Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing chronicle of misadventures through competitive Warhammer 40,000. Last time around I made my way to Tacoma for the GW US Open event there and spent my first day getting off to a 2-1 start, dropping a stream game to Custodes in round 3. With another shitty night’s sleep behind me it was time to wake up and do it all again.

Day 2: Saturday

Campbell and I grab breakfast, eating some shitty-but-free hotel bacon and eggs before heading over to the event hall a few minutes after pairings go live. Day 2 is when the other big events kick in and now the hall is really goddamn loud. In addition to Age of Sigmar, the 40k Narrative event is also kicking off today.

Round 4: vs. David Tepper’s Adeptus Custodes

The one army I definitely did not want to face two rounds in a row was Custodes. So naturally, I had to go up against them, and with an even more obnoxious list.

The Mission: F (Supply Drop, Search and Destroy, Chilling Rain)

The Plan

My plan here is to hide Magnus on turn 1 to ensure he doesn’t get completely biffed again. I need him to be able to punch through these units. With Magnus on the table my plan is to use the Terminators to take out bigger targets. This is done by using the Ensorcelled Infusion Stratagem to give them S5 bolters with PSYCHIC, which then get +1 to hit and wound from Magnus, turn off armour saves on their target (which still puts Custodes on a 4+), and then use Devastating Sorcery to get full re-rolls to hit and wound. There’s no upside to Devastating Sorcery in this matchup, so you’re pretty much always taking Sustained Hits (while LETHAL HITS gives you more value at higher volumes of shots, you get it already with the Terminator Sorcerer).

My plan is to control the top end of the board and try to remove a Custodian unit before they can crash into my army. I’d really prefer going second on this mission given it’ll mean being able to react to David’s first turn coming out and take advantage of any timidness.

The Game

I win the roll-off and that’s not great. My plan at this point is to push my Terminators with Magnus around the southern part of the board while the Rhino and Rubrics with Ahriman take the northeastern objective. The middle objective is going to be the first to go so neither of us is focusing too much on that one.

I’m not going to lie, this game was a slog. Lots of very ticky-tack moments and movements, a few takebacks I probably shouldn’t have given based on how things went. Multiple judge calls to cover basic rules over things like who gets cover. David’s trying everything he can to avoid getting shot with his Custodes most of the game before they make their move and that means going for some pretty rough line of sight angles and tight deep strike windows. There’s also a point where Magnus got absolutely shithoused in melee by Custodes ignoring the -1 damage ability he had, and I’d later learn that GW had ruled Trajan’s ability did not get around or avoid other models’ damage reduction – though it’s perfectly reasonable to believe David wasn’t aware of that either at this point. It’s a weird ruling and I think it goes counter to the wording of the rules. That said, it would have helped me quite a bit to have Magnus survive another turn of combat and hit units back.

My units just can’t survive contact with Custodes units in melee and while I have some movement tricks, I need more than that to bring this game back once I get behind on primary – I’m not really behind most of the game, but with 15 VP up for grabs on the final turn with the lower right objective, even at 18-13 I’m actually behind.

This is another mission where I’m just not having great luck on Secondaries – I pull Extend Battle Lines on turn 1 but after that none really cooperate and I end up with a lot of secondary objectives I just can’t score. It’s a low-scoring game but not one where I’m able to make up even a 6-point deficit in secondary objectives as I draw Storm Hostile Objective (with only one objective left in No Man’s Land) and Assassination on turn 5.

The Result

Things I Learned

This was a rough one. It’s a very hard matchup for me without the tanks, and the tanks are really tough for me to deal with given their insane range. Keeping Magnus on the table helped, but not as much as I thought – I need to get him shooting early and often and supporting my other units. This is a mission where I just needed to turtle up a bit more and avoid spreading out – I think if I’d concentrated more of my army on the lower right I might have been able to just blow some of those units off the table more easily, even after they started charging. Committing one more unit to the lower right instead of the upper left was probably the play I needed to make, and keeping Magnus on the table with his -1 damage intact would have likely changed the game a ton.

This is a mission where taking on a Gambit might have really helped me, but it would have been an unlikely outcome – at best I’d have managed +2 on my roll pushing back to the corners on the left side of the table.

Interlude: Lunch

Lunch is still a pain in the ass so we regroup by going to the same poke place we did the day before. Well, kind of – that place was fine but slow as shit so I ended up getting a sandwich over at Jimmy John’s instead because they’re fast and I won’t feel like shit after eating one. I’m not particularly happy about 2-2; it’s well below my goal and sucks absolute shit since it locks me out of getting Best Overall, an award I can absolutely win with a strong enough showing. That said, I’d probably need to end up 5-1 over my first 6 games to get there and there’s absolutely no guarantee I’d do that.

We talk about where we’ve ended up. Jack and Liam (Corrode – read his write-up here) are both in the 2-2 bracket with me, while James believes he’s in the 3-1 bracket and narrowly missed the top cut. I tell him that’s coward talk and he just has to believe. He tells me that no, no, he’s actually “done the maths” and “can’t possibly be in the top cut, he definitely missed it.” I tell him that his attitude is the problem and that he should just play like he’s in the top bracket and it will be so.

I’m in a weird place. Truth be told I’m a bit too good – or at least my army is – for the 2-2 bracket, but I’m not quite good enough for the 3-1 bracket, though I think winning my first two games in that bracket is possible. At this point my goal is to finish up 6-2 and win my next four games, since that gets prizes.

Round 5: vs. Nes Ignacio’s Black Templars

I get a temporary reprieve from Custodes bullshit, this time getting paired up against Nes and his Black Templars. I can basically tell from the jump this won’t be too bad since Nes is running the Black Templars detachment over the Gladius Strike Force.

The Mission: O (Vital Ground, Chilling Rain, Crucible of Battle)

Nes' Army - click to expand

Nes’ list has a couple of pieces that can be a pain – the Terminators are going to be a chore to shift and they can wipe me out in melee pretty quickly – but his plan for dealing with Magnus is going to rely heavily on the Eliminators. The Desolators can be a problem if they get going in a normal list but they don’t have Apothecary support here. The biggest threat in the list is Nes’ ability to get ANTI-PSYKER 4+ on his units, since that combos with DEVASTATING HITS on his thunder hammers to get him some very nasty mortal wounds output on his Terminators. As long as I can stay away from them I’ll be fine.

The Plan

Nes opts to put his Eradicators in Strategic Reserves and his Terminators in Deep Strike, while his Desolators sit in the Impulsor. That means there’s nothing on the table from the jump that can kill Magnus – the Lancer can do a little damage, but I can zero out one of its shots and easily tank the rest. If I go first that means I’ll have two uninterrupted turns of Magnus fucking shit up. My goal is basically to remove a massive chunk of Nes’ army before his reserves arrive, forcing him to play catch up from the edges of the table while I pick off the arriving units one by one. I really want to go first in this matchup and I can afford to deploy aggressively either way. The Eradicators will probably shred Magnus when they show up but the goal will be to make sure Nes has nothing left after that.

The Game

I get the first turn and that’s basically all she wrote. I draw Behind Enemy Lines and Assassination and immediately teleport my Terminators into Nes’ deployment zone, then shoot Magnus and the Rubrics over to that side of the table to support them. I crack open the Impulsor and kill everyone inside it while the Terminators also whittle down the Intercessors and the Rubrics up top take out three of the Bladeguard.

On Nas’ turn he retaliates by sending Grimaldus and the Intercessors into the Terminators, using the ANTI-PSYKER 4+ to get out a number of wounds and kill half the unit. That’s more than I expected (and I ate shit on the saves), and it ties up the Terminators with no way for them to escape – they’ve used their teleport and Nas will hit every 4+ roll all game to keep my units from Falling Back. That said, I kind of don’t need them to – I’m able to take out the Scouts and Lancer with Magnus and some additional shooting, then I dump Magnus into the same combat and start cleaning up.

By the time the Eradicators and Terminators arrive, it’s too late – I’ve wiped Nes off his home objective and built an insurmountable lead on primary, already up 12-2 and going to 24-2 on the following turn. The Terminators do cause problems – the both make their 9″ charges to get into it with my units, but I’m able to finish off Grimaldus and co and then turn my gaze on them along with the Eradicators. I don’t quite end up tabling Nes but it’s pretty close.

The Result

Things I Learned

Nes’ big mistakes were not screening me out well and not having anything to threaten Magnus on the board on turn 1 – if his Eradicators are sitting in that ruin it keeps me from pressing forward into his deployment zone and playing a bit more coy. That may mean they don’t get as many juicy targets, but it’s an important part of keeping me from getting too aggressive.

For my part, I probably got a bit too aggressive with the Terminators T1 – I didn’t really need those Behind Enemy Lines points that bad, and some more conservative placement probably keeps them on the table and out of combat another turn. That one’s on me, and the 3 VP just aren’t really worth losing half the unit or more to Grimaldus and co. I still want to crack open the Impulsor and remove the Desolators, but I could have palyed it a bit softer.

Another short break before round 6 and I’m ready to rock the 2-2 bracket.

Round 6: vs. Brian Hufsmith’s Necrons

Back up against Necrons. This list is a bit modified from the one I faced in Round 2, and looks a bit more like the current meta play.

The Mission: C (The Ritual, Scrambler Fields, Sweeping Engagement)

Brian's List - Click to Expand

Brian’s list has more of the meta picks that can cause me problems. For one he’s got Gauss Destructors on his Heavy Destroyers, which do a shitload more damage, but he only has two of them so they aren’t nearly the threats they could be. That said, the Doomsday Arks can pick up the slack and between the lot of these there’s enough to take down Magnus.

Brian is also running the Canoptek Spyder, which gives units a 4+ Feel No Pain against PSYCHIC attacks. That’s a massive pain in the ass and makes chewing through his army a lot tougher. They also all pretty much have a 4+ invulnerable save, which means taking away saves isn’t as valuable as it could be. This one’s going to be rough.

The Plan

Again, Orikan is my biggest concern as he can single-handedly take down Magnus in a turn. The Arks are a bit of a pain but only doing 4 damage means I can tank a few of them with Magnus if I absolutely have to. My plan is to whittle away at the edges here – take out the Tomb Blades and Scarabs early and force Brian to rely on slower units like the Lychguard and Warriors, removing his ability to do actions. The Warrior blob is a nightmare but I have some ways to deal with it – primarily Doombolt. Brian still gets a 4+ feel no pain against it but he can’t immediately regenerate from it as it’s not an attack. My goal will be to create 2 objectives early on and sit on them all game while delaying Brian’s attempts to make his own and holding those. I largely plan to ignore the warriors if I can after seeing how that went in my previous game.

The Game

I win the first turn roll-off and that’s a boon in this game. I press forward and create an objective with Rubrics while pushing a unit to the middle of the table to ensure I get Area Denial. I double move a unit of Rubrics up the left but I’m not able to kill the Tomb Blades in one (diminished) volley. That said, I get my unit of Rubrics in the middle in a good position – when Brian attempts to bring his Scarabs into the middle to create an objective, I blow them off the table with Overwatch from the Infernal Master, forcing him to use a unit of Ophidians – which I will easily kill the following turn.

This puts Brian in a real bad position going into turn 2 – there are four objectives in no man’s land and they’re all on my half of the table and require being in the middle of the board, where I have 10 Scarab Terminators. Eager to pop off with Orikan and do some damage, Brian pushes his Necron Warrior unit to the middle of the table, stretching them way out from the Tomb Spyder on his home objective. He charges my Rubrics with them and pops Orikan’s ability, and ends up killing the Rubrics and doing 2 damage to the Infernal Master, who uses his “create a 6” ability to auto-pass a save and retreat. I got lucky here – Orikan only got off 6 devastating wounds on me and he could have easily killed the master.

Brian’s big mistake here is spreading out too far – he’s strung his Warriors way too far back and that puts me in a good position to take advantage of coherency rules. I start the Shooting Phase with Doombolt, scoring a 6 and 7 mortal wounds. This takes out 5 warriors and forces Brian to take them from the back – and out of range of his Spyder. Then I pop another Doombolt with the Exalted Sorcerer using his Enhancement and score another 6, for 9 mortal wounds, taking out another 5 warriors. Then I pop a third Doombolt with Ahriman and take out another 3 Warriors. That’s 13 if you’re keeping track at home, and means Brian only has a few Warriors and Orikan sitting basically unprotected on the center objective. I finish them off easily with the Scarabs.

Losing the warrior blob functionally ends the game. Brian still has some shooting, but I’m able to kill the Tomb Blades with my Rubrics and then keep tagging one of the Doomsday Arks. The Lokhusts arrive but need to focus on scoring VP since they can’t show up on an objective or in my deployment zone. I sim the rest and the only reason I don’t crack 90 is bad secondaries on the final round.

That said, I have to hand it to Brian, who opted for a Gambit and managed to pull off Orbital Strike Coordinates to score 30 VP on primary. Though at that point there wasn’t much he could do. He needed to draw Engage and Investigate Signals later in the game to be able to score them here and he just doesn’t have the units left on turns 4 or 5 to accomplish anything else.

The Result

Things I Learned

Most of what I learned in this game was on the technical side:

• The Tomb Spyder still gives a Feel No Pain against Doombolt. This is buried in the Designer’s Commentary, but wasn’t something I knew coming into this game.
• Units can just walk through friendly vehicles this edition. I knew vehicles couldn’t go through friendly vehicles without an exemption like the Defiler’s, but I thought other units couldn’t walk through vehicles and it turns out that was wrong – you can just walk through your own rhino/ghost ark/whatever. This was ruled incorrectly in our game but cleaned up afterwards.
• I need to start thinking about putting the 5-man Rubric squad in the Rhino. Up to this point I’ve been doing either Ahriman or the Infernal Master’s unit but that often leaves me with fewer Cabal Points than I’d like, while neither unit necessarily needs the movement boost on many missions. If I don’t have to protect a unit from indirect fire or first-turn shooting, I can afford to put the five-model unit in the rhino in my deployment zone. This also lets me hedge my bets – I want a unit which can go back into that corner for Investigate Signals, but if there’s little reason to screen that corner, this can be the Rhino, while the Rubrics inside can get out and walk somewhere else. Likewise if I need them on the home objective, I can do that while the Rhino has the movement to go elsewhere.

The Showcase

The full army. Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

lower view. Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Rubrics. Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Rubrics. Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

My army has been invited to join the Showcase at the event. I have no chance at this point of getting Best Overall, but Best Painted isn’t out of reach. The majority of armies at the event are in some state of progress, a likely consequence of the changeover to editions pushing many people to start (and paint) new armies. A lot of armies on display are what I’d refer to as “Norman-quality,” i.e. they’ve got some very impressive conversion work and look great on the table, but technically have a way to go when it comes to painting – picking out details, adding edge highlights, cleaning up freehand, etc. Either way, this year’s competition isn’t nearly as fierce as last year’s, when my Thousand Sons didn’t even make showcase.

My biggest competition is going to be from Jack Hunter, whose Imperial fists just look fucking amazing. They’re beautiful and striking and yellow and Jack has wisely chosen to only run models he’s painted in the past year, ensuring there are no out-of-date clunkers in the mix painted 2+ years ago. He’s also got a sharp display board to go with them. My money is on him to win Best Painted but I’m hoping someone really likes my OSL and freehand work. Campbell McLaughlin is also tough competition, with some very nice and characterful Black Templars. Other than those two, there are maybe two or three armies I think really have a shot.

Tragically, none of our crew would end up having to play in the shadow round. Wings came closest – it turns out he was in the top cut, but didn’t know until halfway into his game against Steve Trimble, and he may not have taken it as seriously as he needed to. He’d end up losing, and I’d get to remind him that he should, in fact, have believed in himself and the notion that he could still make top cut.

The late round ending and the showcase mean we aren’t out of the hall until pretty late. We wander up the hill to a place called Fire, which has some pretty good pizza and other options. I grab the “Hurts so Good,” a bacon cheeseburger with cherry peppers on top, and it’s pretty damn good. I’m a big cherry pepper fan as I feel like they add both flavor and heat rather than just making a sandwich unpleasant. I used to grab them all the time back in the day when we’d get cheesesteaks from Shorty’s in NYC, and they’re solid on this burger.

We make it back to the hotel around 11pm and prep for one more day of the tournament. What follows is the best I’ll sleep all weekend.

Next Time: Day 3

Join us early next week for the exciting conclusion to my story and find out how I did. Or just go look it up in BCP and cheat or whatever. I’m not your dad. If you have questions or feedback, drop ’em in the comments below. And shoot any emails to contact@goonhammer.com.