Leicester City GT report

Hello!

Over the weekend I went to the Leicester City GT, and I had a blast! It was the biggest tournament I'd been to with around 250 players (plus a smaller AoS event running alongside) and the first sizable one since the 40k Grand Tournament at Warhammer World back in early 2020. So I have been looking forward to this one for a while.

For this post I'm going to briefly talk about my list then give an overview of each of the games, then some thoughts at the end. I'll go ahead and spoil the result now - I lost all of them. No wooden spoon however, I did rank at the top of all the people with no wins. I was never going to win so I'm not super disappointed, but of course it would be nice to come somewhere safely in the middle - but more on all that later.

I had a real tough time decided on what to take with me, as I was torn between fun, power and convenience. I had initially intended to go Orks, but Tyranids would be a much more 'meta' option and Death Guard would have been much easier to move around on a tray! In the end I did go with the Snakebites, taking a similar list to the one I took against JP recently, but with some adjustments made in the name of logistics. Less Boyz, more Toyz.

HQ: Mozrog Skragbad (Warlord, Surly as a Squiggoth), Weirdboy (Da Jump, Fists of Gork)

Troops: 10 Beast Snagga Boyz, 3x 15 Boyz (Powerklaw), 2x 10 Gretchin

Elites: 8 Burna Boyz/2 Spannas (1 Rokkit Launcha, 1 Kustom mega blasta), 3 Mega Nobz (Big Krumpaz)

Fast Attack: 5 Squighog Boyz (Bomb Squig)

Heavy Support: Kill Rig (Frazzle, Squiggly Curse, Scorched Gitbones), Squiggoth, Battlewagon (Deffroller)

Lord of War: Gorkanaut (Big Krumpaz)

Game one was against Stephen and his Necrons. No Silent King, but he did have the Void Dragon, a load of Heavy Destroyers and many many Canoptek units. The mission was Abandoned Sanctuaries.

Ultimately the game was decided by a poor decision to attack against Spyders first (with ultimately little effect as the one I killed came back) rather than the Void Dragon, allowing him to attack, ignore invulnerable saves, and down Mozrog Skragbad. Before then I think I was right in the game but I wasn't able to come back from failing to kill the big guy. Highlights of the game before that were probably the Squighog Boyz and Mozrog battering Wraiths. It ended 100-53 to the Necrons.

Game two was Data Scry-salvage vs Aarron and his cool jungly Tau; green suits, blue Kroot and loads of vegetation on the bases. No vehicles, just loads of suits.

I felt like I played this one well - I scored early points and made him work to take out my big targets for Bring It Down. Sadly it was a tough match up and I think it fell apart when the Gorkanaut made a charge out of the Tellyporta into the Broadsides and only killed a couple of drones. With that they stepped back and Kauyoned it to death. I made good progress chewing through the chaff but the Suits and their drones were just tough to deal with. This one ended 78-55 to the Tau.

Game three was the first of a pair of Dark Angels players. Rob had a cool mix of Death, Raven and green wings. Big blobs of Terminators and Black Knights supported by, among other things, plasma Inceptors and the Land Speeder Vengeance. Mission was Death and Zeal.

If I'm honest with myself I played this one very poorly, going half arsed on attempting to take out the Terminators in the middle vs ignoring them and focusing on the corner objectives. I did manage to control the primary points pretty well but I just fed more units than necessary into the grinder in the middle. In spite of this, it was the closest game of the lot, with Mozrog coming back from the dead to kill off a couple of characters once the Terminator blob had stomped off to secure a corner, and needing Azrael to fail a charge on a Weirdboy in order to hold my home objective in turn 5. Sadly for me he did get in and cut down the psyker with ease, a four point swing ending the game 78-76 in favour of the Dark Angels. 

Game four was more Dark Angels, this time almost full Deathwing. My opponent, Reg, had a psyker support from Librarians and an Inquisitor, plus a couple of sneaky phobos units, and then about 40 Terminators.Tide of Conviction was the mission, giving opportunity to grab some Good Bitz early.

I did get off to a strong start, but the grind eventually started to favour the Angels and their ObSec Terminators. I did manage to kill a decent number (15-20 of them I think) but I didn't have the staying power to hang with them. Highlight was the Gorkanaut exploding to kill a whole load of stuff on both sides, including the wounded Squiggoth. This game was a bit slower than the others, the only one I didn't finish, so ended 48-38 to the DAngels on turn three. There were still some opportunities for me to score but I don't think I was ever likely to overcome the deficit with the units I had left.

So onto the last game, it was Secure Missing Artefacts against Gerard and his Astra Militarum (using the 8th ed book at the time of playing the game). A classic Guard gunline with a load of Leman Russes, artillery in the back and plenty of squads of meat shields up front.

Once again, this was a tough match up - 8th Ed Guard may be a bit underwhelming in 9th but if there's one thing they can do it's blast Orks off the table. I felt like I was in a strong position in turn 2/3 when I made it into melee and tagged some tanks, including getting the Squighog Boyz into a Demolisher Commander, but those metal boxes were just too tough and in the end I was wiped out, bar a few Grots and the Weirdboy. A fairly close scoreline saw the Guard take the win 86-75.

And there you have it. A few close ones but ultimately five losses is five losses. Like I said at the start I still had a great time, all my games were fun and my opponents courteous, but still I feel it could have gone better! I think I had two games that I lost because I played badly, and three games where I lost because my army was 'bad'. All my games went through a similar pattern - turn one and two the Orks spread out everywhere and caused some damage, then in turn three they pretty much all died and I didn't have enough to scrape enough points at the end. 

As much fun as it is playing Orks, bringing some big stompy stuff and lots of Boyz, and having an adorable red squig in my corner, I kind of got tired of that second half collapse and then not really being able to play the game at the end. I was particularly disappointed with my big models on this regard - the Gorkanaut and the Kill Rig in particular did not do the damage I would have hoped for once they reached melee. They, and everything else, really struggled to get through any reasonably hard targets. The Squighog Boyz were probably my best unit, but they still failed to make their mark against most of the stuff they were set upon. I have a lot of respect for the people who do make Orks work - notably the player who came second overall was running them, but it definitely feels like the 'classic' builds are suffering at the moment.

Now, with that little whinge out of the way, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Even if you aren't a full on competitive player, these kind of events are still great fun and I definitely recommend it should you get the chance. Stay safe out there!

DZ Day Report - Orks and 'Squigs' vs Space Marines

Hello!

At the start of the month I took my Orks to October's DZ Day over at Table Top Events in Belper. My understanding is that this now monthly event came from the mind of Winters - he was apparently going to be organising the games at this one but was running fashionably late so some hasty planning saw Da Vipers teaming up with some sneaky Blood Axe Boyz (commanded by Kris B) and an army of weird Squigs (actually Tyranids led by Russell). The mostly green xenos forces were up against Adeptus Astartes of three chapters; The Black Templars (marshalled by Josh), The Emerald Knights (Dark Angel rules, led by Rik) and the Space Wolves (run by Sam who I'm not sure is on Instagram, but his awesome Thunderhawk was painted by March of War.) 

It was decided that the Orks would definitely be fighting to loot the giant gun, so we took this table, and I immediately claimed it with my squiggy mascot. The game would be around 5000 points per side including super heavies, fought over six objectives placed around the gun itself, scored at the end of the battle round. Whoever controlled the most got a point, and got to fire the giant gun towards one of the other tables, creating a huge blast of mortal wounds (I assume it was firing on low power or it would probably just obliterate the whole table).

Deployment saw my forces bunched up to go for a pair of nearby objectives, while the Blood Axes went up the middle and the squigs would swarm over the sparser left flank. The Imperials provided a block of transports to rush onto objectives and a hard centre of dreadnoughts to march in behind. There were a lot of elite units loaded up into the various vehicles. The Marines got first turn, which was going to hurt, but at least it would give us the option to steal objectives at the end of the round.

Sure enough, turn one the wall of green raced towards me, and so did the Thunderhawk, unloading it's full payload into Nipper the Gargantuan Squiggoth. Nipper is a tough old boy though, and weathered the storm of fire. The Black Templars zoomed up the centre, but left the far flank pretty undefended.

In our turn the squigs made their way out of cover towards objectives, while the Blood Axe jet and big flappy squig (Harridan) zoomed around to harass the Templars. As one might expect for Ork shooting, there were not too many significant casualties, but we did hold enough objectives to draw the first round.

Turn two saw a whole load of killy elite Marine boys disembark across the line. The Thunderhawk dropped off a whole load of Wolf Guard and some characters, including the warlords for both the Space Wolves and the Emerald Knights. Shooting poured in but both Squiggoths managed to hold on until melee, when a blob of Space Wolves only just managed to bring down Nipper Jr, and Nipper himself was killed by Black Templar Blade Guard, after he ate two of them!

I was taking the brunt of the damage, but the Blood Axes were still holding strong and the Squigs were still swarming - the Thunderhawk targeting the Harridan but failing to down it.

Our turn two and time to respond with violence! Beast Snagga Boyz, Tankbustas, the remaining Squighog Boy and Redtoof himself picked targets for their charges...

The big flappy squig flew over to engage the Thunderhawk, surviving overwatch but sadly rolling poorly for it's attacks.

Snikrot and his Red Skull Kommandos turned up from the shadows to harass the rear of the Marine advance, crippling the Wolves Leviathan and drawing some attention backwards.

A mixed charge phase for us - I believe the Blood Axes did some good damage, but the Beast Snaggas bounced off storm shields and were battered by the Wolf Guard. However the Squighog slammed into the rear of a Rune Priest and skewered him with a rokkit powered stikka, and Redtoof himself slew the Emerald Knight's Captain in single combat! WAAAGH!!! After that we were once again equal on objectives.

Turn three saw the Thunderhawk fly into our lines to cause havoc with the Blood Axe armour, and give my Big Mek a bit of a fright! One of the Black Templars then took down the injured Harridan the T-hawk left behind with a pistol shot!

In my corner of the board, the cowardly lapdogs of the Emperor formed a firing squad to execute Redtoof, rather than face him in honourable combat, though he did take a lot of dakka to remove. I was almost out of the game at this point, down to only the Mek and some Gretchin.

However as mentioned all the attention on me had left the far flank pretty open for the squigs to swarm in. The Imperials managed to hold the gun at the end of three though to go into the lead.

Turn four featured the Marines consolidating my corner to try and remove the Kommandos - they had to send in extra Dreadnoughts and Razorbacks to make sure. This left my cheeky Mek with a golden opportunity - targetting the only Razorback holding an objective on the other side of the gun (maybe just about visible on the top and to the right of this image). Filling it full of angry snotlings, the tank exploded, and the blast restroyed a second, damaged Razorback nearby! Two tanks with one gun! Between that and swarming squigs - who seemed to keep coming out of the large egg-squigs, the Ork side managed to hold more at the end and square everything up going into the last turn! We used the big gun to fire onto a table where an Imperium civil war was happening - Ultramarines vs Sisters of Battle, nearly, but not quite killing the immovable Canoness Smashypants.

Even with the assistance of the Thunderhawk, the Black Templars were unable to clear their lines and stop the Squigs holding an objective. They also left a single Impulsor on their objective, which Blood Axe Tankbustas were able to remove. This left us dead even on objectives, but for a charge from some Blood Axe Nobs into what was the Snakebite corner to rest control of one from the Emerald Knight veterans. Amazingly this huge game ended up going right down to the wire, decided by the final action, and ending in an Ork (and Squig) victory! WAAAAGH!!!

Hope you enjoyed the read, and thanks to everyone involved. Big games like this can sometimes be a bit of a drag, especially if you are all but knocked out early, but that big shot from the Shokk Attack gun was well worth sticking around, and it ended remarkably close! Thanks for checking this out, and stay safe!

Grand Tournament Day 1

Hello!

As you may well know by now (or have guessed from the title), I attended the Warhammer 40,000 Grand Tournament at Warhammer World recently. I took my AdMech and Knights (list can be found here) and had a great time! I was intending to write a longer battle report for each game, but I didn't stop to take as many pictures as I should have, and I've already started to forget some details, so I'm doing a post for each of the two days instead, with a shorter summary report of each battle.

In case anyone is a new reader here and doesn't know - I'm not captain competitive. I love playing 40k and I like to think I'm pretty experienced at the game in general, but I'm not a meta chaser and I'll always default to taking units that look cool or are fun over the most optimal ones. I built a list that I thought was reasonably tough, but I had no intention of going for the top tables. Realistically I was aiming for 2 or 3 wins out of 5 games to consider it a 'successful' event.

First game was against Dave, who brought a pure Dark Eldar list. He had a battalion of Archons, Warriors in Venoms and two Ravagers with the ignore cover trait, a vanguard of Urien and three units of two Talos with 4+ invulnerables and a Wych flyer wing with two Razorwings and a Voidraven who got +1 to wound against things with 10+ wounds. It was an interesting list with a bit of everything, and no annoying Vect stratagem. The mission was Scorched Earth.

We deployed on the short edges, and I held back a little back, wary of a long bomb turn 1 Talos charge. Dave went first, and his flyers immediately screamed across the board. He also go forward with Talos and Venoms to hold the central objectives on his turn 2.

The turn 1 shooting was a bit of a whiff. The Knights came out largely unscathed, and my infantry were passing enough saves to make them annoying. The destroyers took a lot of firepower, but only two of them died.

In my turn I split fire all over the shop, destroying a Ravager and a Talos and putting a lot of damage onto the planes (I forget if I downed one this turn). However I didn't do enough to shift the Drukhari off the objectives, including with charges from the Valiant and the Armiger, so Dave started turn 2 with a lead.

Charging Lady Helena in the Valiant forward was a big mistake! Dave was able to wrap around her to stop her escaping, and stop me shooting him off the objective. Knights can walk over infantry, but not monsters. There were then many turns of ineffectual stomping and Talos attacks.

Elsewhere my infantry were getting cleared off the table, but Lord Camulus in the Crusader was doing good blasting Venoms and flyers out of the sky.

Eventually the Valiant was destroyed, and exploded, taking out a lot of Dark Eldar, including a Venom, which then exploded itself and killed some more. In the latter turns I was left with just the Crusader, but the battle cannon and avenger Gatling cannon were proving effective at splitting fire, and by turn 6 I had cleared everything off the board aside from a cowering Archon (the warlord). I'd killed a lot, but Dave had wracked (get it?) up the points and was comfortably ahead at the end.

A good game full of fun moments and a good opponent. Dave said this was his first tournament, so I wished him luck for the rest of the event. He played well and had a nice list, and I'm not sure where he ended up overall, but after day one he'd got 3 wins under his belt. I think we played this game in a good spirit (we resolved a couple of possible disputes with the classic 4+ method) and it set a great tone for the weekend. 

Game two was against John with a stunning Dark Angels army, that eventually was nominated for best painted. He has some really beautiful freehand work depicting the face of a lion on the three Repulsors and Leviathan. Oh, and he had three Repulsors and a Leviathan. Gulp. The list was rounded out with scouts, two units of intercessors, Azreal and a couple of lieutenants. The mission was four pillars, but it hardly mattered. John commented at the start that whoever got first turn was going to win, and I was inclined to agree with him. With the corners deployment zones, there was limited line of sight blocking terrain, so no real way to hide our big guns.

John got to deploy first and built a shooty castle. I pushed the Knights up as far as possible and hid the Destroyers as best as possible (which wasn't very well) and hoped to seize. I did not.

Splitting fire between the Crusader and my infantry, the Repulsors were deadly, while the Leviathan moved up and gutted the Destroyer unit with it's storm cannons. Some extra bad luck on top for me as the Crusader exploded, killing off several depleted units and being unable to get back up. I think the Dark Angels had killed off seven of my units. John felt guilty and bought me a pint after that.

So on my turn one it basically became Lady Helena vs the world. I continued, trying some long shots to claw back points, including trying to kill all the troops to get the 'hold more' objective with my one remaining Destroyer and nuking Azrael with a Shieldbreaker missile. Neither gamble worked, and to add salt to the wounds, the Valiant was unable to destroy the Leviathan (the half damage stratagem saving it from 5 wounds from the Thundercoil Harpoon.)

With no real chance at the game, the Valiant managed to show some fight (Lady Helena's mount is not known as the Defiant Flame for nothing) and survived a full shooting phase from all the Repulsors.

The mighty machine did eventually fall (I think to overwatch from a Repulsor) and promptly exploded, finally killing off the Leviathan, and that was that.

It was a bit of a one sided game, sadly, but it was fun nonetheless with Knights exploding and some heroics in the face of certain defeat. Also gave me a lot of time before the next game to complete the Instagram phase. 

The final game of the day was against Blood Angels, and a nice man who's name completely escapes me. (If you are reading this, I'm sorry! Please correct me in the comments!) His list was all infantry, with a high number of jump packs and literally half his army starting off the board. He had a couple of Intercessor squads, scouts, two Devastator squads, two Assault squads with meltas, a classic smash Captain, an assortment of buffing characters with jump packs, a 6 man Inceptor squad (jumpy dudes) and two units of 10 Vanguard Veterans all with power axes and storm shields (and a thunder hammer on the sergeant). We played Ascension, and I got first turn.

After turn two I'd killed most of his board presence without too many losses. His turn 1 was never going to be impressive, but he got unlucky with the firepower he did have. After my turn two I think he had the Inceptors and a squad of scouts left on the board, and I had plonked an Enginseer on the central objective to start building up the points. However, in his turn two the battle changed significantly...

I'd managed to screen out his larger units from my back lines, but the characters had found a gap behind my Crusader, the warlord, and were eyeing up the charge. The Vanguard Vets jumped in, one unit murdering some Skitarii and the other charging the Valiant from around a building to avoid the overwatch. The Inceptors stripped wounds off the Armiger and charged it. A bunch of characters made it in to Camulus in the Crusader, including the smash captain. With all the buffs, they managed to reduce the Crusader down to a few wounds (possibly just one), but didn't quite take it down. The Valiant also lost a chunk of wounds but was still fighting at full effectiveness.

In my turn it was panic mode. Time to kill as much as possible. Knights stepped back and opened fire. Storm shields were good though, I think I killed 4 Vanguard from one unit and wounded several of the characters. The captain was on one wound! I'd have to charge him... The Destroyers charged up with the servitor maniple stratagem and killed 8 Vanguard from the other unit, making that flank feel a bit safer.

In combat the warlord stomped on the Smash Captain, but I think was destroyed by one of the other characters, causing an explosion that killed them all!

It was a bloodbath around the board, but that Enginseer was still scoring points. The Blood angels managed to kill off the Armiger and the Destroyers (mostly due to the Inceptors), leaving me with the Valiant and a smattering of characters and infantry, but eventually it was enough to hold the objectives and kill off the remaining units (apart from the scouts hiding in a ruin all game). In the end it was a comfortable, though bloody victory for the Knights of Taranis and their Ryza allies.

Another fun game and a good way to round out the day with a win. The Blood Angels were really scary, but they didn't quite have the staying power to really threaten me on the points. It was also another lovely army with a lot of old school-style black and yellow markings on them, which was cool. I left Warhammer World at the end of the day feeling tired, but happy. I'd gotten the one win to pretty much ensure I wasn't dead last, and one more win in the next day would see me happily into 'somewhere in the middle' territory.