First tournament results

Hey all - spent most of yesterday at Games and Stuff in a low key tournament run by Brent from the Inner Circle.  The really cool part about this tournament is that it was intentionally low key - no painting restrictions, WYSIWIG/no proxies though.  There were quite a few people that weren't frequent players, i.e. only play in tournaments now and then etc..., so it was nice have people there with the same mindset and playing time issues I do - plus we had some excellent southwestern grub for lunch!  I did manage to take a few pictures, and will attempt to post semi-lucid batreps later.  Trying to write a big presentation up and need to get this out of my brain so I can concentrate.

Overall - this was a fun stop on the journey of learning and playing Tyranids.  I made lots of mistakes, took a list with components I really wanted to play rather than sticking to more conventional competitive lists, and paid the price for both.  In the end, I went 1W-1T-1L, to footdar, Space Wolves, and Nurgle marines respectively, finishing 15th of 18 players.

Here's the list - it is the variation of a swarmlord/stealer shock list I talked about (but didn't post) here:

2000pts
Swarmlord - 280
2x Tyrant Guard w/LW - 130
Parasite of Mortrex - 160
3x HG - 150
3x Zoans - 180
8x Ymgarl Genestealers - 184
8x Genestealers w/tox, Broodlord - 182
8x Genestealers w/tox, Broodlord - 182
8x Genestealers w/tox, Broodlord - 182
6x Raveners w/rending claws - 210
20x Gargoyles w/AG, TS - 160

This list was built with a couple concepts in mind: speed and the ability to use Swarmy's buffs effectively.  In hindsight yesterday, I was pretty disappointed with it.  After sleeping on it, I'm pretty sure the poor performance had a lot more to do with my poor play than it being a bad list.  When I did things right, it performed exactly as expected.  Coolest moments: Gargoyles and Parasite wiping out 4 TWC, and killing the untouched Nurgle daemon prince that charged my one-wound-left Swarmlord.

Models of the match:
- Broodlords: say it with me - "Initiative 7 kills."  These guys went first in every combat - and when I didn't forget - hypnotised power fists/power weapons. Hindsight talking: hypnotizing the Mark of the Wulfen dudes in the counterattacking SW squads would have been really useful.
- Zoanthropes: Psychic tests - yes; but if you wanna use the Hood, you've got to be in range, and you probably won't Hood all three of my boys.  Boom goes the dynamite.  The flexibility to obliterate both vehicles and MEQ makes these guys a winning pick, even with psychic tests - and 3++ is icing on the cake.

Most important list-building lesson: Genestealers take objectives - they really aren't built to hold them.  In a game built around objectives, you need something to hold objectives while your stealers unleash hell elsewhere.

Most important tactics lesson: I had some big-time fails on multi-charging.  This is absolutely a critical skill for a 'nid player.

The most disappointing part for me as a player: only 68 models, and I was probably the slowest player at the tournament.  Game 1 we only got through 2 turns, game 2 through 4, and game 3 only went 3.  This is mostly due to inexperience with the rules which I will only get by playing more; but I would definitely appreciate tips for speeding up play.  One of my opponents had a good point: only measure first/last models and move the between models w/o measuring.  What tips/tricks do you have for faster play?