The World Team Championships returned and concluded three weeks ago, with Team Australia taking home the gold. For their part, Team USA put up an admirable fight, finishing 4th after a loss to Team Poland in the final rounds. If you're familiar with The Art of War you'll recognize a number of names from the US, Canada, and Australia teams, which were loaded with AoW team members. We've asked some of them to recap their experiences of the event. Today we're joined by Ridvan Martinez - better known as Archon Skari - who repped Team Canada at the event.

Before we dig in, it's important to note a few things:

1. The WTC is a teams event. If you're unfamiliar, you can find a primer on team 40k events here.
2. WTC used a pods system similar to FIFA for pairings, where teams were placed into pods for early matchups, with pod winners advancing.
3. WTC uses differential scoring (also referred to as "20-0"), where a player scores points for their team based on the difference between their VP score and the opponent's at the end of the game. A margin of victory of 50+ VP awards 20 points for the victor and 0 for the loser, while a game with a differential of 5 VP or fewer will award both players 10 points.
4. The WTC uses its own terrain setups, which are uniquely dense compared to many other layouts you frequently see at other events.

WTC Terrain Example

Skari's Breakdown

You can see more content from Skari on his Patreon

The list I took to WTC was a Coteries of the Haemonculus Army of Renown list and it was the only one at the event. Except for one other player, everyone I went up against did not understand how or what it did - and that was a great thing to have at such a high level of competition. Rather than break down the performance of the entire Canadian team (though we set a record for the country by taking 9th place!), I will be breaking down my thoughts and experiences from each of my individual games at the team event.

The Day Before the Event

Let’s start with the day in between the Singles and the team event. I went to the venue while the rest of the team visited Brussels and had Waffles or something. I ended up playing a practice game against some Orks! Their pilot was the winner of the Best Orks award from a recent GT in France and he was waiting for his train. His list was a Goff smash list with an emphasis on scoring. The table that we played on allowed me to block off his kill rig movement and he made a positional mistake that allowed me to charge and kill Ghaz mid game that then swung the game heavily in my favour.

After seeing so many awesome people, I returned to the hotel to meet with the team and prepare mentally and emotionally for the next three days - in which we'd play the seven most competitive games of 40k any of us had played in the last three years.

Day 1

Then it was time for the World Team Championship, the World Cup of Warhammer - they even use FIFA rules for counties! This year saw 28 teams from around the world facing off in mortal combat, arranged into seven groups of four teams each. Each team plays each other team in their group in order to determine seeding in the tournament's final four games. I loved this system. On day one we were scheduled to play our three games in probably the most fun and relaxed pod of them all - but note that "relaxed" does not mean non-competitive.

Round 1

Our first round was against Wales and I was paired into Tom Leighton and his Necrons. Our team had come to the realization that my list beats Nerons reliably and so I had a job: Get my 12. Now, Tom's list was one of the killiest Necron lists at the event... and almost exactly like the list that John the Cron used against me in one of our latest battle reports. I knew how dangerous the list could be with so many locust destroyers. I won the first turn roll-off, allowing me to gain board position and from there dominate the early scoring. Tom's list ended up doing a lot of damage, but by that point it was too late to turn the game around and I ended up with the victory.

Round 2

Round 2 had us going up against the toughest team we had to face in our group: Round 2 Vs Sweden. This time I was paired up against Axel Rydén's Harlequins on Recover the Relics (mission 11). This is a tough one - the mission tends to be called the "draw mission" due to the large number of draw results on it. It has six objectives with hold one/hold two scoring, plus it pushes you to the middle as it requires you to hold an objective outside your deployment zone to earn CP.

I’ve played against harlequins before with my list and it is a hard game. Something I had learned in the singles was how awesome Fear and Terror is as a secondary into harlequins and I easily maxed it out with my opponent just giving up trying to prevent me from getting points. I had predicted I'd loose the game but get 5-6 points on the differential and that’s what I got - 6 points. However the rest of the team had some harder matchups and as the dust settled Sweden had taken the win by a healthy margin.

Round 3

Having brushed off that loss it was time for our round three vs Northern Ireland and I was paired into Necrons again. This time the list had less shooting (good for me) but also double transcendent C'tan (not as good). Taking the first turn forced me to commit to the middle of the table on the mission and score some points early. However my opponent did not really get aggressive or push into the mid board allowing me to control the pace of the game and I was able to get a healthy win as the dust settled. Once again, the covens list showed its use against Necron armies that can just score lots and lots of points.

At this point it was close to 10:30 pm and we had to get food, do a matrix for our opponents the next morning and also try to get some sleep ahead of the 8:15 am start for day 2!

Day 2

Round 4

With some coffee helping us wake up, the fourth round had us going up against Finland, and I was paired up into their Drukhari player. Time to put my top Drukhari player hat on :). The list I played against was a more traditional list with grotesques, incubi, a killy succubus, and even some hellions. I was able to go first and use that to get a leg up on the positioning while also being able to kill the venom in my opponent's list to slow down the grenade Archon. The hellions would be a problem but I was able to split his army into two waves and using the Coteries stratagems for durability really went a long way in keeping the grotesques alive against his counter charge. The game was very bloody, especially in the first 2-3 turns. However as the dust settled Jussi was unable to bring his score up to mitigate my early lead and with that I was able to walk away with the victory. The round However was a loss, with us only being a few points away from a draw. That was a tough break as it was so close, so we rallied once again and prepared for our next game in the afternoon.

Round 5

And the end of the second day of teams we were paired up against Ireland. And that meant I was once again paired up against Necrons. The list was relatively similar to the others that I had played before at the event except for the addition of some Ophidian Destroyers. Once again my opponent was not as aggressive as he could have been and this allowed me to take board positioning and control the scoring on the objectives as best as I could. There was a critical moment in the game when I was able to use a strong advance to charge and kill a large unit of Necron Tomb Blades that would have murdered so many of my units at range. And once again the ability to give a unit a 4+ feel no pain save and the ability to take ObSec away were paramount to my victory here. After this game the team began calling me the “Necron Slayer.” We had won our round, leaving us to prepare for day 3.

Day 3

Round 6

The start of day three saw me facing my hardest match yet; we were facing the Netherlands round 6 and I was paired up against their team captain - a Harlequins player who plays as and against Drukhari on a regular basis. This was going to be a tough match. I had predicted I'd score about 4 points (this is usually not an easy game for me) if I went first - and lo and behold I went first, the worst that could happen in this matchup. Ruud played this very well - he did not over commit and trickled in his strength. I once again took Fear and Terror (maxed it), plus Take Them Alive, a great combination against Harlequins (I’ll have to elaborate at another time why and how this is so good). The round was very close and a few things did not go my way this game, leading to me losing the game and only getting 3 points out of it on the differential. Our team ended up losing the round by one point. Oooof.

Round 7

Our final round was against Italy and I was paired up against Andrea's Thousand Sons. Usually this matchup is not terrible for me, and I can win it so I was confident that I would be able to do ok. My opponent was great and we had an awesome time - the game went back and forth and was very bloody, with things dying all over the table. Ultimately Andrea's secondary choices allowed me to get a larger spread on the point differential after a gap in his lines allowed me to kill Ahriman on the 4th turn. One of the keys to this game was controlling the table space effectively with my units and preventing him from being able to use the Cult of Duplicity's Sorcerous Facade power to its full extent - the practice time I put in during the singles event against the Netherlands' Thousand sons payer a few days before really paid off here. I did not have much left at the end of the game but was able to come out of it with a win.

Final Thoughts

Overall it was a great event and I had a fantastic time. My list was quite effective at doing what it was supposed to do, which is score points even against some of the toughest lists. If you have any questions, or would like me to make a more in-depth breakdown of my coteries of the Heamonculus list, let us know in the comments or head over and join our community at the Art of War.

Skari - Out

You can get more great analysis and insight from the Art of War by heading over to their site.



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