Boon's US Open Austin Tournament Report: Victory in Defeat?

In my usual post-event writeups I walk through each round of the event. However, I’m going to take a little bit of a different tack on this post-event writeup. In part because it’s the holiday weekend and I don’t want to take a ton of time, but also because I wrote 6 of 8 rounds for the last event (US Open NOLA) and then burned out on the final two rounds and didn't publish. Instead, what I’d like to do is summarize the event, my mindset and goals entering in, and then discuss my takeaways in two key games.

Heading into Austin

In the New Orleans event I was a little bit ahead of the field – having piloted 5 Talos and 6 Cronos into a semi-final loss against Richard Siegler’s Ad Mech before finishing out the event 7-1 into Jony Velazquez’s Thousand Sons. Heading into the Austin event I knew I was likely going to be running something similar. Then the Competitive Update came out and flipped a lot of the meta on its head. I knew my list was going to be the new hotness for Drukhari with Covens being an obvious winner of the update with a lot of the more traditional Drukhari MSU builds taking a significant hit. As I found at NOLA, the Artists of Flesh coven provides a huge boost into armies like Grey Knights and Freebooterz and with the worst of the latter being curbed, I was confident that the core of the list would still work. However, I knew other Drukhari players would shift into a similar style of play which presented several challenges. Most of the common Drukhari units are D2 and so the mirror match would largely depend on who rolled the dice better or had the extra tools necessary to get through that -1D.

Some hobby lag would prevent me from picking up more obvious tools (looking at you Talos Gauntlets) but I did make some minor adjustments to lean into the points drops on Grotesques and Talos. I opted to forgo the campaign book’s Cult of Strife stratagems in order to keep my troop units cheap – putting 5-man Wrack squads into each of three patrols (Cult of Strife, Dark Technomancer, and Artists of Flesh). I swapped one of my six Cronos to boost the five Talos, giving myself a little more durability at the cost of some reliable firepower. I also dropped two Raiders and an Incubi squad for a Venom and Grotesques, then finally swapped out one of the Succubus for a Haemonculus to increase the toughness of the Grotesques.  I opted to keep the Hellions in their 2x5-man formations as I really liked their speed, especially as I shifted away from the Raider-bound Incubi and Wrack squads. The mirror would still be a slugging match, but I felt fairly confident about my flexibility, durability, and output into likely competitor lists – Grey Knights, Orks, Knights, and Tyranids.

My goals were to make the top-16 cut. If that failed, then I sought to win the second bracket. As a fallback goal, I simply didn’t want to lose to the state of Texas. ;)

Army on Parade



 

The Event Summary

One of the best parts of any big event is hanging out with friends and meeting new ones. An event can be disappointing in terms of performance, but it can only ever be bad when the games are not enjoyable. When the games are good, and the opponents are enjoyable on and off the table, the event will be great – and happily this was the case. I faced some tough opponents and armies and had some close games. A big thank you to Chris Arrington, Josh Schneider, Jack Harpster, Mat Tweedel, Teddy Alvarez, James Watkins, Garrett Moore, and Hunter Nichols for the great time! And of course teammates Bill Stineman and Brian Hunter!

Overall, I played into Craftworlds (Chris), Drukhari (Joshua), Freebooterz Orks (Mat and James), Grey Knights (Jack and Garrett), Iron Hands (Teddy), and Space Wolves (Hunter). I failed in achieving my primary goal of making the top cut after suffering a narrow 85-87 loss to Jack Harpster’s Grey Knights in round 3, then my secondary goal after losing to Hunter 79-82 in round 8. Fortunately, my Texas opponents were accommodating, and I went 5-0 against the state of Texas for the moral victory. Truly it’s the little things in life.

I’ll briefly walk through each day of the event, but this review will focus on my round 3 game against Jack, and then my round 8 game against Hunter – both great games against great players with instructive losses.

Day One – Chris Arrington, Josh Schneider, and Jack Harpster

The first round of an event is always the most exciting – it’s a true random with no prior standings information available. As Mike Brandt wrapped up his opening comments, the pairings went up and I had drawn Chris Arrington and his Craftworld force. In our current meta, this was a significant mismatch in terms of raw power, but Chris had still crafted a powerful list that was able to prevent some significant points on secondaries while combining typical elf mobility to limit potential on primary. Chris has an eye on next year as he gets back into the game with his Craftworlds – having taken some time away from the game for family and to raise children. We had a good game and closed out with a Drukhari win at 92-49.

In the next round I played a young gun Josh Schneider and his Drukhari. I had played a similar matchup in round two at NOLA with Mike Walsh and his Drukhari. Josh wasn’t quite ready to lean into the Covens, bringing a mix of some Cronos and Talos but opting to also retain multiple Raiders and large blocks of Kabalites/Trueborn and Wyches.  I got my first taste of the Coven-mirror with his Talos and Cronos and he came out on top there, but by focusing on his Raiders and troops I was able to drive up the score on objectives and keep the fight on his objectives rather than my own. The result was a 89-73 victory and left just one more mission to play on day one and with my less preferred Dawn of War terrain style.

Credit: Pendulin

Round 3: vs. Jack Harpster's Grey Knights

Surround & Destroy – Dawn of War – Take & Hold Primary

• My Secondaries: Herd the Prey, Abhor the Witch, Retrieve Octarius Data
• His Secondaries: Purifying Ritual, Retrieve Octarius Data, Stranglehold

 

The Mission: Surround & Destroy

Jack and I have had a bit of a series this year. As one of the Art of War core team I knew this would be a all hand on deck affair. Prior to this we had faced off in Dallas and again in New Orleans before squaring up here in Austin. In both cases we’ve had great, hard-fought games where with a little bit of luck (those FNPs in New Orleans – lol) I was able to come out on top.

Heading into this game I felt confident with my list’s capability to mitigate Grey Knights' damage output. Jack mentioned that only his Grandmaster Dreadknights had swords which meant that almost his entire list was putting out D2 attacks in combat, which would be heavily mitigated by the mass of Artists of Flesh Grotesques and Talos. As we were initially getting to the table Nick swung by and invited us up to the stream tables and as we got over to that table the game went from one I was confident about to an immediate uphill struggle.

The new terrain option at Austin, with shorter ruins.

Our game would take place on one of the new Ork tables that were unique to Austin, built using the terrain from Warzone Octarius Kill Team kit. They key difference here is that the 5” tall ruins that could hide my monsters and other medium sized units were replaced by 3” tall ruins which mean his Dreadknights would be able to draw clear lines of sight across the table. The only place I could hide my Talos/Cronos would be on my very back edge out of the large 12x12” terrain blocks. To make matters worse, every objective on this mission would be in the open. The game is viewable as it was streamed on the Warhammer Community Twitch, though I’d caution that the nuance of what happened is hard to pick out via the commentary – I think the outcome came as a bit of a surprise to the announcers.

In deployment I chose to leverage as much of the back edge as possible, minimizing the damage I’d take in going second, while hiding most of the Grotesques and infantry forward in the line-of-sight blocking ruins where they’d be capable of threatening the middle-table objectives. Should Jack push out one unit at a time or attempt to take the middle objectives in force, I’d be able to counter efficiently to cut down a couple of valuable infantry blocks. The hope here was that Jack would go first and take the first move to push for the middle objectives to support his Purifying Ritual – likely one objective at a time. If he did, I could selectively counter him and then push forward at once to threat overload and outfight him at a slight advantage. Jack, however, did not go first and is a far better player than to rush in at a disadvantage. With his own deployment, Jack maintained a minimum of 26” to prevent any ranged threats and then deployed most infantry on the line and in hiding – reserving two 5-man units of Interceptors.

I Went First

Going first put me in a real conundrum. All of the objectives were in the open, I did not have the range to effect Jack (who was careful to maintain a 26” separation at all times) in the shooting phase and I needed to close the gaps to be able to at all impact this game before turn 3 or 4. With a sigh, I pushed my Cronos as deep into the ruins as I could while sectioning off the front walls with infantry to prevent assaults through the walls. My Talos swung out to cover the side objectives to ensure I’d at least get my 10 primary points – then I turned it over to Jack.

On his turn Jack did the equivalent of powering up his Spirit Bomb and lined up every Dreadknight in the army to target my Cronos – which just couldn’t hide. Importantly, he aligned his own infantry units to prevent a charge from my Grotesques then snuck a couple of Strikes onto the left-most center objective for Purifying Ritual and an attempt at a Hold More/force me out. The combined shooting and about half of Jack’s CP were successful in removing 4 of my 5 Cronos and demoralizing me considerably.

In my second turn I knew I had no choice but to push forward. My Talos and remaining Cronos leapt out to clear that central objective. I covered down on my home objectives with a squad of Wracks on one side, who had to expose themselves, and then a squad of Grots and Wracks on the other. My hope was that the threat in Jack’s face would prevent him from focusing on my home objectives as they wouldn’t take much to remove. On the right-center objective, my Venom with Succubus and Incubi held out with the Talos from that corner. The left-center Talos cleared the objective but failed to kill the squad entirely – but I held it with the Talos and the suriving Cronos.

On his turn 2, Jack positioned to counter my encroaching Talos while sliding out a second-strike squad to Ob Sec away the right-center objective currently held by the Venom and second Talos squad. His remaining Interceptors and Strike Squads continue to cordon off the walls preventing a Grots charge. The combined shooting and all of Jack’s remaining CP was used to tear into the left-center Talos unit while the two Interceptor squads pushed out to clean up anything left standing in the fight phase. The combined pushback easily cleared the monsters.

From this point forward I have only one hard-hitting unit facing down multiple Interceptor squads and all five Dreadknights – but importantly Jack was going to be very limited in CP moving forward. My only chance was to continue to press into him, clear as many of his chaff squads as possible, and force his Dreadknights to carry the game. I lined up my Grotesques and Talos to make charges on as many units as possible – hoping to clear the Interceptors on the center-left and perhaps chip some damage on a Dreadknight with the remaining Talos shooting. My succubus lept out to clear the two remaining Strike squad members that didn’t go down in turn 2. The Archon and the Court charged out with the Grots. The Venom moved up to threaten a strung out squad of Interceptors between Jack’s back-right objective and center-right objective – hoping to use the combined charge + pile-in + consolidate to sneak onto his home objective. Meanwhile my Hellions, previously held in reserve, came in on the board edge, seeking to make an 8” charge (Cult of Strife get +1) to the strung-out Interceptors, trying to position to force some decisions from Jack. It was, after all, the time for Hail Mary’s. The turn went well with the exception of the Hellions, which both failed their charge, one with the reroll – I ended up clearing most of his infantry and leaving Jack on only one objective– leaving just two 5-man’s on the board, a Techmarine, and the 5 Dreadknights. My Succubus tried to tuck back into the Court’s protection behind the wall after finishing the two Strikes.

On Jack’s turn he brought in his remaining Interceptors in my board corner to clear the 5 Wracks holding my home-left objective then pressed everything else forward. Without much left in my reserve to throw into the center, all of our cards were on the table. I had two big threats that could cost Jack the game at this point – the Court and Grot squad which protected my versatile core of Succubus and Archon, then the block of Talos. The Venom/Incubi and remaining Grot squad were tied to my home-right objective. His combined shooting and charges enveloped and dropped the Court, Archon, and Succubus but it failed to finish off the Grotesques. Still, he took back the central objective while his deep-striking Interceptors cleared my Wracks and took my home-left objective. On his home-right objective, his Grandmaster used an ObSec ability to reclaim the objective from the Venom and the combined shooting and charge finished both Hellions squads.

At this point, we were still in a very, very tight game. Limiting his control on primaries and forcing hard decisions on Purifying Ritual meant Jack’s score was actually lagging mine despite the state of the board. We both chose ROD and at this point we would both have 3 of the 4 quarters tagged. He had one final quarter to take care of but no immediate opportunity with his CP to shunt an Interceptor squad over – he would plan for T5 to do so. Meanwhile, I was nearing my max on Abhor the Witch and would hold at least 10 on Herd the Prey at the end of turn 4. If I could land my Incubi to deliver the final ROD while zoning out my home-right quarter, it could very well lead to a win. My Venom moved towards the board center between his two home obstructing pieces – planning to drop the Incubi out on the next turn to get final ROD – hoping and praying Jack wasn’t thinking about that and in turn ensuring their destruction. My Talos moved over across the board center to close on the combined forces that had just cleared the characters and Court – I shot the Dreadknight off the board then cleared the Interceptors on the charge.

Jack’s Turn 4 saw him consolidate his position on objectives with his Dreadknights – his Grandmaster on his home-right cleared the Wracks leaving just the remaining Grotesque squad holding my home-right. His three remaining Dreadknights positioned on my Talos and Grotesques – without a Grandmaster over here his Dreadknights couldn’t effectively charge my Talos so relied on ranged – saving the CP for a shunt of the Interceptors. Meanwhile, the central Dreadknight positioned to block any departure of my Venom and then deliberately did not kill it, which might enable the occupants to emergency disembark.

On my turn 5, after accounting for my Primary, the score was 85-69 in my favor and unless I could pull some of the Dreadknights off the board, he would result in a near certain 18 points for Primary on bottom of 5 and Stranglehold. His blocking of the Venom effectively stopped my Incubi from rodding the final quarter which means I had to find a way to block out my quarter. Using an advance on both the remaining Grotesques and my Venom, I managed just enough spacing to effectively block a squad of 5 from shunting in on his turn. My last hope was that Talos shooting could clear the damaged Dreadknight hanging back on his home-left objective, then the charge to clear the second Dreadknight. If successful, he would be forced to fight my Talos for his Objective Secure (a shunt would be blocked out of a third objective) AND roll three consecutive Purifying Rituals with only one unit on each objective. Honestly not bad odds and it would come down to how well Jack could roll 4+’s. If I failed, it would only require that Jack roll three successful Purifying Rituals to win where at least 2 objectives were covered by two or more units. Unfortunately for me, and maybe in retribution for our last matchup in NOLA, Jack rolled well on his saves and neither Dreadknight went down. On his Turn 5 we rolled the Purifying Rituals and it was all over – Jack had taken it!

Result: 85-87 Loss

I think it was easy to look at the terrain and say “this cost me the game.” To be clear, on that night, I did just that. And while it’s true that the terrain was not what I expected based on the NOLA experience or the mission pack, it wasn’t inherently unfair in a random pairing and matchup. It… is shitty luck but it also wasn’t why I lost. After thinking about the game a little more I realized two things:

• I should have reserved the Cronos despite the Dawn of War deployment (note: Jack disagrees with this)
• Alternatively, I could have pushed all my monsters forward on the deployment line and surged out on T1 regardless of going 1^st or 2^nd 

Had I done either of these things I think I would have been in a much better position to win. The Cronos are incredibly effective units into Grey Knights when they can get the first strike and the placement of the home objectives meant that I’d certainly get that opportunity. It was a mistake that hurts even more knowing that I usually reserve my Cronos and in the early going I had far more CP than I needed. The alternative isn’t great, but it admits the reality of the situation – I need to get a cross a board where I cannot hide anywhere – but once I’m in I can outfight the Grey Knights due to damage reduction. Having deployed all the way forward and pushing out of the gate would have meant that Jack only got a single turn of focused shooting into me, rather than the two he had. He of course is not without agency here but taking that second turn of shooting out likely leaves me with enough of a force to counter him and put me over the top in a tight one.

Jack did leave me with a feel good here. Last time we played he told me that I was the only non-AoW member to have taken him down since the first GW event in Orlando. After our game I asked if that were still true and he confirmed it was, so I’m hanging my hat on that. We may have the opportunity to play again in short order at the GW Dallas Invitational this upcoming weekend and I really look forward to a great game against a great and fun opponent!

Day Two – Mat Tweedel, Teddy Alvarez, James Watkins

My first game of the second day following my round 3 loss saw me face a Freebooterz list that gave me hope I might yet sneak into the top cut – while I had a loss, an 85-point loss is a strong one and with a little help and luck I could push for 100 BP in my game 4 and wait to see if others received low-scoring defeats that would enable a top run.

I met Mat Tweedel at the table, and I am glad I did. Mat is a fantastic guy out of Beaumont, TX who is looking to get into the competitive scene more routinely and improve his play. I went first in our game and the combination of tying up his buggies and some low rolls on his Wazbom’s meant I was able to achieve the 100-point victory. Of note in our game, after an initial Incubi push that saw them obliterate a squad of Kommandos. My Incubi just absolutely tripped all over themselves and planted face-first into a Mek Gun where they’d struggle over the next three combats to do anything while the Grot gunners just poked them with especially pointy sticks to an early grave. It was a moral victory to be certain as they just wilted under the awe-inspiring ability that is a Mek Gun in close combat.

Afterwards we talked about our game, his local scene, then met up with Rob Jones to grab some lunch and talk about building up his local community for competitive play. If you’re in the Houston area, Mat is an incredible dude and I recommend connecting with him if you’re interested in growing the competitive scene in that slice of Texas. Meanwhile, I am hoping to run into Mat at future events, great guy, great opponent. Oh, and I missed the top cut by like 4 placings.

Teddy was my first game in the new bracket 3-1 I'd been sorted into. He was sporting some Iron Hands with a couple of typical Redemptors, then a rarely seen Gladiator Reaper and some typical supporting characters and units. I’ve grown to respect the power of Iron Hands and was a bit cautious in this game, the sheer amount of firepower that the unit can put out can be staggering. Ultimately, I was able to outmaneuver Teddy and pin him down in key areas that allowed me a scoring advantage and a 91-59 victory.

My final game of the night was into James Watkins and his Freebooterz Orks (for our purposes, I am James Two and he is Jimmy). It was in this game that I learned just how gross the Wazbom’s are as Jimmy used them expertly, applying re-rolls as a priority. I don’t know who at Games Workshop thought that a plane capable of delivering 2d6 Cognis Lascannons which hit on 4’s normally, 3’s with the Freebooterz boost was fine (and that’s ignoring the slough of other guns the plane carries) but I’d hope they really consider what they’ve done next time that quarterly update rolls around. I was so shocked at how much these things put out that it forced me to ask my teammate, Bill Stineman, if he was playing his own Wazbom correctly – in a couple of games the weekend prior I couldn’t’ remember the plane being nearly so devastating. Turns out Bill was just real bad at rolling dice and I didn’t take notice.

In any case, I was lucky to escape this one- after James’ devastating turn 1 he failed a nail-in-the-coffin charge by accidently roping in the last Scrapjet in his conga line. In his overzealousness to line up as many shots as possible around the edge of an obscuring piece, he positioned too many things in front of his rear-most vehicle which prevented the charge and gave me enough life to maneuver myself back into the game. After a long night, we finally settled a 78-49 victory. As it turned out James is an avid Goonhammer reader and suggested an article on sportsmanship that focuses on the judge call. I currently have an article in the cue on playing by intent and I think such an article is an excellent companion piece – thanks for the suggestion Jimmy and it should be out there soon!

Day Three – Garrett Moore, Hunter Nichols

My first game of the final day was into Garrett Moore and his Grey Knights. We had met the night prior while out for dinner and drinks at the Russian House and it was nice to get a good and friendly game into our final rounds. Garrett is an awesome dude out of the Houston area whose dice were so remarkably bad in every situation that it circled all the way back from frustrating to hilarious again. In any case, I excised the Jack Harpster Grey Knights demons on Garrett to move one-game away from my secondary goal.

 

Round 8: vs. Hunter Nichol's Space Wolves Successors

Sweep & Clear – Corners – Take & Hold Primary

• My Secondaries: Herd the Prey, Direct Assault, Retrieve Octarius Data
• His Secondaries: Direct Assault, Stranglehold, Oaths of Moment

 

The Mission: Sweep and Clear

Hunter, sitting at 6-1, was rolling through the event with his Space Wolf successors which he and Jamie Paris had been using to great success late in the season. We missed each other in the top bracket of the New Orleans Open, but finally caught up with one another in the final round of Austin. Staring down the barrel of a 10-hour ride home to Mississippi he was looking for a win to close out the weekend and I was seeking to meet my fallback goal. His only loss to this point on the weekend came in a round 4 matchup with a Hive Guard-heavy Tyranid list.

Walking up to the table, on this map, I knew Hunter would select the secondaries that scored on his control of the central objective – it was an ideal map where he could easily net 8-10 points a turn on the secondary since his mobility would allow him to make good use of the terrain and position each turn to threaten and retake the middle. We were on an Ork table, which like with my game into Jack, meant I wouldn’t be able to hide from his one melta unit in the drop pod. Thanks to some local players, I had a good idea of what his list wanted to do and knew that Turn 3 onwards could be absolutely brutal but without much ability to take me on at range, I knew we’d ultimately end up in a brawl on the board center and as long as I could keep my home objectives safe in the first couple of turns I was confident in my ability to simply outlast and then outmaneuver in the late game.

During deployment I positioned everything within my corner ruin block and then held out a Wrack, the 3-monster Cronos squad, and then both Hellions squads in reserve. I screened along my deployment edges to ensure the drop pod melta unit wasn’t going to get the +2D and then prepared to position myself to threaten the center on T1. Hunter placed similarly but extended an Incursor squad into my top-left objective.

Hunter Goes First

Hunter did have one jump pack unit capable of threatening my castle on T1 – I had placed my Haemonculus forward in the front corner of my ruin, but I unfortunately misplaced him a bit. I wanted to place him so that he could throw his Animus Vitae on T1 into any of Hunter’s units that came to claim the center, facilitating my Talos and Grots to get a T1 advance and charge. However, I didn’t want him out on his lonesome – wanting him to be set such that Grots on either side of him would be required to be drawn into any combat. The resulting placement error cost me the Haemy right off when Hunter was able to maneuver a Skyclaw squad to only engage it. Meanwhile, an Assault Intercessor unit and his Wulfen came out in hiding behind the top-center obscuring ruin, in a position to move against my top-left objective or into the center on T2. His Long Fangs came in onto the central objective, placing two units to hold the center, and then opened up on one my Talos squads. While he hit and wounded with nearly every melta shot, his damage rolls failed him and I didn’t lose a single Talos. However, his oncoming Wolf Guard were successful in cutting down my Haemy to salvage the turn.

On my responding turn, I moved everything out to position against the center from my side of the central ruins, looking to simply clear the center then steal the objective with a squad of screening Wracks from one of my deployment edges. My Court and Archon moved up from my deployment edge, along with a Succubus dismounting from the Venom, to clear the Incursors and take my top-left objective. The advancing Wracks took the center while the combination of Talos and Cronos shooting cleared the Long Fangs and drop pod – the shooting from the Talos being successful in triggering a Symphony of Pain that allowed then a T5 Power from Pain (5++ being the key). Then everything charged the Haemy-murdering Skyclaws, using the other squad of Talos to clear them and activating a second Symphony of Pain, now putting both Talos squads on a 5++. The two characters and the Court were successful on their charge and as a result cleared the Incursors to give me my two home objectives (top-left, bottom-left). In a game where Hunter was going to need to outfight and outlast me, he’d lost nearly a quarter of his army on T1 while I got several significant boosts. The loss of the Haemy was unnecessary, but it wasn’t a critical loss either. He had two units forward enough to threaten my back-field, but otherwise was deep in his own board half and only capable of fighting for the center in T2.

With just a single squad on the central objective, the 5-man Assault Intercessors would be enough to clear them and win his bevy of secondary points. His Wulfen then cut a path for my top-left objective while everything else shuffled at home. Without much to shoot, he charged in on both sides – my Archon intervened and forced the fight last. He cleared the central Wracks, and then my Archon, positioned so that only a single Wulfen could fight back on death, allowed the Court to swing first. They whiffed mightily with their slough of attacks but still managed to kill 3 – fighting on death, the 1 in range of my Archon fought into him, scoring 8 hits, 8 wounds, and he then promptly failed all of his saves and died improbably. The other 2 Wulfen were successful in killing 3 more of the Court with a batch of poor feel no pains. With the remaining 2 Wulfen yet to swing I opted to pull the nearest 3 Court members nearest to his charging models, breaking the combat but losing the objective. I auto-passed on morale but this combat was a huge break for Hunter – the improbable loss of the Archon took a tool away that would be essential in the coming turns as the fight turned to the center and he was successful in limiting a critical second turn primary score to just 5.

Still, at the start of my turn 2, Hunter was losing the trade game. With my near full-strength and powered-up Talos, Cronos, and Grotesques capable of dominating the center, and losing the primary, I decided to force the issue and swarm the central objective. Easily clearing the single Wolf Guard squad there, I was positioned to absord his T3 fury and the counter-punch down his units. As insurance, I brought my 3-monster Cronos squad in off my deployment zone for a counter-attack on T3 and positioned my 2-monster Cronos to overwatch if Hunter misplayed his positioning. Meanwhile, my Succubus moved in to finish the 2 remaining Wulfen. With just two available targets, I claimed the center, removed those Wolf Guard, then charged the Succubus and Court into the Wulfen. The Succubus, using her Show Stealer and activation order (controlling player) was able to clear the Wulfen and jump away to safety, but the Court took the remaining swings back – killing 2 more of the Court and leaving just the one model on the objective. Failing that morale on a 5, I would lose the objective a second time which really put the game in question. A strong Turn 3 from Hunter would likely swing the game from a likely win to a potential loss.

Evaluating his options, the board state, and what faced him down on T3 if he didn’t commit, Hunter correctly decided to go all in. Using his bodyguard, he negated the Cronos overwatch and plowed all of his remaining options into my two Talos squads and the Cronos. Using his reroll aura, Hunter rerolled everything that wasn't a 6 in all of his squads, which on T3 each 6 meant 3 hits rather than 1 or 2. The resulting number of hits was straight fire and simply overwhelming and were good enough to clear one squad of Talos, the Cronos, and most of the remaining Talos squad. It was a devastating blow and a bit unexpected but at least he was now out in the open and with what I had remaining I thought I could punch back sufficiently in my turn. My lone remaining Talos swung back but his Storm Shield and FNPs saves were on point.

On my Turn 3 I sent my bottom-most Grotesque squad after his home bottom-right objective, then positioned my remaining Grotesques and the Venom, Succubus, Hellions, Cronos, and Incubi to push back on his Wolf Guard and characters. The Cronos proved remarkably underwhelming in the shooting phase, failing to kill anything. However, Hunter was out of CP so I had a chance to make up for it in combat. The Grotesques charged his home objective held by a single squad of Skyclaws, then my other Grotesque unit charged one of the two Wolf Guard units, leaving the other one for my Talos to clean up. The Cronos, Incubi, Succubus, and Hellions all charged into his Chaplain, Lieutenant, and Chapter Master, and the Venom made a long charge to lock his Judiciar in place to prevent a second fight-last. His Lieutenant using the Armor of Russ made my Incubi fight last while the Incubi failed to make anyone else fight last.

My bottom Grots squad killed only 3 members of the Skyclaws but still took the objective while my top-most Grots squad cleared his top-most Wolf Guard. The Talos again failed to put through any wounds, leaving a squad of 3 to kill the Talos in return and freeing them for T4. The Venom would die to the Judiciar, but the Succubus killed the Lieutenant, although she couldn't hop out due to the logjam and died to... someone (possibly the Judiciar on the following turn). The Hellions whiffed on the Chaplain, only putting through 3 wounds for 6 damage. It wasn't the best, Hunter had some good spikes on saves that kept a couple of key units alive, but I was in a good spot heading into turn 4 with the Grotesques likely sealing his home objective, and only a couple of characters and three Wolf Guard to take on my remaining full-health Cronos, Grotesques, and Hellions - he had his Blood Claws squad near but not on his top-right home objective that would be mostly out of the fight from here, and then a single cyberwolf and 2 Skyclaws to challenge full-squad of 3 Grotesques on his bottom-right. My backfield was held by two Wrack squads, and I just needed to hold on to those two objectives to seal a win. Notably however, I failed to move the Wracks onto my bottom-left objective (Sweep & Clear allows you to hold objectives you're not currently on if you held it in your previous Command Phase). Honestly that last bit with the Wracks is a little bit fuzzy to me so bear with me. At the end of turn 3 it was 39-56 in Hunter's favor but I had the last turn and far more capability on the board.

At this point the judges were at our table, as we had hit our 3-hour limit and they were pressing us to finish the game. Time had gotten away from us both so the rest was played out in a very hurried, half-talked, half-rolled fashion under the watchful eyes of the judges. His Chapter Master jumped on to my home bottom-left objective while his three remaining Wolf Guard beelined for my top-left objective and made a long charge to clear the Wracks off the objective and secure a Stranglehold. Ouch.

On my turn 4 my Grotesques cleared his two remaining Skyclaws but did not attempt to multi-charge the Cyberwolf - which was unfortunate as I would need them to ROD in T5. The surviving Hellions moved into his top-right to take the objective and ROD'd the third zone, and the other, central Grotesques squad cleared the Judiciar and bodyguard. The Cronos chased down the Chapter Master and unleased flamer death while my Wracks jumped back on the objective there. At the end of turn 4 it was 53-70 in Hunter's favor with one final turn - he would pick up 5 primary and I was near guaranteed 15 which meant that the score would be 68-75 and come down to the secondary score on the final turn. Monster's were out of range and he wouldn't be able to hold the center, so Oaths of Moment was only eligible for 1 more point for a total of 12 - he could get 6 more points on Direct Assault and Stranglehold by stealing my bottom-left objective with that three-man Wolf Guard unit - it required a middle/long charge. It was in this moment that I realized just had bad I had fucked up. He did it, he made it, and he cleared the 5 Wracks that were on the near side of the objective. He scored a total of 82 points. My turn 5 I could only score the 4 on Herd the Prey because I hadn't cleared the Cyberwolf, and the Grotesques were needed to ROD the final quarter for 12. I picked up Direct Assault to max at 15 and the end-of-turn Primary of 15 brought me just shy at 79 points. Hunter snuck out the win.

Result: Loss, 79 – 82

Critical Turn 3 Moves

Like my game with Jack, it is easy to look at the circumstances of how this played out and say, “Man, those three instances of improbable dice really cost me”. Again, it's not invalid, but that isn’t why I lost. Hunter played the game to his best and constantly put himself in a position to win after T1 – he played an excellent game and deserved the win. More importantly, I made a series of key mistakes:

1. My Court did not need to charge the Wulfen on T2 and thus die in the fight-on-death when the Succubus murdered them
2. Had I just slowed down, thought more clearly, I could have prevented the charge on my home-objective Wracks that gave Hunter the Direct Assault points he needed to win by simply shifting them around to the far side of the objective and out of range of a charge on my T4 rather than simply placing them on it on his nearside.
3. In combination with the previous I could have multi-charged the two remaining Skyclaws and Cyberwolf with my Grotesques in T4 – which is a likely kill on both on average dice to give me 2 Herd the Prey points in T5.

Decision #1 and #2 would have prevented the loss, while either #1 or both #2/#3 would have resulted in the win. I did get some poor luck in key moments but that’s Warhammer. The difference is that Hunter put himself in a position to win and I did not. That #2 really kills me - it was a no-risk play to simply move to the bottom-most end of the objective but in my rush I just simply missed it. Still, it was an excellent chess-match of a game and Hunter deserved that win at the game’s finish. I imagine it took the edge of a 10-hour drive home on a Sunday night, and for that I think we can both be happy for him. Congratulations Hunter, and I hope we play again soon!

 

Final Thoughts

Something that I know I want to work on is the “blame the dice/terrain/whatever” reaction that comes immediately with some losses. It’s not that the reactions aren’t valid in certain cases, but it has the side affect of short-changing the contributions of my opponents and, if not properly considered, prevents me from learning from the game. If the result is out of my control then there’s nothing to have been done, but in most cases that simply isn’t true. In retrospect, I had some rough luck in both losses but they were still winnable games if I had the presence of mind. Both of my losses were into excellent players who deserved the win and played great games, and importantly, I had wins that relied on me getting the benefit of luck in this event. Confirmation bias is a hell of a classic attribution error and it's just best to fight back against it whenever possible.

Overall this was an event that provided valuable lessons – considering the quality and character of my opponents I can’t help but think that despite missing both my goals it was still an incredibly successful event. In my opinion the Games Workshop’s US Opens have been a great series of events overall, and I sincerely hope Mike and his team continue them in 2022. On the results of both NOLA and Austin, I did get a wildcard invite to the Dallas Finale this upcoming weekend. With Siegler unable to make it, I will look forward to a fourth match with Jack and a first with Brad and/or Mani. A fun way to end the year and a nice bit of practice into top competition before my final event of the season at the Las Vegas Open.

Want to know more about that upcoming Dallas Invitational? Stay tuned for our preview of the event later today! And if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.

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