Just last weekend we held the 2nd annual Mike Mudd Memorial Tournament, in honour of a friend of ours who sadly passed away about 2 years ago. He was a great fan of our hobby, and played not only to win, but to have the best time he could; from this we spawned the MMMT, to provide a fun weekend of gaming, and raise money for a charity chosen by Mike's parents (The OSPCA this year.)
Overall we managed to raise just over $1,200, through entry fees, a raffle (which we had running for, among other things, a full 2,300 pt Khorne Chaos army), and 20% of the profits from the bring-and-buy table.
The tournament ran to 1850 pts, and lasted 4 rounds; scoring was 56% in favour of Generalship, 35% Sportsmanship, and 9% Painting.
I took the following list (After staying up super late wildly painting, trying to get it all done:
Marneus Calgar - Wearing the Armor of Antilochus
Librarian - Null Zone, The Avenger
Tactical Squad 1 - (Combi-Melta, Melta Bombs, Meltagun, Missile Launcher)
Tactical Squad 2 - (Combi-Flamer, Power Fist, Flamer, Heavy Bolter)
Tactical Squad 3 - (Combi-Plasma, Plasma Gun, Heavy Bolter)
Tactical Squad 4 - (Combi-Melta, Power Fist, Meltagun, Multi-Melta)
Dreadnought - Heavy Flamer/Multimelta
- All in Drop Pods
Assault Terminators (9X Thunderhammer Stormshield, 1 Lightning Claw)
This was a compact list that, in my few test games, was fun as anything to use. I'm used to running an armored spearhead with a pair of Land Raiders, so it was fun to change over to an army that drops my marines in my opponent's cornflakes on turn 1.
So, in brief, we won't be getting pictures this time, seeing as it was a tourney, and I ran out of time on nearly every game. It's a shame though, I should have gotten pictures of my opponent's armies, at least.
Game 1: Dragon Knights VS. Space Wolves
Mission 1 was a primary of Kill points, Standard Deployment, with a secondary called "Blood Bowl". The basic concept was that in the center of the board was a 'ball', and any of your units could grab it and go for a touchdown on the opponent's board edge. If the model carrying the ball was killed, it would scatter 1d6 inches in the direction indicated on a scatter die.
My first opponent of the day (Mike Brennan of the SGU) ran one of the armies I was dreading; a Wolfwing, drop pod force. He had 4 pods loaded with Wolf Guard in Terminator armor, all armed individually, a Dreadnought with assault cannon in a pod, and Logan Grimnar with his Long Fang Retinue, in a pod, with Multimeltas.
So looking at the lists we have here, you can see the problem... Mike Thornhill, another player and member of the Stratford Gaming Union, said it best. With 11 pods on the table, it really was going to come down to who won the roll-off for choice of first turn!
I won that roll-off, however, and allowed my opponent the pleasure of first turn. Deployment was pretty simple; since everything was arriving via pods, he kept everything off the table; My only real choice was whether or not my Terminators would be on the table, or not. I chose to bring them in via Deep Strike, and they remained in reserve all game.
That being said, however, I didn't really need them, as 1450pts of my army practically wiped out his with extreme prejudice; if we hadn't run out of time on turn 4, I would have had the massacre, as my Terminators (Who landed turn 4 and did absolutely nothing), were in perfect charge range to eat Logan and the Dreadnought (his only remaining models) on turn 5. Ah well... Solid Victory for me!
Highlights: This game had people coming over after their games were done to see what was known as the 'Pod Forest'; at one point we had 9 drop pods on the table, and hadn't bothered to attack any of them!
Game 2: Dragon Knights Vs. Orks
Game two was against Bill Murray (Also of the SGU), playing a massive Kan List; He had 3 Squads of roughly 30 boyz (1 of which was 'Ard Boyz), a Deff Dread, Ghazkhull, a Big Mek (With Kustom Forcefield), and 12 Kans!!
Once again, I won the roll-off for deployment, and gave him 1st turn; the mission was Capture and Control, where we placed out objectives nicely in the EXACT opposite corners from each other. The secondary was, to keep it short, to control 2 cannons that were firing random pie plates across the table, and could hit either side's forces.
Once again, I left the Terminators in reserve, and they didn't even see the board this game; it only made it to turn 3, but we decided they wouldn't make a difference then either (Though they could have, in retrospect; had I deepstruck PERFECTLY, combat squadding them out, I could have contested both of the cannons and pulled a draw, but oh well.)
I dropped behind his army, right on top of his objective, but while in my last game my firepower wiped the board with my opponent, this game they killed a dismal 9 orks in their first turn of shooting (Bad podding on my part; I went after the 'ard boyz with my flamers). It ended with Bill contesting his own objective with a 2 Kan squad, and Ghazzy and his troop Nobz about 5 inches away from his objective; he had the minor, unless I could miraculously destroy the Kan on his objective!
Highlights: My favourite part was the mad scramble at the end; we had 4 minutes to rattle through my turn, so we skipped a lot of movement and assaults to deal with what really mattered; could I kill that kan squad? A missile launcher shot (Fired hail-mary style through 3 pods, past another kan squad, and over the heads of a few raging combats managed to still destroy a kan, despite the cover save. This, however, took my nearby melta-gun squad out of range of that last, forward kan! It then came down to my squads that combo-charged it, whipping 9 krak grenades at the kan, praying at least 1 hit... and all of which missed. That last turn was a nail biter though! Minor Win to my opponent! (Putting me about 2nd to last on the leaderboard for game 3.)
Game 3: Dragon Knights VS. Ultramarines
I wasn't really looking forward to this game, as I'd played this guy before and had a bad time, but I was determined to make the best of it. The scenario was multiple objectives, with the secondary being Moral Victory (Killing units in H2H, or with shooting). I chose H2H, and this time decided to deploy my terminators on the board; a good choice since (But for a little underhanded playing on my opponent's part) they might have gained me the game!
In addition, (Though it had no effect on our game, as we forgot to use it), there was a fluctuating gravity field on the board, which would either allow us to move much faster, or much slower.
Once again, I scored the roll-off, and went 2nd; my pods must have been reeling a little from my defeat at the hands of the orks, however, given how poorly they performed, but I still managed, on turn 4, to be sitting on an objective with two scoring units after having slaughtered an entire tactical squad with Calgar, alone.
Highlights: None. The game was ok up until the last 15 minutes; I found him argumentative, but I put up with it. However, in the last 15 minutes, he became 'that guy' that we all want to avoid. The situation was simple; we were running out of time (I'd have loved another 15 minutes, believe me.), on turn 4. Marneus had charged his last full unit of tactical marines, pulling them forward and off their objective. On the other hand, 5 terminators had just moved to within 3 inches of the one objective I controlled, contesting it.
So this meant I was looking at another minor loss, unless I could do the same to those terminators that Calgar had done to the tactical squad. So I charged them, and this is where the hammer dropped (About 10 minutes left at this point). First, my opponent claims my Terminators are outside of charge range, so I'm forced to move them back into coherency and re-measure (They were EASILY in, by about 3/4ths of an inch).
Then, seeing that didn't work, he claims that I have to roll for difficult terrain. These Terminators were partially in terrain, but the models I was set up to charge had their bases outside of it; I didn't have to cross or enter difficult terrain to reach them. Now note, I had moved my Termi's fairly; I had even charged his 2 man tactical squad with the back few guys, rather than trying to cheat them around to the main target. So he wastes another 5 minutes, even calling over a judge (Who ALSO sided with me).
Then, just as I'm preparing to roll my attacks, the TO comes in and calls dice down, rounds over. After speaking with them later, I should have insisted on finishing the combat, as the outcome required my 6 terminators to only kill 1 of my enemy's, thereby claiming my objective with a Major Victory for me. Ah well; I suppose I should thank him; his underhandedness DID lead to my 4th game, which was the best I had that day.
Game 4: Dragon Knights VS. Orks - Redux!
So, for my final game, I played another ork player, and I'd just like to state for the record that I was fuming from my past game when I started. That changed radically once this game began, however, as my opponent was an absolute blast to play against. In addition, this was the only game that made it to the 5th turn.
He'd brought 2X units of boyz, 1 shoota 1 choppa, 30 Lootaz in 2 units, Ghazzy and nobz with painboy, and mega-armored nobz with painboy. The mission was Dawn of War, multiple objectives again, but this time the secondary was victory points, scored as usual. However, the scoring units were modified, with Troops counting as 3 units controlling an objective, Elites were two, etc...
In reality though, the mission mattered little in this powerful slugga fest! As usual, turn 1 my opponent ran around, taking objectives, and then my pods rained down on him, slaughtering one unit of lootaz, and putting a giant dent in his boyz. Turn battle raged back and forth like mad, however; My dreadnought blew up a battlewagon, and Ghazzy tore it apart. 1 unit of tac marines slaughtered those lootaz, and were in turn spanked by the meganobz. Once again, My Terminators walked on the board 1st turn, to avoid the curse of the 1st two games, and saved Calgar from his desperate gambit against a full 30 boy mob (Alone!)
Highlights: While game three was a pain to play, and I didn't enjoy my opponent's attitude, Game 4 was a blast from start to finish. My opponent was loud and boisterous, enjoying the sight of orks flying everywhere just as much as marines. We had a few great points, however, such as Calgar calling down the thunder in the form of an Orbital Bombardment on Ghazzy and his nobs, wounding all but one and slaying all but the warboss and his nob.
Another point of interest was the running battle of attrition between the choppa boyz and my poor combat squadded tactical squad. They were charged, and should have vanished under a sea of greenskin bodies, however they only lost a single marine. They killed 6 orks back, but the TRUE highlight was when the nob attacked their pod, plowing it up in a 6 inch template, and wounding 19 orks, which caused 13 bodies to hit the floor.
Calgar and his Terminators lashed out at Ghazzy and the meganobz, slaying the nobz to a man, and laying the warboss low after he reaped an impressive toll himself, and then they slammed into that wild combat, which had lasted 3 turns! This turned out to end the game, in a massacre result for me, given all that was left was a Big mek, and a Loota squad on his side, both out of position to score on those objectives.
Final Thoughts:
The 2nd annual MMMT was a fun time, barring the 1 sour note, and I will be attending again next year. My only suggestion, despite it being 4 rounds, would be to extend round times to 2.5 hours, with early start-times if everyone finishes ahead of time; I found it very hard to get 5 turns in over the course of two hours, especially given that we only had 10 minutes per player to resolve a turn.
Until next time, I'm out!
