Strange Bedfellows 40K Team Tournament

This weekend I attended the Strange Bedfellows Team Tournament in Saskatoon with The Kids and Other Tim. It was a long tiring day - made longer and more tiring by the fact that I was up stupid late trying to put last minute touches on Amanda's Drukhari that Finnegan was taking to the tournament and only got about an hour of sleep before getting up again to get ready to get out to the tournament. All that aside, though, it was a pretty damned good day...

There were TEN teams participating, each with four players - each player bringing a force of 1000 points. Each round a team would be matched up against another team and they would then play two concurrent games, each with two members of one team facing off against two members of the other team.

There were specific Detachments that we were required to use and I found them to be a little restrictive and difficult to put a force together for. Probably because it seemed to favour a style of play  totally counter to my own. To me, it seemed to give preference to smaller forces of high-point units, which I don't have much of - other than a few Lords of War.... but no Lords of War were allowed in this...

Before the games got underway everyone set up their armies for display. they were, in theory to be judged at this point... but I'm not sure that happened. I did take the chance to wander around and take pictures of as many as I could. Though there were a few that were plain grey plastic or spray primed on colour or has a rather uninspiring "minimum three colour" job, it was wonderful to see SO MANY really, REALLY well painted armies!

I apologize for the quality of the photos, the light in the convention hall wasn't great...



This was Keira's Asuryani force from the Thaestalyrdaes Craftworld (using Biel-Tan rules). Lead by Jain Zar, it included a unit of Dire Avengers, a unit of Rangers, two squads of Howling Banshees, a squad of Swooping Hawks, a troop of Wraithblades and a Wraithlord.



Other Tim's Alaitoc Force. He had an Autarch, three squads of five Rangers, a squad of Striking Scorpions, two Wraithlords, three jet bikes, and two Wave Serpants.



My own Warhost of the Biel-Tim Fleet - an offshoot of the Biel-Tan Craftworld. It was lead by Farseer Thymiltelyir and his most trusted aide, Broelwyn the Warlock. Escorting them on their journeys were a pair of Dire Avenger squads, a team of Rangers, a unit of Warp Spiders, a small host of Wraithguard and a Wraithlord.



Space Wolf force belonging to Cody Martinka.



Chaos Marines!



Some pretty sweet-looking T'au.



MOAR Chaos Marines!



Marines.



Black Legion Chaos Marines belonging to Randy Smytaniuk, who Keira and I played in the second round. He had a Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour, a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince (much to the horror of our Aeldari!), 27 Cultists, a squad of Chaos Space Marines, a Helbrute, two Obliterators, and a Rhino.



Chado Jordan's Nurggly Death Guard.



Chad's really cool display board which he brought, but wasn't using, but I took a picture of it anyway, just because it looks so rad!



I think this was Orion Croteau's Space Wolves... which were allied with Chad and Randy's Chaos forces... it was called "Strange Bedfellows", I guess...?



Another Drukhari force! Looks like a Kabbalite force with Scourges, three Venoms, a Raider, and a freaking Void Raven Bomber!?

 

More T'au



Necrons

 

 Still More T'au.

 

Dave Greenley's Raven Guard - which included an Eversore Assassin.



Chris Cloud's Marines

 

Finnegan setting up the Drukhari he was playing. I didn't get a picture of them all set up, for some reason. I'll probably post pictures of the entire force tomorrow, as it included some newly painted WYCHES!



Thousand Sons... I'm guessing that's Ahriman or some kind of sorcerer, some Thousand Sons, and a horde of Tzaangors...?



Tyranids the kids faced in the last round.

 

Son of STILL MORE T'au. Other Tim and I faced these in the last round. It included a Cadre Fireblade and a Commander in an XV86 Coldstar Battlesuit, A unit of Kroot and two Fire Warrior Strike Teams, a unit of XV8 Crisis Battlesuits, a unit of Vespids, a unit of XV** Broadside Battlesuits and a pile of Drones.



The Other Aeldari force. Another Alaitoc force led by Maugan Ra. I was kind of surprised to find an Alaitoc force that DIDN'T have piles of Rangers... I mean, that's kind of their THING, isn't it? There was one squad of Rangers and a squad of Dire Avengers and a squad of Guardians, along with a squad of Striking Scorpions, a squad of Swooping Hawks and TWO squads of Dark Reapers.



Grey Knights. And another Assassin. Looked like two Characters in Terminator armour, two squads of Terminators and a Dreadknight.



Jeremy Kuffner's Space Marines. Ten Bikers, ten Scouts, two Speeders... I'm guessing the Warlord was on a bike as well...? not a lot of boots on the ground for holding objectives...?



ULTRAMARINES!



More Necrons



WAAAAAAAAGGGGH!



MOAR WAAAAAAAAGGGGH! With a super-cool-looking... Gorkanot? Morkanot? I have no idea which is which! Fun to see it out.



Swarm o'Genestealers.



MORE Deathguard.



Some cool-looking Slaanesh Daemons!



Some Blood-for-the-Blood-God Khorne-types. So many Bloodletters!



An epic team of Imperial guard that drove up from Regina. Sure glad we didn't have to face these....


ROUND ONE

In the first round I played with Finnegan and his Drukhari (Well... they're AMANDA's Drukhari... that I painted... that he was using for this tournament)



We were playing against Chris Cloud and Dave Greenley - a couple of super fun dudes, with some awful, awful Marines... Seriously, it was like bringing a butter knife to a gun fight...

 

Finnegan set up his unit of twelve reavers ready to rocket off into some first-turn charge action... only to be blown completely away before they could even do ANYTHING... so disappointing... we learned that maybe they, being one of the biggest. most dangerous units he had, would always draw a LOT of fire and maaaaaaaayyybe they were best set up in the webway to deep strike in a later turn - thus guaranteeing at least ONE shot off before annihilation.

 

MARINES!!

 

XENOS TO THE FRONT! THIRTY SEVEN ROUNDS - RAPID FIRE!! Sweet Jiminy, they just rolled bochket and buckets of dice and they ALL re-rolled misses and re-rolled failed wound rolls...

 

Finnegan's one moment of EPICNESS! His Hellions swooped around the corner of this large central building and utterly blew away a unit of Assault Marines!

 

Wyches and Wraithguard advancing on the flank under cover.

I made some marker to put by each of his Wych Cult units so he'd be able to remember which Combat Drugs each had taken and what their game effect was!



Turn Two the Raven Guard landed their drop pod to our rear... and out poured marines!

On our turn, Farseer Thymiltelyir did a pretty good job of thinning their forces with a psychic power -taking out six of the Marines. Inspired by his masters work, Warlock Broelwyn tried to summon a power and suffered Perils of the Warp!



I dropped some Warp Spiders out of the Warp to their rear and unleashed Death Spinners on some scouts hiding in a building...



Finnegan threw some Wyches up against Chris' Marines and they just had their asses handed to them...



Rangers showed up and shot up the Raven Guard captain... but not enough to take him down...



he charged in and took down Farseer Thymiltelyir. Luckily some fleeing rangers spotted him and scooped up his unconscious form and hauled him back to the rendezvous point and escaped back into the Webway with him... others weren't so lucky...



This Assassin was mauling my Warpsiders so we just charged in and were joined by some Witches and took the blighter down... and then he exploded and took three more Warp Spider and three more Wyches with him!?

It was a fun game, but we lost... badly... like 40-0.... It was fun, though, Chris and Dave were a riot. I'd love to play with them again, but I'd have to seriously reconsider what I'd bring to the table - how do you DEAL with SO MUCH very accurate and DEADLY dakka!?

While Finnegan and I were playing Chris and Dave, Keira and Other Tim were playing Jeremy and Cody.



I only turned over to the neighbouring table to snap few quick pics of the action, from time to time.



I think they fared better than us...




But they still lost...



At least they weren't tabled!



More of their game...



Still more of their game...


ROUND TWO



In round two Keira and I faced Mark and Randy's combines forces of Chaos! I think the table was supposed to be some sort of Necron Tomb, but Keira thought it looked like it could be inside a Blackstone Fortress - which is kind of did, AND it would make way more sense for this particular match-up - so we went with that.



Knowing that it would be bad for another Blackstone Fortress to fall into the hands of the forces of Chaos, combined warhosts of the Thaestalyrdaes Craftworld and the Biel-Tim fleet stood to foil the dark powers malevolent plans!



Randy was a very crafty player - positioning his HUGE group of Black Legion cultists to deny us the ability to deep strike behind their lines. Mark had HUGE hordes of Pink Horrors - two units of 30, shooting gouts of multi coloured death-sparkles everywhere - which were kind of cool! (They'll be way cooler when he gets them all painted!)!



Warp Spiders arrived and blew up a Chaos Rhino!



Ranger appeared and sniped







Pink Horror Rampage! those Horrors surged forward and pretty mcc wiped out the Swooping Hawks, Rangers, Dire Avengers, and Warp Spiders. It was awful.

We totally lost this game - but it was a bit closer! 28 - 12...? Maybe...? I can't remember. It was fun, though, so...

While Keira and I were playing Mark and Randy, Other Tim and Finnegan were playing Chad Jordan and Orion Croteau



I had really hoped to play against these guys - because they're great guys. (After hearing about their forces, however, I'm secretly relived that I didn't have to face them after all).



Combined Aeldari forces swoop into contact with the forces of Chaos.



These were apparently no fun at all to fight... (They LOOK wicked coo, though, huh?)



Chaos marines relentlessly holding objectives.



The Hellions and Reavers arrive!

I took a few moments during the second round to walk around and take a few quick snaps of some of the other games going on (usually while Mark was moving his hordes of Pink Horrors!)



Battlegroup Pegasus and their massed artillery...



I think this was a massive Chaos on Chaos throwdown.



T'au and Slaanesh some kind of marines taking on more Chaos hordes.




ROUND THREE



In round three Other Tim and I paired up against the only other Asuryani player, who was teamed up with some T'au. Apparently a splinter faction of the Alaitoc Craftworld that bought into the T'au philosophy of "the Greater Good". Their team was called Three Xenos Walk Into a Grey Knight Bar... (the team includes Asuryani, T'au, Tuyranids and... Grey Knights!? I guess that's why it was called "Strange Bedfellows!")



This was our closest game yet - probably because the forces were a bit more balanced. Patrick and David were super fun guys to play against.



There were some pretty epic events - like the Dire Avenger Exarch on the left (partly obscured by the Drone) - his entire squad was wiped out. I spent 2 Command Points to have him auto-pass his morale test (as he would have fled on anything but a one). In this last game, victory point were awarded for units wiped out - and if figured keep him on the table denied them a victory point and would force them to concentrate some fire on him just to finish off the unit, with would draw fire away from other units... but then I did stupid things with him... like charge into combat versus three VX8 Crisis suits and a swarm of drones!? Somehow he survived all the incoming overwatch fire - and then the rest of these guys joined in the melee... in the melee he took piles of hits - four of which wounded with -1AP... I saved all four. Later the T'au fell back and fired on him again - another four hits - I failed ONE armour save - so I use another command point to re-roll and he survived! He was still running around at the end of the game so we decided he was some sort of epic hero that poems would be written about.



We just squeaked out a victory - the only one for our team this weekend. I think the score was 24-16?



while Other Tim and I battled the Eldar and T'au, Finnegan and Keira faced their teammates who were playing Tyranids and Grey Knights!?



Finnegan figured the Grey Knights used their psychic powers to disrupt the Tyranids synaptic link and mind control them into working for the Grey Knights - which was kind of a cool idea! I mean, the Grey Knights ARE the super secret chamber militant of the Ordo Malleus. Their mission is to hunt daemons. They could give no fü¢ks at all about Xenos threats. I could see a Radical Inquisotor of the Ordos justifying the use of dangerous Xenos to wage their war against Daemonkind in and "end justify the means" kind of way...



The Succubus finding herself surrounded by a swarm of giant alien beasties... just like back home in the arenas of Commorragh!



The Reavers arrive! Hey look an opportunity to use Eviscerating Fly-By - a 1 Command Point Stratagem that allows a Wychcult flying unit to overpass an enemy unit at top speed (must be advancing) - they roll one die for each model in the Drukhari unit on a 6+ the enemy unit sufferes a mortal wound (+1 to the roll if the enemy unit is INFANTRY - like those guys). Unfortunately, out of the TWELVE DICE he only rolled ONE 5+... yeah... It was that kind of day.



Hellions arrive to menace the rear!



The kids lost. In fact they were tabled on Round Four for a 40-0 loss... Keira said she had fun.... Jain Zar and her Howling Banshees wiped out a unit of Terminators and a character in Terminator Armour! So.. small victory there...



The Aeldari All-Stars! We made team hoodies (or "Bunnyhugs" as they are called in Saskatchewan) though they look a little blue in this pic, they were actually purple. We handprinted the faction symbols on them with fabric paint. Keira did her own, I did the rest. From left to right; Other Tim (Alaitoc), Keira (Thaestalyrdaes Craftworld), your truly (Biel-Tim Fleet), and Finnegan (Crimson Wave Wych Cult).

We took home the "Wooden Spoon" award - for being dead last in the standings - despite the minor victory Other Tim and myself pulled off in the last round...

Fun was had. Met some great people. Got to play some games with the great people I already knew. Rolled dice. Pushed around minis on a table. War Noises were made as shit got blowed up. All-in-all a pretty good way to spend a Saturday.

Thanks to Beau Sutton for organizing the event and thanks to all those who we played against us and (mostly) kicked out asses!

I'm not sure I'll convince Finnegan to go to another tournament. He's experienced a 40K tournament, and it's not really his thing (he's way more into role-playing and narrative-type games - and it's not always easy to construct narrative in the middle of a tournament, where some of your opponents are just there to compete and could care less about fluff...).

Keira said she'd totally play in another tournament - at least one like this that was more for fun... maybe not-so-mch a high-powered, super competitive ITC event... Maybe we'll be paired up for the next Battle of the Abyss... or we'll see her at next year's Battleforce Recon...? I think she'll be working on a Ynnari  next - she's assembling her first unit of Drukhari Wyches as I type - and picked up the Triumvirate of Ynnead last week - which I promised to help her assemble this week! I think we'll be trying out the fancy new Contrast® paints on these...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming blog:

I'll probably get some pis of the finish Drukhari force - oh, I haven't finished ALL the Drukhari we have - just the 1000 point force I finished up for this tournament. I have another 1000 points of stuff to finish up to complete EVERYTHING. But at least Amanda has a playable force and hopefully we'll see her at the table rolling dice and kicking our asses in the near future.

After that, expect to see some NECROMUNDA in the coming weeks!!!