So, with my extensive training done, I took part in our 1250 tourney with my Thousand Sons. One of the guys at the store asked how long I've been playing and thought I was quite the kidder when I told him I played my 1st game 2 days beforehand. Then he realised I was serious and stuck around to give me a hand and watch me play (I asked my opponents if they minded and they were OK with it). Massive thanks to you Percy.

As mentioned before, Force org had restrictions in place, 1 HQ (except for space wolves, and daemons could take 2 heralds or 1 other), no named characters, min 2 troops, 1 each of Elites/FA/HS, no squadrons of vehicles/monsterous creatures, must fill all slots, can take extra troops to fill out points, 1 dedicated transport only, can't be the same as another choice in your army, no allies, no 'slates, Escalation or Stronghold Assault, no Inquisition or Sisters.

16 players split into 2 groups over 2 days, game 1 at random, highest points vs next highest for games 2 and 3. Highest points from each group plays of for winner at time convinient to both parties.

In my group there was Dark Eldar, Dark Angels, Tau, Space Wolves, Imperial Fists, Ultramarine Successor chapter, Necrons which had been completely assembled and painted (to pretty good quality) in 4 days and then me.

My list;

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HQ
Sorceror, ML3, Terminator Armour, Mark of Tzeentch, Spell Familiar, VotLW, Force Axe

Troops
9x Thousand Sons
9x Thousand Sons

Elites
5x Terminators, Mark of Tzeentch, VotLW, Combi Melta and Power Fist on Champion, 2x Power Fists, 1x Pair of Lightning Claws, 3x Combi Melta, Power Sword

FA
Heldrake, Baleflamer

HS
Forgefiend, Hades Autocannon

1250 eggzackary


Games were

1. Purge/Dawn of War vs Custom marines using Ultra chapter tactics
2. Crusade (I think)/Hammer and Anvil vs Tau
3. Relic/Dawn of War vs Dark Eldar

Game 1:

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This guy was fairly new as well, so I suspect this wasn't actually that much of a random draw by the manager (thanks Blake). Percy gave us both some pointers here which was very handy. Tricked out chapter master, las/plas tacs, ML/plas tacs, asscannon dread, 3 man plasma bike squad and 3x Vanilla Centurion Devastators with Land Raider Crusader dedicated transport (with Melta).

Sorceror got Fear as his warlord trait (against marines? Awesome. ), Doombolt, Life Leach and Enfeeble for powers.

He won initiative and deployed 1st, everything bar the raider and dread in cover or out of LOS, chapter master on his own though. I setup up with both Sons squads out of LOS of everything bar the bikes on the left hand edge, Forgefiend out of LOS of everything bar the Crusader on the right hand edge.



His turn 1 he charged with the bikes (I thought you couldn't charge 1st player turn, but apparently not), but fluffed his charge range with a 4. Shuffled the dread forward but still out of LOS of everything, chapter master moved forward (!), marines moved towards the Sons out of cover, but out of LOS as well. Bike plasma bounced off my 4++, bolters took down 2, starting a trend of me not being able to roll armour saves at all, yet passing invulnerables with ease. Chapter master had LOS on my sons, but had moved, so couldn't fire his Orbital (I'm glad I read the forums, I know at least some of the rules!).

Sons shuffle around for better angles to flank the marines next turn, took out 2 bikes and a handful of marines, fiend moved into LOS and pwned the Dread, 1st blood and a killpoint, yay!

2:0 my way

His turn 2, bike doesn't charge (?), marines shuffle partly out of cover (?), Crusader moves into LOS, Centurions move into LOS, but out of range of anything they can hurt. Lose a couple of Sons to assault cannon, bolters and a frag missile, plasma bounces off the 4++ again, Chapter master scatters offboard with his orbital, plas/las tacs target the fiend, 5++ deny the lascannon passed, plasma causes a glance on the fiend.

Roll for reserves, the termies come in. Termies + Sorc come down with 2" scatter away from the raider, still enough to get me within half range melta with all 4 combis. Fiend angles for a shot on the 'Raider, Sons flank the marines so they're out of cover. Melta gets 3 hits, 2 pens: Shaken and weapon destroyed (hurricane bolter). Fiend uses daemon forge to try for a pair of glances on the 'Raider, nothing despite 6 hits with rerolls to pen. Sons focus fire and ruin the out of cover marines, even with them going to ground.



2:0 my way

His Turn 3, crusader moves forward, away from the fiends LOS, Chapter master moves towards the termies. Centurions fire 10 billion shots, dropping 4 termies and taking a wound off the sorceror. Las/Plas plinks harmlessly off the fiend, 5++ for lascannon again, Plas fails to glance or pen. Marines take a couple of Sons down with bolters, 4++ deny the plasma passed again and the plasma marine gets hot's himself in his haste to fire 2 shots, plasma bike again fails to get past the 4++ with both shots. Termies pass leadership and get assaulted by the chapter master, losing 1. Sorc can't get past the 4++ of the CM to pop him with the force weapon, pass leadership.

Drake comes on, vector strikes the bike, another killpoint to me, Sons flank the remaining marines. Sons clear the remaining marines, earning another killpoint, drake clears the roof of the plasma marine and 4 of his friends, fiend take a hullpoint off the 'raider, Sorc and Chapter master flail uselessly at each other.

4:1 my way.

Ran out of time, so the game finished there Minor Victory to me, but I reckon I'd have been close to wiping him out if we went to turn 5.

Highlights were the fiend and Sons taking plasma and lascannons like champs, Sons didn't fail a single 4++, despite dropping to bolters more than their 3+ would have had you believe. Lowlights were not dropping the 'Raider and being forced to reroll my aspiring sorceror spell 8 times in a row cause I got nothing but 5's and 6's and he only has a single mastery level. Still, not a bad 1st outing for the Sons.

The other guy was advised a couple of times about stuff, sometimes he listened, sometimes not. I was advised a couple of times, but I was told afterwards I played alight. All in all, a good game.


Game 2:

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This guy is pretty good from what I've gathered and has been playing for quite a while, but this list was mainly upgrades (due to lack of painted models) and him trying out stuff. He graciously let Percy continue to watch and assist.

List was IIRC, Cadre Fireblade, 2x Fire Warriors with Drones, Riptide with drones, Skyray, 3 crisis suits with drones.

Sorceror got reroll boons as his warlord trait (against Tau? Awesome. ), Boon of Mutation, Life Leach and Iron Arm for powers. Kept Boon due to warlord trait and getting a witchfire on biomancy before rolling Tzeentch.

I got Initiative, rolled 2+1 for objectives (we were using mysterious objectives), placed 1 in the open near my deployment zone, the other about 12 inches away but out of LOS of his deployment zone, he put his inside the ruin where his guys were set up in the middle of his deployment zone.

I deployed both Sons squads mostly out of LOS near my 2 objectives on the left hand side of the board, the Fiend went on the right hand side behind a building out of LOS of most of his side of the battlefield. Declared the termies were starting in reserve (later learned I should have said if they were deep striking or walking on, whoops), almost an exact copy of the previous game.

He started his Firewarriors and 'Blade outflanking, skyray in the corner opposite the Forgefiend, Riptide in the middle, firewarriors in the ruins in the middle and crisis suits in reserve to deep strike.

He failed to sieze.

My Turn 1 my fiend popped out to face his skyray "Oh crap, where did he come from!", Sons shuffled around to both get closer to the objective and get more cover. Find out that my 2nd mysterious objective is reroll 1's to hit while shooting, very Tzeentchian, I like it. Fiend takes a hullpoint off the 'Ray despite only rolling 2 hits.

'Ray stays put, firewarriors stay in cover, can't remember what their mysterious objective was, riptide jumppacks 10 inches on a 4d6 towards my Sons, but can't see anything. Ray shoots a couple of missiles at the fiend, pass 1 5++, the other pens and immobilises him, giving him a commanding view of the 7 inch wide strip on the right hand side of the board where nothing else is and bugger all else. Firewarriors on the top floor take potshots at the sons they can see and remove 2.

My turn 2, Helldrake comes in, termies stay in reserve. Drake stays well away from the riptide who has interceptor and skyfire, coming down the right hand side that the forgefiend is stuck on. Sons shuffle a bit more to get out of LOS. Fiend figures he's got nothing else to do, so daemonforges the skyray to death with about 6 pens, First Blood to me, yay!

His firewarriors and commander come in from outflank, he rolls to come in, gets the left, rerolls, gets the exact same result. Deploy in (his) rapidfire range of my Sons, oh dear. Firewarriors still setting up shop in the ruin, riptide move a bit toward the centre of the table, still can't doo much. Firewarriors take another Son down from their vantage point on the ruins, outflanking squad drop about 5.



1:0 my way.

Turn 3, termies still don't come in. My Drake vector stikes the riptide to no effect, the sons move up, apparently one of the drones cause anyone within a certain distance to treat all terrain as difficult. The drake fires its flamer at the firewarriors and commander, roasts a few, he makes 4++ invo against intant death. My Sons shoot some Firewarriors, I try to Tzeentchs Firestorm the, but the riptide has some 50 point upgrade to allow anyone within 18" (?) roll 4d6 to deny. Spoiler alert, he passes this every single time. Was originally taken to prevent jaws/psychic shriek shenanigans, but works with deadly efficiency against my aspiring sorcerors. His 'warriors resolve is strong and they don't fail their morale.

I have a crack at charging (I shouldn't have been so free with my shooting!), but don't make it and he doesn't kill anything via overwatch.

The crisis suits come in and rock up on a little plateu near the objective in my deployment zone. The riptide moves forward a few inches to get within melta range of my drake, the 'warriors shuffle backwards a bit, but stay within 15 inches of my other squad of Sons.

The riptide melta's my drake, but the 5++ saves the day, the 'warriors trash the remaining couple of Sons from my 1st squad, the crisis suits shoot Sons squad #2 reducing them to a handfull of guys. The camping firewarriors can't see any victims so stay put.

1:0 my way

My turn 4, Termies come in, I declare they'll walk on (this is where I find out I should have declared deep strike or walking on at deployment. Whoops), they wander up nice and close to the crisis suits. His Riptide intercepts, but the template scatters off the board. My remaining Sons squad moves up to be within rapidfire range, the drake vector strikes the crisis suits and drops a pair of drones, then flames the firewarriors and commander again. Again he manages not to die, but his guys take a hammering. Termies unload thier guns into the crisis suits, killing all but 1 remaining drones and 1 suit. My Sons try to witchfire the remaining 'warriors, but get denied, they shoot 'em and get rid of everyone bar the commander.

His commander falls back (by movement choice, not morale), the crisis suits jump onto a battlement near the objective #2, the riptide moves to the other end of the battlement nearest to his deployment zone. The fireblade reduced Sons squad #2 down to the Sorceror and 1 Rubric marine. The crisis tries to drops a terminator, but he passes his 4++, but can't repeat it against the riptide and 1 dies.

1:0 to me

My Turn 5 the sorc rolls for boon of mutation, gets Icy Aura Fleet. He and his pals waddle off towards towards the remaining crisis suit, the 2 remaining thousand sons cower out of LOS hard up against the battlements near the objective #2. Drake flies back towards the forgefiend and flames the crisis suit, but he and his drone both save. Termies drop the drone with shooting thanks to the reroll 1's from the mysterious objective, then charge the crisis suit and kill him.

His fireblade moves in, but can't see my Sons or the Termies, his riptide can't move far enough to contest but tries to get in close to support the fireblade and the firewarriors are still huddled around their objective.

He offered to call it there, but we still had 10 minutes, I said we'll play it out if you want. OK, roll for turn 6? Yep, turn 6.

1:0 to me

My turn 6, sorceror maifests Iron arm, termies move along battlements towards the riptide, drake moves back up the field and burinates some firewarriors, the 2 remainins Sons stay out of LOS. Termies and sorceror charge the riptide, just getting into combat due to difficult terrain. Overwatch does nothing. Riptude smashes, misses, sorceror hits the pristine riptide with his force axe so hard, his converted axe snaps off. Rolls for force weapon, bam, down goes the riptide.

Cadre fireblade still can't get LOS on the Sons squad nor the termies on the battlements. Game over, Minor Victory to me.

4:3 my favour (objectives worth 3 each)

Highlights were obviously force weaponing the riptide with my sorceror and just generally how close the game was. I think my opponent pulled his punches here as well as he could have wiped out my sons and I wouldn't have been able to claim any objectives with no troops. No real lowlights, just not knowing about calling deepstrike vs walking on.

Aside from a bit of advice about heldrake placement and some confirmation of what I was already thinking about how I should move during the last couple of turns, I managed this one mostly on my own, but without the advice on the drake, things would have turned out much differently.


Game 3:

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Relic against Dark Eldar generalled by a guy who's been playing for over 20 years. Yeah, this'll end well. I played terribly in this, making 3 large errors early that cost me the game. Percy had stuck around as soon as he found out who I was playing, but there wasn't much he could have done without actually playing for me. He pretty much just watched me go to my doom.

I don't know one dark eldar unit from another, so my best guess at his list is Archon, 2 troops, max scourges, a flyer, a raider/reaver (?) transport skimmer thing and I guess some fast attack guys if that's not scourges? Something had a couple of darklances and I think the troops had a darklance each too.

Sorceror got master of deception as warlord (1 unit infiltrating), Boon of mutation Tzeentchs Firestorm, Terrify and Dominate

We also finally remembered to roll for nightfighting, it was. He won initiative.

He set up with one unit in a multi level ruin, 2 out in the open and the transport along the right hand edge, scourges in reserve to deep strike in. I forgot about infiltrating (1st big mistake), and started my sons as close as possible since there was nothing to block LOS with for them, and the forgefiend started out of LOS behind a building on the right hand side (hey, don't argue with what works), termies in reserve to deep strike in.

I rolled to sieze, nope.

His Turn 1, Transport moves up, units in the open move up into cover, the one in the ruins stays put. His guys chew up the Sons squad on the right, killing 4 or 5 guys.

Both Squads of Sons move up, my forge fiend pops out and pops the transport but it doesn't explode (which would have been awesome). I should have moved around the other side of the building in retrospect, but oh well. Sons lay into the squad with the least amount of cover, but its night fighting, so they don't accomplish much, only about 3 dead.

His Turn 2, his Scourges and flyer come in, scourges pop down behind my Sons squads, flyer makes a beeline for my forgefiend. Troops shuffle around a bit to get more into cover. He fires quite a few darklances and a bunch of other stuff into the fiend, I managed about 5x 5++'s against all bar 1 lance which immobilises the fiend. No one (we had a few spectators by this point) could believe it, the fiend kept on truckin. His troops and the scourges rolled terribly and left 3 of my Sons alive.



My turn 2, my drake and termies both arrive, I move the drake on, vector striking the eldar flyer, then make Big mistakes #2 & 3, I move the Sons units forward before placing the terminators, so they go back into reserve, and then chose to shoot at his troops rather than rapidfire and charge his scourges. Lost the game right there I'd say. Vector strike glanced, forgefiend hit once but didn't even glance, even with reroll to pen from daemonforge. Killed a few of his troops, but only about 4.

Turns 3 - 5 was basically just his guys shooting the crap out of mine with me unable to retaliate. Forgefiend got blown up (HP loss) on turn 3, drake got exploded from a lucky darklance shot (explode on pen chart) in turn 3 as well. Termies failed to arrive until turn 4, then came down, shot the archon and his unit, caused 4 casualties then got charged and swept. Sons got charge and annihilated by the other squad of troops, remaining squad got shot to death with only the sorceror left on the table at the end of my turn 4. Tabled on his Turn 5.

Not much for the highlight reel this game, though the forgefiends ability to make 5++ saves continues to amaze. My Tzeentch dice do amazingly well on their 4++/5++ rolls, but fail miserably when called on for 3+/2+ armour saves.

Still, I entered this to learn, not to win, and have some excellent things to take away. I remembered blessings before movement, now I have a lesson to remember to deploy all reserves (and call how they are coming on) before touching anything else. I think I will still need a couple of lessons on target priority and battlefield positioning before it really sinks in.

I think I wasted a good opportunity by starting with the termies off the table, especially the sorcerror as I spent a lot of points on him, but never got to use his powers. I should have infiltrated either them or one of the sons squads a bit further up the board on the left and made an early grab for the relic and/or pour a bunch of fire into his troops.

I take some small consolation that the Dark Eldar player won our group and will play off for the overall win. I had a chat with him once the game was over about what I should have done and what I should be thinking about and he gave me some good pointers.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how my lads did, how much fun it was and what I learned, but after hobbying all day, and well into the morning the night before to get them ready, then playing until 11pm, it's very mentally tiring to keep track of everything. Must remember to get more sleep next time as well.

Just because I'm so proud of how he turned out, here is a picture of my heldrake. Still a bit of armour and spikes to go onto his back, and some way to fix the wings so they don't droop so bad, but then he'll be ready to paint.