by Chris Vinton
My theory of people that go to tournaments get better at tournaments (yes, its obvious but really think about it) was reinforced this weekend. Jesse Z and I packed up the diesel jetta and made the trek down to Lafayette Indiana for the first state championship. Despite the field being very small, there was some very stiff competition.
My list I took was very 'dated' as Alan Bajramovic said: Wraith Spam
Destroyer Lord with weave, mss, scyth
Destroyer Lord with weave, mss, scyth
6 wraiths, 2 coils
6 wraiths, 2 coils
5 warriors in scythe
5 warriors in scythe
5 warriors in scythe
5 warriors in scythe
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
The surprise came for me in the night scythes. The old work horse that still survives to the current meta. I read an article on imperator guides. It talks about scythes and how they defy the rules of the game. This is very true. How do Wraiths defy the rules of the game? Ignoring cover? No, they still go at I1 making their coils useless. Coils? No, because technically when you charge you can only get one model. So in the world of top tier stuff using the most rules defying things they can out of their codex, the night scythe should have been my go to. And I learned this over the games.
First game I played was tau/space marines. The story of this loss was that my wraiths were shot to shit and my barges equally so leaving me with 4 scythes to do all the heavy lifting which they cant do.
Second game, a win vs gk, was the only time the wraiths really shined. However, the only reason was because it was a 5th ed list with some spacewolves. But really, the only thing the wraiths did was kill two ruin priests and a deathcult star (and they only did that because he rolled bad on the psykotrop 3 times). Also, later in the tournament Tony and I found out that wriath could in fact be jaws'd. that would have been the end of the wraiths right there and a very different game.
Third game, I played Jesse. Again, night scythes and barges did all the heavy lifting. the wraiths were storm boltered and lascannoned to death. Even the lord cant beat up of the dreadknight like it used to because as we found out the knight is a character so would just punch the lord to death after passing the mss on a ten. And with the knight, you can throw out hammer hands to prevent me from force weaponing himself. The scythes knocked out the storm ravens and went to work on the troops. wrapping up a game three win.
Game four was against Aaron Aleong's seer star. Very tough game against an obviously great opponent. Seer star with baron. Double lance wraith knight, lance ravager, 4 bike squads, kabalite squad and some warpspiders and swooping hawks. Nice list, good harassment, hard punches and objective scoring. How did the wraiths fair? Died like bitches. I charged all 18 wraiths and 2 lords into that bike squad just because, just to see how it'd work. Lost a handful of wraiths, he lost two bikes, hit and ran, then horrified/terrified my warlords squad, charged them, beat them up, broke them and then ran them down. I did manage to break off one wraith squad and because of a very lucky 5" run, say out of charge range of the bikes. They then charged the ravager and claimed victory there since he was forced to put his units in contesting positions on the objects for the last turn.
game into secondaries, which he had me because of first blood (yeah, my warlord...he gave up first blood...) however I snuck the victory just because Aaron mistook a relic for an objective marker in a 2 tiered mission (objectives and the relic). He did have one weakly contested objective that had the baron (outside of the 3" zone, and 3 bikes) I would have gone over there and used some firing arc manipulation to keep the baron out and the bikes in to blast them off the objective. Maybe. Depending on dice always. I really just got lucky.
Game five was a rematch (because the top four were put into a four man single elimination event) and Aaron mopped me up. Basically the same, except we tied primary objectives and he won on secondary which his list is crazy good at getting. Wraithknight for first blood (combined with the only things that start on the board are super hard to one shot kill for first blood) and the seer counsel for killing warlords and not giving up slay the warlord in return. After that the list is great at getting line breaker because any one of the members of the bike squad can break off and zip into the deployment zone from any where on the board (12" move, 36" boost)
So that's the run down. So how does that make me a better player? The time on the last day talking with Alan and Aaron was time I would have never gotten any other way. Its not every day you talk to a current and future member of Team America. I was able to spend a good 5 hours talking 40k with those two (Alan did most of the talking). That time seems to have caught me up with what I was lacking in the meta and I found out I'm missing a lot.
We talked about their list, my list, space marines, tournament formats, everything. It's not fan boy'dom, but its almost there. Mostly just being able to pick the brain of some people that really know the game and the strategy of the game. I feel like Jesse and I both were able to gain a little recognition from them in that we were able to go toe to toe and not just be a push over. And that goes a long way in the tournament scene.
It really is an instance of title breeds title, but everyone with a title at one point didn't have it and earned it. After that you are able to talk shop with the veteran players and just keep your game sharp. That's what I got. I got to talk shop with two major 40k personalities. It gave me not only confidence knowing I could keep up with them, it gave me advice at the moment and a foot in the door at other times I run into them to chat it up again.