devoted to Slaanesh. He had a Keeper of Secrets and two squads of of Demonettes. He also had 4 squads of Noise marines a Lord and Sorcerer both of Slaanesh. A Maulerfiend and two laser destroyer tanks. I spent the early game shooting the laser destroyer tanks in the side armor to wreck them out. Then went after the noise marines. Marchello's Keeper and Maulerfiend coupled with the Demonettes ate through my left hand flank. I tossed a few gaunt squads that re-spawned along the left flank to help tie up the muscle in his list. By game end I had nearly killed all the Chaos marines, save part of one last squad, the Keeper and the Maulerfiend. With only three units left I was able to score a couple big turns of points and take out a small win.

Second round saw me facing up with my local buddy Warren. He laughed, as on the drive down we had been mulling new tips and techniques he could use with his drop pod army to try and score better through the missions. He played Ragnars great company with Murderfang. With nearly everything in a drop pod, aside from two Land Speeders and a Lone Wolf squad. I took first turn and moved out grabbing a pretty strong lead on maelstrom scoring 5 points turn 1. Warren dropped in like a hammer hemming in all around my Tyranids. I took a fair number of casualties and my warlord took a pair of wounds. I hid my warlord out past the drop pods keeping him out of range of the melta. I then made three assaults ganging up as many units into a single assault as I could and trying to keep Warren from using his Counter Assault rule to join in. Unfortunately I wasn't able to completely do so and saw an additional squad join in my assault on his long fangs board center. Fortunately they where strung out enough to minimize attacks from the Space Wolves. By the end of these combats although I had lost most of them, I had removed more points worth of Space Wolves than I lost and more importantly the combats ended on my opponents turn, giving me a chance to shoot them down. Game ended with my opponent having just a bare handful of infantry on the table, and a large monster mash scrum board center over king of the hill, I took a fairly decent win on this game.

Last up was Justin playing on table 3 of the last round, the host of our local meet up games. Also the fine man who made my movement trays. Now that I've said nice things about him I can besmirch his character for playing a Wraith Knight. Ok it wasn't that bad. 90% Dark Eldar with a small force of Scatterbikes, Farseer and Wraith Knight to back them up. This was a tough game and as we both pondered our deployment options I laughed as we both are terrified of each others army. All the flamer templates I could deliver on fast flyers would spell doom to his Venom/Warrior spam. All that Venom spam could put the hurt on my flyers, plus you know Wraith Knight. He took first turn and I failed to Seize on him. I think this cost me the game. He was able to make half my flyers Jink before they could hit the sky. Also Obsec Jet Bikes meant that on turn two he scored 10 Maelstrom points. Although I came back from that as best I could 25/20 Maelstrom points his win, and I nearly tabled him, he had a Wraith Knight left and nothing else. I just couldn't close that early gap. Still not bad for Tyranids on Dark Eldar/Eldar who should honestly mop the floor.

All in all out of 12 games with this version of Tyranids I won 11 games, 9 being in tournaments. I would conclude my great Tyranid experiment was a success. I was able to make them competitive in my local scene. Although my finish in the overall event wasn't as strong as I would have liked, I did do a great job in the painting competition. Out of four categories, only 3 of whom I seriously entered I took home two first place ribbons and a second place ribbon. My pride and joy of the competition being the 60mm+ category. This was heavily contended for but my Alpha Legion Contemptor was able to bring home the gold. I also took gold in the Squad category with my Alpha Legion Tactical Squad. My second place was for my Ultramarine Chaplain. I'll be dropping a blog article up on him and the Captain at a future date. Until then happy gaming everyone.