I’m back, and Ad Mech is still shit, but now I’m playing them again for some reason. Last Saturday I attended Rat Trader tournament 30, a one-day RTT put on by the Ballarat TO’s here in Victoria. It marks the weekend before a big GT in South Australia, Terracon, that I am very much looking forward to.

I’m not sure why I’m playing Ad Mech again. I’m always so dirty on my Warhammer lists these days then end up doing ok, plus I get to use my favourite units. I have bought some Pteraxii and when they’re battle ready in 3 months I’ll throw them in the list too. But for now, this is it.

List:

• Belisarius Cawl
• Cybernetica Datasmith: Transoracular Dyad Wafers
• Sydonian Skatros
• Tech-Priest Dominus: Inloaded Lethality (Unironically good)
• Tech-Priest Manipulus
• Technoarcheologist
• 2×10 Skitarii Rangers
• 2x Skorpius Dunerider
• 10x Corpuscarii Electro-Priests
• 10x Fulgurite Electro-Priests
• 4x Kastelan Robots
• 5x Sicarian Infiltrators
• 5x Sicarian Ruststalkers
• 2x Skorpius Disintegrators
• Callidus Assassin

I usually put the Ruststalkers in strategic reserves because even though they have to come in from the board edge they can potentially move 18″ and charge with +2″ to charge. I don’t exactly want to be wasting CP on rapid ingress, but it keeps my opponent honest enough. The Callidus also does this, I guess she is ok for the -1CP aura, but that’s not why she is in this list. The rest of my list is basically ‘what if’. It’s mostly about the implication, my units ‘could’ kill yours, but they probably won’t. Respect my authority and don’t read my datasheets, respectfully.

Round 1 – Jake’s Blood Angels

I used to have the score here, but Aidan complained about it, so if you want to see it scroll to the bottom of the text – Linchpin, Raise Banners, Search and Destroy

Jake’s list (Liberator Assault Group): Captain with Jump Pack: Rage-fuelled Warrior, Chief Librarian Mephiston, Commander Dante, Lemartes, Lieutenant with Combi-weapon, The Sanguinor, 5x JPI’s, Ballistus Dreadnought, 10x Death Company, 5x Infiltrators, 3x Outriders, 1×6 & 1×3 Sanguinary Guard, 5x Scouts, Vindicator.

Look! I actually took some photos of these games, what a time to be alive. Let’s see if I continue this throughout the day.

My round 1 was into Jake, a lovely guy with a beautifully painted army that had been playing locally with his friend but was looking to attend more events. He was from Ballarat and hadn’t played in a few weeks so was a bit rusty. I helped him with a few rules as I had played Liberator Assault Group a few times.

Jake deployed very conservatively behind the L-ruin and he placed his Vindicator, 3 Sanguinary Guard with a Captain and the Sanguinor in strategic reserves, because of this I basically deployed on the line (outside of his charge range with a max advance), with the Infiltrators inside the ruin in the middle and scouted my Skitarii Rangers forward, Jake got the first turn.

In his first turn, Jake moved forwards conservatively behind the ruin in the middle with Mephiston, some scouts, a unit of JPI’s, and pushed his bikes up on the far side.

I moved out very aggressively, putting double buffs on my robots to advance and charge, moving my Disintegrators forward to shoot and destroy the unit of bikers, I staged my transport with the Corpuscarii behind the ruin in the middle and advanced the Fulgurite transport forward to hold the objective. The rangers on the far side moved out to hold that far objective and infiltrators poked out to contest the middle objective, forcing Jake to move out to contest it.

Ultimately through applying a lot of pressure from my Kastelans, Electro-Priests and Disintegrators combined with Jake placing a few units in Deepstrike I played very aggressively attempting to hold Jake back and score as much as I could. I was able to control the engagements and capitalise my secondary scoring.

I had a great time playing Jake, and look forward to seeing him at future RTTs.

Round 2 – Mark’s Votann

Terraform, Stalwarts, Crucible of Battle

Mark’s List (Oathband): Einhyr Champion: Appraising Glare, 2×10 Hearthkyn Warriors, 4x Sagitaur, 6x Brôkhyr Thunderkyn, 2×5 & 1×10 Cthonian Beserks, 5x Einhyr Hearthguard, 2×6 Hernkyn Pioneers, 3x Hernkyn Pioneers, 10x Hernkyn Yaegirs.

Game 2, Mark’s Votann. But the real question is, did I take any photos? or did I immediately forget to keep doing this after round 1 like I normally do.

OF COURSE I DID, I’M A PROFESSIONAL BLOGGER.

Mark had lots of bikes, and some other Votann stuff. No Land Fortresses though so, pretty lame.

I was going first on Terraform, SICK. I love going first, and on Terraform it’s extra spicy because you can pretty much win straight up if you get a good turn 1.

I got an extra medium turn 1.

I yeeted my Corpuscarii into Mark’s flank on the bottom of the board. It’s actually disgusting having your transport move 14″, get out 3″ and charge. This held Mark up from moving to the bottom objective which I then controlled and Terraformed with Rangers who scouted forwards and moved onto it.

I think I made a mistake not advancing my robots as far forward and they could possibly go on the bottom of the board. This wasn’t because I necessarily needed to defend my home objective, but because that’s where the Thunderkyn were which are really the only units that could threaten the robots. Mark had no shooting to threaten the robots with either, which would mean that I would have moved them up earlier. This is fine as neither of us could contest the middle effectively, and I had Fulgurites at the top of the board to contest Mark’s primary there.

The Thunderkyn ended up killing the robots this game, else I it would have been a rough game for Mark (it took the shooting from an entire Thunderkyn unit, with two grudge tokens and sustained hits 2, to kill 3 of them. The Hearthguard finished them off.

We both scored secondaries incredibly well (not really), because we got to the bottom of BR 3, in 3 hours. I had this game locked down after turn 2, but completely whiffed in turn 3, purely because of poor decision making, this let Mark crawl back 8 primary points I wasn’t anticipating.

I NEVER talk games out – normally because I never go to time – dice down, is dice down, winning or losing, because honestly, who really cares. Mark did. He wanted to win, so I flipped a few secondaries, and we scored up, and I said it’s your game, have it. Had he not secured those 8 points in turn 3. I don’t think he would have been mathematically able to win.

Regardless, the three battle rounds I played against Mark were great, but if you want to finish your games of Warhammer, use a clock, or deal with the result. The onus is on YOU, if you want to win.

NB. He did put grudge tokens on my units within transports which is illegal, this led to him getting the extra CP on turn 2, in which he spent 4CP which would have impacted the game immensely.

Game Highlight: I shot my Disintegrator at something with the Ferrumite cannon and rolled 3 1’s, luckily I was within 6″ of Cawl, so I re-rolled my hits, into 3 1’s. Very cool.

Round 3 – Nick’s Imperial Knights

Take and Hold, Raise Banners, Tipping Point

Nick’s List (Noble Lance): 2x Cerastus Knight Atrapos, 3x Knight Gallant. What? Were you expecting anything else?

T H R E E G A M E S, T H R E E G A M E S W O R T H O F P H O T O S!

New blog, who dis?

My last game was against my GREAT FRIEND Nick. Who was packing HEAT, he also brought a list with 2 Atrapos and 3 Gallant’s, very cool.

I’d played my exact list into Nick a few days prior, except he was running two Valiants, a Gallant, Canis and a navigator.

Inside Nick, there are two wolves, one wolf is 13 armigers, the other wolf is 5 big guys.

Nick was going first.

He called me out for being too chicken to take fixed secondaries. Little did Nick know, I am incredibly insecure, so I took fixed secondaries. This turned out to be pretty good into Nicks army, because whenever you killed one of his Knights you gained 10 secondary points, nice.

Nothing strategical happened in this game. I put my trash in front of him so he couldn’t move towards me as fast, and then I attacked him with my attacks. My attacks were effective enough to kill his knights; my trash stopped him moving.

This is what I imagine Nicks dreams look like. Three big boys grinding up against each other trying to fit through a gap between two ruins to slap the shit out of their enemies with the unrepenting fury of thunderstrike gauntlets. Cawl only took 32 damage, he’s dead for the next two games.

Overall, pretty good day. I had lunch with the people’s champ and almost hit a Kangaroo on the way home. Would attend another RTT again.

Cya nerds.