Rawdogger’s Celesticon Tournament Report

Hello all,

Rawdogger here with an after action report from last weekend’s Celesticon ITC 40k tournament held in sunny Fremont, California.   The Celesticon tournament was run by the fabulous Willow Rider from the 40k team Left Coast Corsairs and all in all it was a well-received event with around 40 players total.  As is the usual in any Northern California event there were plenty of top tier competitors in attendance so you could anticipate a tough game in each of the three you would be playing in.  After my poor showing at the team tournament in San Diego, in which I single handedly tanked my and Reece’s team, I approached this one with a much more light hearted approach and the resigned attitude that I would be hard pressed to do well against the Battle Companies and drop Mechanicum I was likely to face.  So I grabbed my Astra Militarum Stormlord, newly renamed ‘Belligerence’, a couple Heavy Weapons teams and my Imperial Guardsmen’s primer and loaded up the ol’ Camry to make the trip down to Fremont.

THE LIST

Company Commander- Kurov’s Aquila, 4x Plasma

Platoon Commander – Autocannon

2x Infantry Squads – Lascannons

3x Heavy Weapon Squads – Autocannons

Veteran Squad – 3x Melta Gun, Chimera

Vulture

Wyvern

Manticore

Stormlord Super Heavy Tank

Aegis Defense Line

 

Coteaz

Inquisitor – 3x Servo Skulls.

 

GAME 1 – Steve Sisk (Ultramarine Battle Company)

Primary – Emperors Will

Secondary – Modified Objectives

 

So in my first game I pulled multiple GT winner and all around badass pirate Steve Sisk.  Steve was playing a straight up Ultramarine Battle Company and despite the fact that Steve is a top rated player playing a straight up baller list I felt that this would be my game only in that he didn’t have that much in his arsenal to take out ol’Belligerant which was packed to the gills with S7 preferred enemy Autocannons.  The game started with my going first, which of course was the wrong choice to make.   Steve reserved just about everything he had and then came in and mobbed the table.  Despite the overwhelming amount of firepower I was putting out I just couldn’t erase his units fast enough and the game ended on turn 5 with Steve contesting my Emperors will with an obsec attack bike and me not able to cross the distance to his.  It was a really close game and I pride myself with making Steve work for the win (he came in second) and seeing him sweat a little bit. In the end I was brought down by some poor firing solutions and the usual lack of mobility in my troop units.

 

GAME 2 – Chris Foster (Nurgle Chaos Daemons)

Primary – Kill Points

Secondary – Modified Objectives

 

So I’ll be honest in saying that when I saw I was playing a Daemon list I smiled the smuggest smile of all time.  Daemons don’t have a lot of ranged weaponry and I had mine in spades.  The deployment was Vanguard Strike with a large piece of terrain taking up most of my deployment zone.  Yikes, off to a bad start.  My list depends on my being able to deploy correctly and the giant piece of terrain bicecting my zone meant I had to split my deployment.  I did the best I could and tried to seize with Coteaz’s re-roll but failed to do so.  My opponent then moved all of his army quickly up the field, staying on the ground with his winged Nurgle Daemon Princes and in whatever ruins he could find for that sweet Nurge cover save.  His level 2 Heralds moved up slowly behind them with the swarms summoning another 300 points of Plague Drones which were kind enough to scatter 8-12” towards my lines (in rubble of course).  On my turn I unleashed hell and blasted the living crap out of as much as I could.  This is where I learned that Nurgle Daemon Princes with wings have a built in 2+ cover save since they are able to jink whenever they feel like it (even when swooping for some reason).  Throw in some Endurance 4+ FNP and baby you’ve got yourself a stew.  The long and short of it is when you can’t kill Daemon Princes and they are assaulting you turn 2 you are in big, big trouble.  Took the second loss with 0 total points for the tournament.  Great times and Chris was a very fun opponent who was in his own words ‘on beer 30’ whatever that means.  Just drunk enough to kick my ass.

 

GAME 3 – Garret Mulroney (Orks and Khorne Daemons)

Primary – The Relic

Secondary – Modified Objectives

 

My last game was against my old nemesis Garret Mulroney.  Garret technically had an illegal list since there are not CtA allies allowed in ITC but since he also had 0 points for the whole tournament no one really cared.  We were both going for the wooden spoon now and had to try and lose the game while actually appearing to be trying to win the game.  Stupid, fun games like this really make me laugh and I had a really good time.  Unfortunately for me I seized on poor Garret and proceeded to put a ton of wounds on one of his Bloodthirsters and killing a large chunk of his Ork Bikers.  He was particularly upset that he was not able to scout the bikers before turn 1 since I had Servo Skulls (THANKS WHITE SCARS BATTLE COMPANY) so they were kind of just sitting out in the open turn 1.  I also knocked off a couple hull points on one of his Mega Dreads and immobilized the other (yes he took 2 Mega Dreads lol).  After that it was pretty much what you would expect an assault army facing an Astra Militarum gunline would go like and to my chagrin I tabled poor Garret in short order.  10 POINTS FOR GRIFF..err RAWDOGGER!   HUZZAH!

 

So all in all I had a really fun time playing a silly fun list.  With the exception of the second game disaster I could have easily gone 2-1 with an Astra Militarum list with a Stormlord so I was pretty happy overall.  I would encourage anyone who is a bit down with the overpowering lists in competitive 40k to go to a tournament and just bring a goofy fun list.  If anything your opponents will appreciate it and there is something refreshing about heading to a tournament as an underdog and seeing just how well you can do with your list.