I’m back, and Ad Mech is still shit. Last Saturday I attended Rat Trader tournament 29, a one day RTT put on by the Ballarat TO’s here in Victoria. It essentially functions as a practice day leading up to their GT in two weeks, and to earn some money to pay off their expensive tables (as evident by Michael walking around with a big bag of dice trying to sell them the entire day).

I couldn’t get the GSC list I wanted painted by this date and I am refusing to play with unpainted models again for some reason so I took a Host of Ascension detachment instead of the Xenocreed I wanted. As it turned out kids, no one really gave a shit and quite a few people (of the 16) there were playing with non-battle-ready armies, so I could have just played the list I intended to take to the GT to see if it was shithouse. Oh well, as I always say, ‘Live, Laugh, Lorcana’.

My list:

Genestealer cult – Host of Ascension

• Abominant – Our time is nigh
• Biophagus
• Primus – A chink in their armour
• Primus – Assassination edict
• 3x Reductus Saboteur
• 10x Acolytes with autopistols (6x heavy mining tools)
• 2×5 Acolytes with hand flamers
• 2×10 Acolytes with hand flamers (4x demo charges)
• 10x Neophytes
• Goliath Truck
• 5x Aberrants
• 3x Ridgerunners w/ mortars
• Rockgrinder
• 5x Hybrid Metamorphs
• 2×5 Purestrain Genestealers

I hated this list prior to this event, but I was very happy to finally have 2k of a competent army painted again, fuck you Ad Mech. I’ll need to paint another 15-16 models to have the XC list that I want but I have another two weeks to do that, so it should be doable.

This felt like a pretty stock standard allrounder HOA list, HOA was the index detachment so you can pretty much include any unit you want and not feel bad. The detachment rule is a bit bait though, it gives you sustained hits and ignores cover until the end of your next fight phase, which means you really want to rapid ingress all your melee units. The value you get out of this is often not required though and it would have been better to just start them on the board in a transport.

I tooled my list to fuck Aeldari basically, as they have become the top of the meta. So I had 6 sources of indirect shooting which absolutely helped me in all of my matchups. Had I been paired into any of the Astra Militarum players or Knight players at this event I probably wouldn’t have had such a nice day.

Either way, I got paired into Aeldari twice, and then Drukhari so this list felt amazing, and I had all the tools I needed to deal with these armies. Onto the games.

Round 1 – Ben’s Aeldari

(L, 39-48) – Terraform, Stalwarts, Crucible of Battle

Ben’s list (Devoted of Ynnead): 2x Autarch, The Visarch, Ynnari Succubus, Yvraine, 10x Ynnari Kabalite Warriors, 10x Ynnari Wyches, Wave Serpent, Ynnari Venom, 10x Dark Reapers, 2×5 Dark Reapers, 2×5 Fire Dragons, 2×5 Howling Banshees, 2×5 Rangers, 6x Windriders, 10x Ynnari Incubi

It was an 8:20 start to the day with quite a few people coming from outside Ballarat meaning hour+ drives. This led to Ben being 10-15 minutes late which I honestly didn’t mind at all, Ben’s a great guy and I was happy to be paired into him. It did mean we only got to play until the end of the 3rd battle round, and even then we played for 40 minutes into lunch.

Pictured above is just about after BR 1 I think, I’m always shit at taking photos for this blog. The indirect shooting helped a lot but as Ben was playing Ynnari bullshit anytime I killed a unit in shooting it activated his trap card and he got free movement at the end of the shooting phase which wasn’t fabulous. I only made one big mistake in this game which was letting my 5 man Metamorph unit get 1 tapped by a unit of Windriders in overwatch, I could have easily hidden them behind the crate and then charged either them or the dark reapers, easily putting a lot of pressure on that flank.

Regardless, we were well into lunch by the end of BR 3 but I played my turn 4, which I shouldn’t have, and at the end of my turn 4 I asked how long we had until the next round, 25 minutes and I hadn’t eaten yet. So I apologised to Ben, and said we should just end the game at BR 3 which gave Ben the win, and off I went to Hungry Jacks.

This game was a lot of fun, but due to both of our armies being bullshit^2 we ended up slow playing the shit out of each other. Had we started on time, we probably still wouldn’t have finished until after lunch. We’ll have to run it back at Rataclysm in two weeks x.

Round 2 – Stephen’s Aeldari

(W, 100-66) – Purge the Foe, Smoke and Mirrors, Tipping point

Stephen’s list (Aspect Host): Asurmen, Autarch, Lhykhis, 10x Corsair Voidreavers, 10x Guardian Defenders, 2x Wave Serpent, 5x Dark Reapers, 10x Dire Avengers, 5x Dire Avengers, Falcon, 5x Fire Dragons, 5x Howling Banshees, 5x Rangers, 3x Shining Spears, 5x Striking Scorpions, 5x Swooping Hawks, Vyper, War walker, 5x Warp Spiders

Dedicated to the fact my game ended BR 3 in round 1, I was adamant that I would finish this game within the round time limit (3 hours). This was made a lot easier as Stephen was not playing Ynnari bullshit, just standard Aeldari bullshit. Due to the fact that I’m a degenerate and pretty much entirely tech’d my army into Eldar I was pretty confident that I could win this game without much trouble. Stephen was also a bit out of practice so coupled with a few mistakes he made early on, this game was over after BR 1.

Stephen charged me with infiltrating Striking Scorpions and killed one and a half PSG’s, whilst I killed the entire unit apart from the Exarch in return, allowing me an easy kill one in my first turn. He also moved up his Falcon and revealed his dark reapers hoping to kill my Truck, which he failed to do. I don’t think the truck ever dies in that scenario due to the dark reapers being damage 3, but it could have happened.

In response I moved my truck up and disembarked my demo charge acolyte unit, killing the Falcon, , I used indirect to kill the Banshee’s that came out of the Falcon, and also killed the unit of dark reapers behind them with Ridgerunner shooting. So by the end of T1 Stephen had lost a unit of Scorpions, Banshee’s, a Falcon and Dark reapers, rough for the Eldar.

The game more or less continued with this trend, I was able to score secondaries very well due to being GSC, and played very aggressively to keep up on Purge the Foe. Stephen wasn’t able to screen me out very well due to being low on resources so my 6″ Deepstrikes put in a lot of work this game. I think GSC have a very good match up into Eldar, they are the perfect target for our profiles and we have enough flamer shots etc. to make them take just enough armour saves to get kill units very efficiently.

Stephen hadn’t had a lot of practice with the codex but with some more, he will be a force to be reckoned with, thanks for the game!

Round 3 – Shane’s Drukhari

(W, 86-62) – Linchpin, Raise Banners, Search and Destroy

Stephen’s list (Reaper’s Wager): Archon – Webway Walker, Archon – Archraider, 3x Beastmaster, Court of the Archon, Cronos, Incubi, 2×10 Kabalite Warriors, 2×5 Mandrakes, 2×5 Scourges w/ Dark lance, 5x Scourges w/ haywire blaster, 2x Talos, Raider, 2x Venom

I have a serious problem with Warhammer where I am a total turbo-chud loser power gaming rules lawyering turdnugget, but also if I don’t have many reps with an army I can’t exactly math in my head how every interaction is going to go, so I freeze up and act like I’m going to do poorly. Then I steamroll my opponent and go oops, I guess that works.

Shane’s list wanted to use the Beastmaster units to scout 9, move 12″ and put my in jail, but I screened with my infiltrating PSG,s and got the first turn, which allowed me to reverse jail on Shane and basically win the game on the spot.

Pictured above is Shane’s turn 3, I think. I have no intentions of ever taking better photos at Warhammer tournaments.

The profiles in my army were perfect into Shane’s, 6″ deepstrike was brutal with arriving in Shane’s backlines and demolishing his units with hand flamers and demolition charges. I piecemealed his army apart and he didn’t have the firepower to really deal with me going back into reserves if he shot me, whilst not having the melee to deal with all of my threats.

I did enjoy my game with Shane, and I think it would have gone differently had he gone first and been able to effectively utilise all of the Beastmaster units. I hope he gets off the waitlist and into Rataclysm so I can see him again in a few weeks. Thanks for the game Shane!

Also Shane’s army is painted beautifully and he has a lot of awesome conversions. The shitty photos I take really didn’t do it justice.

Genestealer cult good, Ad Mech bad. I am yes to playing GSC quite a bit this year. Once I get more CSM painted I’ll play them again because it’s so much easier to play but I’m looking forward to getting XC on the table to see what they can do at Rataclysm in two weeks. I’ll probably make another post about it then.

Cya then losers.