Hey guys!
So, this is a simple break down of the Beef and Wing Major in Buffalo, NY ITC Major
GT this past weekend. I was fortunate enough to place best overall. I highly recommend everyone attend next year if you live within a few hours drive. Their club is a great group of guys and they run a smooth event. Being my first major win and being incredibly stoked, I thought I would run down my list, my choices, my opponents’ armies (generally), and the results.
This was an ITC Championship Mission event which influenced some of my list choices. Here is the army I had run:
Kabal of the Black Heart Battalion:
Archon – Blaster, Phantasm Grenade – 96
Archon – Blaster – 93
3X Kabalites (5) with a blaster – 141
3X Ravager, 3 Disintegrator Cannons – 375
2X Razorwing, Disintegrator Cannons – 290
2X Raider, Disintegrator Cannons – 160
3X venom, Double Cannon – 225
Prophets of Flesh Battalion:
2X Haemonculus, Electrocorosive Whip – 152
3X Wracks (5) Electrocorosive Whip – 153
1X Grotesques (9) – 315
This list starts with 13
CP. Additionally, there are a variety pregame tricks this list can perform. I took advantage of different tricks each match based on matchup, terrain, and deployment. I will go over those during the breakdown of each round.
Round 1
My first match of the event was against Geoffrey Beaman, a local player and good friend from my home area. Neither of us wanted or expected to fight in the first round, yet the app paired us anyway. He is a LONG time Ork player and runs them pretty tight.
General List:
3 Wyrdboyz
1 Warboss
1 Mek
90 Boyz
50 Storm Boyz
8 Mek guns
2 Big Trakk
50 Grots
My pregame items were:
Alliance of agony to give my Haemonculus a warlord trait. He took diabolic soothsayer.
My archon had writ of the living muse and took the labyrinth cunning trait.
I spent a command point to give my Haemonculus a relic. That was the Vexator mask.
Round 1 was Seize Ground, a solid mission for both of us. He has me on bodies making the 5 objectives better for him. However, the board was made up of tiny ruins which limited his ability to fully hide the huge units (at least early in the game).
We rolled off and get Front Line Assault deployment. The shortest gap to my lines and favoring the Orks. I win the roll to go first. Off we go.
I start by targeting as many of the mek guns as I can with all the disintegrator cannons. I clear 5 mek guns in the first turn and kill about 10 storm boyz. I advance the grotesque up and to the right of my army as a buffer to my lines.
On his turn, he advances everywhere, smites the grotesques and da jumps a unit of boyz. The storm boyz, an advanced unit of boyz, and the jumped unit were all staring at my grotesques. He declared the grotesques for big game hunter and wanted them dead. He needed to catch up since I killed so many units turn 1.
He declares some charges. First the storm boyz who easily charge in. The da jump unit however fails their charge by 1 inch. He elects to
CP reroll a die, which I cancel. Then he rerolls with “er we go” and fails. Whew. The second boyz unit charges in. Since the boyz have 1 more attack per model than the storm boyz I target them with the Vexator (my haemon likes to sit in the middle of that unit) forcing them to attack last. The storm boyz swing and kill 2 grotesques. I counter attack back on the boyz who have not fought yet killing off about half. Leaving him with way less attacks afforded him only 1 more kill. What a momentum swing! My grotesques were stuck in combat not allowing my other units to shoot BUT he wasn’t running through my lines wrapping up other units.
I space my vehicles out to prevent him engaging multiple units and the shooting continues. My flyers would target characters if they were close enough otherwise they were picking on the larger units and harassing objectives. Eventually he drags the grotesques down with smites and attacks, but by the 3rd turn I had mangled a lot of those bodies and he couldn’t recover. Grotesques did some serious work and absorbed a lot of punishment. After clearing his smaller units from the objectives, we decided to call it. We counted it out, 34 – 22 win. His early scoring on objectives, gang buster, and few other things gave him a respectable score for a loss.
Round 2
This game was a BLAST! Chris Dawson brought a different sort of list of Death Guard with high toughness units and a plethora of vehicles. I am used to seeing all those plaguebearers. My poison weapons were hurting this game!
General List:
Epidemis
Poxbringer
Demon prince with plate
3x Nurgling bases (3)
1x Plague drones (6)
1x Blight Terminators, all plasma (5)
1 Foetid Drone
3 Plague Burst Crawler
1x Tree
1 Hellforge Leviathan with butcher cannons (yuck
lol)
My pregame items were:
Alliance of agony to give my Haemonculus a warlord trait. He took Diabolic Soothsayer.
My archon had writ of the living muse and took the labyrinth cunning trait.
I spent a command point to give my Haemonculus a relic. That was the Helm of Spite.
Round 2 was “Cut to the Heart” with 3 objectives and a Vanguard Strike deployment. If a player controls the center objective and their opponent’s objective at the end of their player turn, they gain 1 point. He went hard on his line and I spaced back with the assumption he was going to be running/charging with the tree if he could. I selected “Behind Enemy Lines” which is easy points for my list in this deployment and mission.
He wins the initiative and runs all the crawlers, nurglings and drones up with the characters in tow. He makes an impressive turn 1 charge with the drones into the grotesques to his own detriment. I believe he undervalued the grotesques survivability and fighting prowess. He was only able to kill 1 grotesque because he was too strung out to get all his models in range to attack and when the grotesques piled 3 inches further into his ranks, they murdered 3 drones between mortal wounds and failed saves. However, he was still able to secure the middle of the board and scored the bonus point for holding more objectives than me.
My turn, the Grotesques “fell back” towards the rest of his army and I used the stratagem, Cruel Deception to allow them to shoot and charge when falling back. This maneuver allowed me to infiltrate his lines and set up a key charge. I turned my disintegrator cannons towards the drones as I didn’t want them running havoc in my lines. The grotesques blitzed into a Plague Burst Crawler and a unit of nurglings. After taking an overwatch, I successfully began to limit his shooting and thus his options.
Moving, falling back, flamers, and overwatches consumed many of the next turns. The middle of the board was a mess. I slowly began to push him back with each successful charge. I used the wracks and grotesques to engage the tanks as many times as I could and neutralize their effectiveness and if he fell back I shot him up before throwing them back in. His damned Hellforge Leviathan was beating up my vehicles bad. That Dreadnought can shoot! 16 s8 shots hitting on 2’s punishes.
To limit his overwatches and lock up that monstrosity, I used some sneaky charges by moving my units out of
LoS and charging in. These tactics finally pushed him off the middle and locked up his scary Hellforge Leviathan. At that point, I could start clearing out other units without the fear of my vehicles being shot down.
Throughout the game, his Demon Prince could not make any headway. Helm of Spite denied 2 of his smites triggering a Perils of the Warp and doing 5 wounds to himself and then turn 3, he rolled a natural Perils of the Warp. He was sitting at 1 wound at this point and he hadn’t even engaged in melee yet. At that point, a few disintegrator cannons looked his way and he went down.
By the games end I had pushed him hard back to his deployment but took plenty of casualties in the meantime. The game ended. 32-19 in my favor. Great fun game! His units were beasts with their 5+
FNP though!
FNP gave me some headaches for sure
lol. Once again, the grotesques over performed and the disintegrator cannons make it hard to
FNP with 2d static.
Round #3
This game was against a long time
GT player Diogo Pita. I have faced Diogo and known him for several years. Not a player to put your guard down on for sure. He was playing a list I was actually pretty scared of and was hoping NOT to face it. Well that’s how that goes sometimes. I almost think I should just NOT look at lists in advance and not worry about it till it happens but meh.
General List:
Shadowsword, flamers
Shadowsword, flamers
Banehammer, flamers
Harker
Captain
3x Mortars (3)
My pregame items were:
Alliance of agony to give my Haemonculus a warlord trait. He took diabolic soothsayer.
My archon had writ of the living muse and took the labyrinth cunning trait.
Mission 3 was Nexus Control with Vanguard strike. Our board had plenty of ruins but the tanks were nasty. He could literally kill half my vehicles turn 1. He got the +1 and won first turn. Seeing a trend?
I seized! Woohoo!
I jumped the ravagers (cowardly in a corner) over a building and crisscrossed 2 planes next to them. I ran the archon with the relic in the middle and figured now is my chance. Shoot em up.
I put my whole army into a sword. BOOM! Down goes 1 shadowsword and a few wounds on the other. Go Drukhari! The grotesques run into a building in the middle of the board out of
LoS. His turn. The sword and hammer were out of range for flamers no matter what. I measured to make sure. He turns his sights on my army. The shadowsowrd targets 2 ravagers. 4 las at one and big gun at the other. I use lighting reflexes on the big gun. He only got 2 hits and 1 wounds. I take 5 wounds. The 4 las miss 2 times and I make a 5++ only taking 3 damage. Whew that was close. That’s when the banehammer decided to play. His lascannons wound the ravager and drop it to 1 wound (lascannon only) with my 5++ saves and
fnp 6+. He shoots the other gun at the completely untouched ravager and does 8 wounds after saves and
FNP.
Turn 1 nothing died! Woohoo! I then moved the grotesques through a building and right up to the wall (no
LoS). Flew the planes over to kill harker who got out in the open for some reason. I shot the crap out of the bane hammer and what I could on the sword. I then charged the sword from no
LoS so no overwatch! Sorry flamers. Pin that badboy to a ruin wall with pile in etc and lock him in. Yea he can still shoot me up BUT with high toughness and lots of wounds I figured I would live. I killed the shadow the next turn after falling back and most of the banes wounds were gone. We called it there. Counted it up and 37-17 win! That could have EASILY gone the other way. Must be my weekend I was thinking
lol.
End of the day. I am feeling pretty good. Got a solid paint score and assume I got a good sportsmanship from my opponents since the games were fun (don’t see it of course). I am sitting (not including paint and sport) in like 4th at this point with
BP. But its swiss over
BP so being undefeated is all that matters. They don’t pair the lists on the app right away and my guys go to town mathing out who we may face. We conclude its likely a magnus list for me. I feel I can handle that with all my 2d shooting and going first would be insane…
Round 4
Next morning realize we can’t math so well… I am playing the dreaded YNARRI! Ugh crap
lol. I knew it was coming this weekend but was stoked to not get matched against it until now.
This was against Tim Deetlefs who I hadn’t played before. This dude knew his stuff and I was worried. His army was pretty sick. I really thought this game I was in trouble. We had a table with very little
LoS terrain and it was going to be a shooting gallery for sure.
General List:
Spirit seer
Warlord
3x Rangers
2x Serpents
3 Dark Reapers
3 Dark Reapers
9 Dark Reapers
8 Shining Spears
8 Shining Spears
Eldrad
Spirit seer
Warlock
Ouch.
My pregame items were:
Alliance of agony to give my Haemonculus a warlord trait. He took diabolic soothsayer.
My archon had writ of the living muse and took the labyrinth cunning trait.
I spent 3 command points to give my 2 Haemonculus relics. That was the helm of spite and Vexator mask.
I also meant to keep 3 ravagers in deepstrike but am dumb and deployed 1… I was thrown off by this match so excuse me!
Lol
I put the other 2 in deepstrike immediately after I realized my mistake!
Mission 4 was what is yours is mine. The dreaded 2 objective mission. Yuck. On a note I will say that we BOTH played this mission wrong. It’s not # of models as usual its # of units holding them… We found out after the round but whatever. Mistakes happen and we both did it so that’s what it is.
He went first. I don’t seem to like going first I guess. This is dawn of war
btw.
The spears did what the spears do.
Super-fast. Super power. Super scary.
I stagger my vehicles like this “
WW.” Basically, a zig zag to try and put distance between them to limit soul burst. He uses a strat to redeploy and moves the spears to the side away from the grotesques, my counter charge dreams and dispel dreams died right there. Ok here we go.
He gets out all the casters, moves 1 bike unit (leaves the other in his zone I guess to protect them?) and casts what felt like 1294734 powers successfully. He fires the large units of reapers at a flyer. 6 wounds. Ugh. I then magically make 5 5++ saves and live
lol. Then in the shooting phase shoots it again. He rolled bad to wound and I made a few saves and it lives with 1 wound!
Wtf lol. The spears were close enough though and shot it with catapults which I promptly failed my saves for and he died. This triggered a charge and they exploded a raider. Ugh. The other stuff shot up the 1 ravager (which I am dumb for deploying) and do 5 wounds. My turn. Yay…
lol
I move up and charge grotesques into a unit of rangers. The wracks left the broken raider and also move up and charge some rangers (he had them in the middle of the board? Unsure why since there were no objectives there and easy kills.)
I drop in the ravagers FAR FAR away from the bikes
lol. Shoot up the bikes and kill 5 (3++ can be failed! And 2 damage a piece so it makes the 5+
fnp a little worse) I also killed both 3-man reapers and 4 of 9 in the large unit. Damn that was a good turn 1
lol.
I killed more and scored a few points over him. Then he went again. The bikes moved. He tried to cast protect for the bonus save on the small unit that was left. He was ½ inch out of range! Yes, the opening I needed. He moved them again with the other caster and charged and killed the wounded ravager and with shootings etc another. My turn the grotesques charge the small unit, with no bonus saves and they explode. I shoot up the remaining reapers and kill off some rangers and my wracks kill a seer in melee. Another turn of kill more!
Turn 3, he moves the second bikes to blow me out. Casts all the defensive stuff and then fails to cast the quicken power on them… Leaving them approx 9 inches from a raider BUT he would have been easily in range of ANYTHING he wanted with the second move. He makes the charge (saim hann) and blows it up but is too far to soulburst into anything. Then is just sitting there. I shoot them up and the grotesques finish them off. I kill a few remaining characters and at this point I am just ahead. We count it up after another 2 turns and it’s a win. 33-14 me.
He was a sick player. Knew his stuff. BUT misplay on the range for protect and an unfortunate failure on the double move was the nail in the coffin. Here we go. Game 5.
Round 5
My opponent was Devin Swann. A Well-known
GT player from Canada who I played 1 time before many years ago and eeked a win against. Was going be interesting. Turns out he drove here to the event with Tim. The guy I JUST played in round 4. Another ynarri. He was ahead of me in battle points at this point too so I needed a win. A loss would drop me to like 4-5th and that would be it. Still respectable but I wanted the win! Blood for the blood god! Ok wrong army but you get the picture.
General List:
Yvraine
Spiritseer
Autark skyrunner
10 guardians
10 guardians
10 guardians
9 spears
9 spears
Farseer
Warlock
Spiritseer
Rangers
Rangers
Rangers
Serpent
Serpent
Serpent
Another list I was not happy about. BUT I did feel better since he did not have reapers!
Mission was Crucible of Champions and we deployed Front line assault. As if I wanted him any closer! He had a huge
LoS blocking ruin in the middle of the board and he got side choices… I was not thrilled
lol. So close and I cant see him.
My pregame items were:
Alliance of agony to give my Haemonculus a warlord trait. He took diabolic soothsayer.
My archon had writ of the living muse and took the labyrinth cunning trait.
I spent 3 command points to give my 2 Haemonculuss relics. That was the helm of spite and Vexator mask.
I also kept 3 ravagers in deepstrike.
We tie for the roll to go first. Then he goes first on the reroll.
So, I once again zigzag my models and wrap the raider with my characters in the grotesques so he can’t get to it in melee. He moves in a way and charges the grotesques which I still don’t get. He thought he would kill them but its 36 T6 wounds with 4++ and 6+
fnp. Even 1 spear unit and doom doesn’t math that well! It’s like 90 wounds or something you must do. He went for the bate and charged into them. He moved in a way to avoid the mask since its only 6” and he went first. 3 grotesques died (1 was also dead to shooting beforehand) then I killed 2 bikes back. That’s all that died. He kept the second unit in reserves.
On my turn I use cruel deception to leave the fight and move straight into the middle of the board at the ruins. He had all foot characters and so ran them all into the building so he could eldar the crap out of me since most of their powers need to
LoS. I charged the grotesques into the building… Hello space wizards! Now I am fighting 3 of them plus an autarch. I also had the wrack filled ravager on the line. I got out and moved and charged them all into the building too! 3 charges turn 1 holy crap.
I shoot the hell out of those bikes. Even buffed it’s too much. He has the exarch with 1 wound left at the end. He spent 2
CP to keep him alive which I didn’t cancel cause I wanted to kill him next turn. I killed 2 characters in melee. 1 in shooting (god the planes are sick) and some rangers. I had taken headhunter… It was like 7-1 turn 1.
Turn 2 he does NOT bring in the second bikes but decides to wait. Combats etc and shooting ensures. I lose 2 venoms and some random dudes. 1 grot. I finish off those bikes and the autarch. Shoot up some more rangers.
I forgot to mention this. I disembarked my ENTIRE army on this turn. I ran the infantry etc and created a HUGE null zone for his bikes to enter the board. I don’t think he was prepared for that. Only 3 solid places to drop them now and 2 were in his deployment zone. 1 was in mine in the corner which is what he did. He was 9 from my ravager. He declared a charge turn 3 on the ravager and lost a bike to overwatch for it. Since he was down most characters they had zero buffs. He rolled an 8! Then he
CP rerolls it… I don’t have any
CP to cancel… he rolls…. ANOTHER 3! Failed! Whew… Bum officially CLENCHED.
This marked basically then end however. I shot the crap out of that spear unit at point blank range. He had the serpents et but was so far behind (13-6 after turn 2) he would never pass me without the spears to get big game hunter.
We played it out with the time left and counted it up. 37-17 win! YES! I am 5-0 baby! Barring anything insane I was sure to win it. But with my score and paint/sports I don’t think it was possible which was a nice feeling. I have been to many
GT and won a couple smaller ones but nothing of this size. I was stoked!
Sorry! Totally forgot to take a pic during this game. :(
Conclusion
In hindsight looking back I can say a few things. It was a great event. Those guys kept it on pace and the boards were nice looking. A few could have used more terrain but I have never been to an event that some boards were better than others.
In addition, I will toot my own horn (which honestly, I try not to do) but I felt like I played a solid weekend. Good deployment, good tactics. Go me…
Luck. Boy oh boy. Sometimes it happens. Thank the dice gods, right? I can’t say there were not some moments which were harry because there certainly were!
As far as my list, I have pondered it since the weekend. There are things I would like to get in the list. Maybe some eldar characters for doom/jinx or maybe more blasters? It’s hard to say. But I don’t know where to go with it. I will try this list at some more local events and if it keeps winning I will ride that train till it derails. I am sure there are improvements somewhere I could make!
I hope you all enjoyed reading this SUPER long report. Feel free to message me or comment in case I did something or wrote something wrong. Thanks!
~Ice~ 
