So a couple months ago the idea of having an 35 point eight man Steamroller at club was mentioned and after looking at the dates everyone was available we decided on this past Sunday. We got eight signups and everyone was committed to being there early so we could fit in all three rounds during club time. Being our first tournament we made a few changes to the normal Steamroller format. First was the change to Death Clock rather than timed turns. We also extended the time limit to the next points level giving each player 60 minutes on their clock. We decided on running the baseline army list option to give people that wanted the chance to run two different lists during the day. The next step is probably the biggest departure from the normal format. We drew the first round pairings the week before the tournament and rolled the scenarios that would be played three days before the tournament. Probably not ideal but worth it to speed things up at the start of the day.
For the week before the tournament I was certain that my one list would be led by epic Doomshaper. I'd been playing him a lot recently so everything should be fairly plain sailing while playing him. The second was a little more troubling. My first opponent was going to be Scott and his Cryx. Having played him recently with Doomshaper I knew he wasn't going to work. I had a look through the casters I had and found a couple I liked the look of. After a bit of thought I decided on Jarl Skuld, mainly for his magic bullet spell. The Doomshaper list wrote itself from recent play but the Jarl one was a bit more difficult. Given the options I owned a shopping trip was in order. A quick trip to Firestorm Games saw a Dire Troll Blitzer, 2 Pyre Trolls and a full Scattergunner unit with officer and standard added to the kriel. The day before the tournament was spend building the models before a night out bowling and drinking with some mates.
So the tournament. I've already said my first round was going to be against Scott and his Cryx and playing the Fire support scenario. We exchanged lists and the look on his face was worth the cost of the new models in the Jarl list and also made my decision what I'd play. He decided on an almost identical epic Deneghra list to one he'd previously beaten me with. Between Deneghras feat, bile thralls and lots of bane's I knew I was in for fun. After a hard game, as always against Scott, he won on scenario points. Lots to learn from the game but still enjoyable.
Next up was Gareth and his Khador. A quick look at his lists and I saw one had Conquest in it and left me no choice but to run Doomshaper. To my surprise he decided on his other list. Butcher with a few jacks and a Winterguard unit with the UA and Jozef. Round two was incursion and I managed to get into the zone first. He positioned his Winterguard just at the other end of the zone and got them to a stupidly high defence with Iron flesh plus bob and weave. My next turn I popped my feat and jammed everything apart from Doomshaper into his line keeping him out of the zone. His next turn saw him almost break through my line with a Juggernaut falling just short of killing my mauler. The mauler then healed up and wrecked the jack with me going on to win on scenario by keeping Gareth out of the zone.
The third round was Incursion against Paul and his Khador. I settled on Doomshaper again and Paul chose his Irusk list. He advanced his Man-O-War units up screening his jack, the Great Bears and Irusk. I got the alpha strike killing most of two Man-O-War units and I noticed Irusk wasn't completely hidden behind the jack that was protecting him. I thought I try a couple cheeky primal shocks to knock a few points of health of him. My dice decided different and after the second damage roll Paul, gracious as always, offered his hand to congratulate me on winning the game.
After working out the standings I finished fourth with my loss being to Scott, the eventual winner. Not bad but some learning to do. Firstly know the abilities of models in your list. My first game might have gone differently if I'd remembered the Blitzers animus. Secondly, keeping your opponent out of zones can massively influence games. Finally, I need a way to quickly transport my models from table to table. So time to start saving the pennies for a tournament tray.
