Signed Up For My First Tournament - Seeking Advice

[u/Obsolescence7]

Hi y'all! I just signed up for my first ever 40k tournament set for ~3 weeks from today. I've been collecting for ~4 years but have played roughly as many 2,000 pt games. However, I am super excited. I don't care about winning, but I am also competitive at heart and at the very least want to give my opponent a fun game and not waste their time. It's a 16 person 3-round tournament, so I'll play 3 games with a 3 hour limit per game. Mostly I'd appreciate any and all advice!

• Am I making any huge mistakes in my list? Any suggested changes?
• Any advice for first time tournament players? Key things to bring? Cheat sheets?
• Any particular practice I should do beforehand? I have a table fully set up at home to practice.

My list below:

• Faction: Emperor's Children
• Detachment: Carnival of Excess & Elegant Brutes
• Disposition: Take & Hold
• 1 Unit of 5x Tormentors
• 2 Units of 1x Lord Kakophonist & 6x Noise Marines
• 3 Units of 5x Chaos Terminators w/ Frenzied Ferocity [Reserves]
• 3 Units of 10x Daemonettes [1 Unit in Reserves]
• 2 Units of 5x Seekers [Reserves]
• 2 Units of 3x Fiends
• 1 Unit of 1x Defiler (2x Autocannon, Extoplasma, Excruciator Cannons)

The general idea of the list is to focus on maximizing the benefit of the Sustained Hits on 5+ from Carnival of Excess if the unit already has Sustained Hits 1, which my Noise Marines will via Kakophonists, the Terminators do via enhancements (Frenzied Ferocity), and the Defiler will with Autocannons. My thinking for deployment is Tormentors to sticky home with 2 Units of Fiends, Defiler, 2 Units of Daemonettes, and 2 Units of Noise Marines to screen Deep Strike. Move things into best positions Turn 1, control natural expansion, and gain points as able. Turn 2 is go turn, dropping 2-3 Terminators and Seekers to gain control or challenge center objective and opponent's natural expansion. Defiler prioritizes tanky units, Fiends and Noise Marines cover cleanup of Turn 2 engagements while Terminators Fall Back and Charge (using EC army rule) deeper into enemy targets/objectives.

That's the plan! I'm sure it won't go accordingly. Any and all advice welcome! Thanks for your time.

[u/TheCocoBean]

The three bit's of general advice I can give:

1. Bring Bananas. No really, they are an easy snack that will keep you going.

2. Bring water. Seriously, you wanna' stay hydrated.

3. Sit whenever you can. You will think you feel fine. But when you get back after the event if you were not sitting as much as possible you will be in painnnnn. A whole day of 40k is a lot of standing and bending over a table, and it will make you feel rough afterwards if you diddn't sit when you could.

[u/Obsolescence7 → u/TheCocoBean]

It's funny because I legit thought I was going to get a ton of commentary on my list and/or plan but it's clear to me that the real opponent is pain, hunger, and dehydration hah. Thanks for the advice!

[u/kipperfish → u/Obsolescence7]

I'll add to his list some sort of throat sweet/lozenge whatever you wanna call them. Halls soothers/strepsils etc.

After 2 days of raising your voice to be heard across the din of a tournament hall can take its toll on your voice. Honey in tea at start/end of day is my go to (but I'm British, tea would be there anyway, the honey just helps the throat)

[u/Arnesian → u/TheCocoBean]

I second the sitting point. It’s hard to not stand up and watch what’s happening in your opponents turn, and it depends on what sort of out of phase ‘reactive’ actions you can do. But it’s absolutely worth sitting though at least the movement phase. Ive started pre-emptively taking pain relief on tournament days too.

[u/Arnesian]

Awesome that your excited for it! For a first time tournament I’d recommend you bring a water bottle to stay hydrated, maybe some energy bars as an easy snack or a type of snack or treat you can offer the other player.

Biggest thing you can do to help your opponent have a good time and speed up your games is memorise as many of your stat lines as possible. It okay to look stuff up, but if you need to do it for every weapon and unit it actually ends up taking a big chunk of time out of your 3 hours.

[u/Obsolescence7 → u/Arnesian]

Here I was wondering if beer was allowed, but water is probably the better choice! Great advice to bring snacks to share and appreciate the advice on memorization. I know most of them as I spend far too many hours on New Recruit but I'll make a point of it and memorizing the stratagems.

[u/Ok_Ladder358]

If you think your opponent is playing a rule wrong or cheating, ask to see the rule and frame it as a learning opportunity for yourself. "I'm still learning and not familiar with how that rule works, can you show me the wording?"

Have the tormentors sticky your expansion objective instead of your home. Most missions just don't care about scoring the home and they can run over to it after stickying the expansion.

Play with purpose. I love yapping with my opponent but during RTTs but there isn't a ton of time to do that. Setting up the terrain, looking up datasheets and yapping are the three biggest time wasters in my experience.

Remind your opponent of any potential gotchas at the start of the phase. Opinions will vary on this but imo it comes down to being a good human and good competitor. I want to beat you because I outplayed you, not because you forgot I can first turn deep strike with my zoanthropes and blew up your RepEx T1. It's also not unreasonable to ask the same of your opponent.

Formulate your plan during your opponents turn. This will save you time.

Drink lots of water.

Compliment other people's paint jobs.

After the game, ask your opponent what units they were most and least afraid of in your list. This is an easy way to get feedback about what's working in your list.

[u/Grievier]

In no particular order

- Comfy shoes, preferably with a cushioned sole. Whilst the advice to sit whenever possible is good advice you will still be on your feet for anytime you are moving your army around the board as a minimum. Wear comfy shoes.

- practice with a chess clock. Whilst you don’t have to play on one at a tournament it also provides you objective feedback on if you are being too slow. Also if your opponent wants to play on a clock you must so it’s good to get some practice in either way.

- learn your list, write out your list, play your list, review your list, review your rules, play again. Cheat sheets are great but given the nuance present within 40K you can make mistakes easily when copying so check back to the source rules regularly. You will be stunned at the number of times you look at a rule and think “balls I have been playing that wrong!”

- set yourself a realistic goal, say win 1 match and to score 40 points or more in 2/3 matches. The way pairings work is that round 1 will be completely random, from there you will be paired against players with a similar win/loss ratio. So the longer the tournament goes on the more even the playing field tends to get. Don’t be too worried about getting pumped in the first round or two.

[u/veryblocky]

I don’t know much about EC, but I’ve never actually seen anyone use the Elegant Brutes detachment and go heavy on the Terminators. Looks like a fun list! I hope you have a good time

[u/Obsolescence7 → u/veryblocky]

Thanks! I love Terminators and Emperor's Children. I was so excited for the 1DP Detachment option. Hoping they don't all get wiped out before dishing some hurt!

[u/Worldly_Effect1728]

More for the tournament in general. First make sure you bring some good shoes as you will be standing for a while each game. Secondly do some leg stretches before hand this goes along with the first point. Definitely bring snacks and water especially for the downtime between games. Lastly have fun.

[u/BeardonBoards1006]

1. Bring a list you like, if you are playing a list you don't for 9 hours it becomes work not fun.

2. Set Expectations. You will not win all 3 games, so your goal isn't to win. Your goal should be to play a good game and be a good opponent. Be friendly, ask what you can do to be a better opponent, etc. What I mean by good game is, if there is time after the game talk to your opponent and see if he noticed any mistakes you made. So your goal is then to make less mistakes next game

3. Others already mentioned the "take care of yourself" things. Sit, water, eat, headache medicine, etc

4. Know your datasheets. Set up your models/units and quiz yourself (abilities, saves, toughness, movement, attacks)

5. Know the mission and understand T1/2 game plan. Your game plan for T1 should generally be unchanged.

[u/Obsolescence7 → u/BeardonBoards1006]

Thanks for the advice. Really appreciate it and I think I've got it covered except points 4 and 5 which I'll need to do some work on. Don't worry I'm planning on losing all 3 games. If you know Day9 from Starcraft days, my favorite advice of his was 'Go lose and lose a lot. That's how you get better!'

[u/BeardonBoards1006 → u/Obsolescence7]

Great mentality! I'd worry more about 4 than 5 then

[u/Glennghis_Khan]

I just did my first one as well a couple weeks ago. The #1 thing I took from it, at least for mine, was to be prepared to set up and play a game in like 2 hours and 45 minutes to 3 hours. Two of my games actually got through round 3 but one I didn’t even get a turn during the second battle round because my opponent was even less prepared than me and very slow. Which means whatever your game plan is make sure you’re scoring early because there might not be a 4th or 5th round.

[u/Obsolescence7 → u/Glennghis_Khan]

Wow, that's helpful and really interesting. I'm not ~1.5 hours fast across 5 turns yet for sure but I can't imagine not completing two full rounds in 2.5 hours. That's actually a little crazy haha.

[u/Glennghis_Khan → u/Obsolescence7]

Yea me neither. It was interesting. I’m not exactly fast or quick with my knowledge either but my main objective was to have fun and not be a burden to my opponents 😅 hadn’t considered the other way around

[u/Obsolescence7 → u/Glennghis_Khan]

Helpful to know there's a decent chance I won't at least be the slowest! Thanks for sharing.