2010: A Retrospective Part 2

ICON Part 2:

So, I had ended the first day of ICON in the Top 5 of the Tournament, featuring some of South Africa's best 40K players.

So the first game of Day 2, I was matched up against Brindley Uytenbogaardt who had flown up from Cape Town for the event. He fielded a Blood Angels Army that was fully mechanised, with Rhinos, Razorbacks and Drop Pods. Deployment was Table Quarters, with a central objective counting the most VPs - 2 - whilst your opponents Quarter was worth another 2, and finally each of the flanking quarters was worth 1 VP.

I started off well managing to immobilise two Rhinos, but this didn't stop him from flanking my castled quarter with Blood Angel Bikers and Dreadnoughts. He steadily whittled me down, taking away much of my mobility, until the final round, where I could only contest the flanking quarters, whilst Brindley's damned Angels easily controlled the centre. I lost 2 VPs to 0.

This really was a close game, and I can't wait to face Brindley in battle again as he is one of the best players I have seen. His list was versatile and powerful, without resorting to anything cheesy.

The last game of the tournament was basically 4-players per table, with the winner being the one closest to a central objective. On my table was a Space Wolf, Tyranid and a vanilla Marine -army. The Tyranid player was coincidently Quintus from my UpCon tournament earlier in the year. He had moved to War Banner in the mean time, and we quietly agreed to work together for the Greater Good.

The Space Wolf was in trouble from the beginning as I managed to Immobilise or destroy every single of his Rhinos and Razorbacks, and his Wolf Priest failed two Psychic Tests in a row. Quintus had also pretty much tabled the Space Marine player by turn 5, and happily let me be control the objective, giving me the full 5 points, with him settling for 4.

In Conclusion:

I had finished fourth! Out of 36 players I had managed to finish Fourth! I was rightly impressed. Even more so when I won a Games Workshop accessory bundle for winning the Grand Melee. Although, I did have a laugh when I realised that if I had painted my entire army, I could have walked away in Second place. Thats how we learn I guess.