Hello,

Long time no complain on the internet about people I’ve barely met and only had a short interaction with.

I’m back and attending another Warhammer 40k teams’ event. I love teams Warhammer.

After deciding to only play the Genestealer Cults for this year’s competitive 40k season I have promptly dropped the army entirely and I am playing Ad Mech again.

Waddaya gonna do? Robots are cool.

Court of the Filipino

The team

Bendigo – where I may or may not live – doesn’t really have a thriving teams scene. As such when I first began dabbling in teams last year my allegiances were in question. That is when I was approached by the President of the Philippines, Laurence Gutierrez, and was asked to join his friend Alex’s team, the Gutierrez Boyz. Now was my chance to succeed in the world of Teams Warhammer 40k.

Since joining, the Gutierrez Boyz have grown into a collective of 10 beautiful young men ready to spread the good word, but only 5 of us could make time for Squad Games so we fielded a single team. Squad games is a 5-person teams event put on by the local Melbourne group the Risky Rollers – Victoria’s home of competitive tabletop gaming.

Last year Squad Games was a 1 day RTT, but as teams is growing in popularity this was upgraded to a 2 day GT. Pretty cool, I love teams.

On our team was:

• Duncan “Please don’t pair me into Ed” – Death Watch
• Ed (different Ed) “Why did I choose to play Orks” – Orks
• Merric “I don’t know what Thousand Sons do sorry – Ryan” – Thousand Sons
• Alex “All my games are boring but I chose to play Necrons” – Necrons
• Me “WTC terrain is shit” – AdMech

Our gameplan was to bring Necrons, pairings princess Duncan, and not shit the bed in our other matchups to well, just win every round. It worked out pretty well. I still don’t know how teams works.

My Ad Mech list was shit.

My list:

• Cawl
• Skatros
• Tech-Priest Manipulus: Inloaded Lethality
• Tech-Priest Manipulus
• 2×10 Skitarii Rangers
• 1×10 Skitarii Vanguard
• 2x Skorpius Dunerider
• 1×10 Corpuscarii Electro-Priests
• 2×3 Kataphron Breachers
• 1×5 Pteraxii Skystalkers
• 2×5 Sicarian Infiltrators
• 1×10 Sicarian Ruststalkers (D2 weapon)
• 2×1 Skorpius Disintegrator

As far as I knew, my role would be to blunt other teams and protect our weaker lists – eg. Death Watch – while trying to get high scoring pairings for our stronger lists – eg. Death Watch.

I put together a flexible list that would at worse be scoring a 7 into almost every list in the field, but would most of the time be scoring 10’s, while pushing out 11-12’s if I managed to convert an advantage.

The list has infiltrators for early scouting and scoring, Disintegrators for a long-range threat, Kataphrons for pushing damage through key targets, Skystalkers to ensure opponents had to screen and Ruststalkers to project a long melee threat down the board + other AdMech good stuff.

There wasn’t anything in the list that hadn’t been done before. I knew how to play it, and it was easier to play – and more importantly, easier to pair – than Genestealer Cults. My scores probably would have been better if I had played GSC, but the likelihood of getting a bad pairing, or being unable to force a good pairing elsewhere would have been limited.

This could work as a solid singles list too, however after playing it a few times I would drop a unit of Kataphrons, and potentially one of the transports to replace them with another scoring unit and a Disintegrator or 1×10 Ruststalkers. I struggled with deployment a little bit using this list, but it may be because I don’t play on WTC terrain at all outside of these teams events.

It’s more or less face up Warhammer, but Haloscreed is a nuts detachment. It gives you so much flexibility in how you play the game. You just need to know which lever to pull and when to pull it.

Also if your damage fails you’re fucked because Ad Mech is shit.

Either way, our team name was the best part of this event.

Round 1 – Peter’s Death Guard

Take and Hold, Hammer and Anvil

Peter’s List (Virulent Vectorium): Biologus Putrifier, Lord of Contagion: Furnace of Plagues, Lord of Contagion: Daemon Weapon of Nurgle, Malignant Plaguecaster, Mortarion, Tallyman, 1×10 Plague Marines, Chaos Rhino, 1×2 Chaos Spawn, 2×3 Deathshroud Terminators, 3×1 Foetid Bloat-Drone with Heavy Blight Launcher, 2×10 Poxwalkers.

Peter was playing a stock-standard DG list with good DG units. He played a straight forward game and it was pretty chill.

I made a lot of mistakes and overextended on a key turn when I really didn’t need to. I’m not sure why I did this, I guess it’s mostly because I’m just a casual guy. I always forget how impactful the -1 to hit is from the DG stinky aura. I did end up removing half of the plague marine unit with some Ruststalkers through the -1 damage stratagem, and it kept them tied up for a turn, they eventually charged backwards to protect Peter’s home objective.

It wasn’t all bad through, I ended up pushing Peter so far back on primary I secured anything short of an 11-9 his way by the end of Battleround 3 and as a 10-10 king that was my job.

Neither of our secondaries were fab, but we both had to play Warhammer so it was a fun time. Peter was a bit down this game and felt as if he were making a few too many mistakes, he then told me about his foray into being a new father and how he had no time for Warhammer, so I thought he was doing a great job. Considering I spend most of my time doing this dumb shit and I’m still pretty awful at it.

Thanks for the game Peter, I had a whale of a time x

Teams shit

The teams fearless leader Alex was – mostly – in charge of pairings

Our first pairing was into “The Rejects”

Court of the Filipino vs. The Rejects

• Duncan (Deathwatch) vs. Matt (Necrons) – 20-0
• Merric (1k Sons) vs. Ben (AdMech) – 8-12
• Ed (Orks) vs. Oscar (T’au) – 7-13
• Ryan (AdMech) vs. Peter (DG) – 10-10
• Alex (Necrons) vs. Sayuj (Blood Angels) – 20-0

I’m not sure how DW into Necrons goes – apparently poorly for the Necrons – but getting the Necrons into BA pairing more or less guaranteed an incredible one-sided game and so long as we didn’t shit the bed with the other match ups we would win the round.

We ended up getting a team score of 71/100 which was not behd. Our plan was working so far, onto round 2.

Round 2 – Liam’s Emperor’s Children

Scorched Earth, Crucible of Battle

Liam’s List (Coterie of the Conceited): 2x Winged DP: Pledge to Eternal Servitude & Pledge of Unholy Fortune, 3×1 Lord Exultant, Lucius the baddie, 3×5 Infractors, 2×5 Tormentors, 2x Chaos Rhino, 1×3 Flawless Blades, 3×6 Noise Marines.

Look, another standard EC list. I swear I’ve probably played against this exact EC list 6, maybe 7 times now. I felt incredibly relaxed about this pairing.

It’s difficult for EC to get any value out of their units against AdMech as they should be trading down most of the time. Additionally, AdMech can project incredibly long threats in Haloscreed with Ruststalkers and advancing and shooting tanks.

I found this board incredibly frustrating to play against EC with my list. As you can see in the above picture, Liam was able to safely stage with a Rhino against the middle ruin and project an incredible long threat to pretty much my deployment zone objective.

The NMS objectives were too close to him for me to double up on them else he commit a couple of units to just wipe everything out. I had to play slow and steady and hope to get some points back later.

There were a few frustrating moments in this game where I whiffed on holding Liam to a 5 on primary by 1 Tormentor living turn 2, and by a single extra Corpuscarii dying to a Daemon Prince in turn 3.

Otherwise it went about as expected. Liam had to trade higher value units to remove units like Infiltrators and Skitarii Rangers/Vanguard while my offensive units – Ruststalkers, Corpuscarii, Disintegrators and Kataphrons almost always traded up or got their value.

I was able to rapid some Pteraxii later into the game and take Liam’s home objective which I eventually burnt. Who knew the Tormentors only weakness was T4 2 wound bodies.

Liam is a lovely person, and it’s always a joy to play against him. Thanks for the great game Liam!

Teams shit

Our second pairing was into “The Emperor’s Finest on a Sushi Train”

Our gameplan for this pairing was to avoid pairing Duncan into Ed, that was about it.

Court of the Filipino vs. The Emperor’s Finest on a Sushi Train

• Duncan (Deathwatch) vs. Matthew (CSM) – 20-0
• Merric (1k Sons) vs. Dante Oyston (DA) – 16-4
• Ed (Orks) vs. Erina (Adepta Sororitas) – 15-5
• Ryan (AdMech) vs. Liam (EC) – 12-8
• Alex (Necrons) vs. Ed aka The Scourge of Frankston (T’au) – 7-13

We got a 70-30 for this round, our Deathwatch strategy was working so far. Merric got a great score into Dante and Ed smashed it. Alex took arguably the most difficult match up and scored a 7, but our other pairings were so good it didn’t really matter what he scored as long as he got a few points.

It looks like Rd 3 would be our hardest round for the event against the team set to come first. We would have to beat them in order to win the event, as a draw would see us be too far behind on points to get the win, provided they kept their scoring up for round 4-5.

I didn’t really care about winning, but it’s teams, so unless you’re being a sweaty fucking dog you’re not doing it properly.

Round 3 – Rhys’s T’au Empire

Terraform, Crucible of Battle

Rhys’s List (Retaliation Cadre): Farsight, Shadowsun, Commander in the cold: Internal Grenade Racks, Commander Enforcer: Starflare Ignition System, 1×3 Fireknife, 2×3 Starsythe, 1×10 Kroot Carnivores, 2×1 Krootox Riders, 1×10 Pathfinder Team, 3×1 Riptide Batttlesuit, Sky Ray Gunship, 2×5 Stealth Battlesuits, 1×5 Vespid Stingwings

I hadn’t played Rhys before, so he wasn’t prepared for how much of a cunt I was. I think I successfully battle-shocked Rhys during our game as he came in the next day saying he had nightmares about me talking shit, excellent.

Rhys was playing a Retaliation Cadre T’au list that was would prove to be difficult to interact with while putting out enough damage to deal with the Ad Mech onslaught. It was in his words, a shit list (my list was shitter), but all it needed was to swap out a Riptide for a Twin Lance and it would be winning Adelaide Uprising, provided no one is getting extra AP when they didn’t charge.

It was a fun game, I knew it wouldn’t end up a win for me but I tried to push it as close to a 10-10 as I could. I secured some early game Terraform points but wouldn’t be able to get anymore than a 4 on primary for holding due to the exposed nature of the objective and the flexibility of the T’aus movement and positioning.

I pushed out the Corpuscarii and Ruststalkers early on – which Rhys later on said he was surprised about – mostly to gain space. By pushing deep up both sides of the board it forces Rhys’s rapid ingresses and deepstrikes back far enough to give me breathing room and allow me to move my units, and score secondaries for an extra turn.

I whiffed a bit on secondaries turn 4, but managed to score 32 which was pretty good. My primary game was lacking but there wasn’t much that I could do about that.

It was disappointing to hear that a certain short-king from Queensland had talked shit about me after 8-mans in Sydney earlier in the year, but by the sounds of it he will have no trouble following in the last captains footsteps.

It was a fun game though, Rhys is a nice guy and he – eventually – reciprocated the feeling. I’ll see you at VTC xoxo.

Teams shit

Our third pairing was into “The good guys 2 electric boogaloo”

Idk our gameplan for this one, ask Alex.

Court of the Filipino vs. The good guys 2 electric boogaloo

• Duncan (Deathwatch) vs. Stuart (Tyranids) – 16-4
• Merric (1k Sons) vs. Dean (CSM) – 1-19
• Ed (Orks) vs. Kyle (Drukhari) – 7-13
• Ryan (AdMech) vs. Rhys (T’au) – 7-13
• Alex (Necrons) vs. Nic (BA) – 14-6

This could have easily been a draw, to be honest it could have been a close win for us. I’m not sure how we would have done pairings much better as in 5-mans you don’t have as much play with the pairings.

Normally, a team with this list of players would completely dominate everyone in the field, which I mean, they kind of did. But as teams becomes more prevalent in Victoria more players are prioritising teams and improving.

I hate teams so I’m not sure how to feel about this. Round 4 baby.

Round 4 – Pranas’s Astra Militarum

Linchpin, Search and Destroy

Pranas’s List (Recon Guard): It was like 200+ Guardsman Idk man, and a single Scout Sentinel.

I forgot to take pictures of this game, but I did capture a cute picture of me and Pranas. Unfortunately it contains too much sex appeal for the internet to handle so that one will stay on my phone.

I’m not sure what their team thought of this pairing but I thought I had an unreal match up into Recon Element. Sure he would be saving on 3+ most of the time, but I was faster than him, could easily stay out of his threat range and had enough tools to flip almost every objective he went for while forcing an overcommitment from his army at every point.

The transports were nuts in this game, 18 shots every time with sustained and twin-linked meant even on 3+ it was doing a significant amount of damage to his units, and I had 2 transports and 2 Disintegrators.

I had most of my army left at the end of the game while Pranas had a couple of units. He did end up clocking out so may have been able to pull it back to like a 13-7 with some shenanigans, but had I played against this army before could have pushed the score a lot further in my direction.

Thanks for the game Pranas, it was great to finally get one in!

Teams shit

Our fourth pairing was into “Temu Vic”

Our gameplan was good pairing into CK, put Duncan into CSM again.

We got it, thanks Alex.

Court of the Filipino vs. TThe good guys 2 electric boogaloo

• Duncan (Deathwatch) vs. Anthony aka. Pookie (CSM) – 17-3
• Merric (1k Sons) vs. Brady (Necron) – 13-7
• Ed (Orks) vs. Aidan (CK) – 20-0
• Ryan (AdMech) vs. Pranas (Guard) – 15-5
• Alex (Necrons) vs. Wade (Tyranids) – 10-10

Round 5 – Henry’s Orks

Take and Hold, Tipping Point

Henry’s List (War Horde): Beastboss, Big Mek: Follow Me Ladz, Boss Snikrot, Ghazghkull Thraka, 2×1 Warboss, 1×20 Boyz, 1×20 Beast Snagga Boyz, 2×1 Trukk, Battlewagon, 2×6 Breaka Boyz, 2×5 Flash Gitz, 2×10 Gretchin, 1×10 Kommandos, 1×5 Stormboyz

Henry was someone who I had played in a practice game two weeks earlier, so he already knew I was a cunt. This meant I could relax for this game and focus on improving Henry’s opinion of me by shit talking as much humanly possible.

There was a moment during this game where we kind of stopped playing and just talked about life for a bit, it was really nice. It kind of sucks that when this happens you both realize you have to get back to the game eventually. Henry’s a great guy.

He had changed his list a lot since the last time we played, it was going to be a closer game.

There were a few pretty pivotal moments during this game.

• Henry charged Ghaz, and a unit of Breaka boyz into a unit of infiltrators on the top objective, they both got battleshocked as a result and even though every model on the objective died, it was still sticky and I scored 5VPs.
• I left Ghaz on a 7 wound sin the following turn after shooting, a Disintegrator charged it, did 6 mortal wounds, then exploded and did the final wound to kill Ghaz, lol.
• Henry used a smart emergency disembark to get a unit of Breaka Boyz 3″ closer to a Disintegrator near my home during the Waarghh turning a 10″ charge into a 7″ which he made, cringe, but my bad.

We didn’t play on a clock and were out of time by the end of the game. I made a mistake with Cawls OC to give Henry Assassinate in my turn 5, but kind of didn’t continue my scoring because our team had won the round anyway.

With enough time it likely would have been a 10-10 or just an 11-9 my way, but who gives a shit.

Teams shit

Our final pairing was into “Hungry not thirsty”

Gameplan: Duncan win, everyone else chill. It worked.

Court of the Filipino vs. Hungry not Thirsty

• Duncan (Deathwatch) vs. David (Nids) – 20-0
• Merric (1k Sons) vs. Daniel (Spac Marin) – 11-9
• Ed (Orks) vs. Michael (Drukhari) – 9-11 (lol)
• Ryan (AdMech) vs. Henry (Orks) – 9-11 (lol)
• Alex (Necrons) vs. Tom (League of Votann) – 19-1

Going 4-1 was enough for second place. Cool.

The highlights of the event for me were:

• Getting a game against Pranas.
• Seeing and playing Henry again.
• Spending time with the general 40k tournament community, i.e. Sushi crew, Gutierrez boys, Risky Rollers, Hungry not Thirsty.
• Having dinner with my team on the Saturday night. We went to this fantastic Indian place as recommended by Duncan and talked shit for a few hours. It really is the best part of any 40k event.

Ad Mech is actually fucking cracked. If I ever figure out how WTC terrain works it’s over for you bitches.

Thanks for reading, love you xoxo