TheChirurgeon’s Road Through 2023, Part 23: Atlanta Prep and the November Asgard RTT

Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing chronicle of hobby and competitive progress through 2023. Last time around I talked about prepping for the upcoming GW Narrative Finale in Atlanta, and I built a display board. This time I’m going to talk about the work I’m putting in to try and win Best Painted, and also the November Asgard RTT, which I attended last weekend.

The November Asgard RTT

Let’s start with the competitive event. I had committed to this a few weeks prior, and given the state my Death Guard were in I thought it’d give me a good chance at winning an RTT. While some of the heaviest hitters weren’t present, Asgard has become quite the shark tank over the past two years, with the Astros Militarum really stepping up their game and turning it into a tough place to score three wins.

For this event I was bringing my standard Death Guard list. I’m comfortable with how it plays and it’s pretty versatile.

My list - click to expand

I get to Asgard around 8:50. I’ve been going to this store for more than two years now, and for the entirety of that span there’s been road work on the street the store is on. Not the same road work, mind – different work in different spots, but always making things difficult when it comes to parking or getting to the store. I set up and we get started.

Round 1. vs. Steven Salazar’s Aeldari

Steven’s a chill guy who joined the Astros recently and someone I’ve played once before. He’s running an Aeldari list – basically Erik’s list from the last time I played him, though Steven’s not running the Yncarne.

Steven's List - Click to Expand

The Mission: Take and Hold
Deployment: Search and Destroy
Rules: Chilling Rain

Contagion: Skullsqurim Blight (-1 WS/BS)

Steven’s running a decent list, but it’s a list I’ve played against before and Erik’s a stronger player than Steven. The big threats here are the Avatar, the Wraithguard, and the Nightspinners. The good news is that my list can deal with all three pretty easily – I can grenade and Typhus the Avatar to death, mortar and deplete the Wraithguard with anti-infantry shooting before charging in, and the Nightspinners I can mitigate by holding my plague marines and nurglings in reserve. It’ll take two or three of them shooting indirect to pop the rhino, so if I can weather that for a turn I’ll be in good shape.

Steven’s biggest mistake happens pre-game: He goes with Fixed objectives and takes Deploy Teleport Homers and Bring it Down. Homers is mostly fine – it’s a lot of work to screen my zone, but it’s easier on Search and Destroy, and I can use mortars to kill anything trying to camp in my deployment zone even if I can’t see it. But Bring it Down is a big mistake. With only nightspinners and a single war walker as his long range threats I don’t have much to worry about for my PBCs – they can stay out of reach/LOS from the Wraithguard as long as I need and deny scoring.

I’m going first. 

That’s great, and pretty much seals things. By the time turn 2 rolls around for Steven I’ve basically screened him out completely. The Rhino survives the first two Nightspinners and Steven splits fire so it gets to wheel around and hold its troops an extra turn. At midtable I drop both units of Deathshroud and between Typhus, their snot pistols, and Mortarion I’m able to drop the Avatar to 2 wounds before charging in and finishing him off. I ignore the Wraithguard for two tunrs then charge them with a PBC and watch them flail at it, forcing Steven to constantly spend CP to fall back and shoot at BS4+. The game is over by the bottom of 2 but we play it out for another turn and a half.

Result: 100-37, Victory

That’s a great round 1 but things were about to get real tough.

Round 2: vs. Conor Tomalty’s Leagues of Votann

This game was some real bullshit. Not because of Conor – who was great, but because of the mission. Not only are we playing Servo Skulls, we’re playing the version of Servo Skulls with an additional objective. Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t think there’s a mission in the pack that’s more skewed toward going first.

Conor's list - Click to Expand

Conor’s list has a lot of shooting, and more important, a ton of scout moves. Pretty much everything in his army can scout move, and that means if he goes first, he’s going to end up on every one of the four midtable objectives, kicking it my way. This is a fuckin nightmare. I need to go first.

The Mission: Servo Skulls
Deployment: Crucible of Battle
Mission: Hidden Supplies

Contagion: Rattlejoint Ague (-1 to saves)

I’m going second.

Holy shit that’s bad. The Votann have a surprising amount of OC, with land fortresses sitting on 5, and that makes them brutally dangerous since they can bully my PBCs, which only have OC 4. Conor uses the first turn scout moves to get around some corners and snipe my Fleshmower and rhino, though this puts him close enough for a first-turn charge. Though it also means he scores a ton of CP on turn 2.

For my part, I make a big mistake this game: I should have put my Nurglings right outside Conor’s DZ in order to block his scout moves and prevent him moving out. Instead I blank on that and put them in the corners for Signals and that just wasn’t the play here. On that note, I get absolutely fucked on secondaries this game, pulling basically the worst thing any given turn.

By the time I pull Signals it’s a dead secondary and Conor being able to kick objectives away means that Overwhelming Force is also pretty much dead when I draw it, while a turn 1 Behind Enemy Lines is pretty much unscorable. Despite all this, I nearly table Conor, melting his units as they arrive, but the game comes down to some truly rancid dice as Typhus poops himself twice trying to do mortals to a unit of 2 Hearthguard and when I charge them with Typhus and his remaining deathshroud they do a whopping 0 wounds, allowing Conor to hold the objectives near my zone a turn longer. Had I killed even one, I’d have been able to kick both an extra turn toward my zone and pulled off a 20-point swing. Conor takes the win in a game where I was playing from behind the whole time thanks to servo skulls.

Result: 52-78, Loss

Well, that’s another RTT I won’t win. For the record Servo Skulls is a bullshit mission, and this is the first time I’d ever played the four objective variant, which is even worse.

Round 3: vs. Scott Kocian’s Iron Hands

Scott’s from the Dragon’s Lair team and he’s a chill dude and a swell opponent. I hadn’t played him before but it was good to meet him. He’s running a new Ironstorm list and in a point of major credit to him, they’re actually painted like Iron Hands, marking him as A Real One.

Scott's List - Click to Expand

Scott’s list has a ton of ranged firepower and he’s more than capable of cracking open my tanks. Helping him out is the recent GW ruling that I can’t ignore the damage reduction on the Redemptors. We’re also playing on 9th edition style terrain, which on this deployment (Hammer and Anvil) means I have to spend a turn moving out of and around the terrain, getting shot.

The Mission: Sites of Power
Rule: Chilling Rain
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

Contagion: Rattlejoint Ague (-1 to saves)

The deployment and map here really favor Scott, who has good shooting lanes to work with and will get at least a turn to shoot me. Working massively in my favor however is the mission – I have way more characters and putting three objectives in the middle of the table means Scott will be forced to come interact with me more than he wants, and most of his units really do not want to be in melee. He also can’t just shoot me off – I can stick them, and just continue to rack up points.

I’m Going Second.

Thats not ideal, and Scott uses turn 1 to kill one of my PBCs. I spend a turn moving out toward him, and have to take a bunch of firepower on my PBCs as I try and get into position, but on turn 2 I’m able to make things happen, taking out two of his dreadnoughts as I kill a Redemptor and finish off a Ballistus in melee before piling into another. This is not where Scott wants to be, and I basically stuff him in his deployment zone as he tries to kill Mortarion and two PBCs camping on the north objective. Scott’s dice were on fire this game and mine were pretty rancid but it ultimately didn’t matter – the mission made this a near-impossible matchup for Scott, as once I stickied the three midtable objectives I got too far ahead on primary for Scott to catch up.

Result: 86-42, Victory

That puts me on yet another 2-1, and I win Best Painted. The more things change, I guess. Anyways it was a fun time against three great opponents and I finished early enough to head home and catch dinner with the family and hop on the weekly hobby chat I do with the Goonhammer crew.

Hobby Prep for Atlanta

Ok, let’s talk about the serious stuff: Hobby prep work for Atlanta. My goal is to win Best Painted, and that means I need a better-looking army than I had last year. To recap from last week’s post, my plans to do this basically include four steps:

1. Build a solid display board – DONE
2. Paint new models for the army to finish it off at a high standard
3. Add character to the army
4. Touch-up older models that aren’t up to my current standards

There were three categories for best painted last year in Albuquerque: Best Display, Best Theme, and Best Technical. Best Display is probably behind me – it’s for those crazy people driving to the venue who have massive displays that with lights and smoke machines and shit. Best Technical might be in reach, but I expect someone like Jack to win it over me. My goal is best Theme, a category which will reward having models with character and a cool visual theme.

Adding Character to Models

I talked last time around about Campbell “SRM” McLaughlin’s models and how they have a ton of character. That’s something I want to bring to my guys as well, figuring out how I can add cool little details that help tell a story of the army, so when you look at the models they ooze character.

The theme I want to lean into this year is the Black Legion’s “Confluence of Traitors” identity – they’re a legion composed of traitors from every legion and warbands across the galaxy, coming together to fight under Abaddon’s banner for the greater cause of toppling the Imperium. It’s a cool concept that’s really more fleshed out in Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s excellent Black Legion series, which sees the formation of the legion and their first forays back into realspace after fleeing to the Eye of Terror.

So how am I going to do that?

I’ve already done a couple of models which reflect this, based on characters from the Black Legion series. Specifically, I’ve done models to reflect members of Abadon’s Ezekarion – Iskandar Khayon, Lheorvine Ukris, Telemachon Lyras, Illyaster Faylech, and Vortigern – who are from the Thousand Sons, World Eaters, Emperor’s Children, Death Guard, and Dark Angels, respectively. They make great champions and Chosen in my army, and the recent Fallen I painted for a How to Paint Everything article goes well along with this as well.

So I’ll expand on this, by making my Black Legion models visibly part of this tradition, coming from a large number of legions. I can do this by a number of small conversions and paint effects, with the goal to be that if you look at any model in my army you should have a decent idea what legion they originally came from (though some will still be relatively vanilla). I’m already bringing one unit of each god-dedicated unit to the event, i.e. one unit each of Berzerkers, Rubrics, Plague Marines, and Noise Marines. Where I can add value next is on the units I need to flesh out and finish – specifically the Chosen, Terminators, and Legionaries. In this post I’m going to talk about the Terminators.

Converting Some Terminators

I’ve got a ton of terminator bits sitting around, both from the older plastic kit, newer kit, and also Horus Heresy. I’d love to do a series of Terminators which reflect some of the really cool terminator units specific to each legion, and so I get to work converting. Here’s the batch I come up with:

That’s a solid batch except for the Lernean Terminator in the back – he’s just a little too short and that’s not what I want from the Alpha Legion so I’ll pull of his arms and go back to the drawing board and give him a second try later. I still had two more bodies after that, so I put together this guy as a Justaerin:

I end up gluing a bunch of spikes to his left greave as well to complete the visual after taking this photo, but the key visual elements are there already – the topknot and helmet, neck guard, and power axe.

I also have a ton of Thousand Sons bits, so I figured I’d do a Scarab as well. The problem is that there’s little reason for a rubric marine to be in the unit sans sorcerer. I went back and forth on whether to make this guy a champion with a khopesh, but the gun/khopesh hands weren’t cooperating so I settled on doing a custom Sorcerer in Terminator Armour instead.

I’m very happy with him, and I think he works much better than the now-ancient Terminator Sorcerer model for the faction.

Alright, conversions done. Let’s paint these guys up and give them names.

Zagrek Khorr

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Zagrek is a former World Eater, one of the Red Butchers. He uses the chainfist arm from an Exalted Eightbound, while the head is from an Eightbound as well. The khorne headdress is from an older Berzerker head, cut to fit the armor and completed with greenstuff. The skull necklace is a visual similar to the headdress in that it’s pulled from the Forge World World Eater terminators kit they did back in the day. It’s just a trio of Citadel skulls drilled through with a small string of plastic wire through them.

As all of the Khorne-marked guys in the Black Legion are in the Hounds of Abaddon, I’ve marked this guy in similar fashion, with the red streaks on his armor and red shoulder pad I’ve used to mark the others.

Endion Anarax

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Endion’s a former Iron Warrior, though these touches are more on the painting side – the hazard stripes on his power fist and the Imperial Fists helmet on his trophy rack – than modeled. Though here I’ve used a Tartaros terminator helmet to give him a bit of unique character with the kind of vertical grill you’d expect from the Iron Warriors.

Qarad Sa’quath

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The former Word Bearer in the group, Qarad uses the head from a Dark Apostle and the parchment stole from the same kit. I also wanted to give him some of the visual touches from the Heresy Word Bearers, so I’ve painted a bunch of Cthonic runes on his armor. These are painted with Black Legion contrast and highlighted with Mechanicus Standard Grey and Celestra Grey.

Putrus Thraxx

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

The Former Death Guard member, this guy is just a Blightlord Terminator, though I’ve put Justaerin shoulder pads on him to give him visible allegiance to the Black Legion.

Drekva Orakar

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones

This former member of the Justaerin incorporates the topknot from an old Chaos Space Marine on a Tartaros head, with the neckguard from a resin Justaerin and a bunch of spikes from various Chaos models. The axe was surprisingly easy to paint and I’m happy with this as a first attempt to do the molten effect. Just start with orange-red, blend up to white and use Word Bearers Red and a touch of Rhinox Hide for the dark spots.

That wraps up the first five terminators and I’m very happy with this lot. They look great and I think they get the point across while also staying visually cohesive to what I’m doing with Black Legion. I have two more to paint as I type this, plus a few non-terminator marines, some Possessed, and Chosen, and the rest of the work is in touch-ups. I’ll touch on those next week.

Next Time: The Touch-ups

That’s about all I have time for this time around. Come back next week for my final pre-Atlanta installment when I’ll talk about doing the touch-up work and my final prep for the event. In the meantime, if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.