Essexian 23rd Mechanized: I Went, I Fought, I Did Better Than I Thought

Recon Patrol Tournament
Well the tournament has been and gone. I was up til 3am the previous night trying desperately to get my fourth Tactical Squad finished, but no it wasn't doable so a quick change to the list was needed. In the end my list was:

Captain Iterius
with relic blade and a plasma pistol.

Tactical Squad 1
with a flamer and a lascannon.

Tactical Squad 2
with a meltagun and a lascannon.

Tactical Squad 3
with a meltagun and a multimelta.

Assault Squad
with plasma pistol. Sergeant has a powerfist.

Devastator Squad
with 4 heavy bolters.

Game One
Opponent: Space Marines
Number of Objectives: 3. 2 were in his deployment, I placed my 1 in the center of the board in a ruined building.
Result: All 3 objectives held. Opponent 'tabled'

Overall a great start. My opponents army had a lot of heavy weapons which he decided to fire instead of moving. Also if he had Combat Squadded his 2 Tactical Squads he would have been able to go for the objectives better. Though to be honest his luck was appallingly bad and mine was very good.

Game Two
Opponent: Chaos Space Marines
Number of Objectives: 3. 2 in enemy deployment, I placed my 1 in a ruined building in my deployment.
Result: 2 held, 1 contested.
Amusing Moment: My lascannon marine falling off his balconyhidingplace and losing his lascannon in Turn 2. Hits on Turn 1. For the next 2 turns he missed with boths shots, staff member offered to glue it back on for me which I accepted, next turn (with his arm back on) he actually hits.

I had a really bad feeling about this one. My opponents army was led by Huron Blackheart and had Berserkers and Possessed in there. My plan was to destroy the possessed, berserkers and huron whilst pushing for the objective in the left hand corner and maybe push for the other (being held by a large unit of Chaos Space Marines). Again my luck held and I was able to destroy the Berserkers completely, reduced the Possessed to 2 models and my Captain cut off Hurons head with his relic blade! After a few turns I managed to gain control of his left objective and we contested the final objective, I would have 'tabled' him in my next turn if we had had time with my Captain posed for another charge.

Game Three
Opponent: Imperial Guard
Number of Objectives: 3. 2 in my opponents deployment (was getting annoyed with this by now) and 1 in a building in my deployment.
Result: 1 held, 2 held by opponent.

This game can be summed up by two things. My opponent wasting 20mins deploying and the fact that I only needed 1 more turn to win the game. My marines advanced through cover before launching attacks along the guard line, though by this time I had lost a number of models (more than in the previous 2 games combined) so the guard were able to overwhelm me in combat. In the final turn my Sergeant was trying to hold on to the middle objective by himself, I had to make 8 saves on him and failed only 1, so close yet so far. Of course now the game ended just as my captain and assault marines were in range of a charge on his 2nd objective and I lost the game.

If I had won this game I would probabily have beat the next opponent and won the tournament overall. Ah well I had a great time and considering I haven't played 40k for about 4 months the result was brilliant.

Final Results:
1st - Imperial Guard - 8 Objectives
2nd - Imperial Guard (guy I lost to) - 7 Objectives
3rd - Space Marines - 6 Objectives
4 - Imperial Guard - 4 Objectives

Amazing that on the day the Guard Codex had just been released.

Unit of the Tournament: Assault Marines. I really didn't want to take this unit with me for some reason. They defied all expectation and killed everything they came into contact with.

Here are some piccies of my army.

Captain Iterius