Litanies of the Faithful

The next GT I’m attending is this weekend, a 3-day event in Melbourne, Australia hosted by the Risky Rollers, an Australian tabletop group. They host many events throughout the year for a multitude of gaming systems, but this will be the first time I have attended one of their events specifically.

I’ve adjusted my list from the Bendigo Open, I’m still running Rad-Zone as I don’t yet have the units painted to play SHC or Cohort Cybernetica, but I’ve dropped some of the trash.

I’ve removed the Archaeopter, Fulgurites, Vindicare, and Cawl (not trash), and added in 5 infiltrators, a Technoarcheologist, and Canis Rex. Here is the list:

• Syndonian Skatros: Radial Suffusion
• Tech-Priest Manipulus
• Tech-Priest Manipulus Enhancement: Peerless Eradicator
• Technoarcheologist
• 2×10 Skitarii Rangers
• 2x Skorpius Dunerider
• 10x Corpuscarii Electro-Priests
• 3x Ironstrider Ballistarii – Lascannons
• 6x Kataphron Breachers
• 5x Sicarian Infiltrators
• 5x Sicarian Ruststalkers
• Canis Rex
• Eversor Assassin

I’m not overly happy with it, but I figured bringing Canis would help me get through 8 games without wanting to die by moving another 30 Ad Mech units, he’s also very fun to bring.

Although list submission has passed, an immediate change I would make is removing the Skatros, putting radial suffusion on the technoarcheologist and adding 3 Serberys raiders for an additional unit that scouts and does actions. However, I am looking forward to using the Skatros/Infiltrator package to attempt to battle shock opponents in the shooting phase. I think I will be able to pull off some nice battle shock scoring plays during the RRO tournament as most people aren’t versed into playing against Rad Zone.

I still have a lot of painting, building, and buying to do before I have enough units to field what I would consider to be a strong Ad Mech list, but I’m slowly getting there. I’ll have a lot of free time in the school holidays over summer so I should be able to get most of my tournament prep for next year done in that time.

Although I don’t think I needed it, I decided to get a practice game in with this list before RRO on the weekend. I ended up playing Brushy, a Bendigo local who is a seasoned tournament player and someone who I’ve played many times before in 40k and Age of Sigmar. I was hoping he would bring his CSM, or 1k sons, as I haven’t had a lot of practice against those armies, and I wanted to see how effective Infiltrators/Skatros would be against a leadership 6+ army.

However, he brought Daemons, which effectively made my detachment rule a bit poo, as daemons get +1 leadership in their shadow, and heal when they pass leadership, awesome! It was still good to get my army down on the table once and practice deployment.

The RRO will be using WTC terrain which will be newish to me, I’ve played on it at a GT only once before, but I think it suits Canis Rex pretty well and it gives Breachers a place to hide while they stage. As far as Warhammer 40k goes, I think WTC terrain is a piss-take, but as usual, that’s a conversation for another time.

The game

We didn’t practice one of the missions from the tournament, rather I drew cards from the Pariah Nexus deck and ended up with Hammer and Anvil, Fog of War, and Scorched Earth. We used a terrain layout roughly similar to GW layout 1 and started deploying (All terrain used was played as ruins).

Brushy’s list:

Great Unclean One: The endless gift, Be’lakor, Keeper of Secrets, Blood Thirster, 2×10 Bloodletters, Bloodmaster, 6x Bloodcrushers, Skullmaster, 10x Plaguebearers, 3x Nurglings.

Daemons don’t have a lot of shooting, so I only really had to worry about a turn one charge from the Keeper of Secrets, as Brushy deployed her pretty far behind the deployment line, I was relatively safe.

I deployed my Ironstriders on one flank with line of sight across the mid board next to Canis, where he was able to provide them protection. A Dunerider filled with Corpuscarii was next to Canis which would move forward near the objective and screen any turn 1/2 uppy downey deepstrikes from hitting Canis or the Ironstriders too early.

The Breachers were in the middle behind the big L ruin protecting them from most of the Daemons, and I scouted an Eversor in front of them for extra protection and staging. The Rangers led by the technoarchaeologist were deployed across my home point, spread out so the techno was within 12ish” of the top corner to protect that edge of the board from deepstrikes, the Skatros was in the other corner behind the Ironstriders protecting that corner. Infiltrators deployed near the topside objective, with a Dunerider filled with Skitarii and Ruststalkers behind. The Dunerider would scout forwards for extra movement. I kept nothing in reserves and probably won’t for the majority of my games, with the exception of the Ruststalkers, potentially, I think the Eversor is best suited to start on the board due to turn one shenanigans.

Brushy kept the Bloodthirster, 2×10 Bloodletters, Bloodcrushers, Skullmaster and Bloodmaster in deepstrike. He deployed his thicc boi, keeper, and Be’lakor in close range to benefit from Be’lakors anti-shooting aura, Plaguebearers on his home point for sticky objective and Nurglings behind the L ruin in the centre to benefit from moving them forward and giving me -1 to hit in melee on a pivotal turn.

I didn’t mind going first or second here, going first let me push out slightly and put my screens up, forcing Brushy to send something out into the danger zone to deal with me scoring 10 on primary each turn. Going second meant I had better end of game scoring and would force me to play more reactively and safely to whatever shenanigans the Daemons were getting up to.

I was going second.

Rad Bombardment did nothing, awesome.

Brushy Drew Sabotage and Establish Locus, neither really achievable now that Nurglings can’t do actions, and the middle was slightly too far away for the GUO or Keeper to reach. He settled for advancing the GUO near the middle, staging the Keeper behind the L in the centre and keeping Be’lakor close enough to benefit from no shooting outside 18″.

My first turn draw was a little bit better, containment and marked for death. Marked would go in the bin for a CP but with the Infiltrators, and movement from the Dunerider on the bottom side of the map I was able to contain with both units, scoring an early 6 for secondary. Otherwise, I shuffled a few units around, moved the Dunerider on top of the board up and got the rangers out to benefit from the -1 to hit in the protector doctrine, hoping to give the Infiltrators and Dunerider a bit more durability. The bottom picture is how the board looked after the first battle round.

I was quite concerned for the oncoming Daemon incursion, but I think I was adequately prepared for it. So long as my Breachers and Canis were relatively safe I was happy. I had moved the Eversor and Dunerider so that even if he deepstriked between the two he would be 12″ away from Canis, the Ironstriders and Breachers. It may look like there is a big pocket in the bottom corner of the board, but the Technoarcheologist is screening that entire area out which is fantastic. It’s the first time I’ve run the model, and it controls so much space.

Brushy started his turn 2 and drew Area Denial and Secure No Man’s land, two very easy secondaries for him to score. The GUO would score Area Denial and take one No Man’s Land objective while Daemons would deepstrike on the flank with the Dunerider and Infiltrators to take the other one. The Keeper walked around the corner to line up a charge on the Dunerider filled with Electro-Priests and the Nurglings walked onto the same flank objective. Be’lakor staged behind the L ruins where the Keeper was, and with that all the Daemons were on the board. In came the Bloodthirster, Bloodletters with a Bloodmaster, and Bloodcrushers with Skullmaster, one on Flank, and more Bloodletters in the middle behind the GUO.

The shooting phase was uneventful, but all the charges were made, with the exception of the Bloodthirster that sat still, and the Bloodletters in the middle. The GUO also failed a charge into the Dunerider. The Bloodletters went into the Infiltrators, Bloodcrushers into the Dunerider, and Keeper into the other Dunerider filled with Electro-Priests. When the dust was settled, the Infiltrators and Dunerider were dead, while the Electro-Priest Dunerider lived on 5 wounds. The Keeper really wiffs against T8+ targets, it’s sad to see.

In my turn I used my Rad Bombardment to heal a few Daemons and drew Secure No Man’s Land and Recover Assets for my secondaries. These were more or less impossible due to the positioning of the Daemons, I had killing to do anyway. I disembarked the Corpuscarii and kept the Dunerider in combat as the Keeper is -1 to hit anyway, so leaving it in combat to shoot lets the Corpuscarii get re-roll wounds after they disembark. I moved Canis and the Breachers to get line of sight onto the GUO, fell back with the Skitarii rangers and moved the Ruststalkers up into a better position where they could charge a few different units. The Ironstriders also moved up to get a line straight down the middle of the board. I unleashed with the Corupuscarii and Dunerider onto the Keeper and brought it down to about 3 wounds which was ridiculous. The combination of lethals, sustained 2 and re-rolls to wound puts more wounds than you would expect and as Daemons save on a 4+ half of them are just going straight through. The Breachers and Canis shot the GUO and brought it down to 2 wounds, the Ruststalkers charged in and failed to finish the GUO while the Corpuscarii finished the Keeper off in the fight phase. The Eversor failed his charge, boo. I failed to secure, but as I write this, I realize I still should have scored 2 points as I held one of the flank objectives, oops.

Brushy’s turn 3 draw was Recover Assets and Cleanse. With only really having the Bloodletters free to do actions this was a bit rough. He could have played more conservatively to squeeze out more points, but that isn’t how Brushy rocks or rolls. Be’Lakor stayed in hiding, while the Bloodcrushers charged the Rusties in the middle, the Bloodthirster went after the Skitarii and killed all but 1 which died to battle shock in the next turn.

In my turn I drew Establish Locus and Behind Enemy Lines, two more objectives which I wasn’t scoring. I’d all but given up on scoring at this point and was in the KILL ZONE. I moved the Corpuscarii up to charge Be’lakor and tie him up for a turn, moved Canis and the Breachers to shoot Bloodcrushers in the middle and the Ironstriders moved further up to hold the point and shoot at the GUO. When the dust settled, only the Skullmaster was left alive on 1 wound, Be’Lakor was also alive on like 11 wounds but tied up with Corpuscarii. I attempted to charge the Breachers into the Skullmaster to take off the final wound, but he made all his saves and then killed a Breacher in return. At this point in the game, it was pretty much over.

Brushy had 10 Bloodletters, a Bloodthirster, 10 Plaguebearers and a weakened Be’Lakor that was stuck in combat with some Corpuscarii. I still had a full strength Breacher unit, Canis Rex, Ironstriders, some rangers, a Dunerider and a Skatros. I was very far behind on Secondaries, but I was going to score 10 on each of my turns for primary going forward and be able to burn an objective at the end of the game for an extra 5 points. While Brushy was also going to get 10 each turn, I had to hope his secondaries weren’t fantastic so he wouldn’t run away with the game, even though I was ahead on board.

I ended up drawing excellent secondaries in the 4th and 5th battle round, scoring 21 on secondaries across my two turns while Brushy only scored 5. Had he moved the GUO onto the centre objective in the first turn and scored a bit better on secondaries it would have been his game, I drew poorly and ignored secondaries to maintain a safe board state.

I scored the W in the end, and it was an overall enjoyable game with a good friend.

I think this list will be ‘ok’ at RRO, it’s not the favourite Ad Mech list I’ve played, but I think its passable. Ironically, it’s probably the strongest Ad Mech list I’ve played as I’m actually using Infiltrators and a Technoarcheologist. I’m a long-time Sisters player and struggle to play with units worth more than 200ish points, I find them to be very fragile and difficult to not just get annihilated as soon as they’re exposed, especially the Breachers that are most effective at 15″ range.

Canis suffers from that a little bit too, but as Knights can walk through walls in Pariah Nexus it’s easier to hide him and use him well. If Knights couldn’t walk through walls, I wouldn’t bring them.

I’m looking forward to RRO, I learnt a lot about Ad Mech at the Bendigo Open and am keen to get practice in and learn some lessons with Infiltrators and the Techno. I’m excited to theory craft some Ad Mech lists for the tournament season next year and get my Skorpius Disintegrators on the table.

I’ll be back with another write up after the tournament. I can’t wait to act like a salty bitch when someone forces me to use a clock

– Ryan