Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing (mis)adventures in competitive 40k. In my last article I attended the January RTT at Asgard and went 2-1. Then LVO happened, Nachmund came out, and everything shifted. Today I’m going to talk briefly about my practice games over the last two weeks, my hobby progress, and then cap things off with the February Asgard RTT which I attended this past weekend (2/19 as of this writing).

If you missed my last update, you can find that here.

Hobby Progress

I finished very few full units over the last month or so, in part because my hobby queue was hijacked by the new Eldritch Omens minis. People think the preview copy process is just “get free stuff” but we take it pretty seriously here – if you get stuff you need to have it painted in time for the review, and plan to write something about it on the painting/modeling side of things. I already had a Forgefiend Painted, but I still had to paint the new Warpsmith and one of the new Chosen.

Once those were done however, I went back to my Thousand Sons, who are really starting to shape up. Most notably, I finished my Ahriman. Ahriman is quite possibly the best mini I’ve ever painted, potentially even better than my Abaddon. The OSL on him turned out extremely well and I’m very happy with the result.

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

I also got a couple more Scarabs done, plus another Rubric Aspiring Sorcerer and the Terminator Sorcerer to round things out. Some of these were painted on a regular timetable; others were hastily finished on Friday night before the RTT.

The Practice Games

I had time to get in two practice games during the week; one was testing my Chaos Space Marines list (the one with Night Lords and Death Guard I tested in my practice games last time around) against Don Hooson’s Plague Marine-heavy Death Guard list; in the other I ran Death Guard against Chase’s Harlequins, testing them against a new build he was trying out. The CSM vs. Death Guard game went reasonably well, with the Heldrakes staying alive long enough to really slow Don’s army down while the rest of the army scored points, but I overplayed with the bikes and ran out of gas fairly quickly. Close game that we didn’t finish.

The game against Chase’s Harlequins went much worse, with Chase taking first turn and slamming into my army from across the table. Hiding Plague Marines is a real pain and it hurts a hell of a lot more to lose a unit of those than it does to lose a unit of Poxwalkers. I’m not sure about running them competitively yet without Rhinos.

The Asgard February RTT

Thanks to some scheduling challenges, the February Asgard RTT was moved to the third weekend of the month, giving me a little more time to prepare. Unfortunately despite having done a couple of practice games with Chaos Space marines, I was still struggling with what I wanted to bring heading into the Friday before. My options:

• Night Lords. I liked what I’d been testing but the big problem there was bases – too many of my Night Lords are still on 25mm bases and that meant rebasing the entire army the week before the event, which wasn’t going to happen.
• Black Legion. Similar issues – Abaddon and the Raptors are on the right bases, but I have very few regular-ass Chaos Space Marines on correct bases and I didn’t want to run a cultist horde. Plus I still don’t have a Lord of Skulls or a Contemptor.
• Death Guard. I’m so sick of Death Guard right now. They’re probably my strongest option but even there I need to paint up some new models in order to have enough regular plague marines for tomorrow and I’m honestly not feeling any of the things I put to paper.
• Thousand Sons. I’ve been threatening to play Thousand Sons for a while but I’m making slow progress painting them. What I have painted isn’t really enough. But it does look great.

After writing up half a dozen Chaos Marine and Necron lists I take another look at my Thousand Sons and what I have painted. The list is essentially:

• Magnus
• A twin las/ML dreadnought
• A defiler
• A mutalith vortex beast
• 11 rubrics, with 1 aspiring sorcerer and 1 soulreaper cannon
• 6 Scarab Occult Terminators, plus two more converted from the old CSM terminators I made before Scarabs released in 7th
• Ahriman
• An Exalted Sorcerer
• A Sorcerer in Terminator Armour
• 1 Rhino
• A buttload of cultists
• 1 Tzaangor
• 2 Chaos Spawn

On my desk are a half-finished rubric, plus an aspiring sorcerer and a Hellfyre missile scarab I’ve started. If I use the Terminator Sorcerer as a Scarab Champion and get these three models finished, I can take the rest and make a 2,000 point army. It’s not going to be great – taking Magnus isn’t ideal – but I’m bound to run into at least one army that has no way to deal with him and that’ll win me the game outright.

My Thousand Sons Army

After playing around with points in the margins, here’s what I end up with:

++ Supreme Command Detachment +3CP (Chaos – Thousand Sons) [23 PL, 3CP, 4 Cabal Points, 450pts] ++

Magnus the Red [23 PL, 4 Cabal Points, 450pts]: 1. Arrogance of Aeons, 3. Undying Form, 4. Lord of Forbidden Lore, Warlord

++ Thousand Sons Battalion Detachment -3CP (Chaos – Thousand Sons) [81 PL, 8CP, 10 Cabal Points, 1,539pts] ++

Cults of the Legion: Cult of Duplicity

• HQ [15 PL, -1CP, 6 Cabal Points, 285pts] +

Ahriman [9 PL, 3 Cabal Points, 180pts]: 11. Tzeentch’s Firestorm, 13. Doombolt, Disc of Tzeentch [1 PL, 20pts]

Exalted Sorcerer [6 PL, -1CP, 3 Cabal Points, 105pts]: 21. Presage, 22. Weaver of Fates, Egleighen’s Orrery, High Acolytes [-1CP], Inferno Bolt Pistol, Master Misinformator, Prosperine khopesh [5pts]

• Troops [20 PL, 2 Cabal Points, 333pts] +

Rubric Marines [6 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 105pts]
. Aspiring Sorcerer [1 Cabal Points, 21pts]: 22. Weaver of Fates, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. 4x Rubric Marine w/ inferno boltgun [84pts]: 4x Inferno boltgun

Rubric Marines [12 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 178pts]
. Aspiring Sorcerer [1 Cabal Points, 21pts]: 21. Presage, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. 6x Rubric Marine w/ inferno boltgun [126pts]: 6x Inferno boltgun
. Rubric Marine w/ soulreaper cannon [31pts]: Soulreaper cannon [10pts]

Thousand Sons Cultists [2 PL, 50pts]
. Cultist Champion [5pts]: Autogun
. 9x Cultist w/ autogun [45pts]: 9x Autogun

• Elites [27 PL, 2 Cabal Points, 555pts] +

Helbrute [7 PL, 135pts]: Missile launcher, Twin lascannon [20pts]

Scarab Occult Terminators [10 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 215pts]: Hellfyre missile rack [10pts]
. Scarab Occult Sorcerer [1 Cabal Points, 40pts]: 12. Glamour of Tzeentch, Inferno combi-bolter
. 3x Terminator [120pts]: 3x Inferno combi-bolter, 3x Prosperine khopesh
. Terminator w/ Heavy Weapon [45pts]: Soulreaper cannon [5pts]

Scarab Occult Terminators [10 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 205pts]
. Scarab Occult Sorcerer [1 Cabal Points, 40pts]: 23. Temporal Surge, Inferno combi-bolter
. 3x Terminator [120pts]: 3x Inferno combi-bolter, 3x Prosperine khopesh
. Terminator w/ Heavy Weapon [45pts]: Soulreaper cannon [5pts]

• Fast Attack [2 PL, 46pts] +

Chaos Spawn [2 PL, 46pts]
. 2x Chaos Spawn [2 PL, 46pts]: 2x Hideous mutations

• Heavy Support [17 PL, 320pts] +

Defiler [10 PL, 175pts]: Defiler scourge [10pts], Reaper autocannon

Mutalith Vortex Beast [7 PL, 145pts]

+++ (1,989 points, 14 Cabal points) +++

This is not a good list. Magnus isn’t super competitively viable, owing to the fact that his defensive profile isn’t quite good enough. The Dreadnought is basically dead weight, the Defiler is too expensive and not quite good enough at either melee or shooting, the Cultists would be better as Tzaangors, and I probably need another 5 Terminators, at least. That said, it’s not terrible, either – there are a few hilarious quirks here that work in my favor. The first is that I think Magnus is actually OK against Custodes and a few other armies; my big concerns with him are more T’au, Orks, and Drukhari. The second is that the list packs quite a few non-psykers, making it more difficult to max Abhor than people realize. The Defiler, Mutalith, Dreadnought, and Spawn are all non-psykers, making killing them worth little. The list also doesn’t give up many points for No Prisoners, Assassination, or Bring it Down.

The harder part is my secondaries – I’m not sure what I’m going to take most games, since this hodgepodge of units isn’t particularly great at scoring things. Psychic Interrogation is a solid option in many games, and Mutate Landscape might be something I can do. To The Last will pick up Magnus and the Terminator units which is… OK, I guess. And then maybe I can do Banners or RND with the Cultists and Rubrics? To be honest I didn’t really think about it, since I spent all my time painting. That would come back to bite me later.

Game 1: vs. Paul’s Adeptus Custodes

There are 14 players at the event and four of them are playing Adeptus Custodes. Welcome to the new 40k meta. Paul spent a lot of time away from 40k and is just now returning for 9th edition. I’m informed that this is his 7th game of 9th edition after 6 test games with his Custodes army.

Paul's list - click to expand

This is my first game against the new Custodes lists but I’ve played enough against older Custodes to have a feel for what they’re going to be like, even in this supercharged variant. Surprisingly, Magnus is actually solid against an army of 2-damage guys who lack strong ranged firepower, so I’m fairly comfortable working with him here. I just need to take out the bikes early and avoid getting charged by the Dreadnoughts.

The Mission: Death and Zeal

My Secondaries:

• Mutate Landscape
• Stranglehold
• To the Last – Magnus/Scarabs/Scarabs

Paul’s Secondaries:

• Behind Enemy Lines
• Abhor the Witch
• Auric Mortalis

I’m learning this army on the fly and it shows – I make some fucking terrible secondary picks here. Stranglehold just isn’t going to happen against Custodes, though for some reason I felt like I could hold the midtable objective with Scarabs. I’d have been better off taking Engage or Behind Enemy Lines. Likewise, Mutate Landscape is also bad here, and in future games I’ll smartly swap it out for Psychic Interrogation. Death and Zeal is also not a great mission to be up against Custodes on, since it’s really hard to dislodge them from objectives.

I’m going Second

That’s not great. Not because Custodes have a major alpha strike; it’s not particularly impressive, even with the bikes – they can’t advance and charge, so there isn’t a ton I’m worried about in that sense – but rather because it means I only get one turn to act before the reserves come in. In this case, that’s both Dreadnoughts and some Allarus, which have been placed into Teleportariums. I need to be careful to screen them out as I move, to prevent getting charged and losing my Terminators or Magnus. They’re basically the ideal Magnus killers for Paul.

The game starts off promising enough, thanks to me spiking some of my saves to keep a unit of Rubrics unharmed and Magnus clearing out a unit of bikes with help from Twist of Fate to take away their invulnerable save. Turn 2 is… not so great however: Paul makes 9″ charges with 3 of his 4 deep strikers, including both dreadnoughts, and uses their melee prowess to near wipe out my Scarabs.

The biggest challenge going up against Custodes is that one bad turn will kill you, and they have an army that is designed to force you to have bad turns. In this case that’s my turn 2, where I dump a shitload of mortal wounds into the Dreadnoughts plus some shooting but manage to kill neither as one tanks mortals to stick around on 1 wound and the other stays up at 4. I go for a long bomb charge a turn later with Magnus, only to be hit with a Tanglefoot grenade that keeps him out of combat (I will later discover that Tanglefoot does not work on units with FLY, but this is not a big enough deal to swing the game). As a result, Magnus goes down in melee in a game that was basically over when the dreadnoughts survived my throwing everything at them.

Result: 91-37, Loss

I made some disastrous picks on Secondaries; had I gone with Engage or Behind Enemy lines over Stranglehold I’d have likely scored 8-10 on that, and Psychic Interrogation would have likely gotten me another 3-6 over Mutate Landscape. Add in the 15-point swing from losing Magnus to a failed charge that would likely have killed both Dreadnoughts and this was a game I could have won but making all the wrong decisions cost me. Still I don’t feel awful about losing with this list. Paul will go on to finish 3rd at the event, losing to his friend Carmine on the top table.

Game 2: vs. Jake’s Adeptus Custodes

Naturally, my second game is also against Custodes. Jake’s got a lovely army he bought off a friend.

Jake's list - click to expand

Jake’s list trades the dreadnoughts and Caladius for additional Allarus terminators, Vertus Praetors, and Sagittarum. It’s a little faster than Paul’s list and hits a little harder at range while not being quite as nasty in melee.

The Mission: Tear Down Their Icons

My Secondaries:

• Assassination
• Psychic Interrogation
• Behind Enemy Lines

Jake’s Secondaries:

• Abhor the Witch
• Bring it Down
• Engage on All Fronts

I shore up my secondary picks quite a bit this time around, trading out Mutate Landscape for Psychic Interrogation, To the Last for Behind Enemy Lines, and Stranglehold for Psychic Interrogation. These are much more solid options and I’m happy with the picks, though Behind Enemy Lines is a bit weird with these deployment zones – would likely have been better to go with Engage here. For Jake’s part, Bring it Down is a mistake – with only 8 points up for grabs he’s better off taking something like Grind Them Down here.

I’m going Second

Going second again, but again the Custodes don’t necessary have great T1 plays. It’s essentially a null turn for Jake, who plays his way onto the southeast objective. I respond to that by charging Magnus over that way and using him to kill a unit of bikes. That’s a big pickup, and around the rest of the table I get into position. On Jake’s turn 2 he presses forward with Trajann and his big blob of Custodians + Sagittarum + Battle Sisters.

Magnus’ luck runs out on turn 2 when he charges the Bike Captain, only to have a Praetorian Plate character, and another Allarus intervene into him, and then the bike captain survived despite not having an invulnerable save active. The bike captain would then fall back and charge on the following turn to finish Magnus off. What did work out well for me however, were the Scarab Terminators using Sorcerous Facade to teleport over to the edge of the board. This put me in Jake’s deployment zone for Behind Enemy Lines scoring and also gave Magnus some support.

Despite losing Magnus the big story this game was that I was able to keep a number of units on the table. On the top left objective I threw my defiler at a pair of Allarus terminators only to be deeply disappointed when it failed to kill either and died two turns later – the Rubrics would end up finishing one off while the other tore through them – and my Mutalith did some work dominating them middle, never quite taking enough wounds to be removed. Meanwhile on the right side of the table I was able to bring back a Scarab twice and used their shooting and smites to remove the remaining Allarus and take the objective.

The big thorn in my side this game was the Vexilla – its ability to deny the witch ended up costing me two Interrogations during the game, as it denied me on turns 3 and 4 before I finally killed it.

This led to an very tense final turn of the game where I had to make three out of the following five things happen in order to pull out a victory:

• Capture the middle objective to max primary
• Plant a bomb
• Kill Trajann
• Put a unit in Jake’s deployment zone
• Perform a Psychic Interrogation on Trajann

This was far from certain, but I’d gotten very lucky keeping units alive – the prior turn had seen Jake shooting at my other unit of Scarabs, only for one to survive. After scoring 12 for primary on his turn (Jake planted 3 bombs so he was set for max primary), he retreated with Trajann and his Venatari behind the wall of the other midfield ruin, though he still had two Obsec models (counting as 4+) on the objective. So I had to make a 4+ advance with one squad of Rubrics, and ended up getting seven models on the center objective, allowing me to hold it. Trajann survived after shrugging off a number of mortal wounds, but my Scarabs on the lower right objective were able to walk back to their objective and plant a bomb, giving me my second. Meanwhile Ahriman got off a Psychic Interrogation now that the Vexilla was dead. And using my Cabal points I was able to push through a Sorcerous Facade to get my surviving Scarab sorcerer into Jake’s deployment zone for 2 Behind Enemy Lines points.

For his part, Jake had managed to kill Magnus, the Defiler, and a squad of Rubrics, but only two of those are psykers, meaning he only scored 5 VP on Abhor the Witch, and due to some screening on my part he’d only managed 6 points on Engage and 5 on Bring it Down (Magnus + Defiler).

Result: 79-71, Win

Well, that went a lot better and I’m feeling a lot more comfortable about playing against Custodes. Jake was a wonderful opponent and played a solid game and that was honestly the most fun I’ve had playing a game in a while. Lots of ups and downs, moments I thought I was on the ropes, some close calls and a close result. Not gonna lie – this game reinvigorated me a bit.

Game 3: vs. Greg Narro’s Necrons

I’ll admit I was kind of hoping for 3 straight games against Custodes just for comedy’s sake, but I’d end up getting a softball thrown my way instead.

Greg's list - Click to Expand

Poor Greg. You may recognize Greg “Klobasnek” Narro as the other, Texas-bound Greg I play from time to time, the one with some beautifully painted Sisters models. Greg’s brought his Necrons to the event and well, running into Thousand Sons is just real unfortunate. My whole deal is throwing out mortal wounds and his whole deal is not standing back up when he loses models to mortal wounds. On top of that the only thing he has that’s really a threat to Magnus are the Doomstalkers, who hit on a 4+, and the Gauss Reapers with volume of fire. It’s a very heavy matchup in my favor. Greg’s army is, however, absolutely beautiful, and if I weren’t bringing my Thousand Sons he’d be a shoe-in to win Best Painted today.

The Mission: The Scouring

My Secondaries:

• No Prisoners
• Psychic Interrogation
• Behind Enemy Lines

Greg’s Secondaries:

• Abhor the Witch
• Retrieve Nachmund Data
• Assassination

Psychic Interrogation is a strong pick with as many characters as Greg has, and No Prisoners is a No Brainer against this many infantry with the ability to come back. The only one I’m not sure on is Behind Enemy Lines, which will end up being a big mistake – Stranglehold or Engage were better plays here. For Greg the plays aren’t amazing – Abhor and Nachmund are both fine but Assassination is going to cap at 10. Very little of this matters however, as Greg needs some very good luck to stand a chance.

I’m going First

That’s bad news for Greg as it means I can both pick off his key units and get up my defensive buffs before he has a chance to get started. I come out swinging with Magnus and the Mutalith but play it a little safer with the Scarabs – I can’t reduce damage in melee and so I need them to stay away from the Skorpekh Destroyers.

Magnus wipes out a squad of Scarabs and a few Lychguard on turn 1 and then turns off their invulnerable save with Twist of Fate, ensuring they’ll play a bit more conservatively for a turn. On Greg’s turn he pushes forward but doesn’t have the speed to close with my units yet so I get to charge first on my turn. The Mutalith pushes right into the middle of the table to block off the path to the center objective, supported by the Chaos Spawn.

Magnus wipes out the Lychguard and to add insult to injury Greg fails two 6″ charges on his turn to fail to close with the Mutalith, who survives another turn throwing out mortal wounds before finally being killed by the Skorpekhs. It then explodes (a 4+ roll), killing another Skorpekh and putting a ton of wounds on Greg’s characters. I mop them up the next turn as the rest of the army marches forward. Magnus is eventually brought down by Necron Warriors but has done more than enough and Greg’s out of gas. We call it on turn 4.

Result: 79-61, Win

If that score seems low and/or close for a blowout well, it’s because of Behind Enemy Lines. Greg had more than enough bodies to just put two units of scarabs in his back corners and prevent me from teleporting behind him all game, and so I only scored 2 points for the secondary. As much as it helped me last game, I need to really think more about when and how I take that secondary. It’ll also help that in the future I’ll just have a better army for doing some of the other secondary objectives with.

I end up winning Best Painted again, a trick I’m not sure I can pull off four times in a row. I give the store credit to Greg and head home. 2-1 with an army that I cobbled together the night before isn’t too bad, and I think I’ll be ready for Custodes next time… Which probably means I’ll get shot in the face by T’au.

Next Time: More Practice and Finishing This Thousand Sons Army

If nothing else, this really motivated me to finish my Thousand Sons, and get that army to a place that I’m happy with competitively. Since I started writing this article I’ve painted another rubric and two more Terminators, and I’m making good pace. I have a couple of characters, 9 Tzaangors, 20 Rubrics, 6 Terminators, and a Rhino to go and while that’s a lot, I don’t need it all done right away. The Tzaangors help make for a break when I’m sick of painting Rubrics and I’ll use the Rhino to break things up as well. So next time expect more discussion of hobby progress and some practice games with the new army.

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