TheChirurgeon's Road Through 2025, Part 46: Final WCW Prep

Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing hobby and competitive progress series for 2025. Previously on Road Through 2025, I was running more test games and starting to paint more frantically as panic was starting to set in for the event deadlines. I'll admit that while I never actually panicked the possibility was there - as the week drew to a close life threw one hurdle after another my way, some in the form of easily predicted events like "trick or treating on Halloween" or "voting" and others slightly less foreseeable, such as "helping my son build a barn owl costume for a school presentation out of cardboard and paper."

The net result was that I had precious little time to finish my hobby and practice goals in the final week before the event, and I'd have to make peace with that. I still wanted to get a full five games in with my list before playing it - switching to a better (or potentially worse, in this case) list is a disaster if you aren't acquainted with it. And while I was familiar with playing a similar list in Creations of Bile, getting used to this list was a different matter entirely.

After my practice game against Garrett, I sat down and listened to the Art of War interview with Liam VSL and got a much better feel for how to play the list - which largely boils down to being more conservative and not overextending early. He mentioned that when he draws Area Denial turn 1 he just doesn't score it and that was incredibly illuminating to me - and also extremely contrary to how I normally play. So it was good to have some more guidance on how to play here, and with that in mind I went into my next three practice games.

The Practice Games

I set up three games - one against Innes Wilson, one against Andrew Corban, and one against Kevin Camarata. They're all good players and fun people to play, and it was great experience to play them. In addition to testing the list, I also focused on getting reps with the other two terrain layouts that will be used at the event - layouts 5 and 8. I'm plenty familiar with layout 1, so it was good to spend a little time with this list on the other two. Layout 5 sucks, by the way.

Game 1: vs. Innes

Innes was also on Chaos Space Marines, running a Creations of Bile list written by Anthony Vanella that featured no Possessed but a lot of Chosen and Noise Marines. We played a game on layout 1, and I learned a few key things here:

The Raptors are hilariously useful in the mirror match, dropping -1 Ld on enemy Pacts.
How you screen against Warp Talons (who only arrive via Rapid Ingress) is different from how you screen against other units.
I need to be much more aggressive with the tanks when my opponent is limited in their ranged output.

I ultimately lost this game but it was close enough I felt good about it. Innes' list is a very good matchup into mine, as I don't really want that melee pressure he's bringing unless it's on a map where I can use the tanks to punish him and get long sightlines. The Warp Talons getting +2" movement is insanely good as well, as it let him threaten from very far distances.

Game 2: vs. Andrew

Andrew was running three Dorns - two normal, one commander - plus a Hellhound and three artillery batteries. We played on the very open Layout 5. I got some good experience understanding how to handle that indirect fire and approach the tanks, and scored a win with the list by taking out his hellhound and one Dorn early while tagging the artillery with my bikes going up the side of the board. Generally I learned that I need to be a lot more conservative with my deployment on Layout 5 and just push up the sides of the table.

Game 3: vs. KC

KC was running his Salamanders, exhausted off finishing 2nd at a teams tournament with his Ultras over the weekend. We played this one on Layout 8 and he lost early when he pushed to mid with his Land Raider Redeemer and I was able to blow it off the board and kill most of the occupants. The big threat in KC's list was the triple Vindicators, but I managed to destroy one on turn 2 and KC just didn't have the juice by the end of round 3. This was good practice for layout 8 that I sorely needed.

That gives me six reps with the list, more or less and I feel pretty good about it. I'm not gonna win eight games or anything but I do feel good about where I'm at and my ability to pilot it. At the very least I feel comfortable running the list. There's probably more I could say about what I learned in my games but I'm running short on time to post this so I'll cover that next time... probably.

Hobby Progress

With Cypher and the Obliterators done that meant I just had four Chosen and three Warp Talons left to paint. There's a lot of trim and details on these, especially the Chosen. They're the kind of models that seem fast to paint at the start but then drag on for a long time as you get to the final details and realize just how many small teeth, gold bits, and dangly chains you have left to paint. Still, I'm very happy with these and super glad they're done.

The Warp Talons have less detail overall but more trim. These are all matched scheme-wise to my original set, painted in 2020 for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre event I attended right before COVID hit. They've got brighter green cabling, mostly.

I finished all of this up Tuesday night more or less and while that left me with no time to do any of my stretch goals - cultists and a backdrop for my display board, mostly - it was plenty of time to just not freak out about painting. After seeing some of the horror stories about security at IAH due to the shutdown I briefly wondered if I'd A. be able to check a bag, or B. have to drive to Atlanta. Fortunately things calmed down after the weekend and I decided to bring my display board after all.

It's a lot of models but definitely an army I'm happy with. There are a few spots I'd touch things up and maybe 1-2 models I'd swap out, but I'm pretty comfortable taking this to the World Championships this year. We'll see how it does, though.

Next Time: The World Championships

That’s it for this week - as I finish writing this I'm holed up in the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, unable to sleep after a long day of travel. I'm not nervous for the event per se - there's no suspense over whether I'll win, nor do I actually expect to take home best painted (I will showcase, and if I manage more than that I'll be ecstatic), so it's more about just having a good showing and even an 0-2 start won't demoralize me that much. I don't believe I'll go 0-8 anyhow, no matter the jokes I've made.

The flight itself was relatively uneventful, despite some worry we had about security lines at IAH. Those seemed to have been sorted by late Monday, so we walked through security and arrived early enough to spend an hour and a half sitting around on various devices. My son found my old Nintendo DS this morning and started playing Pokémon Fire Red on it. I've never been more proud of him.

Tough times waiting for the flight

I may post again before next week; if I do it'll be a short update. Otherwise I'll have my final write-up next week. If you're at the Grand Narrative or World Championships, swing by my table and say hello; I always love talking to readers.

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