20 February 2010 Inner Circle High Stakes Jamboree and Pancake Breakfast (Intro)

What did I bring?
The Inner Circle Gaming Club was putting together something they called a “Pancake Breakfast Tournament” at Games & Stuff in Glen Burnie, MD.  With a name like that I knew I was going to have to go and check out what was happening, and with 2000 points to put together a 40K army, it was going to be a few nights of modeling just to put together the units I thought I would like to field.

Taking a page from YTTH, the following is a variation of the Sisters of Battle “Immolator Spam” list I had used at the previous Inner Circle tournament.  At the time, I had noticed several things about the army I had been using that made me want to upgrade its capabilities:

20 February 2010 Inner Circle High Stakes Jamboree and Pancake Breakfast (Game 1)

Opponent: Steve S (Imperial Guard).  A cheerful fellow with a mechanized Guard army slightly more painted than my own force, Steve was brutally honest about what a mish-mash his own force was.  Between the Hellhounds and Immolators, however, it was going to be one flamer-crazy ride, and we both knew that any model wearing less than full power armor was going to vanish off the tabletop in a gout of blazing promethium if there were any enemy vehicles nearby.

Army: (2000 pts)

• 5x Chimeras (2x Vet with 3 Plasma, 2x Vet with 3 Melta, HQ with Astropath)
• 4x Hellhounds in 2 squadrons
• 2x Sentinels with Lascannon, in squadron
• 2x Leman Russ Executioner with HPG sponsons and LC hull
• 1x Basilisk

Mission: Annihilation, Pitched Battle.  The only variation to the usual rules was that the victor would be determined by 4th-edition Victory Points, rather than Kill Points.

20 February 2010 Inner Circle High Stakes Jamboree and Pancake Breakfast (Game 2)

Opponent: M (Sisters of Battle).  I shall call him simply “M”, because there’s no point in calling out someone by their real name on the Internet if you’ve got nothing nice to say.  Indeed, this was a thoroughly unpleasant game against a thoroughly unpleasant individual, and easily one of the least enjoyable games I have played in years.  And I had gone into the game with such high hopes for an interesting Sisters-vs-Sisters matchup.

Army: (2000 pts)

• Canoness with Mantle, Book, Cloak, Blessed Weapon, 6x Celestian Retinue, Veteran with Eviscerator, and Priest with Eviscerator
• Junior Inquisitor with 2 Mystics and a Land Raider transport
• 2x 10 Battle Sisters with 2 Meltas and Veteran Sister, in Rhino (no upgrades)
• 2x 9 Dominion Sisters with 4 Meltas and Veteran Sister, in Rhino (no upgrades)
• 2x5 Imperial Storm Troops, with 2 Plasmas
• 3x Exorcists

Mission: Dawn of War, Seize Ground.  4th-edition style Victory Points were also to be recorded, to help determine the overall tournament victor.

20 February 2010 Inner Circle High Stakes Jamboree and Pancake Breakfast (Game 3)

Opponent: Brett A (Eldar).  An extremely pleasant and earnest fellow with a bit of wry wit about him, Brett was fielding a beautifully painted Eldar army, which he apologized for as it was not (quite) fully painted.  See, as a long-time Eldar player and fanatic, Brett was still in the process of repainting one of his Dire Avenger squads, and thus the color scheme didn’t match the rest of his forces.  Unlike my army, of course, which was a more-or-less uniform shade of grey spray primer…

Army: (2000 pts)

• 2 Farseers (Fortune only) and 10 Warlocks, all with Witchblades, in a Shuricannon Waveserpent with Spiritstones
• 2x10 Dire Avengers including Exarch with Bladestorm in Brightlance Waveserpent with Spiritstones
• 3x6 Fire Dragons in Scatterlaser Waveserpent with Spiritstones
• 2x5 units of Rangers

Mission: Spearhead, Secure and Control (3 objectives).  4th-edition style Victory Points were also to be recorded, to help determine the overall tournament victor.

20 February 2010 Inner Circle High Stakes Jamboree and Pancake Breakfast (Postscript)

Well, one good game to start, one great game to end, and one godawful nightmare of a game that I at least took control of, in the middle.  The tournament format also awarded prizes to players who won games (at all) during the format, so despite the fact that I only placed, and didn’t win anything of consequence, I still ended up with some gift certificates.  I immediately put them to good use, purchasing the new Tyranid codex (know thy enemy) and some Gale Force 9 vehicle condition markers (extremely useful for an army list like this, as I have discovered!)

The tournament was very well attended, with 30 gamers, and no less than four (!) Sisters of Battle players.  I placed 7th overall, which I’m fairly happy with – although I do kick myself a little for letting my second opponent M get away with points that should have been mine, it’s not like it would have mattered that much in the final rankings.  A good mix of lists participated, with a decent amount of mechanization – a good thing in 5th edition, of course.  I actually faced three non-Marine armies, but this wasn’t that unusual, as the make-up of the army lists was quite variable: