Tournament Report: Bristol City Open 2019, Part 1

Some of the Goonhammer crew are regular tournament attendees. In our Wednesday Tournament Reports, we cover the latest events we've attended, what we took to them, the strategies we employed, and how it all worked out. This week, our resident Elf Bullshit Expert One_Wing is recapping the events of his run at the 2019 Bristol City Open.

Welcome back Eldar fans, it's Elf time!

It's been more than a month, but the fun starts again!

This weekend past saw the first run of the Bristol City Open, taking place at brand new con, Roll Dice Gaming. I was there with the shiny new Craftworlds list that you can see above, taking the bold step of leaving the Black Heart detachment behind (at least partially because it was 1750), and ending up with the following:



The big new feature, of course, is the War Walkers. Without Doom-powered splinter weapons, I've been feeling that my list could do with a touch more anti-horde, and I felt that War Walkers are a good fit with the rest of what my list does. Scatter Bikes are obviously the conventional choice, but I deeply dislike that they die like chumps to the kind of firepower my list is otherwise very resilient to. Thanks to a sturdy T6 and a 5+ invulnerable save, War Walkers are much more capable of looking after themselves, while still throwing out a lot of anti-horde fire, especially once I've cast Guide on them. They're also a good thing to park a Farseer next to and use Forewarned with against Orks, Chaos Daemons and Genestealer Cults, all of which are popular in the UK meta.

"Hello, we are looking for the horde meta, please could you point us in the right direction?"

The Hawks are here to give me a bit of board control. In a lot of matchups, my old choice of Haywire scourges did double duty as this in matchups where controlling space was important. Without wound re-rolls they're just not able to justify their cost however, so old favourites the hawks were back in.

Finally, the other big change is that my Autarch is back, with a fancy new gun haphazardly plastic glued to the bottom of his bike. With the number of Shuriken shots this list can throw out, having an Autarch bubble around has a high degree of intrinsic value, and he's a potent assassin and counter to other plane lists.

He asked me to "add some spinning rims while it's in the shop" which makes me mildly concerned that he doesn't understand how jetbikes work

The second Night Spinner was in the first draft of this list rather than the Hawks, but was shifted to the bench because taking a vehicle chassis out of the list makes it a pain to pick secondaries against - there are only a total of 7 BGH/MFD targets, forcing an opponent to commit to either Pick your Poison on some of my characters, or taking multiple positioning-based objectives, neither of which is ideal for them.

My main apprehensions about the list were playing with limited CP and no Vect - while I'm now very used to playing Mech Eldar and know how to get the best out of it, it's very vulnerable to having a bad turn or your opponent spiking on something crucial, so having access to lots of CP and a way to stop a malicious stratagem is extremely useful. However, I went through my whole last tournament without needing to use Agents of Vect, and the Kabalite stuff, while still good, just isn't quite the same without Doom and Jinx, so it was time to rip the plaster off and see how we fared without it.

The other challenge on the first day was that I was helping with setup, as the event was being coordinated by fellow Goonhammer author Corrode in conjunction with Bristol Independent Gaming, so I got to the venue nice and early for the traditional tournament warm up of checks notes... an hour and a half of hauling terrain and MDF boards around. Thanks to the absurdly well-organised and generous terrain supply (borrowed from Bristol Vanguard), by the time the first round rolled up we had 18 cracking boards ready for people to play on, and it was battle time!

The terrifying thing is that this isn't even nearly the nicest table.

All ready as the doors open and the first players trickle in.

As ever, for each round I'll be going through:

• The Competition - Details of my opponent's army
• The Mission - Details of mission and deployment
• The Plan - how I aimed to play out the game and target priorities.
• The Summary - how the game played out at a high level
• The Takeaways - points of interest and things I learnt from the game
• The Score - my score after the game.

Round 1 - Knights/AdMech

The Competition

My Therapist: "Forge World isn't real, and can't hurt you".

Forge World:

Hi!



He also added the Raven relic banner to the Styrix (which gives re-roll in melee)

The Mission

Mission 5 - Precious Cargo

This is good for me, as it allows me to pull a target objective off to one side and forces him to choose between going after it or killing me. My Swooping Hawks should also be able to do a nasty number on whichever of his backline units are holding his priority objective and nick it too.

Deployment was Frontline Assault. Normally I like long board edges against knights, as I want to force them to split up, but the speed of the Atropos makes it a mild problem - I basically can't avoid a first turn charge.

The Plan

Joking about Forge World aside, this is actually probably more benign than going up against three Questoris Knights - the Forge World ones have some unique tricks, but in terms of overall efficiency they're way behind relic-ed up Codex Knights.

He's very clearly going to go straight down my throat with the Atropos, which honestly makes the strategy here quite simple - make sure it can't kill too much, expel it from my lines while slowing the next knight down with chaff and then roll through a knight a turn. Coming right at me will at least force him to leave the safety of the Graia bubble, and none of the knights has good enough shooting to cause serious problems for backline hawks once they start stealing objectives. The board also had a nice big piece of impassable terrain in the middle, so leaving the priority objective off to once side as "bait" while I deal with the other two is definitely feasible.

Overall, I was about as confident as you can be going into a knight game - obviously they can still blow a list like mine off the board with high rolls, but it's not like going up against the Castellans of yore.

My Secondaries

Note: For a recap on choosing secondaries, check out my article here)

• Kingslayer
• Titanslayer
• Recon

His Secondaries

• Old School
• Big Game Hunter
• Pick Your Poison

The Summary

Good thing we all fly, floor looks hot.

As predicted, the Atropos came right at me, and spent the first turn coming right at me and then brutally murdering my war walkers. RIP my newest painted models. His shooting didn't do that much beyond softening up the walkers.

On my turn, I disembarked all my troops, sent one unit of avengers off to hold the Magaera back, while lining up the rest of my forces to gank the Atropos. Other Dire Avengers pulled double duty standing 3.1 inches away from the Styrix to hold it in place for the next turn. I also made sneaky use of my planes in combination with the back wall to ensure that even if I whiffed on killing the Atropos he'd have no way to charge without killing a plane, and out of range of any Graia models.

Various Dire Avengers nobly sacrifice themselves while knight one is dealt with.

I popped Seer Council and volleyed the standard laundry list of mortals and debuffs into the Atropos, cutting off a good number of wounds with those and then rolling on to the shooting phase. Here an enormous volley of Autarch buffed Shurikens along with his own Fusion Gun put paid to the Knight in pretty short order. He rolled to explode and didn't, and decided he needed a high-roll so CPed that.

This went well for him.

From the game quite likely being over (my casualties next turn were going to be in the region of "two units of dire avengers") this put him back in the game - notably, his first roll from it was a six to completely wipe the squad of Dire Avengers that was blocking the Styrix. However, that was roughly where his luck for the game ended - he thanfully only rolled two wounds against my Warlock (and obviously had no re-roll), and my Farseer was just outside the explosion.

Still, things looked a bit less re-assuring than they had

So, uh, about that screen.

Luckily for me, he then proceeded to whiff hard on his turn. The Styrix charged into a Wave Serpent and my Autarch and totally whiffed - my autarch ran hot on saves, and he rolled 5 ones and twos to kill my serpent.

With the Styrix having taken a few wounds from left over shooting the previous turn, and also from the explosion, that meant I still comfortably had the dakka to take it down, while my hawks dropped in and kicked off the process of eliminating his back-line.

Realistically the game was mine from this point on, and having seen what had happened to its fellow knights the Magaera decided to stretch things out by running at speed away from my Farseer while murdering some Hawks on the way. It put up a good chase, but I was able to quickly secure the Bonus Objective with other Hawks and start racking up points. The miscreant was eventually cornered and dealt with on turn 5, giving me a big win to start the day.

Having spent several turns running away from my Farseer, the last Forge World monster is banished back to my nightmares.

The Takeaways

This went pretty much to plan, so there's not a massive amount to learn about it other than that my assessment of the Forge World knights as less scary than vanilla Questoris is more or less accurate. Knights really rely on tools like Endless Fury or the Headsman's mark to "punch up" against my planes, and the Forge World ones either can't take these or have weapons that are vastly less good combos with them.

It was also a promising early showing for the Autarch - upping the damage of my whole fire base by 7/6 for a close range gank really adds up, and being able to yeet fusion gun shots into big targets I don't like is very nice indeed. Finally, the Hawks performed here - against armies with limited board presence and few efficient ways to clear them out, they're extremely potent harassment/objective grabbing units.

The Score

Primary: 23-10

Secondary: 12-3

Total: 35-13

Matches: 1-0

 

Round 2 - Aeldari

The Competition

What kind of monster brings a list like this?

He added the Helm of Spite to one of his Archons.

The Mission

Mission 4 - What's Yours is Mine. Sadly, this is only going to increase the extent to which going first is huge in this match, as it will allow one player to make a play for the centre early on.

Also sadly, I "won" the deployment roll so would probably be going second unless I lucked out and seized. At least the deployment map, Hammer and Anvil, was broadly helpful for me, as it would mitigate the usefulness of his non-plane firepower turn 1, helping me set up for a strong turn 2.

The Plan

This matchup plays a lot like a mirror, and I usually hope to dodge it till later, because the problem with it is that it comes down hugely to first turn and dice. There's strategic nuance and playing well matters, but realistically if I go first I can afford to spend a turn picking off a Ravager or two, which will give me a lot of initial momentum, whereas if I go second I'm going to have to start dealing with the fliers immediately, as I'll realistically be down at least one of my own. Alaitoc fliers are, obviously, quite the pain to kill, and trying to punch them out from being down one is going to be tough.

In order to take my planes down he will at least have to commit to my end of the board, allowing me to bring more stuff to bear on him, giving me a change of doing what I need to turn 1, which is taking two of them out (almost certainly the Razorwing and one of the Crimsons). The Autarch should be an absolute weapon in this matchup, it being one of the reasons I added him, and I added the "Shimmerplume of Achirial" to him (additional -1 to hit) to give him a chance to get away with being left out of position by plane-related heroics.

My Secondaries

• Recon
• Marked For Death
• Big Game Hunter

His Secondaries

• Old School
• Big Game Hunter
• Recon

The Summary

Oh right. Is that what I've been doing to people.

I didn't manage to seize, and the first turn played out broadly as predicted. His CHEs shot up the board to try and take out the Hemlock, and he Vected the Lightning Fast (definitely correct - if he swings at the Hemlock and misses it's game over, as i know from bitter experience). For a brief moment it looked like he might whiff and hand the game to me, with the first CHE only putting a single wound through, but the second and third did just enough to take the Hemlock out. At least the rest of his firepower had minimal impact, only accounting for a War Walker.

The assassination of the hero Hemlock by the cowardly enemy Crimson Hunters.

On my turn, my CHEs swung towards his, aiming to take one out and me in a position where they wouldn't be able to end up within 12 of mine after moving, and I threw some powers over to debuff one as well. I obviously couldn't Vect his Lightning fast, but with two CHEs right in the face of them it was still worth going for it. Agonisingly, once every single thing that I had in range of it had shot at it, it lived on a single wound. My autarch and close range firepower did at least trivially crush the Razorwing.

His second turn was fine but a lot less spectacular - a CHE got picked off along with a few foot units, but not disastrous damage. However, as predicted going first had let him seize the centre and start racking up big points, especially as he's used fire and fade to push a Venom all the way onto my bonus objective.

Sadly, the story of the rest of the game was me not being able to catch a break - having failed to take our the CHE turn 1, on turn 2 I narrowly missed the kill on a Ravager (though my Autarch did blow up a CHE), and then on turn 3 his final CHE limped through on a single wound again. The continued threats kept me boxed up in my end of the board, and while I did manage to coordinate my Hawks into taking a single five point turn on 4, my scoring was just not keeping up with his, and getting to squeeze an extra turn out of all of his stuff let him push ahead on units. His Reaper was also rolling extremely well while my Night Spinner kept whiffing on shots, adding further challenges.

Dire Avenger Exarchs and Wave Serpents pulled some minor heroics running interference and my Autarch was only eventually put down after getting the final tap on at least a third of his army, but I was eventually rolled off the board on his turn 6.

We're done here.

The Takeaways

Again not much to learn here - I seem to be very specifically cursed to miss plane kills by 1W in this matchup, and until I break that curse there's only so much I can do.

That being said, the Autarch definitely is a gigantic add in the eldar mirror, as he is an unholy terror to that hated menace "enemy planes". Buying the Shimmerplume for him was definitely a good call - combined with his invuln and (sometimes) the natural Alaitoc -1 it makes him way more likely to sneak through getting shot up by one thing if he's out of position after doing some dirty work.

The Hawks kind of sucked here because all of his backline units were in transports, and thus the did a limited amount on the way in (though actually did come quite near to picking off a Venom along with the squad that had been inside to begin with, which got out to fight them). The did at least get me some tricky points of Recon. Between this and events later, I'm definitely finding recon is a lot harder to score than it used to be - there are way more popular lists that will badly punish you for being out of position, so my policy is rapidly becoming to avoid it when possible (but it wasn't here).

I was a bit sad to lose early, but this was definitely a nasty list and I didn't feel I'd done much wrong. The field was also of a size where a good 4-1 would podium, and I'd walked away with a respectable number of points, so still had everything to play for.

The Score

Primary: 14-23

Secondary: 9-12

Total: 23-35

Match Score: 1-1

 

Round 3 - Ultramarines/Knights

The Competition

He deliberately didn't add a relic to the knight to avoid it being Kingslayerable, and made his Warlord (who picked "Storm of Fire") a Chapter Master.

The Mission

Mission 3 - Nexus Control. Should be fine for me - assuming I get a good start he'll struggle to hold more.

Hammer and Anvil deployment, which is fine - it means his knights aren't hitting melee turn 1.

The Plan

So until I asked what House Mortan did, I thought this would be a walk.

This was where I really started to miss Vect.

For those who don't know, the House Mortan stratagem lets a knight ignore all negative hit modifiers for the shooting phase which is, to (not) coin a phrase, a "bit of a yikes".

It completely transforms this matchup. Without that, I'm comfortable that I'd spend the first turn or two keeping the Knight at a distance while I go through the Redemptors like a hot knife through butter. With the House Mortan strat in play, I have to kill the Knight first, because it's going to delete a plane a turn until I stop it, and if I let that process go on much more than a turn then I'm simply not going to have the firepower to kill the Knight by the time I come round to it, especially if I go second.

I have to flip the whole plan round, basically - rather than taking out the dreadnoughts first and feeding a few sacrifices to the knights to keep them at bay, the big Knight needs to die straight away and the small ones immediately after, as even they are dangerously able to spike a plane.

The saving grace of this is that the dreads are much slower then the knights, and less proficient at hitting my armoured targets. They also die like chumps to even Shurikens once Doomed and Jinxed, whereas knights need a lot of Shurikens even under the effect of those powers. The real problem - and why I'd normally push the dread flank - is that the speed of the knights means I'll be engaging them "past" the objective on that side, so I could fall behind a bit on points early on. If I had a few whiff turns, I could limp to a narrow loss, so I needed to keep on my toes.

My Secondaries

• Kingslayer (on the Gravis Captain)
• Old School (while I want to kill the knight early, taking out one of his infiltrator squads if I need to would be trivial)
• Big Game Hunter

His Secondaries

• Recon
• Big Game Hunter
• Butcher's Bill

The Summary

Good theming, love it.

Nothing beats green and white though.

He went first and, as predicted, the Knight blew a Crimson clean out of the sky.

Yup, that thing has to die. Time to score First Strike in style.

Luckily, my combined fire- and psychic power (my farseer cunningly blocking sightlines to less-useful targets to no-scope a Smite) was able to take the beast down, ticking off the first big mark on my plan. The Armigers did make a creditable attempt to do some damage, slicing up my Autarch and causing a bit of trouble while some bad rolls meant that it took a bit more of my firepower than I wanted to bring them down, and through all this the dreads were whittling wounds off my wave serpents and picking off errant infantry.

Ultimately though, we entered the "my remaining army vs. dreads" phase of the game with me still having two planes live. At that point, the extra damage from my psychic powers and some heroics from the Night Spinner (which more than made up for its shameful performance in the previous game) let me cut through the first dreadnought in short order, leaving him stuck in a noose that was gradually tightening. It didn't help that he was trying to get towards me through area terrain, and the -2" charges were really hurting him, keeping the dreads from fulfilling their full potential.

It still looked like he might deny me a big win, as I had a lot of points tied up in Kingslayer, but his last Redemptor decided to explode, showering 4MWs onto his Gravis Captain and leaving him low enough on Wounds that I was able to pick him off on turn 6. I did actually just manage to get the tabling in - my warlock zoomed across the field to tag-team-Smite the Gravis Cap down with the Hemlock, which then eradicated the final few Intercessors.

The final Imperial lapdogs are dealt with.

The Takeaways

The use of the House Mortan knight was a really cool way for my opponent to open up match-ups like this. Using that house completely changes the battle plan for anyone relying on Aircraft with the Supersonic rule, and makes the normally lacklustre Redemptors a lot more viable simply because they won't get targeted as much early on. Backed up by a Chapter Master and Lieutenant and with the new Bolter rules, they put out a pretty admirable amount of dakka. While I did eventually make my way to a pretty convincing victory, his choices made a game that I would normally feel pretty "comfortable" about into one where I felt under constant pressure, which is no mean feat. I am happy that I made some good calls in adapting to the situation though, and Hemlocks are still absurdly brutal against Primaris marines.

The Score

Primary: 18-14

Secondary: 12-6

Total: 30-20

Matches: 2-1

 

Day One Wrap-Up

I was completely shattered by the end of the day, but not too sad about my performance - the Aeldari game being a loss sucked, but the mirror was always going to be a bit of a coin flip, and I'd come away with enough points (together with my two respectable wins) to still be in with a chance of a great finish. Now whether I managed to follow through is a different story -- I'll have more on that in Part 2, which will be posted next Wednesday.

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