Tabletop: A Return to the Battlefield, Part Two

This is a Part Two to my previous entry "A Return to the Battlefield."  This will be my After Action Review of my experience at the local tournament I recently attended.

My standings were abysmal.  In short:

**  My first game was against Jeff and his hyper-competitive Black Templars list.  With my paint score, I accumulated 27 / 100 points

**  My second game was against a familiar army of Blood Angels and a novice appointment.  He conceded middle of round 2, so I ended up with well over 100 points (this is bad).

**  Due to my sudden points jump, I fought against Wallace, another hyper-competitive player, whom I've never faced before, and a Psyker-Shooter-heavy army of Thousand Sons, which I've never faced off against before.  This game I only got the 10 points for being painted :( 

What went right...

** My tactics were sound enough, but could be better.

** When I could pull them off, they did their job.  They held objectives if and when they could.  The drop pods provided walls and screens.

** Having the Victrix protecting the Character Blob of Forge Master, Chief Apothecary, and big bad Guilliman from shooting gave all three of my opponents a pause briefly.....  but only briefly

** I arrived as prepared as I possibly could.  I had markers for things, line laser pointer worked, dice with extra dice of different colors, and even rolling trays.  I reviewed by books between rounds.  I even made a "Cheat Sheet" (that took a couple of hours to get correct) so i didn't forget anything during different phases of the game.

** The dreadnoughts were good choices.  Having the 5+ invulnerable save gave me a chance against a lot of hard-hitting shots and punches, and they could hit back.

What went wrong...

** My tactics did not hold up well enough when I WENT SECOND IN ALL THREE GAMES!!!

** No one likes being hit by artillery.  My Whirlwind piece was eliminated very rapidly by my opponents.  The Whirlwind was the first casualty in all three games.  Two of my three games, the Whirlwind exploded and did mortal wounds to the surrounding Characters. 

** I was not up-to-snuff with regards to "know thy enemy."  There were lots and lots of things my opponents did that I just rolled with it and didn't challenge.  In a more competitive scene, I would have challenged it with a "huh?  can you show the rule to me please?"

** Getting stuck with hyper-competitive players was a drag.  I knew the player energy that was coming across the table at me and it was consuming.

** The Victrix Guard was a blessing, but more of a curse.  It was a nice gimmick to block all my characters, but being a 2x man unit with 3 wounds each was kind of a letdown, especially once their "screen" (the Whirlwind) was destroyed.

** I played the "pill box game" instead of blitzing the enemy and smashing.  Having an additional drop pod made things awkward for deployment.  I got cut off once during my first game, and completely trapped my second game to a point the pods couldn't come in.

** Because of an awkward force org, I only had 6 CP, the least amount of CP i've had with Ultramarines in a very long time.

** I didn't read up on all of the missions and what they entailed.  I relied on memory up until the tournament began, which wasn't a lot.

Things I will do differently next time....

** Research who is playing what in my local / state /regional meta.  Read up on their armies.  I know some, but not all.

** Practice makes perfect without changes.  I made a list, played it, made a major change to the list that completely changed the tactic, and ran it without practice.

** This was my "shake the dust off" tournament, but it felt more like a "get out of the hobby and know your place" tournament.

** Reorganize my list so more things start on the ground for counterattack / countercharge / screening purposes.  I had too much off the table.

** Not listen to a certain someone who insists that ALL marine armies plays like HIS marine armies.

** Get more games in to get back into the swing of things.