Freebootaz Open Report - Final Part - Overall Impressions

As anyone who's been reading before will know this was our first ever tournament and we had an absolute blast. We came 3rd overall and claimed a citadel spray gun and can of propellant each. Not sure what I'm going to do with it since my housemate already has one but it's a good prize all the same. We came really close to coming second and it was only by virtue of the fact that we never tabled anyone. The guys in second place could only have beaten us by a couple of points so it really would've made the difference. We'll just have to be more aggressive next time and play to table our opponents instead of cautiously holding onto objectives!

At times it was very hectic trying to keep to the time limits with a lot of things happening simultaneously. In some ways I might have preferred 3 longer games instead of 4 short ones. However, I think getting as much 40K as possible out of the day is always a good thing. It's just a shame there weren't an even number of teams so some people ended up sitting out for a round.

The atmosphere at the tournament was pretty good and most of the people we met were friendly and happy to discuss their armies etc. We were expecting to find that people were a bit anal about the rules but this wasn't the case at all. We were reminded of rules when we'd clearly forgotten things but it never felt like our opponents were standing over us watching movements being measured etc.

We've certainly learnt a lot about playing 40K. Some of the rules we were aware of but had never really played such as independent characters having to charge first and aim to get in base contact with other ICs. That and if they aren't in base contact with anyone they aren't able to fight! We'll never make the same mistake with our jump packs like we did in battle 3. 

We were, obviously, very pleased with how our list performed. I think it's shown just how important a good list is. We always designed it to be an "in your face" army which closed quickly and aimed to be in combat by turn 2. Mephiston proved his worth time and time again and both our competitors and the event organisers seemed to take an interest in him. I'm pleased we included a special character because it fits in with our style of play. I know we could be accused of choosing a list which was purely to win but I don't think many BA players would pick the same as we did. The only problem with Mephiston is that obviously you want to get him up front quickly but with the number of power fists floating around he's always going to be in danger. He seems to work best on the counter charge after his brethren have softened them up a bit!

I can't really understand why there aren't more BA jump pack lists floating about. To me jump packs and sanguinary priests are practically compulsory choices for them. Feel No Pain can be a real bitch to deal with so they pretty much always make it into combat and an 18" charge range makes them deadly. The third battle demonstrated that without the charge and without feel no pain they are pretty flimsy but since it only happened once in four games I don't think it was much to worry about. For an army that relies on assault I don't see the point in putting squads in rhinos. If you get de-meched and charged you're pretty helpless.

As far as my half of the list goes I'm pretty pleased with it. The grey hunters didn't end up having a lot to do but what they did they did well. Meltaguns seem to miss far too much for my liking but what can you do? The last minute addition of long fangs was essential because it gave us some long range clout. Some of the other guys at the tournament said they'd had trouble killing off guard armies because they were trying to chase around their flying things with melta guns and never got close enough to deal with them. The long fangs got some vital kills and the missile launcher guy (who I'd only built that week) was a jammy git getting those two vindi explosions!

The other thing I noticed was that when we play 40K we seem to use far too much terrain. I was also pretty please to see that our terrain is a pretty good standard compared to some of the stuff used here. It's made me want to crack on and make my ice world board and if I ever do I'll obviously make a full guide post on here.

Finally, I'd once again like to thank our competitors and the event organisers. We're hopefully going to try and squeeze another doubles tournament in before the GW one in Feb but the calendar looks pretty blank as far as doubles goes. Have to rethink our list a little for the GW one thanks to the FOC restrictions.