The Corroad Goes Ever On and On: Leicester City GT and 2021 Wrap-up

Welcome back to the Corroad! Last time around I had attended the 3 day, 8 game Coventry GT supermajor and placed a highly respectable 9th with a Talos-heavy Drukhari army. The day after that event, GW released the first of the new quarterly Balance Dataslates, which… made Talos stronger. Hell yeah.

The list I played at Coventry increased by a net 55pts, which was just enough to require rethinking it. If you’ve been reading Rob’s similar series of regular tournament reports, you’ll note that he’s been spending a lot of time thinking about his list and practicing regularly against a variety of opponents to try out different match-ups and analyse his strengths and weaknesses as a player. I’ve opted for a different strategy, which is to only play in tournaments and rarely even think about playing Warhammer in between – I’ve not played a practice game since August, and my post-dataslate adjustments were done on the train home from work on the Monday night after which point I didn’t think about the army again until I had to put it in the case right before I drove to Leicester. In general, I would suggest his course is a better one if you want to improve at 40k, but luckily I play Drukhari so I don’t have to try as hard as that.

The new, post-balance list is as follows:

Corrode's Leicester GT List - Click to Expand

The key differences are:

1. Dropping one Raider for a Venom
2. Dropping the Scourges
3. Switching the 10 Bloodbrides in the RSR to 5 regular Wyches
4. Adding grisly trophies to all the transports and shock prows to the Raiders

It’s not complicated, but it slightly changes the playstyle – instead of relying on the Scourges as a ROD unit, I have the two Wych units which go into Strategic Reserves and fulfil the same role. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same as before – big brick of Talos hangs out being tough and threatening, Trueborn aim to take down a specific hard target, characters and Incubi trade above their points costs.

With the list redesigned thus, I was relying mostly on my prior practice with it to see me through a changed world with a new meta I hadn’t yet played in. I was keeping up with Competitive Innovations and our competitive chat in the Goonhammer discord, so I had a decent idea of what was good now, and I felt like the Talos had good play into it – as well as expecting the likely mirror match, especially when lists went up for the event and literally dozens of them appeared in the numerous Drukhari armies taking the field. Luckily for my first match I had none of them, and was instead facing Grey Knights, an army which is objectively very strong but which in my experience has a fairly poor game into Talos which neuter their main shooting output from the Dreadknights. Let’s talk about how that went.

Game 1: Jamie, Grey Knights

Mission: Scorched Earth
My Secondaries: Herd the Prey, Retrieve Octarius Data, Abhor the Witch
His Secondaries: Purifying Ritual, Stranglehold, Retrieve Octarius Data

Jamie's Grey Knights List - Click to Expand

Jamie’s list was a little lighter on Dreadknights than others I’ve played against recently, and didn’t quite have the full 30 Interceptors either, instead opting to take Draigo and a Techmarine as well as an extra 5 Strike Marines.

Grey Knights are a good army right now, but one of their big weaknesses is the amount of their damage output which relies on damage 2 – particularly the heavy psycannons from the Dreadknights. Talos Drukhari have a great match into them, since they nullify this part of the shooting profile pretty effectively and are also good against the psilencer part thanks to being T7 while in range of the Haemonculus.

This was a match where I felt pretty confident going in, with roughly the same plan as against the Deathwatch in my opening game at Coventry – with the modification I talked about in the previous report of putting Talos on the left and my vehicles on the right. That’s what I did, and while my opening turn was kind of anaemic (including a complete failure to really harm his Dreadknights with opportunistic dark lance shooting, thanks to a flourish of good 4+ invulnerable saves from him that stayed a theme throughout), the game was overall fairly comfortable. He wasn’t able to deal with the Talos, who charged up the left flank and battered some Strikes and Interceptors, and I effectively shut down his primary scoring on turns 3 and 4 while maintaining mine and maxing Abhor the Witch by the end of 3. The overall score at the end was 93-65 to me thanks to missing a RoD somewhere in there.

Jamie finished the event 130th, following up our game with 2 wins and another loss before winning his last game in a nailbiting 68-66 against Death Guard.

Game 2: Chris, White Scars

Mission: Vital Intelligence
My Secondaries: Herd the Prey, Retrieve Octarius Data, Data Intercept
His Secondaries: Stranglehold, Retrieve Octarius Data, Assassination

Chris' White Scars List - Click to Expand

I played against White Scars at Coventry in a game that was highly advantageous for me, with a big midfield scrap which suited my army well. This was the complete opposite – Vital Intelligence is a mission where his superior ability to spread out with lots of small, reasonably tough to kill units (once the Vanguard Veterans combat squad into six units of five) is a big help, and the Talos are pretty much stuck going in one direction while leaving half the objectives untroubled. The melta Devastators are also a big asset firing into the Talos, and free up the volkite Contemptors to take on targets they have a better chance of killing – i.e. Raiders.

That’s pretty much how it played out, with Chris doing his best to spread out across the map and deny me primary. As a plan it mostly worked out – I only scored 5 on turns 3 and 4 and then a 15 on turn 5 – but unfortunately for him I was able to deny his even more aggressively, putting him down to just 10pts total for the primary score. His Devastators did a good job of attacking Talos (and would have done an even better one had he not completely forgotten about his cherubs on multiple occasions!), but he wasn’t quite able to land a telling blow to turn the game around. He also made one significant mistake, in the bottom right corner – a unit of 5 Vanguard Veterans moved onto the inner objective there for no particular reason, bringing them much closer to my stuff. The Incubi and Drazhar had been quite out of touch until this point, but he put the Vanguard in exactly the right place to give them something to slingshot into, losing himself primary points and getting more of my stuff into the mix. Overall I scored low with 70pts, but even after maxing Assassination and a huge last-ditch punt which involved a Volkite Contemptor charging two Talos, he wasn’t able to catch up, and the game finished 70-54.

Chris finished 107th, alternating wins and losses for a 3-2 finish. His final game was a win against our own Wings, in what sounded like a very enjoyable last round for both of them. He also pointed out that the Data Intercept secondary does not have an end-game scoring tick, which I was convinced it did, and as such I owe Adam an apology for our Coventry game – though at least I still lost that one so it didn’t change anything!

Game 3: Chris, Adeptus Mechanicus

Mission: Overrun
My Secondaries: Herd the Prey, Retrieve Octarius Data, To the Last
His Secondaries: Stranglehold, Raise the Banners High, To the Last

Chris' Adeptus Mechanicus List - Click to Expand

Another game, another Chris. This one was running an Adeptus Mechanicus army that looked as you would expect in a post-balance dataslate world, with two Stratoraptors, a pile of Lucius Skitarii, some Ironstriders and dogs and Sicarians – but just less of everything than it would have had a month ago. It’s still a fearsome shooting prospect, but it feels a lot more manageable than the previous iteration did.

A second consecutive Domination mission against an army with a lot more Obsec than mine isn’t exactly what I was hoping for, but for the first time against Ad Mech I won the first turn roll-off. It took us six attempts to decide first turn; I’m not a Maths Guy but the odds of that have to be pretty low, right? With Trueborn lined up on a Stratoraptor I was looking forward to finally getting the jump on the Ad Mech menace, and then Chris rolled 2/3 6+ saves on my first volley so that I achieved almost nothing. Great. My Succubus did manage to pick up some Infiltrators who’d infiltrated too close to my lines, at least, and I took some consolation that his first turn was also very soft. 

This ended up being a game of two halves, where on turn 2 I was pretty sure I’d lost and on turn 3 the entire game swung and I was in the driving seat. My turn 2 was just as ineffective as turn 1, while Chris was able to pick up 3 Talos and devastate my lightly-held backfield objectives. He did have one issue, however; he killed a Venom, and hadn’t wrapped it tightly enough, leaving some Incubi and the Archon free to fall out. Further shooting killed a couple more Incubi, but since he’d Advanced nothing could charge them. 

On his other flank he’d also brought out some Skitarii Vanguard to shoot up Talos, successfully killing a squad with them. However, on my 3, I unveiled my not-so-secret weapon – the shock prow on my Raider. The boat charged forwards, and with the classic shock prow Tokyo Drift manoeuvre it managed to make contact with a full 12 Vanguard, and high-rolled to kill 10 of them with mortal wounds. On my left hand side Drazhar and some Incubi killed his unit of 2 Ironstriders, while the third unit of Incubi managed to touch the Rangers and Marshal over there in order to chop up some of them and, more importantly, lock them in combat. My shooting had finally turned on a bit and both planes were down, too, so a game that looked like I was going to lose heavily swung around wildly. Suddenly I went from being way behind to being in the driving seat – Chris would only score 5 more primary in this game, while I managed to go from almost none to a couple of 15pt turns, and also tore down his banners.

This was a game where the impact of the balance dataslate was visible – the map was a tough one for me as there’s a couple of big, open fire lanes which the Talos had to cross, and hold 2/3 is hard and made harder when he can achieve it with big bricks of Skitarii which are hard for me to land a punch on outside of melee range. Pre-dataslate this would likely have been a game where I did the same thing but he had 200-300pts more stuff to punch back with, or more likely had the same ground troops and 4 planes so that he could neutralise the Talos on turn 1, but this time when I managed to land a punch it was decisive. Overall a scrappy win, but it ended 67-46, and 3-0 at the end of day 1.

Chris ended up in 80th place on 3-2, winning his next game before losing the fifth against mixed Aeldari.

Game 4: Tom, Drukhari

Mission: Priority Target
My Secondaries: Herd the Prey, Retrieve Octarius Data, Priority Targets
His Secondaries: Take Them Alive!, Engage on All Fronts, Priority Targets

Tom's Drukhari List - Click to Expand

Day 2 opened up with a mirror match, with Tom running a similar list to mine but with the key differences of no Trueborn or Drazhar and fewer Incubi; replacing them are 2×10 Hellions and 4 Grotesques.

This is a game I am immensely proud of, because I played it exactly right. The first mistake here would prove fatal, and Tom had a similar list to mine but more aggressive, so if I overextended I was going to get punished. There were three big factors which helped me to take control, however. Priority Targets as a mission was a big help, especially when Tom won the deployment roll and decided to be Attacker so he could move his home objective to safety. This was a big mistake on his part, because I then moved the two midfield objectives towards my side, which created a map where 4/5 of the primary objectives were all grouped towards my side of the table. Second, I picked a very passive set of secondaries – Herd the Prey, ROD, and Priority Targets – while his Engage and Take Them Alive were more aggressive, requiring him to attack my army and come into my part of the table. Finally, I didn’t move my Talos for two turns. This felt insane but was the right call, especially since I went first and didn’t want to. The combined impact of slanting the primary towards my side of the table and having a passive vs. active set of secondaries was that I had a very straightforward game – if all that happened for five turns was us sitting in our deployment zones and me bringing in Strategic Reserves to score ROD, I’d win. Tom therefore had to take the initiative, which meant he was much more likely than I was to make that fatal mistake described above. The Talos playing the part of Achilles in his tent was vital to this plan, because overextending them would mean a decent chance of losing them, while sitting still meant they were safe and waiting to exploit any opportunities that came up.

In the event this is more or less what happened. After a cautious first turn, Tom fired one squad of Hellions into the Talos camp to try and take them out, while also bringing up a couple of his own Talos to attack the Incubi Raider. He killed the Raider, but the Incubi fell out to safety, while the Hellions didn’t do much to the Talos they were swinging at. This gave me the opportunity I needed – I was able to clear both units, and also engage the Mandrakes he was using to score Engage with a unit of Incubi. He was now in the invidious position of being stretched out. His other Hellions and his Bloodbrides were still in his backfield trying to block ROD and prevent me engaging the middle or far-right objectives, which I had no intention of doing. The other Talos and his Incubi and characters were in the middle L-shape ruin, where I had local supremacy. They could either run away (which would likely lose him the game) or try and fight their way out (where they were outnumbered). Tom chose the latter, and was rewarded with an abysmal round of shooting, and not much better melee. As the Talos jumped out of the L-shape, the Hellions jumped in, ready to try and support next turn. This ended up being costly – we had a couple of vehicle explosions which killed one, and then my Succubus swooped in and picked up the other eight. My strike back elsewhere deleted his remaining Talos and characters, and left him desperately short of materiel.

On the right hand side his Grotesques had been holding the corner objective, but a combination of small Obsec Wych units and his models being slowly whittled away meant I was able to prevent them from scoring points from early in the game, though I did need to throw the Trueborn Raider over there to swing it at one point. To try and reduce my Trueborn shooting threat his Bloodbride Raider had charged mine, and we had a few turns of our Raiders touching tips where even here my luck was better than his, as his melee did nothing while mine chipped wounds off at the rate of a couple per turn. The Bloodbrides came out on turn 4 and charged into my backfield, devastating the Trueborn (who had disembarked to be able to pop some shots off) while the Succubus killed my backfield Wracks. This was a brave attempt to swing some points back, but a last-gasp charge on my side was able to kill them Bloodbrides off too. The final result was 85-66 after a game that was mentally exhausting and a lot of fun.

Tom finished the event in 72nd place with a 3-2 record, losing his last game against a vicious Deathwatch list using the new Army of Renown. His opponent Jon was coincidentally my first game at Coventry last month. This time he was playing the Kill Team Strike Force, and it seemed to be working well; his game 3 was right next to mine, and I watched him annihilate a capable Ad Mech player in short order.

Game 5: Rob, Death Guard

Mission: Sweep and Clear
My Secondaries: Herd the Prey, Retrieve Octarius Data, Assassination
His Secondaries: Stranglehold, Direct Assault, To the Last

Rob's Death Guard List - Click to Expand

After the slobberknocker that was round 4, I was not ready for a grindy Death Guard list in game 5. The mental exhaustion hadn’t lifted for this game, which is my excuse for why I played it so poorly.

Rob set up with his Deathshrouds and Poxwalkers in the middle L-shapes, and his Daemon Prince and Foul Blightspawn exposed right on the line. With Direct Assault and Stranglehold he had a pretty clear game plan – charge into mid and hold onto it for dear life. I wasn’t likely to touch his To the Last targets, so the main part of the plan had to be countering this.

I went first and decided to play like a complete chump. Drazhar and two units of Incubi jumped out of their boats in an attempt to charge the Blightspawn and Daemon Prince, and while two units managed it even through the -2″ stratagem I didn’t even roll for the third one because they were unlikely to make it, despite there being no reason they shouldn’t at least roll the dice? As was predictable I didn’t manage to do enough to them, and on turn 1 I lost Draz and 10 Incubi in return.

On turn 2 I charged his Poxwalkers who were holding the central objective, and then fought somewhere else first despite that being by far the most important combat, allowing him to interrupt and kill 4/5 Incubi with the mortal wounds strat. By turn 3 I’d woken up a bit and played a lot better, but I made another fatal mistake on turn 4 – with his Daemon Prince on 4 wounds, my remaining Talos whiffed and didn’t kill him, and he was able to swing the game by 11 points by jumping into mid and dropping my primary and gaining him Stranglehold and Direct Assault. I had other resources available who could have gone in and tried to ensure the kill, and again I had them farting around doing other, unimportant things. If I’d taken five minutes to count up the scores it would have been obvious that this was the only thing that mattered, and yet.

This was a frustrating game because after a run of good games I played so poorly, for no better reason than because I didn’t engage my brain to play well. In terms of excuses I was still tired from game 4 and I think I had in my head that the Deathshrouds would be harder to kill than they were, but those are excuses rather than reasons. Losing like this is frustrating because it’s very clear where I lost the game for myself by playing really badly, but I don’t want to take away from Rob either who was a pleasure to play and stuck to his plan very well. The end result was 86-94 – you can see how that 11pt swing changes things! Rob ended the event with 4 wins and a draw, placing 10th overall, while I finished 20th.

Post-event Thoughts

I’ll be honest and say this probably isn’t the best version of this list; for one thing I probably don’t need the Cult of Strife detachment at all since I didn’t end up using any of the strats all weekend, and you don’t need it for Competitive Edge. Those 5 Wyches could as easily be 5 Wracks and be a bit tougher to delete once they show up – and save me 20pts to boot. I also still really like the Trueborn, but they seem to have disappeared from other armies, and it’s worth re-evaluating them now – I just didn’t really have time to try anything else, and while they still add value they could probably be turned into a Ravager or something which is much more able to sit at range with three dark lances rather than having to close a bit to use the less-good blasters.

I haven’t had much chance to play since, though I have been experimenting with Wrack-heavy builds after seeing Boris’ strong result at the top of the event with his 5-model units of whip and liquifier guys.

End of Year Wrap-up

Despite being mostly about a tournament from the start of December, this isn’t publishing until 2022 and so I’m also thinking about my 2021 hobby year in general. Put simply, I’m pretty happy with it! I got a lot painted, got a bunch of tournament games in and did well including my first GT win back in October, and Goonhammer went from strength to strength, though with less input from me than I would have liked.

As is tradition for Goonhammer, we can look at this in table form. Firstly, everything I painted broken down by faction:

I added a bunch of different things to this in December:

As you can see, it’s all a bit directionless – apart from the 84 Drukhari, and arguably the 41 Sisters, everything else is quite bitty. Fine for painting cool toys (which is part of the hobby I enjoy!) but not great for getting workable armies on the tabletop. In 2022 I’m going to at least try and improve this so I have a few other options I can game with.

Speaking of gaming, I got 48 40k games played in 2021, not bad since I mostly didn’t play in the first half of the year thanks to Covid. Of those 48 I won 39, mostly thanks to Drukhari being Drukhari. 32 of those games were in tournaments, which is a good way to maximise games in available time when you e.g. have a small child but not a great way to be practiced and firing on all cylinders. Also in 2022, I want to get more practice in with more games outside of events so I can try stuff out and get more reps with what I’m playing (and practice with/against armies I don’t know much about).

Given current UK Covid numbers, it’s hard to know what events are going to run in 2022 – though we’re not locked down or anything right now. The next thing I have tickets for is Beachhead Brawl in February, kicking off the 2022 ITC season with a supermajor – which is a good way to do it!