Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing blog of competitive and hobby progress for 2025. Last Time Around I got in one final test game with my Creations of Bile, prepping for the 2025 Clutch City GT. This time I’m going to be talking about Clutch, but there’s a lot to cover, so I’ll be splitting the report up into two separate posts – one today and one tomorrow, each covering three of the six games I played.

This time we’ll start with Hobby Progress, because it makes more sense chronologically for the weekend.

Hobby Progress

I talked about this last time, but one of the more frustrating elements of my army is that I’m running Night Lords but not all of the models are painted that way. This works fine for the Plague Marines (who are Death Guard green), but less so for the Obliterators, who are painted as Black Legion still. I’m working on some Night Lords Obliterators, but that’s slow going and I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be running them. Heading into Clutch I also needed to get together five Night Lords Chosen to walk around with Bile, and that’s what I ended up choosing to focus on – both because they have more utility in future lists, and because they’re much less of a pain to paint than Obliterators.

Of course, the big problem was that I didn’t have five assembled Chosen for my Night Lords – I had a bunch of Chosen models I’d put Lightning claws on back in 9th edition and most of those needed new arms. And even if I had four more Chosen to paint, painting them in two days was well beyond even my solid speed painting capabilities. The good news is that when I went back and looked at my older Night Lords, I saw that I had two Dark Vengeance Chosen in the collection, and those would work just fine as additional models. They’re a tiny bit shorter but they have all the required bulk and most importantly, they only need a little touching up to work. I put base extender rings on them to give them 32mm bases, touch them up and finish them. Then I just have two Chosen left to paint, and I make those work. I realize partway through that I have two identical sets of legs in the mix, so I shave off that Chosen’s tabard and paint it like flayed skin.

They turned out pretty well and they get the point across visually, though I’d have liked to use more winged helmets – some of those guys were already assembled and I couldn’t easily break off the horned helmets.

So that’s about all I’ll get for the army before Clutch. Is it good enough for best painted? Hard to say. It’s not as good as my Grand Narrative army – the Cultists, Obliterators, and Plague Marines are a bit of a mismatch, and while the Plague Marines work, the rest are a bit more conspicuous. I think it’s a strong contender, but for an event with 150 people, there’s always a chance I lose to someone who just has a better army. I can probably up my score if I don’t put out the full army – i.e., only put out the Night Lords models – but that’s coward shit and I refuse to do it.

Friday

With my last-minute hobby progress out of the way, my day was mostly done. This weekend as a bit of a team-up situation, as I was hosting Thomas “Goatboy” Reidy and Shane Watts at my house for the weekend and they’d be attending too. Shane regularly runs our Goonhammer Open events in Maryland and was on the Goonhammer team at the GW US Open in Kansas City back in 2023 along with me and Goatboy. He’s running Deathwatch at this event.

Shane and I get in a quick practice game on Friday afternoon, and I get a chance to test my Creations list into his 6-unit Deathwatch (he’s running six max-size units which can be an absolute nightmare to kill). He narrowly wins in the final round.

We end up grabbing Tex-Mex from Pappasito’s for dinner, and Goatboy arrives just before we return with the food. We gorge ourselves on some good-as-hell fajitas and spend the evening talking about our armies, the game, and our expectations for the weekend. It’s a good time and we call it a little early since we’ll need to be up at 7am to get to the event.

My List

As a quick refresher, here’s the list I took to the event – it’s the same list I’ve been playing for the past few weeks. I’m a firm believer in “having reps with a list you know is better than going in fresh with a better list you have no games with.”

My list - click to expand

All the problems are still there, and I’m becoming increasingly convinced that either the Warp Talons or the Obliterators have to go, but I do know that I’m not going to paint 30 Possessed.

Saturday

The Clutch City GT takes place at a Knights of Columbus hall about half an hour from my house, making it incredibly convenient from a location standpoint. The hall itself is a bit warm but has plenty of space and solid tables, and outside of some parking issues (the field we were directed to park in had more than a few piles of horse shit), was a great space for an event and likely dirt cheap to rent. So I generally have no complaints about the venue. The terrain was another matter – it was very much a mixed bag, with some tables having very solid WTC style layouts and others trying their best to (poorly) approximate GW layouts. That said, even the bad layouts were still dense enough to be serviceable, and a definite step up from the Warzone layouts. Which is to say I wasn’t particularly upset by having to play on any of them with a primarily melee army.

Game 1: vs. James Bull’s Ultramarines

James is a regular at my local GW store and relatively new to competitive play. He was on Ultramarines back at Warzone, starting his journey, where he ended up taking home the wooden spoon finishing 1-5. He’s improved a ton since then and his army has gotten much better, and although I’ve talked to him many times we’ve never played. That all changed in round 1 on Saturday, as we were paired in the first round.

James' List - Click to Expand

James is on Ultramarines, running Gladius Task Force with Guilliman and Calgar. It’s a solid army, running many of the faction’s best units. The big threats here to me are the pair of Ballistus dreadnoughts and Gladiator Lancers, which can take out my two tanks, and the big melee blocks, which could be an issue if I don’t whittle them down first. Guilliman is also a right bastard to deal with if he gets out and plays aggressively.

The Mission: Linchpin / Tipping Point / Fog of War

I’m going first. That works great for me, as my goal is to get into position and put early pressure on James. I end up re-rolling my traits and land on +1 Strength and +1 Ballistic Skill this game, neither of which is much help.

I don’t need to hold every objective in Linchpin – especially that wide-open bottom one – but my plan is to hold two in No Man’s Land each round and force James to scrap over those. I stay relatively hidden on the first turn and James comes to meet me mid-table with Calgar’s Bladeguard brick. He hangs back with his tanks and Dreadnoughts in hopes of keeping them alive, and as a result never quite has enough going on at the middle of the table to throw me off.

I think James’ biggest mistake this game was leaving Guilliman back in his deployment zone a turn or two too long – by not bringing him out to apply pressure I was able to pick off his threats one at a time, whittling down Calgar’s unit before dumping a Nemesis Claw and Plague Marines into them. The Lancers are dangerous, but not so much so that I need to commit to killing them at any given point – I can turn my vindicator and predator to Calgar’s unit and Guilliman. James’ low point happens when Guilliman stands back up, then moves to the middle of the table, only to be killed in Overwatch by my Vindicator pushing through a single six-damage shot. Brutal results from the casino cannon.

This will end up being the easiest game I play all weekend, though not necessarily because James is a weak player – while he’s not as good as my other opponents, he’s also playing a list that just doesn’t match up well into mine. I can easily apply heavy pressure to his army with little fear of retaliation as long as I can avoid and handle Guilliman and Calgar’s unit. I kill the Scouts as early as I can, wrapping them up on turn 1 in order to ensure they won’t be popping up in my backfield at any point. Then I commit to screening back there most of the game to stop Assault Marines from taking my home objective, which is otehrwise the biggest threat James can offer. Assault Intercessors aren’t terribly frightening when they have to fight T5 Plague Marines or Chosen, but I need to stop them from going into Cultists. Screening them means that once they come down and the scouts are dead, James can’t pop up behind me any longer.

Result: 85-44

Like I said, James is early in his competitive journey but rapidly improving. He and the rest of the local store crew have shown up wearing custom jerseys that say “D-Tier,” decked out in pink leopard print patterns. They’re hilarious, and it’s a fun theme for the bunch. There are eight of them there playing on the team, and none of them will go winless over the weekend, which is a great. James will end up doing the second best out of all of them with a 3-3 record. Greg Chicosky, who I played last week, will finish 3-3 and Max, who I played two weeks ago, will also finish 3-3 and win the “middle of the road” award.

We grab a quick lunch – I brought sandwich stuff from home – and eat outside on some picnic benches under a covered pavilion. Goatboy and Shane are also 1-0 after the first round, and we’re looking onward to round two. The venue has food they’re making on-site and it’s pretty reasonably costed, so I’ll grab that on Sunday instead of bringing food from home.

While we’re eating, tickets go on sale for the GW events. I end up buying tickets to Tacoma, Dallas, and the Grand Narrative. If you haven’t bought yours already, you can snag them here. My goal this year is still to make it to the WCW overall, but I’m going to plan for the Grand Narrative nonetheless.

Round 2: vs. TJ Bruce’s Chaos Daemons

TJ is a man I’ve seen repeatedly at Texas events but never spoken to. He’s one of the Texas guys you typically see walking around in very short shorts sporting a headband and drinking beers before noon, which sounds like an indictment, but I assure you he was a very fun opponent to play against. We played a very close, tense game but one that was never unpleasant. Well, except for the Legion of Excess Detachment rules, but that’s hardly TJ’s fault.

TJ's List - Click to Expand

This matchup is a nightmare for me. All of TJ’s army is set up to move faster and hit harder than mine, and I need to get first turn and a bit of luck to have a fighting chance here. I haven’t played against Legion of Excess yet but I’m familiar with the core mechanic and the passing off wounds trick, and I know the Fiends are going to be the biggest threats to deal with. The problem is that if i don’t get +1 WS they become nearly impossible to kill with Plague Marines, as hitting on a 5+ just becomes untenable.

The Mission: Scorched Earth / Tipping Point / Swift Action

The mission here does me no favors – I’m unlikely to be doing a lot of advancing into actions against TJ’s army – and Scorched Earth will make it hard to keep up on Primary if I don’t expand quickly. I’m Going Second and if that wasn’t bad enough, I roll +1 Toughness and +1 Ballistic Skill for my traits, then re-roll into the exact same result. Neither of those is what I need here. At best the +1 Toughness helps me get to 3+ to wound against keepers but they’re re-rolling all wound rolls anyways. Not great! What I really need in this matchup is +1 WS/+1 Attack and I honestly should have just picked one of those at the start.

Going second is a problem. It means TJ can easily stage for a turn 2 go turn without risking his models, keeping them just out of range while I have to come forward to be on some objectives, then he can plow 14″ across the table and kill me. I draw Area Denial and Marked for Death, and I decide the play is to use Rhinos and Nurglings to at least do some basic scoring and hold him up at mid-table. That works okay – TJ can walk through walls with one Keeper per round – but he’s still in my business on his turn 2 and I now need to kill two Keepers of Secrets and 6 Fiends in the same turn or I’m more or less cooked.

Spoiler: That doesn’t really happen and I spend the rest of the game struggling. The -1 to hit on the Fiends keeps them alive an absurdly long time, plus TJ is just spiking the shit out of his 4+ saves. I kill one Keeper but the fiends and the other stay more or less unharmed, meaning that when the rest of the Fiends and Chariots crash into my lines, I’m struggling to handle them. I can punch pretty hard, but not hard enough to fight my way out of pink jail.

My plan for most of the game is to pull back and score secondary objectives while conceding primary for as long as possible, hoping I can make it up with a big final turn. This doesn’t work as well as I’d like – I only score 15 before turn 5 – though I outscore TJ 21-14 on Secondary as he has to devote all his efforts to killing. That’s pretty unlucky, in part because I end up drawing a completely dead turn 4 (Locus + Assassination when only the Blue Scribes were left on the table to kill and decidedly unreachable). TJ also manages to burn the bottom objective with said Scribes and there’s little I can do to stop him.

Result: 61-69, Loss

It sucks to lose in round 2 as now I’m playing for Best Overall at best instead of having a shot at the top tables, but there’s no shame in losing to TJ. It was a hard-fought game that really did come down to the final turns and he’s a great player. This was also just a nightmare matchup for me and if I’d rolled better Bile traits I think I’d have won.

Meanwhile, Shane got matched into Goatboy round 2 and ended up getting diced so hard he’s still having flashbacks about it five days later. Which means that of our trio, only Goatboy is still undefeated going into the third round.

Round 3: vs. Gabriel Billings

I will admit, I did not take Gabriel – who was a great opponent and a blast to play – nearly as seriously as I should have coming into the game. And that’s less to do with him and more to do with the fact that I completely underestimated the Angelic Inheritors Detachment, not realizing just how nasty its ability to get re-rolls would be.

Gabriel's List - Click to Expand

Gabriel’s list has a ton of nasty units in it, and while the count is small, they’re all way more annoying than you’d think. They all re-roll 1s to hit and wound and will frequently be hitting and wounding on 2+ or 3+, and they all re-roll Advance and Charge rolls, so they’re almost guaranteed to make their charges. They also have a surprising amount of feel no pains, which will become a problem all its own later.

The Mission: Purge the Foe / Crucible of Battle / Rapid Escalation

Rapid Escalation is theoretically good for me but doesn’t do much against Gabriel, where I have to worry about getting screened out. My plan is to kill his uppy/downy potential early and then try and take out the Vindicator so I can control the board. I roll +1 Toughness and +1 Weapon Skill this time around, which is a little better but still not what I really want. The good news is that I’m going second and on Purge that’s huge. I thought I matched up well into Gabriel’s units with mine, and that’s because I was a big idiot who didn’t realize he was going to be largely outclassed in fights with Death Company and Sanguinary Guard.

This one ended up being an absolute nail-biter. Gabriel charged into me with Sanguinary Guard early on and I learned pretty quickly that the combo of a 2+ save and 3 wounds plus -1 to be wounded made those guys an absolute nightmare for my power fists, and having Lance on their S6 spears meant I wasn’t getting anything out of having T5 anyways. I managed to take one unit out pretty quickly while I kept feeding single units to Gabriel on the south objective, thinking that would tie him up and slow him down. In retrospect this was a mistake – I should have forced him to come to me where I could gang up on him instead of giving him the free points for Rhino kills.

I managed to hold the middle and top objectives in No Man’s land for most of the game and eventually took the fight to Gabriel’s deployment zone where he managed to turn the whole game around by essentially just hitting so many 5+ feel no pain saves with his combi-lieutenant that I ended up overextended and under-supported. That put me in a bad spot while his Death Company dropped in and just completely plowed through everything I had on the south side of the table. If Gabriel had started those on the table and thrown them at me early in a big aggressive push he might have just rolled me. Hard to say.

I managed to stay ahead of Gabriel on Primary thanks to a pair of 12-point turns in rounds 2 and 3, but he consistently drew better secondaries (Turn 1 Containment is a godsend) and at great times – pulling Assassination in the final round meant he could trivially finish off bile a second time for 5 free VP. His smaller unit count also made it harder to score points for kill more late in the game, and having MSUs definitely worked against me in that regard.

I’d end up drawing a completely dead Overwhelming Force on the final turn and having to discard it, drawing Defend Stronghold instead. That ended up being just enough – I was down 18 coming into the final round and I needed to score 12 on primary and at least 7 on secondaries to win. Defend and Extend Battle lines were both free, but I’d have to kill two units to tie Gabriel for kill count in order to keep him off four for Kill more and win. I ended up just barely taking out the rest of his Death Company and Astorath in shooting (I probably could have finished him off in melee if I’d really had to, but I’m glad I didn’t have to roll it out), leading to a narrow victory.

Result: 86-84, Win

Gabriel was another great opponent, capping off a full day of great people to play against. He played a brutally tough game, and I was sweating bullets at the end there. Some of that was misplays on my end – just wildly underestimating the death company and sanguinary guard and being too aggressive, and some of that was him getting some insane dice to hold on to a couple of units midgame, and he was smart to capitalize on that by pressing forward aggressively and stepping off his objectives on turn 5 to deny me Overwhelming Force.

Shane and I end up 2-1 for the day while Goatboy is 3-0. We end up meeting up for dinner at Brick house Tavern over in Humble with all the D-Tier crew. It’s a good time – Brick House makes solid burgs – and we’re there a few hours before we head back to the house. It helps that it’s on the way back and only ten minutes home from there. We have time to shoot the shit a bit more before crashing for the night.

Tomorrow: The Final Rounds and the Final Results

That wraps up day 1 but check back in tomorrow for part two of my recap, when I’ll talk about the second set of games, my final results, and my thoughts on Creations of Bile moving forward, plus what’s next for my army and hobby progress.

See you then.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.