NOVA open Game 4:

Now standing at 1-2 I was really feeling the pressure to finish out day 1 as 2-2 (as my goal going in was to try to finish with more wins than losses).  I lined up across the table from a Codex Space Marine Player, and looking at his list I felt pretty good about my chances.  His list consisted of Vulkan, 3 Tactical squads, a Thunderfire Cannon, A typhoon speeder, a Land Raider, A Libby with Null Zone and Gate, 2 MM attack bikes, and some TH/SS termies.

Mission was Objectives, Quarters, and KPs, my opponent won the roll off and gave me first turn.  I deployed in one quarter and he deployed opposite me.  He reserved 2 of his tactical squads.

At this point I honestly don’t remember much of what happened turn by turn.  This game was my one contentious game of the tourney, and unfortunately I think both me and my opponent handled it badly.  He was very concerned that I was moving things too far early on so I took it back and moved them again.  Then it seemed to me that he did not know many of the rules for his particular army (or base rules as well.) So the game took a while as I let him take back a few moves because he did not realize that they would cause things like dangerous terrain.  The game came down to turn 5 being the last turn due to time, and my opponent was able to control 2 objectives and contest 2 of mine.  One with his terminators killing a purifier squad, and the other with a librarian Gating himself to the objective from inside the land raider.  This was a contentious point which ate up some time, as I was not sure that gate would work from inside of a vehicle, but the judges ruling said it could so he was allowed to do so.  Honestly though I had forgotten that he had the power, so that was my fault as I could have deployed to block him out of 3” from the objective, and cast warp quake to attempt to prevent the move had I thought about it.  We rolled to see if the game would go on and it did.  However, since we were up against time the judges had ruled that the game would only continue if both players wanted to go on (which is not a very good ruling, either allow it, or call a hard cap, leaving it to the players can lead to bad blood as in a close game the winning player will never want to go on), my opponent said since he was winning he did not wish to continue.  This attitude upset me (not because he was in the wrong simply because I am just not that competitive as to want to win by a time out), and the game ended on somewhat bad terms.  Reflecting on it later I realized that what I should have offered was to give him the tournament win, score the points as they stood, and finish out the game just to see what would have happened (as that is what I wanted to see).  I think this was made worse because we were both tired.