TheChirurgeon’s Road Through 2022, Part 5: Aeldari March Madness

Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing (mis)adventures in competitive 40k. In my last article I attended the February Asgard RTT and again went 2-1, losing my first game to Custodes. I finally brought my Thousand Sons to their first event, using a hastily assembled list from the painted models I had sitting around. If you missed my last update, you can find that here.

This time I’m getting in more practice and working on taking my Thousand Sons list from “whatever I have painted” to “something I actually want to play” and eventually to “something that I think can compete.” I’m not sure how close I’ll get on that last bit in the current meta, but it’s still worth giving an honest shot. But it all starts with painting.

Hobby

I have more hobby work to do still, and I’ve been plugging away at the army over the last few weeks, trying to knock out more models. This time around, I finished off the 10 Scarab Terminators to have the full unit of 10 with all their upgrades.

I also finished off a full unit of Tzaangors, giving me the relatively cheap ObSec objective holders and action doers I’d been looking for. Cultists are cheaper by 20 points, but they’re only T3, don’t have a 5+ invulnerable save, and lack ObSec, so on the balance I think I’d rather have the Tzaangors. These guys painted up pretty quick using the scheme I came up with for the How to Paint Everything article on them a couple of years ago.

With those latest models painted, that puts me in a pretty good place for the army. Here’s the current inventory progress on my Thousand Sons, with regard to models painted/owned.

• Magnus – 1/1
• Ahriman – 1/1
• Exalted Sorcerers – 1/3
• Infernal Master – 0/1
• Sorcerer in Terminator Armour – 1/1
• Scarab Terminators – 10/15
• Rubrics – 14/40
• Rhinos – 1/2
• Helbrutes – 1/2
• Mutalith Vortex Beast – 1/1
• Forgefiends – 0/2
• Tzaangors – 10/20
• Heldrakes – 0/1
• Tzaangor Enlightened – 0/1

That’s quite a bit left to go but I like where I’m at on this so far. The roughest part are the Rubrics, but I don’t need them all painted – that includes a lot of optional models like extra Soulreaper Cannons so I can run 5 squads of 5 with 1 Soulreaper each, for example. So I’ve got a lot to do but I’ll probably pick and choose how I paint them as I figure out what my list needs to look like – ten of them are Warpflamers, and those are the next 5-10 I’m painting.

If there’s one thing I regret about painting this army, it’s the decision to use Agrellan Earth as the basing material – the crackle paint effect is neat but the stuff flakes off when I drybrush it. I’m thinking of doing a mix of Badlands and Earth on future bases, especially for large shit like the Forgefiend.

The Practice Games

I’ve got a long way to go with Thousand Sons before I’m fully comfortable playing them. They’re a much more difficult army to play than Death Guard, with a lot more decisions to make and less durability overall. This means I have to be much more thoughtful in how I use my units, and steer clear of melee unless it’s a fight I can absolutely win decisively early – I can’t afford to stay stuck in melee for several turns taking casualties.

I played three practice games with my Thousand Sons over the last month, two against Dan and one against Erik.

Games 1 & 2: vs. Dan’s Drukhari

I’ve played Dan many times, and this time had him over for some more practice. He’s been testing out some new Drukhari builds, and while they aren’t top tier as an army any more they’re still very good and a good opponent to test against. Dan’s also improved a ton over the last year or so, making these games far from the certainties they used to be.

My Army

For this first game I decided to try out a new build. I’m still on Duplicity – I am fairly convinced that the tricks you can pull with Master Misinformator are better than the durability you get after-the-fact from the Cult of Time. So with that in mind, I put together a new list using my freshly painted block of Scarabs.

My list - click to expand

I really enjoyed the Mutalith in my time at the last RTT. He’s just tough enough to tank some hits, and he regenerates at a fast enough rate to make people regret not killing him. On the flip side, he’s not so expensive that it’s a tragedy when he dies, and he’s not a psyker so he doesn’t give up Abhor points. He can toss out just enough mortal wounds to be worthwhile, and he can be teleported around the table as needed using the Cult psychic power.

The Heldrake I’m kind of feeling out. I’m not sure about assembling and painting one – they’re better at shooting in Thousand Sons than CSM, but the restrictions around flyers and having to switch to hover are just a real pain. He can be good, but without a ton of aircraft to fight I’m skeptical he’ll be worth it, plus he’s not super durable.

The general play here is to use the Scarabs and Mutalith for mid-table objective control while the Forgefiend offers ranged support and the Heldrake slows key units by tying them up early on. The list can also do Engage fairly well as the rubrics can teleport around the table as needed.

Dan's Drukhari - click to expand

Dan: Evil Space Elves are back on the menu today, gang.

After a few more Admech games, I wanted to go back and get some practice with my Drukhari in the new Nachmund missions. I decided to go with this list here, which I played one time before today against Black Templars.

This list focuses on two Drukhari strengths: tough objective holders with the Wracks and Court, and very mobile trade pieces to boot. It also has the Trueborn and two ravagers for my anti-armor needs. A lot of Nachmund missions like fighting in the center and having plenty of board control, and I think this list plenty of that.

As far as things I’m worried about, I’m worried a bit about the venoms. Giving them the Prophets of Flesh Keyword makes them a little tougher, but six wounds still means a lucky lascannon shot will take one out. Thankfully, they have a very small profile and are very speedy, so my best bet is going to be hiding them until the time is right to pounce.

And there’s the list! Now it’s time to throw down against Rob, see how I fare against these dusty bozos he’s bringing today.

Game 1: Abandoned Sanctuaries

My Secondaries: 

• Warp Ritual
• Stranglehold
• No Prisoners

Dan’s Secondaries

• Abhor the Witch
• Herd the Prey
• Retrieve Nachmund Data

Stranglehold isn’t my favorite pick here but I’m likely to be pushed to the middle regardless. This is just a really bad mission for me top-to-bottom: The Dawn of War deployment isn’t great, and the mission prevents me from using Risen Rubricae to deploy forward. As long as I’m gonna be on the middle objective, Warp Ritual is a fine shout here. I just need to be aggressive about taking it while keeping D2 attackers off my scarabs, which is next to impossible with this deployment map, especially if I have to go second. For Dan’s part, Abhor makes sense and the other two secondaries are pretty common picks.

I’m Going Second.

That’s not ideal. I make some bad decisions during deployment – I probably should have moved the Heldrake – but there just isn’t anywhere I can hide it and it was always going to be in danger of dying T1 to the Ravagers. Which is exactly what happens, as the Ravager and the Raider full of Trueborn wheel around and casually drop 18 wounds on it. My deployment here hasn’t done me a ton of favors and I’m working against the terrain layout in a lot of ways. It’s a bad setup for me and I should have put more thought into how I was going to actually do this, but being funneled into the middle of the table means there’s nowhere I can go that won’t get charged by Wyches and Incubi.

Things go worse on turn 2 as Dan picks up the Forgefiend with a lucky 12 damage roll from two dark lances and the Mutalith. I manage to take down a Ravager, a Raider, and a couple of Venoms but this one’s basically over.

We’ve only been playing an hour and a half and we have time, so now is the perfect opportunity to talk it out quickly and then re-rack and try a new game and mission. Dan played this one well and has a real bastard of an army to go up against.

Result: 96-39, Loss

Game 2: Conversion

Now that I know what I’m up against with Dan’s army I’m in a better place. And this mission gives me a much, much better deployment map to work with, while not preventing me from forward deploying if I need to with Risen Rubricae – that’ll be important for getting on the two no man’s land objectives.

My Secondaries

• Warp Ritual
• Stranglehold
• No Prisoners

Dan’s Secondaries

• Herd the Prey
• To the Last – Ravager | Haemoxytes | Trueborn
• Abhor the Witch

I’m back on No Prisoners – there’s 13 points up for grabs here, plus Warp Ritual and Stranglehold. With a center objective like this and only five total I like Ritual over Mutate Landscape, which seems more likely to only be 9 points. With no one to deny the witch, Wrap Ritual just seems like a better play.

I’m Going Second.

That’s not nearly as devastating this time around as it’s harder for Dan to play aggressively with his units. I use Risen Rubricae with Master Misinformator to put units of Rubrics on the other side of the ruins near both of the no-man’s land objectives. This will draw Dan away from my main force while still keeping it difficult to impossible for him to effectively deal with him turn 1. With a little luck, my Heldrake can survive and deal damage, but I’m not holding out hope.

In a shocking twist, the Heldrake does survive, and on my turn I”m able to press in and start doing damage. The Warpflamers come up big here against the Wyches and Wracks, capturing the objective for me and holding out long enough that the Rubrics in the Rhino can show up to clear out the rest. I use this to my advantage to get ahead on scoring, pulling off a trio of 12-point primary turns (plus 4 more for the mission bonus) while Dan is stuck in his deployment zone. This also helps me deny Herd, keeping him to 10 points over the game.

Dan’s dice run a bit cold this game and as a result he Heldrake not only lives, it gets to charge a Ravager, killing it when I get lucky on the attack rolls despite only having 3 wounds left. The Scarabs push to the middle of the table while the other Rubrics hold the northwest objective. Dan puts up a good fight, but just doesn’t have enough gas left to kill things.

Result: 89-56, Victory

That game went way better, in part because the map and mission rules were much more favorable to me, and in part because Dan got a bit unlucky with some of his hit/wound rolls this time around. It was a good game and it’s cool to see that Dan has gotten a lot better. Even with the strong initial showing Dan still managed 56 points.

Dan: Well I’m quite happy with that! I think I’ve learned a lot playing Rob these past few months and it shows it todays results.

The first game, that list got to do exactly what it wanted to do while Rob’s list was hamstrung by the lack of advance deployment. I most the time I committed something to fight in that game it did huge damage, and the wracks and court were just annoying enough to kill to stay relevant. I didn’t burn through my CP super quickly and I played the objective well. I’m thrilled to be able to have a nice and decisive win under my belt here.

And the second game wasn’t too bad either. I think I should’ve gone for broke with the Succubus and rerolled the charge, but overall I should’ve committed more to trying to push Rob out of one quadrant of the board rather than two. Still, I put up a helluva fight there at the end, nearly being able to push the momentum back in my favor had I been able to position a little bit better. Not a blowout, and still a very fun game.

Thank you again for having me Rob, looking forward to more high flying space elf wacky wahoo fun times!

Game 3: vs. Erik’s Aeldari

After those two games I went back to the drawing board a bit with my list, and made some tweaks. Here’s what I ended up with for game 3.

My List - click to expand

After that last pair of games I’ve shifted things around a bit. I didn’t care much for the Heldrake – too difficult to hide and not enough upside – so instead I’m looking at a pair of Forgefiends here to support the Mutalith and give me some beefy ranged support. I’ve trimmed the Warpflamers down to 5 because I didn’t feel like going with 8 was really worth it, and I’ve added a couple of Chaos Spawn for fast objective grabbing. I’m also bringing a Daemon Prince, to give the list more melee muscle and some better casting. This probably means I don’t need Ahriman, but I really, really like how he’s painted so god dammit I’m going to use him.

I also want to get more actions out of the Scarabs, so I swap out the Aspiring Sorcerer’s upgrade for the one that lets them do actions and still shoot.

Erik's Aeldari - click to expand

Erik’s running the new Craftworlds book today and testing out a first pass at a list, running a Webway gate and a patrol detachment of Harlequins to help provide insanely fast melee support. He’s also running an Avatar, which will be a problem later on if I can’t kill it with mortal wounds before it gets into melee.

Some notes from Erik:

• The Warlocks are here primarily to use the Warlock Conclave Strat, provide +1 to cast and body guard. Even if they fail all their powers they’re worth 40 points
• Going heavy on Rangers makes the Ranger secondary an option

The Mission: Tear Down Their Icons

The one where you’re planting bombs. I like this mission a lot, and the deployment map is OK for what I want to do.

My Secondaries:

• Wrath of Magnus
• To the Last – Scarabs | Rubrics x10 | Ahriman
• Raise the Banners High

Erik’s Secondaries: 

• Scout the Enemy
• Stranglehold
• To the Last – Avatar of Khaine | Fire Prism | Fire Prism

Wrath of Magnus is a no-brainer here – Erik will seldom want to be firing off mortal wounds with his utility psykers. Raise the Banners is also fine, since I won’t be doing too many actions here and I think it’s an easy 10ish points. To the Last I’m less sure about, but I don’t have any good kill secondary options and I don’t like Engage here.

For Erik’s part, these are good secondaries. He’ll put the Webway gate close to the middle of the board and have the ability to poop out units to support his Stranglehold claim, plus his three To the Last targets are a mondo pain in the ass to kill here. Scout the Enemy may be the weakest of the set but he should be able to score 8-10 off it pretty easily, especially if he gets the first turn.

I’m going Second. 

I don’t love that – it gives Eric plenty of time to shoot bigass Fire Prism shots at me and line up easy points for Scout and Stranglehold, which he promptly does, plus he can get up some of his psychic powers. I manage to avoid taking damage from the Fire Prisms but Eric snags 5 points on his first turn.

On my turn, I decide to make an incredibly bold, stupid play. I use the Exalted Sorcerer’s Umbralefic Crystal to teleport the Scarabs to the middle of Erik’s deployment zone.

OK hear me out: putting the Scarabs here lets them potentially take out a key target or two, and it forces Erik to commit resources to his backfield, keeping them out of the middle of the table. The Scarabs can tank some damage, especially in Dense terrain, and if they survive they can teleport back out on a following turn. Plus they can plant a bomb and still shoot.

The mistake I made here was trying to do too much – planting the bomb wasn’t the right play and I should have waited for the Psychic Phase to teleport them over, which would have let me put up Weaver of Fates and Glamour of Tzeentch on them, helping keep another 2-3 models alive. As it was, I slingshot them over and then watched them fail their Presage cast and end up doing a sad number of wounds to the nearby units. They’d end up doing very little damage – they killed a unit of Rangers but the Warlocks tanked all the missile shots and only took 1 wound. Not great!

Things got real on the following turn as they got charged by Banshees and Players, losing 7 models in the ensuing chaos, though they did manage to take out the Banshees. They’d teleport away the following turn to stay alive and regenerate a dead model. The rest of Erik’s army popped out of the webway gate, and he started pressing the middle after putting Fortune on the Avatar. He then took out one of the Forgefiends, which exploded and did 3 mortal wounds each to Ahriman, a unit of Rubrics, the Mutalith, and the Exalted Sorcerer.

I used my warpflamers to teleport and kill a unit of Warp Spiders, and made a best-try attempt to take out the Avatar. Unfortunately Erik spiked his feel no pain rolls and ended up only taking 6 mortal wounds on him, and then laughed off the Daemon Prince’s attacks. He struck back, getting a single unsaved wound in, only to roll a 6 on damage, killing the DP outright. Great.

That was pretty much the game. I didn’t have the gas to take out the Avatar at that point and Erik still had plenty left on the table to take me out. We talk out the rest after turn 3.

Result: 61-92, Loss

That turn 1 teleport move was aggressive as hell but I don’t hate it. I think if I had done it in the Psychic phase instead I could have kept 6 Terminators alive and had much more left to punch back with, plus I’d have kept the Crystal charge active. Otherwise I needed a better plan for keeping Erik off the middle of the table and I’m not sure this army had a good way to do that against the webway gate, especially going second. It’s something I’ll need to consider as I go back to the drawing board. That gate was key to letting him stay in position to

On that note, I also didn’t like the Cabal points count – 13 felt like too few. It was enough to get off one big ability but seldom two. I think I need to find a way to fit in an icon of flame  or two so I have room to push through a power over denials and still get an extra CP or a +1 to cast.

Finally, Strands of Fate is an absolutely monster ability – Erik getting an extra 20 or so 6s during the game was very good for pulling off bullshit like pushing two wounds through with the fire prism so he could 12-damage shot my Forgefiend in one volley, or tanking a Hellfyre missile shot with his Warlocks to keep it on the table. Yeah there are probably some times you don’t get any 6s to save but on the whole there’s a ton of value there and it’s annoying as hell to play against.

Next Time: The March Asgard RTT

That wraps up my early March update. The next step is frantically painting models for the March RTT this weekend. I think I can get one Forgefiend painted up by then but doing more than that is a tall order so my army is likely to be another “here’s what I had painted” force rather than something more tactically cohesive. The good news is that I should be able to get to where I want within a week or two after the event, and from there just start pounding out games and improving with the army.

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