If you're not first, you're last! or, A Tournament of Terminators

Well, yesterday was fun and tiring. Our tournament had a turnout of 8 players, several of which are died in the wool 40k vets, and 4 of them brought Grey Knights to the party. Fortunately, I did not play any of those guys. Instead I played against Eldar, Tyranids, and Death Wing.
My list:

HQ: Duke Sliscus (1#, 150 pts)
1 Duke Sliscus, 150 pts

Elite: Kabalite Trueborn (7#, 202 pts)
6 Kabalite Trueborn, 202 pts (Shardcarbine x2; Blaster x2; Splinter Cannon x2)
1 Raider (Flickerfield)

Elite: Kabalite Trueborn (4#, 146 pts)
3 Kabalite Trueborn, 146 pts (Blaster x3)
1 Venom (Splinter Cannon)

Troops: Kabalite Warriors (11#, 175 pts)
10 Kabalite Warriors, 175 pts (Blaster x1; Splinter Cannon x1)
1 Raider

Troops: Wyches (11#, 235 pts)
9 Wyches, 235 pts (Hydra Gauntlets x2; Haywire Grenades)
1 Hekatrix (Haywire Grenades; Agoniser)
1 Raider (Grisly Trophies)

Troops: Kabalite Warriors (6#, 125 pts)
5 Kabalite Warriors, 125 pts (Blaster x1)
1 Venom (Splinter Cannon)

Troops: Kabalite Warriors (6#, 125 pts)
5 Kabalite Warriors, 125 pts (Blaster x1)
1 Venom (Splinter Cannon)

Troops: Kabalite Warriors (6#, 125 pts)
5 Kabalite Warriors, 125 pts (Blaster x1)
1 Venom (Splinter Cannon)

Fast Attack: Reavers (6#, 156 pts)
6 Reavers, 156 pts (Heat Lance x2)

Heavy Support: Ravager (1#, 115 pts)
1 Ravager, 115 pts (Disintegrator Cannon x3; Flickerfield)

Heavy Support: Ravager (1#, 105 pts)
1 Ravager, 105 pts

Heavy Support: Ravager (1#, 105 pts)
1 Ravager, 105 pts

Fast Attack: Reavers (3#, 86 pts)
3 Reavers, 86 pts (Cluster Caltrops x1)


Game 1: Eldar= his list included lots of striking scorpions and fire dragons, as well as an exarch, an avatar, and two of those walker things. Fortunately for me and NOT for him, he didn't move his avatar very well and it got blasted to death very, very quickly. Honestly it was just mopping up from there. A very easy game, actually- especially compared to the other two last night, but my opponent was a good sport and I can't compliment how well his army was painted enough. Wyches and reavers had a party.

Game 2: Tyranids- Swarm/Nidzilla mix. THE MOST GRUELING GAME I'VE EVER PLAYED! Oh dear god this game lasted for 4 hours! He kept spawning termagaunts and I kept killing them! I kept trying to take out the walking brood spawning things but it just wasn't happening. The wyches got slaughtered trying to zoom in on an objective, but again the reavers were just rocking until their inevitable deaths. At this point I was convinced that I should have just made two cluster caltrop sporting reaver squads instead of one anti tank reaver squad and one small anti infantry unit. This game lasted forever and by the end of it I had wiped out all of his troops (Sliscus went after an objective and annihilated the last of the spawning carnifexes in one turn of assault by himself- awesome.) This was my first time playing nids and I really believe that the only thing that got me the win was the shear amount of shooting we can pump out every turn. I think if I ever see nids on a tournament roster again I will be putting bladevanes on my venoms too.

Game 3- the foregone conclusion- Death Wing: This was the game against Pete, the man that runs the tournaments (and the company Armourcast, btw) and his crazy death wing army. All terminators and a single speeder that my reavers could just not do anything against. Serriously, the last time I tried to heat lance that damn speeder I asked him if he wanted to see me make God laugh, and the attempt failed yet again. This game went by pretty fast and was rough on my list. He knew his target priority and rolled a lot of krak hits on my vehicles. After his second turn of shooting I had only venoms left. Sliscus yet again proved a good close combat tool when he got fed up trying to shoot my opponent's HQ squad and rushed them, taking out all but one lowly thunder hammer termie before snuffing it (in two rounds of combat Sliscus killed a librarian and the captain of the death wing who's name escapes me, an apothacary and a hammernator practically by himself. Good rolls and good stats.), while my wyches rocked against two squads of terminators, eventaually killing them! Remember that pesky landspeeder? They broke it to pieces with haywire grenades. Between those two high performing units I was able to stay in second place. First place went to Rob, who of course had brought his Grey Knights.

Over all I think this was my most successful tournament. Even though I have come in first at one, that was with Blood angels and all the cheese I could muster against really weak lists for the most part and didn't require any real tactical thinking whatsoever. I think my playing has really improved because of the switch to a non powerarmoured army with glass vehicles. I think in the game against tyranids each of my squads had 3 pain tokens (except wyches) or even more by the last turn.
Thanks for all the help critiquing the list guys. Happy hunting!

Oh and I am buying a vampire lord on a zombie dragon with my gw prize support winnings.

Congrats on the tournament. Even bigger props for the Ricky Bobby reference. Did you wake up that morning and piss excellence?

I piss excellence every morning. Then I drink a breakfast smoothie of awesomeness (and whey protein) and replenish my excellence reserve.

I know the Caltrops option is not the "meta" right now but I have ignored that and have sported them whenever I could and they have not really let down. Of course I use them in a WWP list and when the portals are down the caltrops now have free reign over the entire board.

In my last couple games I have been experimenting with larger squads out of the portal and running a squad of 9 bikes and 3 caltrops has been pure fun. Yes, the unit is expensive and not "optimized" but coming out of a portal it is very easy to pick a target on the fringe of the board and end up in the opponents corner with very little return fire. The tend to make your opponent claim "broken" after they leave a marine survivor out of 10.

Heck, I just love picking up the dice and play test what a squad of 9 bikes with caltrops is going to do against random enemy units (marines, scarabs, nids, whatever I can think up).

Not sure if you can maneuver 9 bikes in a regular "rush" list but if you are doing it with just 6 bikes then I think you got da skillz to do it with 9.

Well the caltrops didn't let me down as much as the dice did. I kept rolling a one for attacks in the last game. THAT SUCKED.