MuRm's Minis: Ottawa Newbie Friendly Tournament

I faced JAD, the Ariadna player, in round 1. We were assigned to the wilderness board.

I won the Initiative and decided to go first. I spent my first two turns moving all my models up and onto objective plates, scoring me 2-3 VP on both turns. JAD only moved a couple models, and instead did a lot more lateral movement to get into LoF of my guys. We scored a few wounds on each other during this, but I got much more VP. Also, Joan scored a wound on the ARO during JAD's first turn, so Inspiring Leadership made all my units Impetuous. This is exactly what I wanted, to get my knights moving. All the Impetuous movement meant that I was frequently out of Cover, but it also meant that I could take shots while also having enough Orders to get onto the plates.

By the third turn, models on both sides had suffered plenty of wounds, but I was so far ahead on VP that he couldn't make a comeback with his limited amount of models and turns. We played out the rest of the game to see which units would survive, and to see if either of us could pick up more VP. I feel that he could've done better if he had focused more on the scenario, but it's possible that he didn't think he could win without killing my guys first, and made that a priority. His VIP was definitely his AP HMG Vet Kazak, which terrorized my army and survived through the whole game.

Round 2 had me up against swsCHEN, one of the Haqqislam players. We headed over to the cargo yard.

I again won the Initiative, but decided to go second to give me the best chance of scoring the endgame VP. I started off the game with a Magister getting knocked unconscious, and it didn't get any better from there. A combination of me making poor choices, being outranged, and of course bad dice rolls had me getting massacred. In fact, until my final turn, I barely even got out of my Deployment Zone, I was pinned in so badly. The only bright spot was that Joan scored a wound fairly early on against his Azra'il (who then moved out of LoF), so at least I wasn't totally screwed on Orders.

I entered my last turn with only Joan and my Spitfire Teutonic still standing, and almost all of swsCHEN's guys still up. He was also ahead on VP, 3 to 1, and was qualifying for the 2 endgame VP. This was where Joan went crazy, running up the middle of the board in the open, to kill his VP possessing models. She got one of them, and then with my last order, got another one, his Spitfire Muyib, which was also qualifying him for the endgame VP. Since Joan was now qualifying, I went from essentially being down 5-1, to being up 1-6. I'd have to say that swsCHEN's VIP that round was his Spitfire Muyib, who almost survived the whole game, despite being shot at by nearly my whole army.

In round 3 I faced endalyon, the JSA player. We moved onto the forest board.

I lost Initiative this time, and endalyon didn't hesitate to go first. He seemed unsure if he wanted to go for the scenario or just kill my guys, although I think he eventually settled on the scenario. This indecision unfortunately meant that his Lt, Shinobu, was left hanging just outside of my Deployment Zone and in range of multiple models. While her loss didn't put him into LoL due to his Kempeitai, she was still a valuable resource lost. In general, his units were dying much faster than mine, and I wasn't far behind him in terms of the scenario.

Then Joan found the Data in a Terminal, and I was ahead on VP. I couldn't have her die while carrying the Data, so I hid her behind terrain while my other units interfered. I lost a Teutonic to endalyon's Karakuri during this, but he had so few models left that he wasn't able to get by my knights to reach Joan, and when the final turn finished I had won. I think the game would have turned out very differently if he hadn't been so aggressive with his units at first, only to leave them hanging. I'm not sure who his VIP was, since there wasn't any single model that did much of the work, but I'll say it was his Haramaki, who knew exactly what it needed to do and went and did it.

Final standings:
1st - MuRm (Military Orders)
2nd - Tevesh (Haqqislam)
3rd - endalyon (JSA)
4th - JAD (Ariadna)
5th - swsCHEN (Haqqislam) and Century (Aleph)

Thank you Penemue for running a great event, and I'm looking forward to our next tournament, which will likely be run by Tevesh.

Here's a bunch more photos from the tournament day.