Yesterday I went to my first tournament since making the big move to Florida last month. It was held at a place called Armada Games in Tampa(about 45 mins from me)

I brought the Eyes of the Medusa, since I hadn't gotten a chance to show them off yet in a tournament setting. The list I had built originally was 1850 and this tourny is 1500, so I had to shave a bit. Below is list I ended up using which came out to 1490 pts.

Eyes of the Medusa
1500 pt Chaos Space Marine list

100 - Granfaloon, the Eye of Madness (greater daemon)

275 - Lord Horrificus (daemon prince)
mark of tzeentch, wings, warptime

135 - Chaplain Olgein (chaos lord)
mark of nurgle, daemon weapon

172 - Chaos Space Marines x5
aspiring champ, power weapon, icon of khorne

210 - Chaos Plague Marines x6
aspiring champion, powerfist, meltagun, icon of nurgle, rhino dedicated transport

208 - Chosen Chaos Space Marines x6
aspiring champion, power fist, power weapon, meltagun, flamer, rhino dedicated transport

145 - Predator Tank
extra armor, lazcannon sponsons

150 - Obliterators x2

150 - Defiler
close combat arms x2

I wanted to keep the feel of the army the same, so the only thing that was completely gone was the summoned daemon unit. I took out an obliterator, reduced each of the squads by one or two, and dropped the gift of chaos from the daemon prince and a couple of the toys from the chosen unit.

Keeping the flavor of the army and a representative of each of the units intact was more on my mind then how competetive it might be. I think I had played maybe two games of 40K in the last eight months, so I was under no illusion of doing well unless I had a really good day. My strategy pretty much for these things is to go for the appearance award and see if I can get lucky in any of my games, though mainly for this one I'm happy to be playing and looking forward to seeing what the gaming crowd is like down here.

The tournament was a lot of fun. I had stopped by a couple comic and gaming stores here and Lakeland and up in Kissimmee, but this was the first time I had been down to Armada Games. They had a good sized place, divided nicely into the store area and the gaming area, which was actually pretty big, with about 6 or 7 8x4 wargamming tables, and another 6 or 7 long plastic folding tables for card games, boardgames, and RPGS. Throughout the day, there was a D&D session going on at the back table, cardgames and boardgames being played on some of the other tables, and a pick up war machine game going on at one of the 8x4s that wasn't being used, so it seems like I found a good hub of local gaming. The turnout for the actual tournament was apparently smaller than their usual number, probably being the weekend before Christmas, and so there were only seven players.


I lost two games and had a bye for the last round since we had an odd number, so I think I probably picked up last place out of seven ;)


There was no painting score, but the Eyes of the Medusa did get lots of compliments!


First game was against orks. From memory, there were two 30 man units of boyz, one of them with the warboss, a big mek with shokk attak gun (there were some gretchin around him too the whole game, so there must have been a runtherd or something). Two units of kommandos, one with boss, and two looted wagons with boomguns.
I failed 4 consectutive 4+ saves on my daemon prince that saw him go down in the top of turn 2 to the kommando unit with the boss. I was also rolling horrible for my heavy weapons, and predator and obliterators couldn't get a single pen or glance on the looted wagons they was shooting at. Other than that, the rest of my guys held up okay against the green tide (with the exception of my chaos lord who rolled a one and hit himself with his daemon weapon)
The predator and the obliterators were eventually overrun when the big ork units reached my end of the table with a mighty Waaaaagh! My four valiant naked marines jumped into the combat with the warbosses unit to try and save the oblits and ended up holding out till the very last turn. They must have been inspired by their commander turning into a greater daemon. The daemon and the plague marines finished off the warboss and his unit, and kept the game close at the end - I only lost by one kill point, and picked up a bonus mission point for killing his HQ in close combat.
The big surprise - the defiler and both rhinos all survived a kill point mission.

Battle two was against space wolves and my rolling for everything was absolutely abysmal. Fortunately, my opponent was really cool - as I told him after, he made the game more fun than it had any right to be.
The defiler exploded turn 1 before it took any action. The predator shot at rhinos the whole game with autocannon and lazcannons and only killed one the final turn when it didn't matter any more. The obliterators came in turn four and couldn't kill anything. Three of the five plague marines died in a rhino explosion (yup, sixes to wound, and failed consecutive 3+ and 4+ saves. I have successfully brought Ordo-Ineptus rolling to the south )
I thought the daemon prince was going to redeem himself when he punished the tac sqaud in the assault drop pod for killing my defiler turn 1, but then he charged the pod (kill point mission again) and did nothing to it and subsequently failed some saves and was gunned down by devastators.
The one time my guys managed to shoot straight and wound something was when the chaos lord and his two remaining guys bolt pistoled the devastator squad and killed three, which was just enough to make them take a test, which they amazingly failed and ran out of charge range, just far enough to auto rally and shoot me some more in the next turn. Apparently my forgetting to sacrifice a blue goat to Tzeentch before the game really pissed the dice gods off.

The plague marines were charged by a big unit of wolves and the chaos lord immediately attempted to throw himself on his own daemon weapon once again. We only played through four turns, and the greater daemon didn't even show up, apparently such was his disgust with the rest of the army.
I may have had a bye the third round, but my space wolves opponent was apparently infected with my Ordo-Ineptus rolling, as he was having some terrible luck (failed 13 of 15 space marine saves from ork pistols at one point)

All in all it was a fun time against fun opponents. I was also inspired by some of the terrain they had there, and have some ideas for things I want to make once I have all my hobby stuff organized again.