Hello, Dear Reader, and welcome back to my ongoing log of the 2022 season. Last time around I was furiously prepping for WarZone Houston, touching up Thousand Sons, refining the list, and touching up the models in order to snag a high paint score for the ITC Hobby Track. I finished my final paint pass on my minis late on Thursday, had time to chill with the wife on Friday, and then on Saturday it was time for WarZone.

Saturday

Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

WarZone Houston is probably the closest a GT will ever be to my house, unless we run a GHO in the Houston area next year (which, probably, but I'm still working out the logistics). I get there when registration starts and meet up with the Astros Militarum, the local Houston crew I game with often. The key members of the Astros you need to know for this story are:

• Dan "Swiftblade" Richardson, whose name will be familiar to longtime readers. I play against him often. He's running Chaos Knights at the event.
• Andrew Corban, aka "The Hero of the Imperium," who made a splash at the GHO Narrative. Andrew is running Salamanders.
• T, a relatively recent arrival on the scene and my round 1 opponent at Ettin a few weeks ago. T is running Chaos Knights.
• Garrett, running his Grey Knights. I've played Garrett several times and have yet to beat him, in part because he has an uncanny knack for rolling boxcars on charges out of deep strike.
• Brendan Muller, an Astra Militarum player in the Astros I've clashed with a few times. Known for just rolling insane numbers of shots with his indirect fire.
• Carmine Battista, one of the best players in the Astros and probably the state and my local nemesis, more or less. I lost to him in the final round of the Ettin RTT a few weeks ago. He's still running Bloody Rose sisters.

Not present are my other good frirends, Erik and Greg "Klobasnek" Narro. Erik couldn't make the event work logistically and Greg just had a baby. They were both dearly missed.

The event has a pretty good turnout overall, running two days and six rounds with 107 players. That's theoretically enough that we could have multiple undefeateds in 6 rounds, but it'll end up not being the case.

A Note on Terrain: The terrain at WarZone Houston used a fixed layout very similar to the GW ones, but players were allowed to rotate one piece of terrain in their territory before deployment, starting with the Defender. Most games I will end up rotating my large ruin toward the opponent, so I can use the cover while walking forward to get a safer approach.

My List

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

In case you missed it last time around, here's the list I'm running:



The general plan is to press toward the middle with one group of Terminators and clean up with the other, while the Warpflamers can teleport around and take out key targets and threaten backfield objectives. The Spawn can either be a forward threat or a backfield objective holder, depending on the opponent. Most missions I'm taking Psychic Interrogation and Raise the Banners High, and then Wrath of Magnus if the opponent has a Psyker or a kill secondary otherwise, though I may also take Grind or Engage on All Fronts in some matchups if I'm forced to.

Generally, I want to go first against Necrons and marines and second against Tyranids and Adepta Sororitas armies. I'd also like to make some actual armor saves with my terminators now and again but as we'll see, that wasn't in the cards.

Round 1: vs. Dane Mercer's Necrons

Dane Mercer, my favorite opponent from the event. Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

There's nothing better than starting an event off against a great opponent and Dane was my favorite opponent from the event. He's a member of Russell Tassin's team, Swamp Fox, and I have to say that they are, across the board, the classiest group of players in Texas and it's not particularly close. Other standouts in the group are Mat Tweedel and my round 6 opponent, Steven Fox. If you're looking for a good group to play against, Team Swamp Fox are the pinnacle of the hobby.

Anyways, on to the game. Dane's running Necrons with the Silent King and a pair of C'Tan.



This is a tough list to go up against, and I had to go up against a similar list back in Dallas at the Lone Star Open, when I faced off against Nathaniel Bjorge. Dane's list doesn't run the Wraiths but instead goes heavier on Destroyers, which is largely a good thing for me since it's easier for me to deal with shooting than it is to deal with melee.

The Mission: Tear Down Their Icons

This is the best mission in 9th edition, in my opinion. It's got a decent layout and the bonus primary objective encourages interesting and varied play and gives other armies a way to compete by not just forcing them to hold even more objectives. There need to be more actions in 40k that you can do away from objective markers.

My Secondaries:

• Psychic Interrogation
• Engage on All Fronts
• Raise the Banners High

Dane's Secondaries:

• Ancient Machineries
• Purge the Vermin
• Treasures of Aeons

Psychic Interrogation can be a free 15 for me here so that's a no-brainer and I think banners can be 11-12 if I can get to the middle by the end of the game, which is optimistic but that's what I need here. Engage is the best of a bad set of options but I need to be on 3+ quarters anyways to stop Purge. On Dane's side he'll really need to hold the middle of the board so ideally I can go first, put a unit of Terminators on the middle objective with a banner up, and hold that long enough to stay ahead on points.

I'm Going Second.

Well, shit.

Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

I deploy conservatively and use my pregame redeploy to shift my terminators to the north side of the table. Dane uses his first turn to put a unit of Scarabs on the center objective and I'll spend the next few turns clearing off the middle objective while Dane keeps moving units onto it. It takes me a few turns to get a foothold in Dane's territory so I don't start scoring Engage until round 3, but I'm able to keep Dane off Ancient Machineries most of the game.

Ahriman takes out the Deceiver but ends up out of position. Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

The biggest advantage I have here is that Dane mostly plays conservatively with the Silent King, feeding me parts of his army piecemeal and allowing me to deal with the C'Tan separately and take out units of destroyers one turn at a time. That doesn't stop him from killing my terminators however, as I'm completely unable to make a single 4+ save with them despite having Weaver of Fates on them almost all game. At one point Dane looks at me and remarks that "I re-roll more 1s into 1s than anyone he's ever seen." Yeah, buddy. Yeah.

Taking the middle back. Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

There are two amazing moments in this game:

• The first is when I whittle Dane's Catacomb Command Barge down to 1 wound in the shooting phase, then, needing to take it off the objective in the middle, I opt to charge it with my Terminator Sorcerer. This is an 11" charge, and I roll a 6 and a 1 for the charge, but use the Glimpse of Eternity re-roll on the 1 and score a 5, giving me the distance I need. Of course, then the Sorcerer whiffs all of his attacks and proceeds to just contest the middle objective. That's still good enough to be a big help.
• The second is at the end of the game. I had 5 rubrics each in the upper left corner of the table and the lower right. The Rubrics in the upper left were charged on the final turn by the Silent King, who was looking to wipe them out and capture the objective. I got incredibly lucky here and was able to roll a pair of crucial 5+ saves against his final attacks that left a single Rubric alive at 1 wound on the objective. On the lower right, my rubrics similarly tanked some Immortal shooting to survive and plant a bomb on my turn.

With two bombs on the table I end up beating Dane on Primary, 42-32, while maxing Interrogate and scoring 11 on Banners when I put up a third banner on the final turn. I only score 7 on Engage, but that's enough to pull out the win against Dane's 32 primary points, plus 8 on Ancient Machineries, 12 on Purge, and 12 on Treasures.

Result: 85-74, Win

Round 1 is over and that means it's time for the lunch break. I have a few things to take care of. I need to set up my army and display board and submit the army for paint judging, and I need to enter some minis into the painting competition. I wasn't planning to do this but the night before the event Dan notified me that I might need to buy tickets for paint judging. This isn't the case but I bought two tickets anyways with a plan to enter a couple of models I was pretty proud of. I enter my Black Legion Master of Possession into the Single Mini category, and my Black Legion Berserkers into the Unit category.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

I'm very proud of both, though I suspect the Master of Possession has better odds since it's just a much better painted model. Though I'm hoping the overall level of work I put into the Berserkers and the number of models there can get me to a third-place showing. For as proud as I am of my Thousand Sons, my Black Legion are really the painting passion project, and I've always put extra work into making them look good.

Lunch at the venue is a shitshow. There's a single food truck, and they're massively overburdened. We order food some 40 minutes before the end of the break and just never get it. That's mostly OK by me, since I had a decent breakfast.

Round 2: vs. Greg Gonzalez's Death Guard

Credit: Greg Gonzalez Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Another fantastic opponent with a beautiful army, Greg's Death Guard have just enough denies to be a pain in the ass for me. He's put a ton of conversion work into the force and has some really cool purple flourishes on them.



The big surprise here is the Dreadclaw, which is packed with a 10-model unit of Plague Marines. Plague Marines can be a real threat since that's where all the army's damage is, so I need to watch out for that thing if I can. Because it can drop on the first turn, it's also better if I can go first and screen it out of a good spot. Unfortunately, I have no way to do that with a forward deployment because the mission we're playing is...

The Mission: Abandoned Sanctuaries

This is maybe the third time I've ever played this mission, which everyone agrees is bad and shouldn't be played competitively because it removes the ability to use pregame moves or forward deploy. I suspect it killed a lot of Necron players in round 2, hilariously.

My Secondaries: 

• Wrath of Magnus
• Psychic Interrogation
• Assassination

Greg's Secondaries:

• Raise the Banners High
• No Prisoners
• Behind Enemy Lines

Wrath is a no-brainer here and I can force through Interrogation with Cabal points. Assassination is normally a trap against Death Guard but I need to kill Mortarion either way and the Daemon Prince will likely want to be too aggressive, putting the floor on this one around 7 points. Greg's Behind Enemy Lines pick is a big mistake, though - units have to be wholly within my deployment zone to score it, and that means it'll be hard for the drop pod to help out given the size of its base.

I'm Going Second.

Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

That's not ideal - the Death Guard want to go first to get the extra movement and put that drop pod in, and that's exactly what Greg does, putting the dreadclaw on the center objective and piling out 10 plague marines. Of course, it's not bad for me either, because this puts a bunch of targets on the center. Though actually dislodging them is easier said than done. Fortunately this is a hold 1/hold 2 mission and as long as I can hold the outsides or contest the middle I can keep us both on 8 VP per turn and then make up the difference somewhere.

Greg's first turn is mostly a wash but he's pressed forward too aggressively and left his backfield undefended so I teleport a unit of Warpflamers back there and attempt to kill his Tallyman, who has 4 wounds and normally is worth an extra 4-5 VP per game. This goes miserably and I only get 3 wounds off on the target when I end up scoring on 14 hits on my seven warpflamer shots. The Warpflamers will get annihilated the following turn.

Credit: Greg Gonzalez Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

I'm mostly able to hold on at midfield and blank Greg on Behind Enemy Lines while he presses forward, taking out my terminators bit-by-bit as I fail save after save with them in what will become a running theme for the event. Things swing hard in my favor on turns 3 and 4 however when I'm able to kill three of Greg's characters. I teleport away from Mortarion on T3 with my Terminators and take him out with mortal wounds and terminator shooting. But the biggest one is the Daemon Prince - looking for an easy kill against a now undefended Ahriman - charges the sorcerer and does what Daemon Princes do, whiffing and dealing only 3 damage (dropping Ahriman to 2 wounds). Ahriman whiffs in response but in the following psychic phase pushes out an astonishing 6 mortal wounds on his Firestorm of Tzeentch cast, plus another 2 from a Cabal Point boost of D3 mortals, taking the Daemon Prince out and scoring me 3 more on Assassination.

We tie on primary but with only 4 points for Behind Enemy Lines Greg doesn't have a chance of catching me on Secondaries. Great opponent, lovely army.

Result: 86-69, Win

One more game on day 1 and I'm hoping to finish off a 3-0 start. Unfortunately, this game threatened to be another disaster.

Round 3: vs. Justin's Tyranids

Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Right off the bat this game threatened to be a very bad one. It's the end of the day and the AC has gone out on the side of the hall we're in. It's 95 degrees out and humid, so we're sweating, and a few large fans have been set up nearby that make it very loud in the space so we have to yell. That's not a great combo but add in a judge call two minutes in and you've got the potential for some incredibly fucked vibes.



Justin's running a borrowed Tyranids list with two harpies. I could say I'm sorry I didn't have my Heldrake on hand for them, but that big stupid idiot wouldn't have done anything against them anyways.

The Mission: Recover the Relics

This mission is also kind of fucked, because you need to hold one of the objectives outside your deployment zone to generate CP, and you can't reach them from your deployment zone. My solution to this is to spend 2 CP to put a unit of Rubrics on one pre-game, which is a wash but also means I can start with a unit forward deployed for "free."

My Secondaries:

• Wrath of Magnus
• Mutate Landscape
• Raise the Banners High

Justin's Secondaries:

• Raise the Banners High
• No Prisoners
• Cranial Feasting

Wrath is a no-brainer here, even if it's tougher against Nids. Mutate isn't great but I don't have many better options against this Nids list, and I'm hoping to score 11+ on banners. I generally want to go second in this matchup, so the Tyranids will be forced to move out of their deployment zone and I'll have a chance to react. Going first means I'll have to put myself in a position to get charged on turn 1 by a goddamn winged Hive Tyrant. It'd also be helpful to be able to pull easy primary scoring on the final turn here.

I'm going First.

God dammit.

Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

This is where things threaten to go bad. I start casting powers on turn 1 for Wrath of Magnus and my opponent informs me that I can't cast Doombolt without a target (wrong), and that a judge ruled it that way in his round 2 game against Thousand Sons. This is a huge deal, because it is both wrong and devastating to my game plan. I call for a judge immediately.

The judge walks over and says that no, I can't cast without a target - read the power. I show him that the power says no such thing, i.e. the wording is "if manifested, the closest enemy unit...," showing that the order of operations is manifest, then pick targets. This is crucial because it means both that the Thousand Sons player can cast to up their spell count, and opponents can cast to attempt to stop them on Wrath. The Judge then cracks open my Nephilim rulebook to show me the order of operations for psychic powers. Again, the order shown in the rules is "pick power > attempt to manifest with test > attempt to deny > if successful, resolve effects." However the judge wants to stick to his guns on this. I point out that this has a massive impact on my secondary selection and deployment and we're already in turn 1. Finally, the judge gets another judge who confirms that no, you can cast without any viable targets, and the previous round's ruling was incorrect. The judge has us shake hands (things had gotten a bit heated - recall there is no AC and loud fans running in our part of the event), and we get on with the game.

Although he made the wrong call initially (and in the prior round), I have to give mad props to the WZH judge for getting a second opinion, recognizing when he had made a mistake, correcting it, and apologizing. He could have just double down on the bad ruling and told me to fuck off, but making the correction was a classy move.

Something like this can absolutely ruin the vibes of a game but we manage to recover and have what I'd consider to be an amicable game afterward, such that I do not consider this to have been a "bad" game.

I have to press forward for banners, and that puts my terminators right where they don't want to be - in position to be shot by an Exocrine and charged by a winged hive tyrant. I put up Weaver of Fates on them but they fail all their saves and end up taking 20 mortal wounds anyways from the Harpy and Hive Tyrant charge and I lose them all on turn 1, which is pretty much going to be the game. The Hive Tyrant manages to cling to a single wound with some clutch saves - something that would happen for my opponent several times during the game in high leverage situations - and that fucks things up for me pretty bad on the following turn. I have to spend two turns digging out the hive tyrant and trying to take down harpies, and the harpies also cling to life.

On an additional note here - at one point I did have to have a talk with my opponent about aircraft movement, as he was starting to do some wild shit with his harpies. It then became apparent that he thought a pivot was 180 degrees (a pivot is 90 degrees). It didn't matter until one late turn where he'd had a harpy get turned around, but was noteworthy.

Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

I'd likely have won this game going second. As it was, it was a close enough game that some bad dice made the difference and I wasn't able to overcome a rough turn 1 and some clutch saves from his hive tyrant, harpies, and tyranid warriors, who also clung to life on turn 4 to put me off scoring 8 for primary plus Mutate Landscape on the final turn and took down a banner - a 9-point swing that wouldn't likely have won me the game but would have put me in a much better position.

Result: 72-96, Loss

With day 1 in the books, we meet up and talk results. Garrett went 1-1 before having to drop for personal reasons, absolutely dumpstering T in round 2 with his Grey Knights before being like "man that sucks for you. Good luck!" and rolling out. We're all varying levels of 1-2 or 2-1 and my wife meets Dan, T, Andrew, and me for dinner, wherein we eat massive burgs and have a good time.

This is honestly the best part of events for me and why I kind of prefer traveling to events over close ones. The part I'm here for are the dinners and the war stories and the hangouts moreso than the games. The games were fun - especially rounds 1 and 2 - but my favorite part is after you put in your 9 to 5 at the warhammer factory and get to hang out and grab beers with friends at the hotel and stay up to unreasonable hours. The major upside of going home is that I actually sleep in a bed however and that's a pretty great consolation prize.

Day 2

The worst photo I could possibly take of Chad from Team Ettin. Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Three games down, three to go. I really wanted to go 3-0 on day two and snag my first 5-1 but I'd happily settle for a 4-2 again at this point. One of the other upsides to day 2 is less stuff to lug around: Paint judging is already done so I can leave the display board and the stupid temple at home.

Round 4: vs. Reuben Gariby's Tyranids

Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

This was easily my second favorite game of the event - Reuben was a blast to play, and we had a close game that again came down to who had the first turn.



Reuben's running a totally different Nids build, one focused on Raveners. These are generally less of a problem for me because they're damage 1, which means I can get the extra All is Dust save bonus against them. Of course, that only matters if you're actually able to roll saves with your Terminators which, lol. lmao.

The Mission: Secure Missing Artefacts

This one is also fine. I win the roll-off and choose the wheel position, pulling out one of his objectives and protecting my other. The terrain rotation happens after objective moving, and that makes it way harder to actually move my home objective into the open.

My Secondaries:

• Wrath of Magnus
• Warp Ritual
• Retrieve Nephilim Data

Reuben's Secondaries

• Cranial Feasting
• No Prisoners
• Raise the Banners High

RND isn't my favorite pick here and in retrospect I should have taken banners, but I was worried about my ability to keep them up against Nids with a closer objective and a middle that would be swarmed with Tyranid Warriors most of the game. This is another mission where going second could be a big help, but it's not as big a deal as some of the others.

I'm Going Second.

Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Reuben moves his units up but stays hidden. I basically throw away my Shaman on a turn 1 warp ritual since this is the last time I'll be able to easily throw away 8 cabal points making a cast undeniable. He's only 70 points and I have redundancy with the Terminator Sorcerer so I think this was the right move. I get up some defenses and take some shots at Tyranid Warriors. Then the Hormagaunts and Hive Tyrant arrive. The warpflamers kill a unit of Raveners in Overwatch, then manage to survive with 3 models against the gaunts.

Then comes the backbreaker turn. I have three Rubrics basically locked in melee with a hive tyrant and 6 gaunts. I need to get them out with a Teleport, since I can't afford to use desperate breakout and I need their help to clear the objective. I can get two attempts at a 7+ with my Exalted Sorcerer using a CP re-roll, which I can then use Cabal Points to make undeniable. I fail both, rolling a 5 and re-rolling it into a 4. This is essentially the game and we both know it. I clear the gaunts but can't touch the Hive Tyrant, who then retreats back into cover behind Tyrant Guard. On the following turn it'll charge my terminators at mid-table and hit them for something like 20 mortal wounds without much I can do about it.

By going second I manage to keep the game pretty close but I only score two RND actions and I can't stop Reuben from maxing primary.

Result: 77-87, Loss

That treble of failed casts was absolutely brutal, and it weighs on me a bit, though we overall it was still a great game with lots of ups and downs. It's once again time for lunch and today we aren't fucking around. Dan brought sandwich meat, bread, and cheese from home while I brought chips, granola bars, and water bottles. The Astros hang out and eat some lunch and swap stories. Most of the team are 2-2 at this point and we're looking for a strong finish.

At some point during the day, Brett "The Catachan" Urbanowski swings by to give me a tiny dog guardsman model that totally rips. Brett's probably the best Guard player in the world, and still chasing that elusive TiWP for them. I suspect he'll snag one before the season is over. He and I played back in Dallas in maybe the worst possible matchup for him and while I'm looking forward to playing him again in the future, I doubt I'll be so lucky. Brett's a great guy and worth talking to if you run into him at an event. He finished third overall with a 5-1 record, but his round 2 loss (with 90 points!) kept him from snagging a TiWP for guard.

As far as my event goes, I think 2-0 from here on out is manageable, if I can dodge Sisters and Tyranids.

Round 5: vs. Joe Beddoe's Sisters of Battle

Credit: Joe Beddoe. Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Joe's running a Bloody Rose list that's essentially identical to the one I played against Carmine a few weeks earlier and that's a big help in terms of "understanding just how busted Repentiae can be and how quickly they'll pulp a Scarab Occult Terminator unit."



The biggest problem here is the three squads of Repentia. They can do an absolute shitload of damage and a single unit getting the drop on Terminators can absolutely mulch an entire squad in one go if they power up with character buffs and strats. I need to stay back, counterpunch/shoot them, and keep Joe from holding the middle. I really want to go second in this matchup.

The Mission: The Scouring

This is much, much better than when I played Carmine. The deployment zones are further apart, there's less LOS-blocking between them due a lack of player-placed terrain, and I can conceivably be on two objective markers from my deployment zone without spending 2 CP, plus the additional primary objective isn't handing out points for killing units and going second. Even if I do have to go first, I'll be in OK shape.

My Secondaries: 

• Psychic Interrogation
• Grind Them Down
• Raise the Banners High

Joe's Secondaries:

• Defend the Shrine
• Abhor the Witch
• Sacred Ground

Grind worked out well for me last time and I think it's possible to reliably hit 12+ in this matchup with it, so I'm going with that. Interrogation isn't amazing against 5+ denies, but I'll make it undeniable every round to make sure I hit 15. Finally I learned my lesson last time and I'm going with banners. For Joe's part, I think Abhor is a mistake but he's going for it. I need to keep him off one of these and win out on Primary. It'd help to go second.

I'm Going First.

Cool.

Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Alright, it's not so bad. I teleport my warpflamers to the northeast corner and into his deployment zone, splitting fire to kill a unit of battle sisters and a unit of seraphim. the Tzaangor shaman speeds forward to power out an Interrogation, supported by a unit of Rubrics on the middle objective. Joe will respond by pressing forward with his other Seraphim unit and killing my Rubrics after they murder a unit of battle sisters in overwatch. He'll also clean me off the objective with Repentia. I blank on Grind and can't hold 3 going into round 2.

From here it's not a terrible spot, though - I clear the Repentia and characters off the middle objective and retake it with Terminators, who will narrowly survive a repentia charge the following turn. The lone Scarab Aspiring Sorcerer will flee back into my L ruin for the rest of the game, holding an objective and not giving up 2 Abhor points. I pull my other terminator squad around Joe's northern L and, after a nearly disastrous turn in which Joe denies two teleport casts* and a double move cast from them, manages to make an 11" charge into the ruin that sees them wiping out Celestine and another Seraphim squad.

*Note: I made a mistake here - you can only use Psychic Maelstrom to attempt a Witchfire power you've already cast. I'm fortunate that I didn't get a teleport off here, so it didn't impact the game, but this was a big mistake on my part.

Hello, Celestine. Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Celestine gets back up but Joe doesn't have the juice up there to kill the Terminators, and when Ahriman and two other characters show up to help I'm able to dust them off the objective. By turn 5, Joe's only got one objective with Vahl and Retributors on it, plus another character. He's able to score some mop-up points but I hold him to 9 on Abhor and 30 on Primary, while managing 41 of my own thanks to three strategic scans.

It's a nailbiter of a game that comes down to those last couple of turns and me getting exceptoinally lucky on that charge after being incredibly unlucky with Joe's deny attempts. But now I'm 3-2 going into round 6. Joe was a great guy to play and we had a legitimately good, if tough game that on one occasion had me walking away from the table, cursing the heavens. Great guy to play, would recommend.

Result: 86-79, Win

Five down, one to go and as luck would have it, I'm up against another Swamp Fox. I cannot stress enough what a swell group of guys they are. I check in with the Astros. Carmine, who was 4-0 going into round 5, has dropped a game to Georg Bobokov, putting him out of the running for winning the event. He's going up against Sweet Lew in the final round, another great opponent I had the pleasure of playing in the Dallas Open earlier this year.

Round 6: vs. Stephen Fox's Tyranids

Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Stephen's an absolute joy to play but he's unfortunately screwed in this matchup. Without large blocks of Tyranid Warriors or Harpies he just doesn't have the necessary tools to deal with my Terminators and they're going to clean up those gant blobs, since I can use the Soul Reap Stratagem to get 10 shots out of each Soulreaper Cannon.



Stephen's List just isn't as nasty as the rest, though his big trick is deep striking the trio of carnifexes. I don't have much to screen them out with, but I do want to keep them out of my deployment zone.

The Mission: Tide of Conviction

Unfortunately this is also the worst possible mission for Stephen's list to come up against. He's not super troops deficient but he's not flush with units either and having his carnifexes in the open means I can chip them down while holding three objectives on my side of the table.

My Secondaries: 

• Wrath of Magnus
• Raise the Banners High
• Mutate Landscape

Stephen's Secondaries:

• Raise the Banners High
• Engage on All Fronts
• Assassination

This is pretty standard for me. I think Mutate is 9 relatively easy points, so I'm going with that over Psychic Interrogation, since there just aren't that many characters in Stephen's list. On his end I think Engage and Assassinate are mistakes, forcing him to be more aggressive than will be prudent. I think I still want to go second on this mission, but going first is also fine if I can get the range I need on some of his units.

I'm Going First.

Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Turn one I plow forward and the Terminators wipe the middle unit of gants off the board, while the warpflamers teleport to Stephen's back corner and wipe out most of another squad. This cripples Stephen's ability to hold objectives and he needs to waste a turn building that unit of gants back up. On his turn he advances the Tervigon but I deny his Catalyst attempt and so it has to sit there holding it's many weird alien dicks while I laugh from the safety of like 6" away. On the following turn I'll teleport them to the opposite corner and do the same thing to taunt them. This isn't particularly effective, but it is hilarious and annoying.

This Tervigon just failed the charge like a big fuckin idiot. Photo Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Stephen's carnifexes arrive and kill a few terminators but mostly don't get there thanks to Glamour of Tzeentch and I kill two out of the three of them on the following turn. At this point Stephen asks if I want to talk it out and I am extremely up for that since it will mean going home early and being able to eat dinner with the family and do bedtime stuff with my son. We put in scores, then chat about families for a bit. Swell guy, that Stephen.

Result: 81-65, Win

That gets me to 4-2, which is more or less my baseline these days. It's not the 5-1 I was hoping for but I'm never going to be unhappy with it, either. It's good for 26th, primarily because I had some low-ass scores compared to all the Sisters and Necrons players running around shitting out 100s. I was hoping to get something higher up, but this is still my best GT finish so far, and I can absolutely live with that. In my next article I'll probably sit down and talk about where I'm at as a player, and what I think the next steps are, but for now being slightly disappointed with my best finish to-date feels like a good place to be.

The rest of the Astros did pretty well too, it turns out.

• Carmine lost a game to Lew in round 6 to finish 4-2, which isn't a great result for him, but they had a fantastic game that both of them enjoyed, and that's better than going 5-1 and having a mediocre final game when you're out of contention. He finished 13th overall.
• T started 0-2 but won his last four games, putting up 94+ points in each to finish 24th, once again beating me on battle points, the bastard. He also won best Chaos Knights, I believe, which is damn impressive. T's a very good player and liable to be a regular thorn in my side in future RTTs - a challenge I welcome.
• Brendan finished 4-2 and in 33rd place after a rocky day 1 start, going 2-1 on day 2 and winning his last two games.
• Andrew lost his first two games on day 2 but pulled things out with a brutal 100-point win in round 6 to finish 3-3. Considering he's playing on hard mode with Salamanders, that's damn impressive.
• Dan Richardson finished 3-3 after going 1-2 on Day 2 and winning his final round game. That's a major improvement for him over last year's Warzone Houston, and worth being proud of.

A strong showing for the Astros overall. They're a great group of players and I can't tell you how awesome it is to have a local crew of people like them to game with.

The Hobby Track Results

Unfortunately, I was not so happy with the hobby track results. While I wasn't expecting to win best painted, I also finished well below where I expected to finish, and behind people whose armies looked substantially worse. And this is where I have to note that I'm in a shitty position here - I can't meaningfully talk about how/why I know this result is fucked up without shitting on other people's work - which I'm not going to do here.  What I will say is that my friend Carmine's Sisters army is one that he hasn't completed yet and so as a result did not submit them for paint judging at all - he tied for the second-highest score at the event, a result which he himself thinks is mental. Likewise, I saw plenty of other baffling results in the standings that just shouldn't have happened. The most charitable read of this is that the event had three different judges using wildly different rubrics, leading to harsh scores from one and easy scores from another, but the overall effect is still that it feels like no one really gave a shit when it came to judging best painted, leading to a bunch of insane scores.

After spending two weeks touching up my army, fixing bases, and improving the overall level of paint detail in my army, this was incredibly frustrating and demoralizing, to the point where I'm just not going to bother trying to get any more ITC Hobby Track scores. And like, sure, I kind of knew the hobby track was bullshit before this anyways, but it also seemed like a cool thing to go for. But if the work is meaningless because events don't take it seriously, that isn't going to make me work any harder for it. The small upside here is that my improved army should still take home best painted at the RTTs I attend, where some of my local crew have been improving significantly with their own paint skills and attempting to give me a run for my money.

If there's an ironic upside, it's that I did do better than expected in the painting competition, taking home silver for both single mini and unit. I'm very proud of both of these, and will need to find spots on my wall for each:



I'm particularly proud of the Master of Possession win after seeing some of the competitors for best painted in the single mini category. It's a testament to how far my skills have come over the last six or so years that I even thought I could submit something and podium, and I'm looking forward to really showing off more with the Black Legion.

What's Next: The Black Legion

With this event, the Thousand Sons are more or less in my rearview now. I had a good run with them and I might trot them out for one or two more events since they're the strongest army I own, but I've largely wrapped up painting them, save a few models here and there. Now it's back to my Black Legion, where I'm hoping to have a full army ready for the GW Roadshow Finale Narrative Event in Albuquerque in November. It'll be great to change things up a big and paint something else for a while...



...kill me.

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