Becoming Part of the Problem: A Naramyth Trip Report

After doing fine at LVO I’ve had a couple weeks off of tournament hams (except my 3 games last Saturday against new GK to get some reps in. notes: There is something there and I am nearing the end of my paint log…) I’m geared up to go north of the border to lovely(?) Brandon, Manitoba for the Wheat City Open, a true destination in checks notes February when it’s checks weather app …currently -2 degrees (F) out.

As I’ve been hinting at for the past five months of my Admech run, it’s time to put marines on the table while marines are good. I have a huge collection of marines built from 5th edition onward and I will inevitably circle the drain back to the loving embrace of power armor and bolters in some sort of mechanized or multiple small unit form. So what is it this time?

Look, sometimes being part of the problem is the solution.

Adeptus Astartes Brigade
Iron Hams: Master Artisans, Stealthy, Iron Hands Successor

HQ
Captain, Thunderhammer, Storm shield, Jump Pack
Librarian
Techmarine, Warlord

Troops
5 Intercessors w/Stalker Bolt Rifles
5 Intercessors w/Stalker Bolt Rifles
5 Intercessors w/Stalker Bolt Rifles
5 Intercessors w/Stalker Bolt Rifles
5 Intercessors w/Stalker Bolt Rifles
5 Scouts w/Bolters

Elites
Dreadnought w/Lascannons, Fist/Stormbolter
Relic Contemptor Dread w/Lascannons, Fist/Stormbolter, Typhoon missiles
Company Champion

Fast Attack
Landspeeder w/Heavy Bolter, Typhoon missiles
Suppressors
Suppressors

Heavy Support
5 devastators w/4 grav cannons, cherub
Thunderfire Cannon
Eliminators x3
Eliminators x3
Eliminators x3

Dedicated Transport
Terrax Drill w/Volkite

 

 

The Iron Hams

Editor’s Note: This section was written the Friday before the event

I played something similar to this up in Minot a couple months ago and this a more refined version of that “Good Stuff” brigade. The Invictors got dropped since they seem to trade away poorly and I’ve added a Relic Contemptor with a fist to be a melee threat and an anvil while providing excellent shooting. The Speeders became Suppressors as I’ve found their volume of fire and deep striking extremely valuable and Eliminators were added to deal with character issues and proving both more strong direct fire and some indirect shooting. Finally the pod has become a drill as a bit of an homage to my admech having a deep striking threat to help grab recon and bonus points. However this drill is much more dangerous. It gets Chapter Tactics unlike admech Canticles so it gets the Master Artisan rerolls, Stealthy, and rerolling 1s on the 8 shot Volkite it puts out. In addition instead of just carrying troops and hoping for the best the grav team, scouts and the company champ are along for the ride providing a great hammer blow and some strong melee threats to clean up. Also the drill replaces the thing I hated most in the previous list: the pod. Now the delivery mechanism for the grav is a threat in it’s own right instead of being a model you can charge to prevent being shot at.

Overall I like the extra melee threats the front line, the more flexible battle plan compared to the Invictor list, and better secondary denial. Being able to hide most of this army in not a lot of terrain is nice. I also get the option to do dumb Shield Drone things with the Contemptor if I feel it’s more valuable than having the untargetable dreadnought. Pregame the decisions I’m usually making are to use the Chapter Master Stratagem, give the Ironstone and Adept of the Omnissiah to the tech marine, use March of the Ancients on one of the dreads and the free relic being the Tomb Of Malcadore on the librarian if I need an extra spell or the Burning Blade on the Champ to make him a nightmare in the backfield. However Target Protocols is certainly an option if I want more offense, and the Contemptor could easily also have All Flesh is Weakness if I’m all in on character dread defense or Merciless Logic for exploding hits on 6s. Finally, Student of History on the smash captain is always tempting for some sick plays. Overall I usually start with 10 or 11 CP.

On writing this preamble the Friday before the event, I’m expecting to go 4-2. This feels like a strong list and I’ve had four games with it. However I think there is a skill ceiling I’m not going to quite reach on my first GT outing with marines in literally years. That combined with playing the army everyone is out to beat makes me feel bearish on how this event will pan out. The list has elements I like (drill, suppressors) but with slower scoring elements and not a much of trash to grab objectives I feel I won’t be able to be as sloppy as I sometimes am since I don’t have a lot of ability to triple cover objectives. I’m also concerned about not having a good Engineers target. Double Intercessors can cover well enough but marines die every day. However I’m alright at Recon with the Drill, Suppressors, and general “can just walk forward” pressure that most of the army has. Let’s see how this goes.

 

Game 1: Reid Gobin’s Chaos Space marines

Surrounded by Fear and Dead Men - Click to Expand

Deployment

 

Pregame

I learned that we were doing fixed deployments for each round, going in reverse order. That means I start on Vanguard against a kind of short legged army with a map that has some good terrain for me to work around. Reid has been playing for quite some time but really is more of a hobbyist and wasn’t super familiar with what my army did. I did the standard pregame stuff I talked about above and setup out ranging or out of LOS with most of my army, Drill and Suppressors off the table. He won the roll to go first…

Highlights

…And I seized and promptly took his Leviathan off the table.  He swung out to my left with his army while I rolled right with my forces. My drill came in on my right side near his magic box and quickly cleaned up most of that side of the board.

Final Score: 35-8

Postgame

Not much to say unfortunately. This is one of those mismatches that happen in the early rounds of big events. Everyone has a chance to play everyone and sometimes the mega competitive player bumps into the hobbyist. His wife brought in coffee and they had an extra so I got a free coffee. Thanks Shannon!

What worked

Almost all of it. The army is small enough and has enough mobility and range to hide and LOS then come out swinging. The Company Champion with the Burning Blade getting into cultists and engineering space marines really felt like Vader at the end of Rogue One.

What didn’t

I really went the wrong way with my smash captain turn one. He was a little out of position since I pushed him further to my right then I should have. I wasn’t super impressed with my librarian either. Handing out +1 save and +1 hit to the dreads was nice but not necessary at all.

 

Game 2: Logan Antonation’s Tau

Editor’s Note: Psychic Awakening 5 – The Greater Good had not been released at the time of this event.

Here me out, 4 tides! - Click to Expand

 

Deployment

Pregame:

I knew we would be on “Pointy Dawn of War” and with an objective I could hide. Going into this I knew I would want Recon, Engineers and Butcher’s Bill since he had a million little drone squads. Making my little dread my character would be fine as he would have a hard time grinding though the Contemptor with Ironstone with the tech marine running right behind it. Doubly so if I could get Psysteel Armor on it. I won deployment side and took the bottom of that map full of magic boxes. He chose to setup and go first and took the middle of the map with his objective over on that top right magic box. I shoved my entire army into those two magic boxes on the left with my objective in the little gap, put some intercessors in the right magic box and filled the middle two with eliminators with my third squad over by the creates on the right.

Highlights:

He Mon’kas right away and moves far left to get some shots on an exposed set of Intercessors and my Thunderfire while his Coldstar cut far right to kill my eliminators He kills the Thunderfire and eliminators and has me go. I proceed to chip away at all the various drones and kill him off the center objective to kill and hold more on one in addition to recon. His two he spreads out his drones a ton to keep my drill and grav out of his castle but left his Rvarna exposed with only 10 drones. After my shooting killed the drones the grav team quickly deleted it and put him on his back foot. Round 3 my smash captain and dreads made it into a riptide in the center after killing another tide in shooting and the game was basically over.

Final Score: 38-10

Post Game:

A lot of this was me having a ton of experience playing my Warhog teammate Nick’s Tau with a harder army so I knew my secondary game and exactly what things the Tau can pull. Having way more efficient shooting, an unstoppable combat threat screening out two other combat threats really gave me the tools to handle the match-up.

What worked:

Engineering Intercessors are just fine. Forward deployed Eliminators in striking distance of an object was a super nice option.

What didn’t:

The Librarian didn’t have a ton to do. Psysteel is real good but it actually has to go off.

Game 3: Glenn Duncan’s Raven Guard

2 Sneaky 2 Furious - Click to Expand

Deployment

 

Pregame:

We know it’s Hammer and Anvil, and I know there are a million snipers. I knew keeping the Ironstone up would be paramount so I would keep the Techmarine behind that L blocker as hard as I could until the Contemptor had to break out. But as an insurance policy I gave him All Flesh is Weakness. Secondaries were Recon, Gangbusters, and Headhunter as most of his characters want to come fight me. I wind up with the left side of the map and setup my eliminators behind the little bits of cover in the middle, my L and backfield lined with Intercessors to zone out and my Contemptor on the line up top with my baby dread on the line on the bottom so they could see his thunderfire cannons. I win the roll off.

Highlights:

And he seizes. His cents do their redeploy with the Chaplain into charge range of the Contemptor and the White Scars Captain comes out to wreck my Eliminators. He charges with the Captain first, fails, and rerolls to make it in. The Cents then fail their 6″ charge into my Contemptor AND lose two guys in overwatch for their trouble. Finally the Chaplain does make it in to my tech marine, fails to kill him (thanks All Flesh is Weakness!) and he takes 3 in combat. After that it’s basically over. The rest of his cents die, as do both Thunderfires and the advanced characters. By turn 3 I have my smash captain in his deployment zone with the drill and crew running around and he is boarded on 4.

Final Score: 38-14

Post Game:

He got laser focused on the Captain charge and super lost because of it. He hasn’t played this list a ton so he also made a few other mistakes but Glenn was a great guy to play. My only real misplay is I should have put the scouts on the table with my first drop to completely screen out the center of the board. Even if he made the charge though with Ironstone and half damage I’m uncertain if he would have actually killed the dread and I had my captain there ready to help bail out.

What worked:

Having multiple melee units rules to dig out and let my shooting go down town immediately. Eliminators were also very helpful picking up the last couple of wounds on various units while also helping as a screen. Taking All Flesh is Weakness was 100% the correct play and kept my warlord alive in the critical opening turns. Even the character dread just eventually parking on the bottom objective shooting lascannons at whatever he could see was super nice since no one wanted to come dig him out.

What didn’t:

Honestly I was going to pick on the Libby again but he did smite out a drop jump captain and threatened Null Zone against the White Scars Captain.

Day one in the bag at 3-0! Feels good man. Warhog Cody had lost to an Astrasus but was still feeling great with his 2-1 Necron finish. Most of the event gathered round the bar and had a few drinks. We knew pairings and I was telling my next opponent if he has great skill and “loses” the roll to go first I was just gonna seize so he shouldn’t waste his talent.

 

Game 4: Jon Kilcullen’s Space Wolves

Editor’s Note: Many people have asked us about Jon’s Space Wolves list. As it turns out, we were also interested, so we interviewed him. We’ll be posting that interview later today.

Dogs hanging out of car windows - Click to Expand

Deployment

 

 

 

 

Pregame:

He did have great skill and got to setup to go first. My gameplan was thankfully pretty simple: We knew we had Search and Destroy so I had a deep deployment zone and I could deny his rushdown. He would be in my business pretty hard on two, but without Impulsors dirty touching things I should be alright. This time my character dread was the Contemptor since I didn’t need to screen the little guy and this would let the Contemptor have 6 swings in combat. I also gave the Contemptor Student of History so if he did fail a wrap I could just leave combat. Meanwhile the Techmarine took Target Protocols to maximize the damage of the Contemptor getting the Impulsors open. The Libby grabbed Nullzone and Might of Heroes and finally my secondaries were Recon, Big Game Hunter, and Headhunter.

Highlights:

I seized. And he is like, ALL in. Two impuslors and two smash captains died in my opening volley. After that it was really over. He dropped a kill on 1, the drill went into his backfield and murdered his engineers, and by turn 4 he had lost enough we just called it.

Quote from the man himself. “Cyle rolled a 6, and shot my shit. I cried.”

Editor’s Note: We will have more quotes from Jon in our interview.

Final Score: 32-12

Post Game

I mean sure I seized, but with the depth of the deployment zone I think I really do get there. I would have more intercessors running around punching things but I have a ton of close combat characters that can punch out well enough. A different map and I think it’s a different game.

What worked

Eliminators really carried this game. His whole deal is basically character screening and being able to snipe out a couple before the game basically starts is huge.

What didn’t

The librarian continues to be the weak link. Might of Heroes and Nullzone were my picks and if he was more in my business it would have mattered more but instead he walked around and tried his best.

 

Game 5: Byron Livingstone’s Blood Angels

'I mean, this is basically the correct BA list' - Click to Expand

Deployment

Pregame:

This is going to require a bit of backstory. I did happen to get table one in the opening pairings and with the exception of my brief magic boxes Tau matchup I’ve been up on that table all weekend. I made a comment to the TO about how tables should probably be randomized to prevent exactly this and so for the penultimate round he changed us from playing on this…

To this.

Also known as my ultimate nightmare against exactly the army I just pulled on Dawn of War. I, knowing the deployment and map, had a plan going into this game. Make the priority objective the one in the open, Maybe pick Engineers even, kill his Scorpius on two, and just wait him out, killing out of whatever wraps he gets. Instead we are on this nightmare perfect 6 magic box table. Byron was a bro though and caught me before I saw the new table and told me he also didn’t really want to play on this and would prefer to have an actual game on a more balanced table.  After a chat with the TO we got moved to a spare table, and doing some combining of terrain we wound up with this:

 

We both agreed to play on it so we were off to the races. FWIW my pregame was character Contemptor, Might of Heroes/Null Zone on the libby, and the Blessing of the Omnisiash on the the Techmarine with Marked for Death (Mephi, Sang Guard, Death Company, Scoripus), Recon, and Headhunter.

Highlights

He went first and killed a squad of Eliminators and I came back by killing the banner guy and a squad of Incursors on an objective to get kill and hold more. His Sang guard came down on two and caught my normal dread and by rolling an 18″ or so charge was able to get past him and wrap the Intercessors that were nearby. My turn two I again killed him off the right objective and also picked up his Scorpius. I attempted an 8″ charge and failed with my Might of Heroes’d Smash Captain, even with rerolling a 3 into a 3 so his Sang guard were loose the same turn his Death Company came down. Byron looks at me as he’s moving his models and says,

“You know the game is over one way or another this turn right?”

“Oh yeah. Good luck man. This is gonna be crazy.”

His DC make it into my Contemptor but lose 3 on the way in to overwatch and the sang guard tag my smash captain. He swings with the guard first and I make 8/9 3++ saves to keep him alive. This allows me to interrupt with the Contemptor and kill 6 DC, and another 6 as it dies while my Smash Captain kills all but two guard then die in his fighting twice.

And after that it was basically over. I was able to clean up the rest of his characters and troops and finally killed Mephi after he stole a solo Butchers Bill and Kill More by killing my Thunderfire Cannon Techmarine on the top of 6.

Final Score: 33-19

Post Game

A pretty fun game against an awesome opponent who wanted to have a fair game. He was a bro the whole time and after our map swapping business was very careful about explaining what he was doing since close combat can be so janky but I knew what he was doing so he could just be sloppy and we could move on with his intent plays. A+, easily my favorite opponent of the weekend.

What worked

Eliminators again pulled their weight, dealing with his banner immediately gets rid of that FNP bubble. After that is was really my melee characters just turning on and punching back into these insane combat units.

What didn’t

My screening. I should have kept those Intercessors further away from the dread. Also I need to again keep my Smash Captain more centralized when I split my dreads to have him help bail out either side.

Game 6: Ryan Mandryk’s Iron Hands

The Bro-Final Boss - Click to Expand

Deployment

 

Pregame:

I have opinions about set maps for deployments and it’s literally because of matchups like this. Perfect castles on the very edges of our deployment zones with both players quite willing to just hang out and wait for the other guy to mess up. I had all sorts of time to think about this matchup and here is what I came up with: Put him on first if possible, hopefully get the right side of the map as it has a little weird S piece of terrain in the midfield to hide behind, fill the L blockers 3 levels full of my entire army. Spells will be MIght/Null, he has snipers so the techmarine needs the FNP, I will want hidden lascannons so the small dread is the character, the Smash Captain gets Student of History to do some galaxy brain plays, the drill and suppressors will help dig him out from his half of the board since he won’t want to step out to screen, and I have better indirect than him so kill all the eliminators that are keeping my character game plan oppressed then start wrecking characters. Also grab the bonus ASAP with my characters that can actually get out into the midfield. Secondaries were Engineers, Recon, Headhunter. His were Old School, Recon, and Butchers Bill.

Highlights

He made me go first.

THIS IS FINE.

I followed the plan (grab the right side) and setup myself to peak out the bottom of the L with the Contemptor just outside of Leviathan range with the tech marine being right next it through the wall, and the baby dread right behind the big C. Meanwhile the speeder, libby, and smash captain grab the objective on the bottom of the map. I get real dumb and try to kill his Apothocary through the walls with indirect fire Eliminators and don’t get there since I forgot for a minute that Eliminators ignore cover with their indirect shooting. I wind up killing nothing.

His return fire all his Elims come out to make a play against the speeder. It takes all of his shooting with rerolls on both sides but he gets there and gets kill and hold more.

My drill comes down, all my Elims get out to do real shooting, a set of suppressors come down, my intercessors get out, and my smash captain sets up a 7″ charge though his little ruin into the flying V of intercessors he has in the middle of the table. All his Elims die along with around 15 intercessors. The Captain makes it into the stragglers of the V, kill 1 and consolidates on to the center objective for the bonus and I am currently holding 4.

He spends an inordinate amount of fire trying to kill the Captain through Transhuman Physiology and it takes all but his Leviathan to get him. His Levi then picks up a set of intercessors, and the grav team but fails to kill the drill.

I return bringing down my last Supressors and move the drill up to hep hold the middle while I move the Contemptor and my warlord up to grab the middle and charge his levi. He makes it in and doesn’t do a ton of damage but shuts down shooting for a turn. I continue to grab the bonus, get recon, and my engineers continue to make engineering noises.

He kills the suppressors, drill and dumps hard into the Contemptor and for a brief moment kills it…until I remember the 6+++ save, roll, keep it alive at 5 wounds. He dog piles to try to keep it from shooting and gets it and my warlord wrapped up but doesn’t kill either.

The Contemptor gets repaired and just starts punching while the little dread comes in to help the brawl. Meanwhile I snipe out Feirros

We continue the brawl which included a Chaplain dread coming in to try to clean up who instead dies in the process. My Company Champion defending the honor of my Scouts who got charged through a wall and murdered then goes on to kill his Iron Stone holding LT. At some point his Apothecary dies as does a Chaplain dread holding the top objective while I continue to rack up the bonus point. A crowd formed and we tally it up…

Final Score: 32-26

Event Record: 6-0

We hug it out.

Post Game

A knock down, dragout game. I’m extremely thankful I had that speeder in the list to run out and grab an objective and screen for some characters. It baited out the targets I was most worried about killing into LOS so I could deal with them. I knew the Levi was gonna just be a nightmare and I would have to take it on the chin. It was truly impressive how much the Contemptor took when getting shot by +1 wound, 6s explode Leviathan shooting.

What worked

The Eliminators, Speeder, and dreads all did their jobs. As did the Engineering Intercessors locking down secondaries.

What didn’t

The libby periled twice and wound up on 1 wound so all he did was hold an objective for 5 turns. I feel bad about keeping dumping on him but even he, Brainy-McExplody, still dd his job.

Looking forward

This went better then expected. I really enjoyed how this list plays and will keep running with it until the inevitable nerf. I feel like the Contemptor and Drill probably aren’t long for this world but I also feel good I won without the real toxic nonsense that is Chaplain dreads. I know I complained about the libby 6 times in this write-up but even he was pretty good. The adjustments I would make to this would be minor: I would love to have a chaplain, and lone speeder was low-key super useful all weekend but a third Suppressor squad would feel real good. The fat of the list is honestly the Eliminators and Drill but they are extremely efficient and provide a dynamic that just doesn’t otherwise exist in the so it’s hard not to think of them as part of the core idea. I actually have another RTT this weekend that I’m planning on just bringing this list to see if I can find any other bugs, so expect a little diddy about that next week.

Also another shout out to Warhog Cody. If he didn’t get seized on during his last game against tank guard he would have probably won his game and we would have took both places 1 and 2.

Finally Mr Ryan Mandryk is a gentlemen and gave me this sick 3D-printed deployment die. Thanks man, we had a hell of a game. Until next time.