Ave Dominus Nox!
I was in a tournament in Belgium last weekend to test my list for the team tournament in less than a month. it was an interesting day despite the heat and the fact that some players were a bit nervous/sanguine when they miss something (it's quite hard to focus on your game when the player on your right in the next table start insulting his opponent).
As a reminder, I use this list
[link to the list] and the tournament used the French Wargame scenario
[link in french only here] with game length between 2h30 / 2h45 maximum. To be honest, after using them, I think they are interesting for a casual play as a way to change from the usual GW scenario. But for a tournament, they are time consuming and may advantage of disadvantage some army (for example, just by killing my scout sentinel you score 2 victory points, a leman russ: 4...), you need to specifically create an army to minimize the points you give to your opponent.
But as I was not in this tournament to win it, but to train myself (it was only my 7 to 9th game with Astra Militarum), my objectives were:
- Test the list against serious opponents
- Identify the strong and weak point I have to take into account to improve myself
- Not loosing a game with all my army wipe out
Blood Pact versus Thousand Sons
An ideal first game for my test: against a Thousand Sons army lead by Magnus in a table with two 17' length/ 12' width/10' height mountain in the middle of the table. So after the deployment, I was unable to see more than a quarter of the enemy army.
My opponent army:
Magnus
Sorcerer exalted
Sorcerer exalted on disk
Daemon Prince
Tzaangor shaman
2*27 Tzaangor
2*12 Cultists
1 forgefiend
3 Tzaangor on disk with bow
I managed to steal the first turn and that allow me to kill half a unit of tzaangor and the forgefiend. But I missed Magnus on an error on my side: I forgot that I hit him on a 3+ and not a 4+, resulting on asking my opponent to only have 3 save to do rather than 6. And he managed to save it all.
Most of my army did not shoot as I did not see or are too far away.
I did not make this error twice and killed Magnus in my second turn despite the fact that he boosted his save, thoughness and was harder to hit.
In the meantime, the rest of his army advance and try to block my units in close combat, but I managed to avoid this trap calmy destroying them one by one.
At the end of the game (turn 4), only the cultists, the two sorcerers and a dozen Tzaangors were still alive. On my side, the two Hellhounds, one Leman russ, shadowsword, 10 guards and 3 of my 5 characters were still able to fight.
I lose the game 16 victory points against 26 so a 6-14 defeat mostly due to the scenario of this tournament and the big mountain in the middle that only allow me to shoot with pask, lascanon and the shadowsword during my first turn.
Blood Pact versus Tyranids
A second game against a Tyranids, not my first one, but a new kind of list based on shooting rather than rushing in close combat.
His list:
Prince with wing
Swarmlord
Neurothrope
1*12 Hormagaunt
1*12 Termagaunt
5 Ripper swarm
1 Carnifex
2 Tyranofex
5 Hive guard (shooting weapons)
1 Harpy
I played second and take the blunt force of his attack during his first turn. In fact, this game proves the resistance of my list: I destroyed during the first two turns his close combat forces: Prince, Swarmlord, harpy, carnifex and hormagaunt. And I only started focusing his big monster and Hive guard at the third and fourth turn.
Despite that, I take some damage, and during a quick moment, I fear for a wipe out of my forces. But in the end, only one hive guard and 12 termagaunt stayed on the table versus Pask, shadowsword, one hellhound, my lascanon and 10 guards. With a fifth turn, I am pretty sure I will have clean the table.
Using the tournament rules, my opponent won 12-8.
Blood Pact versus Orks
Last game against an opponent very nice, one of the orks player and counsellor of the Warhammer-forum : Nagz. It's not one of the army I think I will fight in the other tournament, but it still a possibility.
My opponent list:
Warboss bike
Bigmek bike
Weirboyz
30 stormboyz
6 warbikers
6 kommando
15 Tankbusta
6 nobz
1 lobba
1 battlewagon
1 Gorkanaut
About the game, I made an error just at the beginning of the game and it cost me the victory (we finish with a draw): I did not move my scout sentinel with the free movement. As a result, my opponent who had the first turn, warp jump and charged the sentinel and conscript with a pack of 30 stormboyz. And I could not fall back so these guys were a big problem for 3 turns. As long as they did not die, I cannot move as I want with my Hellhound and other tanks.
In particular because of that I had to move one psyker and some guards, creating an opportunity for my opponent to send Tankbusta and kommando in my line. I killed them, but it costed me Pask.
It did not stop me from killing the rest of the army, but with less movement, I could not advance and killed the little lobba who was the sole survivor of the game. It was hiding on the other side of the map behind some walls and a lot of sandbags.
On my side, the 3 hellhounds, a tank commander, shadowsword and some characters were still alive and rushing to kill the two gretchings.
Conclusion
Well, I did not manage to secure a win with the rule of the tournament, but I learn some valuable lessons during this tournament and test of my list.
We will start with the negative points:
- In two of the three games, I made errors that I have to avoid in the future: forgetting to move my scout sentinel and that I hit Magnus on a 3+ clearly impact the game in my disadvantage.
- I have a static army that doesn't move in the first and second turn. That means less victory points if the objectives are not in or near my deployment zone. For the tournament in three weeks, I have to take that into account for each scenario when defining if I will be the first or second defense.
The positive points:
- I confirm that my list is solid and I was not in a position of been wiped out during these 3 games. As a defense for the tournament with my team, it's very important
- During the target tournament, the game will be played in 4 hours not 2h45 with possibility to go to 7 turns. That means I will have time to do more turn than during this tournament and as you had read previously, if we had played 5 and possibly 6 or 7 turn at least two of my opponent will have been wiped out so victory 20-0 for me.
I will play a game or two in the coming 2 weeks before the big day to learn how to use my army in the best possible way.
Like the other members of the Blood Pact, his Leman Russ is old and hardened by battles. Some fresh paint or just more bloods from slaves may be useful. 
I will tried a new method to do my free hand marking for this tank and I hope the result will be better than the two previous tanks. I will have two other hellhound to train before I do the marking of the Shadowsword, it lets me some time to continue improving my skills.
