Before I get into these reports I should mention a few things to those of you that may not know what Astronomi-con is. Astro is a 1500pt tournament that has about 50-60 people participate each year. The best part of the tournament is that every table has different custom tailored missions. Games are scored with a 10/7/3 system. Each mission also has 3 secondary objectives worth 1 point each and 3 “Cost of failure” conditions worth -1 point each. I highly recommend the tournament to pretty much any 40k player. Check out their site for more info!
My Army
This was the Salamander Space Marine army I brought. I placed 3rd overall.
I brought my Salamanders and here’s a link to my list.
Game 1
For my first game of the weekend I was matched up with Nick Itsou who I believe came in 3rd last year. The main objective of this table was Victory Points.
Nick brought his really cool old school marines (mostly 2nd edition models.) His list was something like:
- Pedro w/ 5 Sternguard in a Razorback
- Librarian with 5 marines
- 10 marines in rhino
- 5 Sniper scouts
- 5 Bikes
- 3 Attack Bikes
- Predator
- Lascannon Dread
We got kinda boned for the table we played on as it had night fight for the whole game. Since we also had most of our armies in reserve as a mission requirement, we spent the first 3 turns not really doing much other than yelling at eachother in the dark. All the action came in the second half of the game with a very short range firefights which ended up being really cool. I ended up mostly tabling him by the end of turn 7 with about about a third of my own army remaining.
Final game points: 13 points for me, 1 for him.
Game 2
Second game was against a massive Sisters of Battle army. This was the famous “Sink the Baneblade” mission using Kill Points. It had a Baneblade that started at one end of the table and moved 6″ a turn straight forward. It fired at the closest unit with one weapon then moved down the list firing one at at time at each successive closest target. (not shooting at the same target twice if it can) Each of the 3 structure points on the Baneblade was worth 1KP
I cant remember the exact units he had in his army but it was something like:
- Cannoness with squad in Immolator
- 2 or 3 sisters squads in Immolators
- 2 or 3 sisters squads in rhinos
- 1 Stormtrooper squad in rhino
- 2 Exorcists
So this was an Escalation mission meaning most of both our armies were in reserve. I had to go first and during the first 3 turns I had my entire army come show up while nothing of his was coming on (he rolled mostly 1’s and 2’s for his reserve rolls) By the end of turn 3 I had actually killed the baneblade, but lost half my army in the process. His army came on the board over turns 3-5 and by the end of turn 5 I had 5KP to his 4. But the game went on. By the end of turn 6 it was 5 to 5. Finally the game ended on turn 7 with him having 6 to my 5. I swear for the final 3 turns I must have rolled 7 or 8 times on the vehicle damage charts but had nothing but 1’s and 2’s. I just couldn’t kill anything!
Final game points: 3 for me, 13 for him.
Game 3
Last game of Day 1 was against a Deamon army in a 6 objective mission. Deployment was table quarters and we played on an awesome a city fight-like board. We each could pick a stratagem-type bonus – I chose to have the building my scouts deployed in give re-rolls to hit. He brought a lot of big daemons and his list was something like:
- 2 Tzeentch Heralds on Chariots
- 2 Nurgle Princes with wings
- 1 Tzeentch prince on foot
- 5 blood crushers
- 3 squads of 10 plaguebearers
Nullzone was put to VERY good use in this game. First turn had him dropping down the 5 Blood crushers right in front of my army and I ended up blowing them off the table before they could move. To be honest, this was a pretty good matchup for my list as using Nullzone every turn and following up with my scouts, Stenguard, Meltaguns and Autocannons meant the big boys came down fast. He still almost beat me with some clever contesting and damn plaguebearers, but I ended up with 2 objectives to his 1 at the end of turn 6.
Final game points: 12 for me, 2 for him.
That’s it for Day 1. Stay tuned for my Day 2 report and more pictures of the event.
If you’re looking for more, here’s my buddy’s blog post about his Day 1 experiences.