The Battle Brothers went on the road to Pensacola, FL for the inaugural Lost Knowledge GT hosted at Bobe's Hobby House. This was a two-day, 5 round event that saw players come from as far as Louisiana to participate. After a long hiatus, we're back with a Tournament Report!
List and Prep
Well it has been awhile. Many small RTTs have come and gone, as has a foray into Blood Angels since the 2017 ITC Season wrapped up at the Las Vegas Open in January. Though I still love the Sons of Sanguinius, the Tau Empire have a new codex and you know I've got to go back to my first love.
For this first GT of the new season, I really wanted to get the expert's opinion on building a competitive list. So I enlisted the services of the List Doctor himself, reigning ITC and LVO Champ, and self-proclaimed MD of listography...Mr. Nick Nanavati. For those of you not familiar, Nick opened his own website and 40k based business at The Brown Magic where he offers a variety of services for improving your 40k play. I did the basic list review as well as the Skype call to pick his brain on what Tau should look like competitively. Here's the list he returned me:
T'au Sept Battalion
-Coldstar: Four Fusion Blasters
-Longstrike: Ion Cannon, 2 Smart Missile Systems, 2 Seeker Missiles
-3 Strike Teams (4 + Shas'ui)
-Riptide: Heavy Burst Cannon, 2 Smart Missile Systems, Advanced Targeting System, Target Lock
-2 Tactical Drone Units: one with 4 Shield Drones, one with 6 Shield Drones
-2 Hammerheads: Ion Cannon, 2 Smart Missile Systems each
T'au Sept Vanguard
-Coldstar: Four Fusion Blasters
-6 Stealth Teams (2 + Shas'vre): Burst Cannons
Sa'cea Sept Vanguard
-Fireblade
-3 Firesight Marksmen
And that's it. Very straight-forward, I have a strong base of firepower between the Hammerheads and the Riptide and the Stealth Suits provide me with the board presence to screen myself from deep strikers and scout moves (the FAQ was not in play for this tournament so there was no restriction on number of units or the Beta Rules for Reserves). The Primary was worth 10 points, Secondary 6 points, and Tertiaries 1 apiece for a max of 4. If you do some quick math, you realize that winning Primary and snagging a minimum of 1 Tertiary wins you the game. So this was my focus throughout the event, I still would attempt to grab the Secondaries to raise my score but the path to victory was very clear for this event.
Without further ado, let's dive into the event!
(I'm gonna apologize on the front end, forgot to take pictures after the first game
as I was fighting off a cold all of Day 1. I'll see if I can scrounge up some pictures from the other guys and add them in at a later date.)
Round 1
Opponent: Jason Rutledge
Army: Ultramarine Redemptor and Venerable Dreadnoughts with Guilliman
Primary: Phantom Signals (Modified Maelstrom)
Secondary: Marked for Death
Tertiary: First Strike, Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord, Supremacy
Deployment: Dawn of War
I open the tournament against Jason and his Ultramarine Dreadnoughts, backed up by the Lord Commander of the Imperium himself, Roboute Guilliman. His army consisted of Guilliman, two Redemptors, three Venerables, an assault squad, and three TH/SS captains. There were six objectives, two in each DZ and two in No Man's Land. I deployed my Stealth Teams throughout No Man's land to act as speed bumps and to seize objectives. Jason clustered his Dreadnoughts behind a large ruin in the center of his DZ to block line of sight and force me to angle and obscure my shots, most of which were deployed on my far left flank. Directly opposite my firebase was a single captain and the assault squad, my goal for that first turn was to remove those units before advancing up the left board edge with my Hammerheads. The riptide ran along the front edge of my deployment zone trading shots with one of the Redemptors. My Commanders picked targets of opportunity and moved up field to engage them. One managing to take out a Redemptor and Venerable on the right flank and the other repeating the feat in the middle.
The fusion commanders were able to bypass the armor of the Dreadnoughts while the stealth teams harassed and by the end of the game, Guilliman stood alone. He was able to impale both commanders as they strayed too close to the Emperor's Sword, but Longstrike and his compatriots were able to bring their Ion Cannons to bear and the Lord Commander fell...for a moment. The game ended at that point and I was unable to finish Guilliman off, but had secured the victory.
Result: Victory, 19-2
Round 2
Opponent: Adam Clem
Army: Death Guard Vehicles and Daemon Princes
Primary: Gaining the Initiative (Objectives)
Secondary: Kill Tally (Power Level Kill Points)
Tertiary: FS, LB, StW, Spearhead
Deployment: Spearhead Assault
Round 2 saw some interesting pairings as the entire Battle Brothers podcast team were forced to square off against each other, Scott played Hinkel and I played Adam...on adjacent tables no less!
So the deployment was Pointy Hammer and Anvil (let's be honest, that's what all of use really call it) and Adam formed up a Spearhead of Bloat Drones on the front edge of his zone. I think he was running with 5 Drones, 4 Daemon Princes and 2 Plague Burst Crawlers, so it was a very durable, (disgustingly) resilient list. I again deployed my Stealth Teams throughout No Man's Land to try and grab some of the Objectives and lock up the Spearhead Tertiary (one unit hold's two separate objectives at any point during the game) for the easy Tertiary. My Hammerheads deployed deep in my zone on the left flank, only the Ion Cannons were in range but I was largely safe from his PBCs for the first turn.
I went first and began focus firing (literally) on the lead Bloat Drone. Ultimately I burned through all 8 of my Command Points (!!!) and whatever extras I may have generated to kill one Bloat Drone. To say I was worried at this point would be an understatement. Adam moved forward with everything and hammered the first line of Stealth Suits and took some hail mary's at Longstrike, dealing a few wounds. When my second turn started, I was actually in range with a lot more of my weapons (particularly my two commanders) and was able to down two more Bloat Drones with no CPs. While this was huge, Adam's turn 2 saw my line getting charged and more Stealth Suits and Fire Warriors dying. However, he wasn't able to do nearly enough damage to the Riptide (Savior Protocols are amazing) and I was able to fall back and leave his Princes and last Drone woefully exposed. The next two turns saw me clean up the remainder of his forces in my zone while the Hammerheads cleared out the one Drone on their side of the board and start pounding the PBCs. Longstrike went down but ultimately Adam had lost too much to really be able to capitalize, even as he took my Riptide down towards the end of the game. My Commanders were able to speed down the board, blast the last PBC and seal the victory. This was a really intense game that was very much up in the air for the first three turns, it was incredibly encouraging that my gunline was able to stand up to a charge like that and break it.
Result: Victory, 20-2
Round 3
Opponent: Chris "Pooka" Taylor
Army: Tyranids, Artillery Bugs and Friends
Primary: Unending Slaughter (Modified Kill Points)
Secondary: VIPs at the Front (Hidden Objective)
Tertiary: Tactical Defense, LB, StW, Desert name Peace
Deployment: Vanguard Strike
I drew Pooka and his artillery bugs for Round 3 on a Kill Points Mission. He was rocking two exocrines, two Flyrants, some hive guard, a tyrannofex and tervigon, with a couple synapse 'thropes and a lot of little shooty bugs in the list. As a Tau player, I was a bit jealous by how many guns he had in the list haha. I made my first big mistake in this game, my Hammerheads were way too far forward and in the danger zone of the Exocrines. That was a back breaking error as whoever would get to shoot first was going to be at an incredible advantage. Unfortunately for me, I lost the roll off and failed to seize. I then watched as all three Hammerheads disappeared and two Flyrants smashed into my lines.
The top of the first turn put me in a really hard spot. All of my heavy hitters outside of the Riptide and Commanders were gone and these guys were dealing with their own problems in the form of the Flyrants. So I made some desperate stalling actions to try to prolong the game and hold onto my hidden objectives that were carried by the Fireblade and one of the Marksmen. I moved up and charged the Exocrines and Hive Guard with Stealth Suits, there was no way they would survive more than a turn but I needed to buy myself some time to take out the Flyrants and possibly turn my remaining big guns downrange. I succeeded in the charges (miraculously) but the Stealth Suits went the way of the Alamo and Thermopylae. Pooka was able to swarm the suits on either flank and ultimately overwhelm my important stuff. I managed to keep the objectives hidden until the very end but needed another turn to escape with some points.
Pooka managed the board wipe as my last two Fire Warriors fell to the swarm.
Result: Defeat, 0-20
Even with the tough loss in Round 3, I still felt pretty good about my first day and was sitting at 2-1 with 39 Battle Points. Still in prime position to make a run on Day 2, we headed back and downed some oysters and brews before turning in for the night.
Round 4
Opponent: Ian Thornton
Army: Necron Infantry
Primary: Dead Drop (Modified Relic)
Secondary: Maelstrom
Tertiary: FS, LB, StW, Last Strike
Deployment: Search and Destroy
I started Day 2 facing off against Ian and his Necrons. I mentioned this to Ian during our game, but we had actually played for the first time a couple years ago at Mobicon's Ironman even which happened to be his first event. It's been a lot of fun to hear about his progression from a new player to someone who is constantly in contention for top spots at events. Fortunately for me, he left his Pylon at home for this event and went heavy, HEAVY into the infantry. He had several units of Immortals and Warriors, Anrakyr, 1 or 2 Lords, a unit of regular destroyers and a unit of heavy destroyers plus a big unit of Lychguard. This was actually a very unique mission that I like, although I'm not sure it's ideal for a tournament (even though it played out in my favor). There were five objectives on the board, one in the center and one in the middle of each able quarter, and one of the objectives would randomly disappear at the end of each Battle Round. At the end of the fourth round, there will only be one objective left and it's then treated as the Relic. So there's basically a 60% chance that the Relic will be in No Man's Land and a 20% chance of almost auto-winning/losing depending on which DZ it may end up in.
I went with my usual deployment and spread the Stealth Teams out across No Man's Land, giving me a nice (almost) shell of protection from the deep striking Destroyers. I made my second big mistake of the event here and left a hold on my right flank that would let his Heavy Destroyers come in within range of Longstrike. Ian took first turn and exploited this, plunking Longstrike off the board on the top of 1 for the second consecutive game. He also killed off some Stealth Suits and fired some more shots at range. I retaliated by removing the Heavy Destroyers and a unit of Immortals while spraying more shots downrange. The Objective in the middle disappeared.
He used the Veil to move the Lychguard to my right flank and proceeded to slaughter 4/6 of the stealth suits holding that area. One model from each squad managed to disengage and fall back and I made the decision that I needed to deal with the Lychguard immediately. Now the downside to this is they have a stratagem that can rebound saves as Mortal Wounds and another stratagem that boosts their save... I took the risk/reward and opened up with a good chunk of my firepower as I didn't need a tough CC unit getting into my lines. Fortunately, not too* many rebounded and I was able to clear the squad out. The Destroyers survived and reanimated and the Objective the recently destroyed Lychguard had been occupying then disappeared. At this point, we're both getting a bit antsy. There was one objective in No Man's Land left with a couple stealth teams hiding nearby and then the two DZ objectives, each guarded by the bulk of our firebase. Turn 3 swung things greatly in my favor as Ian's home objective disappeared.
At this point, I moved most of my army out to attempt to aid the Stealth Teams should my home objective disappear. The Destroyers went down for good and I charged my Riptide, a Stealth suit and both Coldstars into his forward infantry to try and tie them up in the middle of the board away from objectives. After turn 4, the last No Man's land objective disappeared leaving only mine on the board. The fireblade ran down and grabbed it, and was surrounded by a unit of shield drones. There was some desperate fighting in the center of the board, but with the Destroyers dead there was no way for Ian to get into my Deployment Zone.
Result: Victory, 20-2
Round 5
Opponent: Dale Oser
Army: Tau Infantry
Primary: Unstoppable Forces (Power Level Kill Points)
Secondary: Spearhead Offensive (Table Position)
Tertiary: FS, LS, Headhunter, King of the Hill
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
Sitting at 3-1, I was paired against the other Tau player at the event, Dale Oser, one of the top players in Louisiana and a perennial contender for top spot at most of the RTTs he's attended. He had just lost to Pooka as well as his game had largely gone the opposite of how my Round 4 played out. He was running a Tau infantry list with 3 squads of Kroot and Strike Teams, some Pathfinders, 3 big units of Vespid, 5 broadsides in two units with drone support, and 3 Commanders (4 Fusion, 3 CIB, and 3 MPs). Basically he had a huge footprint to begin with and a lot of potent Deep Strikers.
Knowing that I had more units, I deployed very defensively and was able to grab much of No Man's Land with my Stealth Teams. Effectively I was able to block off two thirds of the board from Deep Strikers; this would ultimately forced him to drop his Deep Strikers in his own zone. We rolled off and Dale won first turn, I then seized and that really gave me a huge boost in this one. First turn, I focused down the two man unit of Broadsides, wiping them along with the nearby drones. I cleared out his biggest Kroot screen, and shifted my army forward to extend my board control.
Dale had a tough go of it in this one, the -1 to hit on the Stealth Teams really shorted out his army and caused issues for him the entire game. He was able to blast Longstrike off the board on Turn 1 (guy can't catch a break) so that stemmed the bleeding a bit, but once the Broadsides went down I had free reign to move up field. He did down my Commanders as I got a bit aggressive with them, but they each took a commander with them so I feel that the trade was fair. I could afford to make that swap at that point in the game.
This was one of those games where everything seemed to go in my favor and Dale couldn't catch a break with the dice. I'd be very interested to see how it would have gone had he gone first and the dice have been more normalized. As it was, he conceded on Turn 4 giving me the win.
Result: Victory, 20-3
Results and Final Standings
The the 5th round victory left me sitting at 4-1 overall with 79 Battle Points out of a possible 100. Mark Perry squared off against Pooka in the de facto Championship round and was able to win a hard fought game to claim the top spot with a max points victory. Pooka was able to squeeze out 3 points in the match which also gave him 79 points for the tournament, leaving us in a tie for 2nd place overall! He obviously edged me out by virtue of the head to head victory, but can't complain about tying for 2nd in a large event. Adam closed out the tournament at 4-1 as well to place 4th and the top 8 was rounded out by Dale in 5th (3-2), Scott in 6th (3-2), Ian in 7th (3-2) and Nick St. Amour in 8th (3-2). It was a very good day for the Alliance as the GCWA claimed the Top 8 spots!
A big shout out to Gary and Crissy Moore as well as Christopher Johnson for TO'ing and organizing the event. It was a lot of fun and can't wait for the next one!
This event does mark the close of a fun chapter of 8th edition. With the release of the first Spring FAQ, the 'Rule of 3' and the new Deep Strike Beta Rules will be in play and will fundamentally change how the game is played. Next up, Bayou Wars and the GCWA GT!
