Warpstrike Champions Tournament Update!
After I had posted my Warpstrike champion list some of you asked to let you know how the tournament went.
I am happy to say I went 2-1 and won Best in Faction for Chaos! This was my first time going positive win rate at a tournament!
The Tournament was a 3 round RTT at Huzzah Hobies in Ashburn, VA
Maps went A, B, C in order of rounds
Very well run and I want to say thank you to the staff and Judges for being smooth, organized, knowledgeable and fair in their handling and rules ruling of the tournament especially with the weird stuff going on with access to the Space Marine codex
Pre Game Notes-
I put the same stuff in deepstrike each game
Demon Prince with Tzagulla
Kravek Morne with Mutilators
One Termie Sorcerer brick with Infernal Fulgerite
Totaling 965 in deepstrike at the start
Games-
Game 1- Sisters of Battle: Hallowed Martyrs- WIN
Game 2- Dark Angels: Assault Brethren, StormLance, Dark Flight Pursuit- LOST
Game 3- Guard: Bridgehead Strike, Mechanised Assault- WIN
Highlights-
\- Uppy downy is as useful as ever, even if they block back field deepstrikes just repositioning for better shooting angles is enough to be useful
\- The stats upgrades feels awesome when combined with cabal of chaos. I’m always Dark Pacting because I do this rather than gambling. Terminators rerolling hits with 44 combi bolter shots at 6, -2 (because of cabal of chaos and death hex) , 1 into any T3 1 wound body rocks. Against the Guard and Sisters I could wipe a 15 man unit even supported by Hospitlers or Medics with ease. Especially if I came down from ingress and use Siegebreaker strike to give both units ignore cover
\- In built charge rerolls, so useful and saves so much cp, can’t wait to get the unbuilt CP regeneration of 11th
\- Kravek slaps and can kill most anything and consistently reaches targets thanks to +2 to charge and inbuilt rerolls. If I space out the deepstrikes with Sorcerers, Kravek, and the Demon prince on separate turns
Downsides-
\- Disruption Sucks, I felt like I was fighting an uphill battle in all my games to win points. 2 of my games was Priority Assets and one was Recon. Doing the priority action for no points while they get 4 and doing the decoy action while they can remove them for no action felt terrible. I found my best way to win was to focus on secondaries and ignore the primary until turn 4 and just kill as much as possible then uppy downy onto the middle by end of game to get the big extra points at the end of the game
\- Action monkeys, I didn’t have enough and will definitely swap the raiders for double cultists as the accursed can reach the same places with their scout as the raiders could and for cheaper
\- CP hungry list, the list has great Stratagems which is awesome but also sucks because this list has no way to generate extra except for dumping secondaries
\*\*Game 1- Ruben and his Hallowed Martyrs\*\*
Ruben used the same sisters list that won the London GT with some extra Insindiants. Led by a classic Morvenn Vahl and Paragon Warsuits. Intranzia Fraye for Lethal Hit marking. The Triumph of Saint Catherine blob to hold center and a Sacresents on the left flank with Aestred Thurga.
The Primary was Disruption vs Priority Assets on Layout A, Dawn of War long deployment
I deployed with my action boys ready to contest for the center to deny him doing the action, raiders first up. My normal deepstrikers set up as described above.
I got turn 1 and started by having my raiders just barely touch the center and do an action. I thought I was safe with the dense terrain providing me go to ground but I didn’t know the triumph of Saint Catherine could provide +2 move never having played against sisters before. The raiders were killed to the man by some shooting and the Saint Katherine blob moved onto the point
Turns 1-3 progressed with some normal trading and secondary scoring with the highlight being a Kravek rapid ingress to take out Morvenn Vahl who had just killed one of my Termie Bricks who had taken his back home objective. She then fought on death and took out all Mutilatoes and left Kravek on 2 wounds
Turn 4 and 5 I cleaned up the rest of his units and kept hard pressure with firing angels with oblits and advance and charging Termies
Good game Ruben but T3 bodies are my favorite to chew up 🤩
86-83 victory. Felt very rewarding and tactical
\*\*Game 2- PJ and his Ravenwing Dark Angels\*\*
PJ used a now seemingly meta Darkflight Pursuit with the Lion, 2 outrider squads one with chaplain w/ sword of the imperium, and the other with Samael. Then 2 speeders and 3 Vengeance Speeders with the glitched app upgrade for number of shot rerolls.
This game was Disruption vs Recon meaning we played Smoke and Mirrors on Layout B.
I stupidly deployed up my action monkeys turn 1 to create decoys and immediately regretted as he got turn 1 as he declared Assault Doctrine and threw the chaplain and Samael in my deployment zone and moved all speeders 16in and lion in devastator doctrine. I practically gave him charge targets to launch his guys into with his abilities. I also accidentally placed my Obliterators within 3 inches of the accursed cultists and he consolidated into them.
This prevented their shooting for 2 turns as they had to punch through the tarpit that is Samael all while being battle shocked
All my monkeys died turn 1 and the rest of the game was fighting out of my deployment zone as his speeders perfectly screened my deepstrikes, all being exactly 16in away from each other. I never made a decoy once 😭
My only saving grace was that in turn 2 his lion advanced out of the center in Assault doctrine and double whiffed a 7 in charge and his Deathwing knights who came down in my now very empty deployment zone who also then failed a charge. If that hadn’t happened I’d have been practically tabled turn 2. Thanks to the whiffs I was able to deepstrike the Demon Prince and Kravek in and charge him for the double mortal wound bomb. The lion went down in two turns only killing the Prince and 4 terminators. The Deathwing Knights went down surprisingly easily to a terminators bolters as wounding on 4s and 1 damage negates any of the benefits of being a Deathwing Knight. Weight of dice can beat a 4++ in the end.
The game came to a close as the untouched Vengeance Speeders kited me and blasted everything down.
Loss 48-99. PJ you played like a champ. He ended up winning best in Faction for Imperium. Hilarious guy and wonderful competitive player
\*\*Game 3- Sean and his Mechanized Guard\*\*
Sean was playing a hilariously awesome list Led by Commisar Yarrick in his Fortress of Arrogance, pimped out as a Stormlord filled with Tempestus Scions and Kasrkin. He also had Gaunt’s Ghost for consistent scoring, Tempestus Auilons for 6in drops, and a couple scout chimeras, sentinels, and Taurox. It was fast and punchy
The lists idea was simple, drive the Titanic Vehicle into the center. Do the priority asset actions and blast away from the open deck then hop out with 40 scions if anyone tries to take the objective. If an enemy gets within 8, reactive move with Yarrick then suck them back up into the Stormlord at the end of the turn.
It was a solid strategy except that my Storm bolters love T3 with bad saves and -1 AP Empyric strat is great for saving against hot shots.
The plasma and melta bombs from Kasrkin was wicked though and ate through some Termies very efficiently
I ignored the primary and focused on cleaning up the edges with my Obliterators and focusing my Termies on the center.
The Demon Prince on Turn 3 did an amazing job doing 16+ wounds into the Stormlord with the charge and Strike attacks even as Kravek failed the charge. If Kravek hadn’t failed the Stormlord would be dead in one turn but it lived on 2 and was able to fallback only to be ambushed by yet more rampaging back line Termies.
The game wrapped up with destroying the Stormlord and blasting down any remains troops as I took the center turn 4 and ensured I’d have the last terrain piece to hold with the end of the game bonus scores. He had taken an early lead by doing the action as I got nothing on primary except for some kills on objectives but in 11th the capacity for late game swings is very high
Win 84-78. What a cool list Sean! Keep it up! Maybe some Bullgryn to provide an anvil. Almost everything in his list but the transports and Stormlord was T3
Summary-
The RTT had a great mix of meta competitive lists but also a wide variety of factions and styles. I saw chaos knights, Aeldari, Orks, Genestealers, Guard, EC, Demons, and more! It wasn’t a shark tank, just good kind players who understood the assignment. Will come again
For the list I was very happy about how it performed and may lean towards Ashkurs binding rune in the future over infernal Fulgerite. A turn one deepstrike then yo-yo would be pretty useful.
Also more action monkeys. Maybe Cypher?
Kravek and Demon P are essential hammers to strike the terminator anvils but even they can shoot like hell and kill a lot
Obliterators are wonderful angle shooters and can get anywhere you need them I’m even if their lack of rerolls makes them a little unreliable. I’ve learned to overcommit with shooting or else things are going to live on 1 to 2 wounds. As an example I shot some guards instead of the Stormlord because I assumed Kravek would make the charge and then that was a mistake as it lived on 2
If you made it this far thanks for reading and would love to hear your thoughts!