Good day everyone, my name is Ace! And I’m happy to report that I have finally been set loose to write on this huge amazing site and bring you all the strategies, tactics, and news from the Spanish community, one of the current leaders of Kill Team. Kill Team is a bit of a phenomenon in Spain, but perhaps that’s an article for another time.
Today I’m going to be recapping the Jingle Bells event, a tournament played in Torredembarra, a small town near Barcelona and put on by the guys from TDB Wargames. I spoke with the event’s top three players about their rosters and play.
JINGLE BELLS: 52 PLAYERS
You can find full standings and rosters for this event in Best Coast Pairings.
3rd place: Lazarast (Tactical Reroll)
Faction: Gellerpox Infected
I finished the tournament undefeated with 4 wins and a draw. Four of my games were played on Open terrain while my final game was played in the Gallowdark. SOS ultimately dictated whether I’d finish second or third. Nevertheless, I’m happy with the event and I enjoyed it a lot.
The first game against legionaries was the tie. Against Mechanicus I won by 2 points, but the rest of the games I won by a lot (intercessors, novitiates, and legionaries). I played against great players and the tournament helped me a lot to see how gellerpox play in open board games.
Overall, playing Gellerpox on open terrain is tricky, but they are still super competitive. In general, if the organizers are skilled at arranging interesting killzones, the deployments are safe and force the game to gravitate more toward the center and at control points, but as the gellerpox have their own rules for cover, sometimes you have to find your own way to not die in the drop zone.
But at the end of the day, Gellerpox have tools to reposition and survive, and they have massive health pools. You start a bit behind and can’t shoot from afar, but in the following turns you can compensate for these shortcomings with a super fun horde, with melee control, debuffs and lots of miniatures to out activate your opponent.
My gellerpox have long been waiting in the display cabinet to see play again, and I’m really enjoying this faction and the great potential they have (possibly even too much!).
2nd Place: Tamer “El palestino legendario”
The first thing to talk about is the roster – I play Nurgle and Khorne , but in the current meta and mathematically speaking, Nurgle is much better. Especially because Khorne can be injured and does not hold enough on table. Also, overwatch threats are better with Nurgle and retaining criticals on defense just make it the better mark. You can play more aggressively with the mage if the opponents doesn’t have enough models on engage and he can survive on Turn 1.
I was paired against intercessors in round one, on the energy stream map on a Gallowdark layout. Not much to say here – I got the advantage by killing two models in the first turning point and at the end of the second I tabled him.
Second round was against Lazarast’s Gellerpox Domination. The map had too many heavy elements so I chose table sides for deployment and took the one that would be better for him. In my first activation after the recon dash the balefire tome marine got almost to his drop zone and killed 2 glitchings. The interesting thing about the move is that he can’t charge the acolyte (he chose Barricade in the recon step), and therefore he can only leave his drop zone in one place. This bottleneck meant I only had to protect that one spot with the plasma gun (mounted on a vantage point) and the heavy bolter. We ended up tying the round without starting the last turn; there was still a lot to decide and we could not resolve who should have won the game so the tie iwas a fair call.
Third round against Navy Breachers. Again on Gallowdark. My opponent made a placement error and I was able to sneak a fireball to 7 guys, killing 4 and leaving alive the only one that was in conceal. With this advantage my opponent could do little so the final result was 14-6.
The fourth round against Jumagoz with his navy breachers, Gallowdark again. Mission 3.3 exposed trove. I have it quite studied – you put all of your minis at the bottom and you give away the top point to your opponent. T1 you take the point after dashing with the recon , move the annointed behind the center corner and close the door to avoid leaving a free target to the plasma in turn 1, which leaves you with everything behind the wall and the door. Turn 2 if my opponent wins the initiative he can throw a plasma at my icon that took the point and the demolition charge to the possessed (with 3 dice). On the other handif I win the initiative, I put two shots with the icon to the plasma and grenadier, probably deciding the game in my favor. Unfortunately he won initiative, killed the plasma and put 3 wounds to the possessed. I opened the door again and took the point with the shrivetalon, then I killed the plasma and the grenadier with the annointed and I got to the center of the map with the leader and the mage threatening a possible fireball. Finally, my opp killed the annointed with his melta gunner. On the next two turns I killed everything I could and took my points, and in the last turn with 4 legionnaires against 5 navy breachers I focused on controlling one of the alpha and denying the other and the Navy Tac Op that scored for getting within 6″ of my table edge with two minis. A tight game against a great player – I squeaked out a 12-10 win.
Final game – archeotechnology against corsairs. Again the table had a lot of heavy scenery. To make a long story short his first activation was to hit me with his blaster and use all the dashes of the damn space pirates, but he was obliged to roll one die less for the trophy on the annointed and therefore he was not able to kill me. I then spent 1 CP to ignore being injured so I threw a fireball that left him almost dead. The game progressed favorably for me until we scored in the final turn but I was able to scratch a 15-10 win.
To wrap up this was an amazing tournament where I had favorable pairings for me (Intercessors, corsairs, and navy). I tied in a close match against Lazarast, However I didn’t really want to face any Hunter clade and luckily I managed to avoid them. I´m really happy with second place and being able to fight for the podium.
1st Place: Fernando Marcos “Ace”
I chose Hunter Clade as I have been playing them for several months. I am also bringing them to the Grand Finale in New Mexico this week. That said, this is the biggest tournament in Spain to-date and the competition is fierce. That’s why I picked a team that has a wide range of threats (5 sicarians and 3 gunners plus the leader are nothing to laugh at), and tools to deal with both open and gallowdark environments.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – in the first round I was up against Janine and her Kroot. But despite their tenacious resistance these chickens could do little to not end up as nuggets in the Gallowdark (17-3).
In the second round I faced Nil and his Hunter Clade. Even though I was expecting to face several mirror matches I didn’t expect one this early. The key to winning this game was placing my double activation with the leader in a more advantageous position and knowing the mission better than my opponent, which turned the game in my favor (14-8).
In the third round I got the father of the Molar family (his son was also there competing); his veteran guard made it really difficult for me, but thanks to the shiny new deep strike and the fact that I could move an extra inch I could get the victory (16-3).
First round after lunch and I got Juasmaniak’s legionaries, again on Gallowdark (and for the fourth consecutive game!). Luckily I could isolate the transformed annointed in a room and run to the rest of objectives markers, avoiding him, in the end disabling the leader in the early stages and controlling the tempo of the game, letting him activate first I could win the game with some ease (14-8).
Finally I played Victorium in a classic final, again clade in a mirror match. In the first turn I chose attacker and gave him the initiative which left me the last activation (a fundamental thing in kill team). With it I could activate and make a shot in my last activation. On the other hand I left everything ready for a super double activation in the next turn… as long as I won the initiative…
…So naturally I lost the initiative. And Victorium being the good mirror opponent that he is, he used his double activation and managed to kill two of my Sicarians. However the Omnissiah recognizes his own and I’d make make a couple of charges where I needed a 6 to trigger the rending skill, and I got it! With that and a good positioning I slowly clawed my way closer to victory. On turn 3 I got the initiative and I advanced the only living sicarian to the other side of the table and as it was Domination, I got into the lonely point in the 4th turn, awarding me 3 points and, along with maximizing my secondaries giving me the victory (13-8).
Wrapping Up
The tournament was spectacular; I fought against the best opponents in Spain (And possibly the world), and in the end I was able to win the long awaited trophy.
With this ends the report of the 3 best players of the “Jingle Bells” and this is just the beginning, next week will be held the biggest tournament of Kill team on this season. The Major in Madrid at Kingdom Wargames organized by Tabletop Warzone that will host 94 people. Also there’s the aforementioned invitational Games Workshop Finale event in New Mexico, which will see three Spaniards along with Can you Roll a Crit will squaring off in a bracket along with 4 of the best players from USA so let’s sit tight and just enjoy these great events that we have on the horizon. See you in the comments!
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