TheChirurgeon’s Road Through 2024, Part 11: The May Asgard RTT

Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing log of personal, hobby, and competitive progress for Warhammer 40,000. Last time around I talked about tweaking my Death Guard list and practicing with the revised version. Specifically, I tested the list with 2×5 Plague Marines and two Blight-Haulers and in the second version, a blight-hauler and a fleshmower, buying me extra points for a second Biologus Putrifier. I’m pretty happy with what that list looks like and how it plays, but I needed a few more practice reps with it. As I was heading into the weekend, there were a few things I needed to address:

• Plague Marine Usage. I’m still struggling a bit with how I use my marines – I’m often pulling them out of their Rhinos too early. Part of this is because I often want to use my Rhinos to pull back to my home objective after giving the unit a 3″ movement boost, and I may need to consider using another unit for that.
• Nurglings. I’ve been putting my Nurglings on the table more often and I need to pull back from that – they’re here for Behind Enemy Lines, Investigate Signals, and occasionally Cleanse actions, so I need to be more judicious about how and when I put them on the table. Though I should still use them to block Scout moves.
• The Second Putrifier. I only have a single painted Biologus Putrifier. I need two fully painted for play, and that included the Saturday RTT at Asgard Games.

Some of those I could address through play, others I’d need to do some painting work on. I snagged an extra Putrifier on the Friday before the event and put in about an hour of work into him to get him to “tabletop quality” for the RTT. It worked out pretty well:

I’ll put some more work into him before I leave for Dallas, to get him up to a more acceptable tabletop standard.

The List

Here’s what I ran at the RTT. It’s more or less the final version of what I’ve been playing with these last few weeks, with a decent amount of mobility and punch. It’s got some bad matchups – I don’t know if it’s possible for me to chew through Astra Militarum and I’m dreading the 120 Ork Boyz matchup – but other than those I like how it plays into most of the field. T’au, CSM, Sisters, and Thousand Sons all feel very winnable, and I think I can handle Grey Knights.

My test list - click to expand

The strategy is the same as ever – Mortarion supports the three PBCs as I push forward and use their combined might with the plague marines to overwhelm threats. There’s a solid amount of mobility here, and I have the Nurglings for actions and the Deathshroud as a backfield threat while the mortars can clear a space for them as needed.

The May Asgard RTT

Asgard usually runs an RTT on the first or second Saturday of the month, depending on schedule, and I’ll make an attempt to hit up 3-4 of those per year. They’re tough events – usually well attended by the Astros Militarum team, which include a number of very good players, including Erik, my frequent sparring partner. I’ve only ever managed to go 2-1 at these, in part because I’m usually not playing a strong meta list, and in part because there are lots of good players at these and it’s hard to win three straight games against them.

Round 1: vs. Scott Kocian’s Retaliation Cadre

Scott's List - Click to Expand

Case in point: Scott’s a good player, from the Dragon’s Lair team, playing a new T’au army. Scott knows what he’s doing, but he’s also running an off-meta pick here with the Retaliation Cadre, mostly trying out some things for fun. His biggest weakness is that the list gives up an eye-watering 40+ points for Bring it Down on fixed objectives. That’s basically untenable, as it means any game where I kill 9 out of his 18+ battlesuits will result in maxing that secondary and there are others I can look at besides. So for the first time in tenth edition, I take Fixed secondaries, picking Bring it Down and Cleanse. 

The other issue is that Scott’s Detachment rule clashes with mine: In order to get his +1 AP bonus for the Retaliation Cadre, he has to get within 6″, and that means getting into contagion range, where my Skullsquirm Blight will give him -1 BS, basically negating the value.

The Mission: Priority Targets – Search and Destroy – Hidden Supplies

I opt to keep the Nurglings on the table in deployment – the Piranha and Ghostkeel have scout moves and I want to limit those early by putting the Nurglings 9″ outside of Scott’s deployment zone, funneling them to other parts of the table. I also don’t need to worry about deep striking them to do signals or BEL so they can start on the two objectives I plan to cleanse all game. That said, I will need to protect my backfield – Scott can drop suits in there and cause me problems and I need to hold more objectives on this mission.

I’m going first. 

More bad news for Scott. Yeah, going second has some advantages on this mission, but alpha striking is better and more importantly, getting two turns of shooting before deep strikers arrive matters. Scott scouts forward with his Piranha and Kroot, hoping to block me in the middle for a turn to prevent me from blasting across the table. I immediately push my two 5-model units of Plague Marines out of their Rhino and onto the top two objectives, using them to start Cleansing so I can score 4 for the round. Then I wipe out the Piranha and Kroot, swinging Mortarion to the middle of the table.

On Scott’s turn he works on getting some shooting in, using his Ghostkeel to attempt to take out my other Rhino, but only scores a couple of wounds on it. I’ll scream across the table on the following turn and let out the Plague Marines, who will put a valiant (but bad) effort to punch the Ghostkeel to death. I also take out a unit of Stealth suits.

On Scott’s turn 2 he goes for a haymaker counterpunch, dropping Crisis Suits everywhere. He wipes out my 10-man Plague Marine squad on the lower right and uses 10 flamers to cook my Plague Marines from just over 3″ away, but the Putrifier survives the onslaught and leading into turn 3 that’ll be it. Farsight and company kill the Bloat-Drone and they do a few wounds to Mortarion that won’t amount to much. On my turn the Putrifier will hold still and grenade the suits, with help from another nearby unit of Plague Marines and the Blight-Hauler. In the middle, Mortarion and the PBCs press forward and wipe out Farsight and his unit. Killing eight Crisis suits is already 16 VP, and the Ghostkeel gets picked up for another two.

We’re pretty much at the end of the game when we hit the top of turn 4. I’ve been crushing Scott with dice all game, rolling pretty hot on my shot counts and so Scott has little left to work with, plus having to get into contagion range in order to use his better abilities is killing him. I’m already at 32 on secondaries and we quickly walk through the rest of the game and call it.

Result: 100-46, Victory

This was an interesting game. Scott’s great fun to play and has a fun list, but it’s going to be brutally handicapped in competitive play at Dallas. That said, I don’t know if he’s even playing it at Dallas – it more seems like something he’s “kicking around” rather than playing seriously. Either way, I like my odds into the Farsight Detachment – it’s Mont’ka I’m more concerned about.

Asgard does a thing where when you sign up for the RTT you can also chip in five bucks to get pizza. The pizza place next door, Star Pizza, is really fuckin good pizza, and I say that as someone who lived in New York/New Jersey for a decade. The pizza might be the best part of the Asgard events, honestly. Like you remember how I had a terrible convenience store slice in England a few weeks back? Well this is the exact opposite of that. And because Scott and I finished early, I get one of the first slices, all hot with the cheese stringing away as you pull the slice. Good shit.

Round 2: vs. Erik’s Thousand Sons

There’s no path to a 3-0 at Asgard which wouldn’t have gone through Erik Nelson, my regular sparring partner. On an average day, Erik is a better player than I am – he’s got a better head for tracking secondaries and he’s much better at playing conservatively and baiting his opponents out. Today however, he’s playing Thousand Sons – testing them for Dallas and an upcoming teams event – and he hasn’t played many games with them. They’re a very good army, but also very difficult to play; mistakes can haunt you bad, and losing a unit or two can quickly spiral into disaster.

Erik's List - click to expand

Erik’s list is a copy of Liam VSL’s and built for team play, but it’s shown up in more or less the same format in singles play. The Cultists act as its action doers and while there isn’t a ton of anti-vehicle firepower here, those characters can do some real damage with their psychic weapons. They’re a marine army, so I need extra AP. I opt for Rattlejoint Ague (-1 to saves). Most of the guns are TORRENT anyways.

The Mission: Purge the Foe – Crucible of Battle – Chilling Rain

This matchup is pretty decent for me otherwise – Thousand Sons really don’t like to deal with mortars, but Erik has a mix of transports and standard Sorcerers who make their units untargetable outside 18″. He’s also got a ton of flamers and can use their re-rolls to wipe me off objectives – Plague Marines do well into Rubrics, but they can just blow me off the table like a pile of leaves if I give him the chance. The flip side is that, outside of Magnus, he doesn’t have anything for handling vehicles, outside of the ability to double-Doombolt. If I can handle Magnus early, I’ll be in a good place, even if I lose the marines.

I’m going second.

That’s good on this mission, where Purge the Foe really advantages you knowing how many units you have to kill in order to score kill more. Otherwise I’d rather go first and get a chance to mortar some of Erik’s Cultists and Rubrics off the table. On his first turn, Erik makes a huge mistake – he moves Magnus to the middle of the table, throws out a Doombolt at my Rhino, then shoots it with Magnus’ shooting, pops it open, and goes to move out of line of sight using the Warptime Cabbalistic Ritual. Unfortunately, that ritual has to be used at the start of the Shooting phase, so you can’t Warptime after shooting. I offer to let him take it all back and Warptime away instead of shooting, keeping the Rhino on the table. Erik turns down the offer however, insisting he’ll learn better from the mistake if he’s forced to keep Magnus in the open.

This is basically my chance. I need to overcommit to killing Magnus so I can take the biggest threat to Mortarion and the PBCs off the table. If I can pop open the Rhino as well I’ll be in a good place. I Advance with a unit of Plague Marines and lob two grenades at Magnus, scoring 5 mortal wounds, then I start going to town on him with PBCs and Mortarion, dropping him down to 3 wounds. Magnus then charges in and I’m able to take him off the table in melee, dropping two unsaved wounds on Magnus with only one re-roll available. On the other side of the table I pop the Rhino open but only just, and can’t go to town with my plague marines on it, so only one Rubric inside dies.

Erik’s in a bad place but what follows is a very nasty clapback – Erik completely wipes my Plague Marines off the table and then takes half of Mortarion’s wounds, and also puts the hurt on a PBC. It’s a nasty return volley that leaves me feeling much less in control than I thought and that’s where Erik’s going to shine – I’m in the driver’s seat for this game but Erik’s going to make me work for every fucking point from here on out. I rapid Ingress my Deathshroud on his turn to put them at the top of the table, though he Warptimes the closest unit away.

Erik will learn two other important lessons during this game: The first is that Rubrics only move 5″, and the second is that they’re actually pretty ass in melee. Their re-roll wounds ability doesn’t work in melee, nor do stratagems like Devastating Sorcery. Erik commits to some melee charges early which don’t go as well as he’d hoped, but they aren’t that bad either as the pistol weapons in those Rubric units are extremely nasty. Still, I’ve also learned the hard way how bad Rubrics are when you try and use them to finish something off in melee.

On my turn I go all-in on clearing out the middle of the table. I pick up the Exalted Sorcerer on Disc, most of the cultists, and most of the Rubrics around the middle of the table, though Ahriman does survive on one wound. From here Erik’s resources are quickly dwindling, and while he’s able to doombolt one of my PBCs off the table, the other two can do more than enough from here and I start shelling the rest of his units. I won’t quite table Erik, but it’ll be a foregone conclusion late. Erik will snag a lucky turn 5 Capture Enemy Outpost to make things closer, but I snag 5 for Cleanse on the final round to keep it further away.

Result: 92-78, Victory

That was way closer than I was expecting it to be and it could have easily gone sour had I had some worse secondary draws – Erik pulling Capture Enemy Outpost on the final turn worked to his favor, but I managed to stay ahead all game in part because I was consistently scoring kill more and pulling scorable secondary objectives. That said, I also could have scored Capture Enemy Outpost late, but just never drew it. If Erik had more experience with Thousand Sons this would have likely been a much different game, and more likely to have been a coin toss. As it was, he never quite recovered from losing Magnus turn 1, and while he had a nasty turn 2 killing marines, those were the only “easy” targets in his way. Once melee started, things went south pretty quick. If Erik had taken Magnus back I’d have focused more on moving south, staying out of sight and popping Erik’s Rhino, then killing the occupants, hoping to take two Rubric units off the table before things really started cooking. It’s also worth considering whether I should have taken Assassination in this game – I’d have maxed it out at eight characters, but I’d likely have struggled a bit on the other secondary. Though I think I could have potentially done Behind Enemy Lines there and just bombed in some Nurglings and forced Erik to deal with those.

Now we’re heading into the final round and I’m in a solid position with 100/92 scoring on rounds 1-2. There will likely be two undefeateds at this event, so I need to outscore the table 2 winner in the final game to walk home with first place at this event.

Round 3: vs. Steven Salazar’s Mont’ka Tau

Oof. T’au again. Steven’s a good player – he’s someone who’s come into competitive play relatively recently, but has put in a ton of reps and travel and has improved substantially. Having to play him after Erik and Scott is basically the hardest path to a win I could have pulled at this event, but I’m here for it.

Steven's list - click to expand

Steven’s list runs heavy on Breachers instead of Crisis suits, relying on the Mont’ka ability to make them mobile (ASSAULT) and give them LETHAL HITs. He’s not giving up Bring it Down points like Scott, but he does have three Skyrays, a Hammerhead, and a Ghostkeel to worry about. Those Skyrays are pretty nasty, and can easily down a PBC if I’m not careful. Hm. In retrospect, maybe Bring it Down was the right call. Starting to think I should look at Fixed over Tactical more often. The upside is that Steven is relying on a lot of  modifiers to hit and wound with his units and Mortarion will just let me ignore those whole cloth.

The Mission: Vital Ground – Crucible of Battle – Chilling Rain

Vital Ground isn’t ideal – I won’t have a midtable objective to brawl over – and it makes it a little easier for Steven to adequately split fire along two fronts. I take Skullsquirm Blight here – there are some hulls to chew through but on the whole I feel like -1 BS is still a more useful tool against T’au armies. That said, I might have been better off with the extra modifier to saves here, as 4+ armor saves were a pain in the ass and there weren’t as many invulnerable saves as I’d have liked. I deploy my Nurglings on the table, mostly because I plan to use them for harassing T’au units and stopping scout moves.

I’m going first.

That’s what I want here, as it lets me move up and get some shots off on Steven’s Hammerhead. I draw Bring it Down and Investigate Signals. I can get 2 on signals with my Fleshmower and I can live with 3 on BiD. On the south side of the table I pull up with the Blight-Hauler and pull the Plague Marines out of their Rhino and between the two and mortars manage to drop the Hammerhead down to a single wound. That won’t get me any on Bring it Down but that’s good – if I can get the Hammerhead and two other vehicles next round I’ll score bigtime. On the north side I misjudge the distance to the Ghostkeel and can’t get out and grenade him this turn, so I keep my marines in their Rhino after a gracious takeback offer from Steven.

On Steven’s turn he pulls Extend Battle Lines and Assassination. The Ghostkeel doesn’t pull off much in Steven’s shooting phase but he’s able to use two Skyrays to pop one of my PBCs. His Breachers do a number on my Plague Marines after eating some nasty overwatch, but I’m able to keep a few alive – though not enough to stop the Breachers from taking the south objective and getting him Extend Battle Lines.

Coming into round 2, this is where I need to make it happen. Steven only killing one PBC is going to be a big problem and I’m able to press forward with Mortarion and the other two. I draw Engage on All Fronts, then I deep strike in the Deathshrouds in the lower right, while sending a Rhino back to my home objective. Mortarion and the Fleshmower clear through the Ghostkeel while the PBCs pick up a Skyray and mortar the Hammerhead to death. That scores me 8 on Bring It Down and 5 on Engage and puts Steven in a really bad position as I’m now in his face with most of the army.

The game is mostly over but Steven, like Erik, will fight and scrap for every single point and he makes it a slog. I end up sweating it a little bit – not so much because I might lose; I sit way ahead on primary – but because I need to score points to stay ahead of the table 2 winner in order to win the event. Steven doesn’t score much on primary but does a fantastic job keeping me off 12, and it’s only when his Kroot battleshock on the final turn that I’m able to pull off a primary score of more than 7. He also manages to pull Capture Enemy Outpost on turn 4 after popping a unit of breachers into my Deployment Zone from Reserves, and I’m unable to kill them fast enough to stop them from taking my home objective. He’ll end up pulling a whopping 35 on secondary missions this game, though I’m able to stay ahead and max out.

Result: 87-54, Victory

That was a hell of a game and Steven played it hard all the way to the end. He also didn’t bring his Piranha to the game, and while leaving points in the case worked for him in rounds 1-2, it wasn’t going to fly in our game. I don’t know if it would have made the difference, but he definitely could have used seeker missile help in that first turn. I check in with table two and they’re just finishing round 3 of a very low scoring game. When it’s all said and done I’ve got the top spot, and Best Painted to boot.

Final Result: 1st Place

Wouldn’t you know it, this is my first time ever winning a Warhammer 40k event. I’ve had some solid x-1 results now but this is the first time actually winning, and that’s pretty great. Yeah, it’s not a GT win or anything but it feels like the culmination of a couple of years of play all the same. There were definitely some breaks that went my way here – Erik on a new army, Steven whiffing on some turn 1 Skyray shots – but neither of those games were as easy as the scores would indicate and I think I played them pretty well.

If I learned anything from this event, it’s that I need to be a bit more thoughtful about the Tactical Secondary Missions I could be drawing and keep a better eye on what’s left to score. Erik does a great job of that and it seems to always put him within a lucky draw of turning the game around, and I’d also just as soon not let a bad draw fuck me over as bad. Some of that definitely comes from the fact that they play a lot of teams events, where clawing every point and the margin of victory is a bigger deal, but some of it is just me getting lazy and not thinking enough about my secondary draws. On that note, I could also stand to think a little harder about taking Fixed Objectives from time to time.

Next Week: The GW US Open Arlington

That does it for this week’s update. Come back next Thursday when I’ll be on the other side of the event, recapping my games, the results, and the food I ate. My personal goal is to finish no worse than 6-2, and ideally this will be the time I crack the top 16, but I won’t be upset if I can manage a solid run in the x-1 bracket again. Texas has a pretty tough meta and it’s not going to be an easy event – in part because I expect to run into a lot of Astra Militarum and Orks.

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