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Here is my recap of how the Blood Priests list did this past weekend at the LGT.
LGT Recap
So here it is, my LGT recap. I want to start out this article by addressing (or rather not) the drama of the weekend. I know there was a lot of attention and turmoil surrounding the event from the terrain at the event to the conduct of certain individuals while competing. None of that has any bearing on the competitive aspect of the weekend, the immense amount of information that can be derived from the lists that attended, and more specifically the experience I had and the games I had the joy of playing. I had 5 truly amazing games, fought 5 phenomenal opponents, and learned quite a bit about my list and how the meta is evolving.
So first I feel like I should address the list I brought and the reason why. I played around with using Admech quite a bit a few months ago, but didn’t really refine the concept in favor of working on the Death Blossom. After the big faq I decided to revisit the idea and see if it had a place in the new meta. Surprisingly, with the faq hitting a lot of the alpha strike lists as hard as it did, it actually opened up a lot of opportunity for the Admech list. I sprinkled in some Blood Angels smash captains for mobile assault units, put in the standard Imperial Guard command point battery in the form of a company commander with the Grand Strategist warlord trait and Kyrov’s Aquila. Here is the list in its entirety.
Admech Stygies Battalion:
HQ-1: Tech Priest Enginseer
HQ-2: Tech Priest Enginseer
Troop-1: 5 Rangers w/2 Arquebus
Troop-2: 5 Rangers w/2 Arquebus
Troop-3: 5 Rangers w/2 Arquebus
Elite-1: 19 Fulgrite-Electro Priests
Elite-2: 19 Fulgrite-Electro Priests
Fast Attack-1: 6 Sydonian Dragoons
Blood Angels Supreme Command:
HQ-1: Captain w/Jump Pack, Storm Shield, and Thunderhammer
HQ-2: Captain w/Jump Pack, Storm Shield, and Thunderhammer
HQ-3: Techmarine on a bike w/conversion beamer, storm bolter
Elysian Drop Troops Vanguard:
HQ-1: Elysian Company Commander: (Warlord)
Elite-1: 3 Elysian Snipers
Elite-2: 3 Elysian Snipers
Elite-3: 3 Elysian Snipers
Flyer-1: Valkyrie Transport w/heavy bolters, rocket pods, multi-laser
The presence of the Blood Angels Captains and the Electro Priests and Dragoons is rather self explanatory, put lots of fast pressure on the opponent and not let them deal with all of it. The Tech Marine in the list is there to double down on the CP regeneration using the Veritas Vitae relic to get CP back on a 5+ similar to the Warlord trait that is already present in the list. The Rangers there with the Admech version of their snipers is a nice backfield addition to threaten characters that get too gutsy. The Elysian Snipers and the Valkyrie are there to primarily keep my board presence up and my drops down to increase chances of getting the +1 to go first and having enough on the table to start the game with all the Priests and Dragoons in Infiltration. The sniper teams served a secondary purpose of versatile objective grabbing via grav-chute insertion to get into key positions and secure objectives. That is the general concept of the list. Now let’s look at how things functioned throughout the weekend.
Game 1: Tyranids/GSC
First game was against a strong opponent from the UK scene. So walking into this game I figured it was going to be a tough round 1. Then I saw that he had 3 units of Meiotic Spores, which had the potential to cause massive issues for my list. His list had 3 units of Hive Guard (2 units with 3 and 1 with 6), a flyrant, 2 Neurothropes, a large unit of Genestealers, 3 biovores, two large units of Termagaunts, and a small detachment of GSC with a Primus, another large unit of stealers, and some neophytes. I ended up getting first turn, which was only a minor boon in this case as the Meiotic Spores dropped before the Clandestine Infiltration occurred and thus was able to bubble me out pretty hard. He played it very well and made one of the spores his warlord, and when I killed one of the spore units turn 1 to keep them from blowing up my line, it took away the ability to score Slay the Warlord and also took away First Blood. Thus putting the game back onto Maelstrom and Progressives. I made a mistake turn 2 and not knowing the mission fully put me on the ropes. I made one of the worst mistakes I yell at people for making and did not read the rules fully, in the Tactical Gambit mission you have to wager how many cards you will score before you draw them, if you secure the number you wager, you gain that amount as a bonus (i.e. if I say I am going to get 2 cards on my turn and I succeed, I get 2 bonus points that turn). The part I did not read was if you fail to get your wager, your opponent gets those bonus points. I missed the ability to claim that on turn 2 which lead my opponent to taking a slight lead coming into turn 3. I closed the gap fairly well on turn 3, but not quite enough, had a bad draw on turn 4 and wasn’t able to close the gap. As my opponent went second, he finished up turn 4 with gaining a couple extra points where he could, and the game ended with an 11 point different. Giving him a minor win and me a minor loss. Was truly a great game, I feel I made a couple errors that ended up costing me, but was a great first game in the event and I gained quite a bit of info from how the list performed.
In summary, I realized that I can/should be a bit more aggressive with the Dragoons, and should use the BA captains more as a surgical strike unit rather than a hammer unit. There was a pivotal point in the game where 5 Arquebus from the rangers shooting at a single Biovore with only 2 wounds remaining could not kill it and that caused about a 5 point swing in the match, which has definitely brought into question the desire to spend that many points on them with how unreliable they have been thus far.
Game 2: Imperial Guard
My second game wound up having me repaired to another opponent as neither of our opponents stayed after round 1. I had the amazing pleasure of being paired with the Colonel from Tabletop Tactics. He was running a fairly straight forward Astra Militarum brigade with 9 basilisks, about 70+ guardsman, and 30 ratlings. He deployed filling his entire deployment zone with a solid line of Ratlings spanning the 3” barrier in front of his main line. He got first turn, I mitigated as much as I could by not allowing too much of his army to focus on a single unit. He ended up having to split his fire between the 2 units of priests and the dragoons. He was able to damage each moderately and kill a single Dragoon. Then on my turn I hit his entire line with both priest units, the dragoon unit, and both BA captains. This ended up wiping out over 14 units turn 1, clearing most of his infantry, all the ratlings, and over half the characters. I was also able to get one of the captains into combat with 2 of the basilisks in the end, causing us to pretty much call the game there as both priest units were powered up to their 3++ and 1 of them had a 2++ for that turn. He didn’t have enough damage output at that point to stop me from closing the rest of the distance to his back line on the next turn and then it was just a waiting game until the basilisks died. Ended up with a max win on this one, but a great game with a great guy. He really took the loss amazing given the circumstances and we had a great chat about it in the end.
Game 3: Custodes/Roboute G.
My last game of day 1 was a total shocker to me. I went against a pure Custodes list backed by Bobby G. He deployed fairly centrally in a core group, and I went first. I had been very curious up to this point how this list would do hitting an elite line like this on turn 1. I got my answer. At the beginning of my opponent’s turn 1 he had 3 standard custodian guard left on the table who then died at the bottom of turn 1. Thus tabling my opponent on first turn. We were both completely shocked at how much damage the list was able to put down in a single turn. Was a shocking eye opener for me at least.
Game 4: T.Sons/Nurgle Daemons
My first game of day 2 came in the form of fighting Magnus, a DP, 27 Tzangor Enlightened, a Shaman, 50 Plaguebearers, 7 Drones, a unit of Nurglings and Scrivener and the Piper. I won the first turn and hit the double layer plaguebearer line with everything I had. I was able to wipe all the plaguebearers and the nurglings on my turn 1. My opponent on turn 1 moved out and dropped in 25 bloodletters inside his deployment zone to try to push back. He was able to drop a couple dragoons with some psychics, and death hexed one of the priest units and dropped them down quite a bit. Then charged the other powered up priest unit (which had a 2++ at the time) with the bloodletters (he was out of death hex range on that unit by about an inch). When the bloodletters died and the Enlightened unit he charged with as well he called it after that as all he had left going into my turn was Magnus, the DP with 2 wounds left and 1 squad of enlightened.
Game 5: Catachan/Shadowsword
My final game was a true nail biter the whole way. I played against a Catachan infantry line with a full Bullgryn star backed by a couple basilisks, some hellhounds, and his own BA captain with Mephiston and a Shadosword. And of course, he got first turn. This last one was a brutal matchup and losing turn 1 hurt. Lucky for me my opponent was not quite certain how resilient the Electro Priests were and decided to split his efforts turn 1 on both units rather than trying to wipe one out completely. This wound up costing him pretty bad as both units wound up getting powered up and one of units of priests ended up pushing into his line and holding up/fighting the bulk of his army for 3 turns with their 2++. That one unit wound up saving me the game in the end as the Shadowsword finally went down to the Dragoons in combat and the Ogryn star was half gone by turn 4. Then we ended up finishing the game and I had a major victory. It was a brutal game, went back and forth many times in points, but the last turn really swung hard in my favor.
So recap of the event. First point? ALWAYS PLAY THE MISSION! I broke my own rule and it cost me my first game. Second point? Alpha Strike is not dead, by any means! A solid takeaway from this event for me was that the sniper gimmick was just that, a gimmick. One I don’t want to rely upon. Another takeaway I took from this event was I am probably going to remove the Astra Militarum presence from the list. Other than the CP battery they have not once provided any real benefit to the list. I have a couple tweaks that I am working on and will post them up in the future for anyone wanting to follow the progress of the list. Thanks for reading and feel free to post any questions.
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