Hello Ben, how are you? This is technically a Tuesday, so it counts as a tech-priest Tuesday, by the way.

On July 4th I attended the Geelong town open, a chill, casual, fun event for 50ish attendees, and something representing a nightmare for the other 10 losers.

I’m sticking with Ad Mech for the time being – until I start building Drukhari – and decided with the new battle-shock changes in 11th edition to runback Rad-Zone. This time it would be different though, Rad-Zone was a 2DP detachment, so I brought Lords of the Forge alongside it.

I had played Data-Psalm at an RTT the weekend before and really enjoyed it. It was the detachment I enjoyed most when I started playing Ad Mech, although it fell out of favour when Haloscreed, and subsequently Eradication Cohort released. Now, I feel DPC is in a way better position than in 10th edition as the disruption disposition forces your opponent to interact with you, reducing the movement limitations of the detachment.

ANYWAY

I wanted to run Rad-Zone at least once and see how the Rad Bombardment detachment rule would battle-shock my opponents, and their units.

My list was:

• Cawl & Thulia
• Marshal, Manipulus (Peerless Eradicator), Hastarii Fusiliers
• Manipulus (TL-409), Skitarii Vanguard
• Skatros
• Enginseer
• 2x Skitarii Rangers
• Skorpius Dunerider
• 1×5 Corpuscarii Electro-Priests
• Onager Dunecrawler (Eradication beamer)
• 1×5 Pteraxii Sterylizors
• Servitor Battleclade
• 1×5 Sicarian Infiltrators
• 1×10 Sicarian Ruststalkers
• Culexus Assassin
• Eversor Assassin

Look, this list wasn’t fab. It was a mix of units I wanted to use, stuff I had ready to go, and it was hurriedly put together to get an even 2000 points. I had no reps on Rad-Zone before writing this list in 11th, and no reps with this list specifically. I also had no idea how priority assets worked. In a few of my games I didn’t start doing my primary action until the 3rd battle-round when my opponent asked me why I wasn’t doing it, lol.

It was fun through. I had missed running the Eversor. In 11th I feel as if Infiltrators have lost a bit of value. This was reflected in the event as my opponents weren’t running as many of them, especially Purge the Foe players of which there are a lot of. This lets the Eversor do his thing if you go first, scout 9″, move 15″, pray it does something, which it did once or twice.

Other than that, the list included a few cute combo’s, Sustained/Lethal Fusiliers, 5+ FNP Onager, Funny gun Manipulus with Vanguard.

Is it something I would run again? Never. Apart from Lords of the Forge, for a 1 DP detachment, it is INCREDIBLE.

FYI, I was running Priority Assets.

Round 1 – Gavin’s GSC

Extract Relic (Priority assets vs. Disruption), Layout A

Gavin’s List (Brood brothers/Xenocult masses): B A N E B L A D E, bunch of other GSC/Astra Militarum dudes

Gavin is an absolute legend. I’ve seen him around at quite a few events and was stoked to get a game with him. He is on Brood brothers Genestealer Cult which basically means he brought a Baneblade.

I knew what Gav’s list did, and I knew that he wouldn’t be able to kill the Dunecrawler, Cawl, or Thulia given I got to the Baneblade first, which I was able to.

11th edition is incredible so far though. Not once playing Warhammer have I ever played a Dawn of War deployment and the game felt fine, except for during 11th. You just don’t think about it like you have in previous editions. It’s not a meme, it’s just another game, which is awesome. Dispositions and layouts have brought more variation to tournaments. You aren’t as likely to play the same mission more than once or twice, and if you do, it will be on a different layout, great!

Rad-Zone put a bit of work into this game as well, it really cooks 7+ leadership armies and it’s very difficult to get wholly out of your DZ in Dawn of War, especially with the extra 6″ from the Radial Suffusion enhancement.

Playing against Gav was a blast. He was a bit disappointed when I killed the Baneblade from full with only Cawl & the Hastarii shooting, but that’s how it goes sometimes.

Round 2 – Lachlan’s Votann

Vital Link (Priority assets vs. Purge the Foe), Layout B

Lachlan’s List (Farseekers and Needgaârd Oathband): Some characters, 10x Terminator brick with Kahl, Buri Bensen, 2x Heckatons, 3×3 Bikes, some other stuff

This man, this beautiful, beautiful man, got me drunk, and then purged me. What can I say?

Lachlan is the better half of the Ratcon TO’s, he’s smarter, more handsome, more intelligent, taller, stronger, more athletic, can grow a beard, dresses better, has better taste, people like him more, they want to spend time with him, they want to take him out to a nice dinner, maybe at the hot chicken project in Geelong and watch as he orders the spicy chicken even though we both know it’s a mistake, unable to look away as his lips redden, the sweat beads down his forehead, beard glistening with a mixture of saliva and hot sauce.

Lachlan was playing Purge the Foe, neat. He was here to purge, and I was here to prioritise assets, apparently.

The Rad-Zone detachment ability did a bit of work in this match-up. Turning off the overwatch on a Hekaton once, I think. It did bring a Hekaton down to 14 wounds prior to me having the ability to shoot at it.

Now, I know how tanky Hekatons are, so I brought out the B I G G U N S.

I had Cawl lined up, Thulia, Hastarii, Onager, even my TL-409 Manipulus. The Hekaton was on 14 wounds so, I shot the Manipulus with the funny gun. Two lethals, and a wound, all at -3 AP.

Lachlan made 0 5+ Saves.

I did 14 damage and killed it. Boourns.

This left Cawl, Thulia, and the Hastarii pretty much pissing into the wind. Oh well. By this point I had drunk the two beers I brought with me and started pinching drinks off Aaron who I was travelling with. This was the beginning of the end.

I decided screening, was for LOSERS.

I decided the Ruststalkers should charge Uthar the destined instead of the Terminators and I decided probably some other stuff, Idk I forget.

Ultimately, Lachlan Purged a friend this game, and I went down 100-76 or something. Idk, I went and found Aaron to pinch another drink.

Round 3 – Erwin’s Aeldari

Extract Relic (Priority assets vs. Disruption), Layout C

Erwin’s List (Aspect Host): Banshees with Jainzee, Scorpions with Autarch, some more Banshees, Avatar of lame, Corsair bros, Wave serpent, Falcon, B I G unit of shining spears, swooping hawks

Pretty cool list.

Erwin is another legend that I have played before. He has a beautiful Aeldari army and is a super chill dude.

You see that unit of Howling Banshees with an Autarch? Yeah, those guys don’t fight first anymore. Well, technically they do, but I also fight first, and I get to fight first, first, now.

This is one of two games where the Eversor actually did something which was excellent.

I essentially built this list to never have to leave the conqueror Imperative, this was shit for my Dunecrawler, but great for advancing and shooting, I guess.

I was going first. This makes it WAY EASIER to scout your Eversor 9″, move 15″, and charge into something meaningful. It’s a lot harder to get decent value out of the Eversor when you’re going second, especially with the changes to terrain.

I moved it forward and killed the Autarch, cool.

I love playing Conqueror Ad Mech, I basically just force my army forwards into my opponent until something happens. It’s a lot more enjoyable that playing Protector where you sit back and shoot, and do nothing interesting.

I pretty much just ran at Erwin this game, and he quickly abandoned his deployment zone due to my Rad Bombardment. This was a trend that happened across almost all my games.

It was fun though, a few cursed things happened, like the Avatar of Khaine doing 0 damage to Thulia in the fight phase after he charged in, lol.

Eldar seems to have lost a lot of value with transport changes, sure they can get back in, but it’s a lot worse when the boat dies now. Also, as his units are so expensive he was almost always trading down.

It was a fun game though, and it’s great to play against such a beautiful army. I’m sure I’ll see Erwin at events again in the near future.

Round 4 – Adam’s Space Wolves

Vital Link (Priority assets vs. Purge the Foe), Layout B, or C? I don’t remember

Adam’s List (Legends of Saga and Song and Saga of the Beastslayer): All the cool named Space Wolf characters with 20 Terminators, 20 Blood dudes, 6 Headtakers, and a Repulsor Executioner

Adam had a beautiful Space Wolf army that I had spied in a previous round of the event, immediately pointing it out to Ryan (a different Ryan) who I was travelling from Bendigo with. Ryan has a Space Wolf army too, but he’s meta chasing on Tyranids at the moment.

You probably can’t see from this far away, but Adam’s army was beautiful. He is on the same team as Erwin, and Waggerz (another Bendigo local) so that makes sense.

I was going first, and Adam put both units of Terminators in Deep strike so my only option was to yeet my Eversor assassin across the board and charge a unit of Blood Claws led by Ragnar Blackmane, or should I say, a unit of Blood Claws that WAS led by Ragnar.

Adam smartly deployed Ragnar right in the corner of the ruins which meant I would need a decent size charge in order to get LOS of him. I rolled a 10 on my charge, gottem.

The Eversor still does whiff a lot, but I was able to get 9 wounds through, and thanks to the changes around fast-rolling Ragnar went down alongside 3 Blood Claws, lol.

Although units like this will disappoint you 50% of the time, they are fun to run and add a narrativesque enjoyment to the game. A friend was walking past the table when this play was happening and noted: “I have to see this”. These are the cool moments we play the game for. If he was walking past and saw me ‘strategically staging units to prepare for future secondary and primary scoring’, I doubt he would have been able to maintain much interest.

BORING

On turn 2, I left Adam a little pocket in my deployment zone to rapid ingress into. I’m still not sure if this was tactical genius, or a mistake, but it allowed me to push through into his deployment zone in the subsequent turns. That was definitely my plan the entire time.

Ultimately, the game came down to Adam putting a unit of Terminators back in strategic reserves and trying to bomb an 8″ charge from reserves to secure the win. He had made all his 8″ charges so far, but even with a re-roll, he failed to make the charge.

It felt like a bit of a scam win, but I guess it looked like I knew what I was doing more than I did by going for his home objective and abandoning mine.

Who knows.

Round 5 – Sam’s Tyranids

Secure Asset (Priority assets vs. Take and Hold), Layout Idk

Sam’s List (Invasion Fleet): Tyranids and shit

Sam came to the table with incredible energy, enthusiasm, and positivity. It was awesome to see. He was here to have fun, roll some dice, and to watch stuff blow up, even though he was running take and hold, and not purge the foe.

Sam’s army was again, painted beautifully, which is a common theme at the Geelong Town Open. I always love coming to this event because a lot of the players in attendance are incredible hobbyists. Every year, I leave this event with a lot of motivation for painting, and can’t wait to get my Ad Mech up to a level I’m happy with.

This game was a tricky one, although the rounds lasted 3 hours, we had 30 minutes left in the round by the time we got to the bottom of turn 3. I turned to Sam and said, we probably won’t finish, we need to speed up. He asked me if I wanted to talk it out after this turn, but I knew we’d get there.

I was down 22-65 by the time I started my turn 3, but I was pretty confident that I could win. Sam’s shadow’s turn was a bit poor as far as denying me scoring, and I was one turn away from tabling him, effectively, despite having a LOT of models left on the table. Pictured above is the start of Sam’s turn 3, pictured below is the start of his turn 5. What you can’t see in the above image is the Norn Emissary.

In 2 turns I was able to remove from the table: Hive Tyrant, Norn, Tervigon, Maleceptor, 20 Hormagaunts + Prime w/ Lash whip, 3 VRL’s, Lictor, 20 Termagauts, Biovore, 3x Zoans w/ Neurotyrant and another 10 termagaunts.

As he had secured such a huge lead, I think Sam was a bit surprised with the damage output and being able to pull the game back. If I remember correctly Thulia pretty much solo’d the entire 20 Termagaunt unit through it’s 5+ FNP across shooting and melee, although with Oath of moment from Cawl.

11th is definitely an odd one, in 10th Sam would have created an unsurmountable lead which I couldn’t come back from. But in 11th there is more room to gain points later in the game.

In my turns 1-2, I scored 5 and 7 points. In Sam’s, he scored 14, and 19. However, across turns 3, 4, and 5, I scored 19, 29, and 22 points for a total of 92 with paint scoring. While Sam scored, 23, 14, and 5, for a total of 85 with paint score.

A big lesson from this event is that you don’t have to necessarily score points consistently, so long as you set yourself up to be able to score them at some point. I skirmished with Sam for the first two turns, ensuring my models were positioned correctly and waited for the time to push, and when I did, I was able to score massively and push for the win.

Sam was a fantastic opponent, and I learnt a lot from him about how to be one. He went on to win best overall, as he has done so in the past at this tournament, and has motivated and inspired me to go home, work on my hobby, and come back next year with something worth of presenting.

At the end of the event, I had a record of 4-1, placing 9th out of 56 players.

That doesn’t mean anything though.

What really mattered was:

• Erina, a friend from Melbourne stayed at the airbnb with us (Ryan & Aaron) which was really nice. We had some good chats both nights and it was nice to spend more time with her.
• I got to spend time with my friends from Bendigo, Ryan & Aaron, on another bros get away to a Warhammer event.
• Seeing all the lovely people I have met and become friends with at Warhammer events, except Michael Hamilton.
• Having a lovely conversation with Ben Wadsworth after round 5 as we were waiting for Dave and Lachlan to calculate best overall scores.
• Seeing Dave and Lachlan, they are the best TO’s in Victoria.

I love this event. I always have a great time and every year I leave inspired to hobby more and with positive and wholesome vibes.

I’ll be back next Tuesday with a tech-priest Tuesday (I promise) where I rant about Data-Psalm conclave and how good the servitor battleclade is.

Thanks for reading x