Element Games Grand Slam Results, Thoughts and Conclusions

Hello!

It's been a few weeks now since the Element Games Grand Slam 2018 40K event, and I figured I'd write some of my concluding thoughts. First of all, I had a great time! The event was very smoothly run, even down to the staggered arrival of pizzas. All five of my opponents were sporting and entertaining to play, and there were some very pretty armies to look at. The venue is nice, and appropriate amounts of painted scenery was provided. Overall it was a good experience, even for a bit of a fluffy bunny like me. I'd definitely go back.

To recap a little. This is the list I took. My games were, in order, against Chaos, Aeldari, Chaos, Adeptus Astartes and Chaos. (Links provided). I scored 48 out of a maximum 100 tournament points, and I was aiming for 'roughly in the middle'. John on the other hand wasn't doing the maths as we went along, but he had 4 wins and 1 loss.

Before the results though, there was also a best army competition. As mentioned, there were some good looking armies out there, and mine didn't make the cut. Deservedly John was amongst the 8 nominated however, and he ended up picking up second place. (And here's the bit where I try to embed tweets from Element Games, apologies in advance if I screwed it up.)

Best Army Nominations for the 2018 40k EGGS - first half
John Swallow - Aeldari
John Walton - Chaos (Emperor’s Children)
Tim Smith - Imperium
Sam Bocock - Orks (Freebootaz)

thanks to @ArtisOpusLtd who’ve donated a custom engraved Series S Brush Set for the Best Army pic.twitter.com/OlaQEGYVmy

— Element Games (@ElementGames_) November 25, 2018

Best Army Nominations for the 2018 40k EGGS - 2nd half

Dino Kho - Death Guard
Ruben Knab - Adeptus Astartes (Ultramarines)
Nick Davies - Imperium
Michiel Kruijff - Chaos (Nurgle)

thanks to @ArtisOpusLtd who’ve donated a custom engraved Series S Brush Set for the Best Army pic.twitter.com/OvrUToee2J

— Element Games (@ElementGames_) November 25, 2018

So now, to the business end of things. The results came out. I came 45th out of 86. Pretty happy with that. John ended up sitting at 12th, which I'm sure he was very happy with, given that he was preparing himself for 5 tablings after the first game! (Regular readers may not be at all surprised by this.) When the dust settled, there were two players on the maximum 100 tournament points, so the winner was determined by clever maths. Congratulations to Josh Roberts (if, for some reason, he is reading this) who eventually topped the table. Amusingly, Josh was John's first opponent, so I guess there are bragging rights in being able to say the only person who beat him was the one who won the whole thing. It's also worth noting that the top three positions were all Aeldari armies, though Imperium, Chaos, Tau and Orks all made it into the top 10. Lots of soup everywhere, obviously, but all things considered, a good mix of armies making it to the top.

I'm pleased with how my army worked in the end. I came in thinking it would be somewhat held back by the narrative restrictions I impose upon myself, and while yes, it definitely could have been more optimised, it did very well for itself. I expected to face more gunlines, but, possibly because of the amount of large, line of sight blocking terrain, the armies I faced were a bit more varied and weren't able to just delete me on turn one.

The hero for me was definitely the Valiant. Having not had chance to field it before the event, I was half expecting it to be a disappointment, but it absolutely exceeded that! I think it made it to turn 4 or 5 in every game, even surviving a couple of them. The Thundercoil Harpoon was very unreliable, but when it hit, wow, was that satisfying. The real damage came from the Conflagration cannon though, which made it a big threat to pretty much anything. I was also pleased with my choice not to make it the warlord, and instead spend command points at the start of each game to equip it with whatever relic or warlord traits seemed useful. Ion Bulwark obviously saw some use, but I think I got the most out of the Armour of Sainted Ion, which makes low ap weapons almost entirely irrelevant and is very helpful in melee. Useful for a unit you are going to just shove out in front of your opponent's whole army. The Valiant has definitely earnt his or herself a name. Any suggestions?

The Kataphron Destroyers also impressed, again, against my expectations. Being infantry, the ability to move through walls was exceptionally useful in staying out of line of sight for turn one, only to move out and blast away with the Plasma Specialists stratagem. I think perhaps their status as 'trash' units on the internet meant that they came as a bit of a surprise to some of my opponents, who missed the chance to target them early before they could do serious damage. Now that they are significantly cheaper as of chapter approved, they will be a lot easier to slot in. We might see a few more orange AdMech armies in future.

The Kastelan robots proved exceptionally tough, but in terms of damage output they weren't all that impressive. The shooty ones obviously did the business on occasion they were presented with a prime target, but frequently they were unable to get into the best positions or were tied up and unable to do anything. The fist ones were an expected disappointment, the only unit to not really achieve anything all weekend. Overall a good effort all round from the rest of the list. The did me proud.

Well that's about it. Again, I had a great weekend, thanks to everyone involved! The Element Games team run a tight ship. I'd definitely recommend future events to anyone vaguely interested. And that's the end of my EGGS related content! Or is it?