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Ok, finally closing out the Adepticon 2023 catch-up Game 1. Win v. Wolves I thought they had us in the early turns. It was clear they cross a lot of table quickly. Should we leave the sentinels forward and give the enemy the extra move, or just pull them out? I think it'd be helpful to pause on decisions and go through outcomes in practice games. here my thinking was that I wanted early pressure on the objectives. I also wanted to divert them to get some shooting in where possible before they reach me. I also set the bullgryns up to stall their advance, knowing they'd break through the sentinels quickly. The thunderwolves were very tough, but our shooting was able to overcome them. Maybe with a smaller squad size they'd have been able to hide better. We did effectively screen out their terminator reserves. They then held the back lines instead of causing more immediate problems in our lines. Once the thunderwolves were effectively nullified, we were able to shift our focus to launching out on to the midground objectives. Again terrain placement and type plays a crucial role. If we couldn't get 5+ tanks in LOS of thunderwolves, I don't know how we kill them. This could have been a big loss going the other way. There's an intellectual fog around where and when to deploy out of sight for me. I need to learn more here. This is one of those points of misunderstanding where I win a fair amount of games, but not reliably. Understanding line of sight, enemy movement speed, really knowing the terrain rules and reserve rules... it all comes together. Kasrkins also did outrageous damage. Yes, play the meta units... I've of mixed opinion on the rule change. On one hand it was a 'feel bad' or 'gotcha' type of unit. On the other hand, I'm not the receiving end of such units all the time. It's nice to have one of my own for once. Good game to start the day. Game 2 Win v. BA Tensions high in this one. It's important to remember it's just a game. So, the big question was who launches out to the midground first? I think our list was a bad match up for them. They didn't have a whole lot of long range firepower. Early charges failed creating some lopsided results. Even with a number of command rerolls they failed like 7 charges in the game. Being left in the open the results were as you might expect. Felt bad on this one. I don't know that they win outright if they make their charges, but it sure would have been a much different game. If they could have bounced from unit to unit in consolidation and pile-ins, it's really rough on guard. Anyway, we were able to move up and get some firing lines on them while they weren't really able to move out. Reserves coming in failed their charges too. Great team, great paint job. Winning two to start is unusual for us, we're in trouble now. Game 3 Loss v. Tau Completely annihilated. Not an ugly agonizing loss though. These guys were great fun to play. They won best tacticians overall (best battlescore). I like the magenta paint scheme too, really eye-catching. The player measuring in the photo below had just won singles the day before (I don't know how you play 7-8 games and then come to the team tourney... I'm getting old but my mind would be mush). The other player is a coach on vanguard tactics, and he's really great too. So, any lessons here? Hard to learn when outclassed to such a degree. Issue: In the back right top of the photo is a giant terrain piece. It's obscuring. His army can move shoot move. Effectively I have nothing that can shoot them. In their turn they jump up, shoot me, and jump back behind cover. We're dead in the water. I don't think a token manticore or field artillery does much. They might have helped some though. I might have reserved some tanks to come in from the sides. Adepticon team tourney does have some special rules so CP was very limited. A regiment trait or tank ace to get a trait might have helped the reserves issue too. Still, assuming I come in like it's T3 and get a good shooting angle - I get one round of shooting and I'm toast. Not necessarily a good trade. If used reserves in conjunction with indirect fire, perhaps I'd have been able to limit some critical mass of enemy shooting. Though as orders are in the command phase, I should think that my shooting from reserves would not have really been that effective anyway. I'm not killing a riptide with 1-2 lemans. Vanquishers would normally be a solution, but they have shield drones - all high impact shots would be wasted. I also could have went full steam across the table with mechanized orders - possibly taking cover at other terrain pieces. But, this highlights a multi-part failure. I needed to understand what terrain would do. I needed to understand what their army could do with terrain. I needed to plan my own terrain defensively, and offensively as to how I might get across the table. Perhaps with precise terrain placement and selecting small forward deploy units, I might have put some objective pressure on them. Army list construction - the banesword can't maneuver or get line of sight. maybe the answer would have been to just stay off the table till T3. They didn't move out anyway. Let them fill the board and just come on in to a shooting gallery. Again the CP limits might have caused this to not really work, but that might be the best option. Game 4, Loss to Custodes What I didn't want to happen was to have bikes inside a densely packed backfield. I figured they'd be there turn 2. They instead played very conservatively. I pushed out on the right flank to try and get less bunched up while not opening up too much to a counter charge. Also, they were going to be up on points. Terrain as always is a crucial part here. If we'd agreed that the first floor was line of sight blocking I don't think we kill a custodes. Instead, it was a fairly close game. Once they got some squads on to objectives, it was just nearly impossible to get them off. Late game we did break out and started doing real damage, but it was too little too late. It was a good one. We all talked through multiple ways it could have gone. We also talked for sometime about the state of the game. They'd been in 40k since 4-5th edition. They noted how hard it can be to have a good tight game. I might slaughter a new player. I then get slaughtered by somebody going to weekly tournaments. That player then gets butchered at the top tables. There's levels to players and often there's a complete mismatch. When people talk about balance, this is not discussed. The hyper competitive side of the game isn't necessarily good for the hobby overall, or keeping new players. It's a weirdly time and money intensive hobby that doesn't translate well to sports or other activities. Game 5 Win v. Thousand sons and Guard I wasn't real sure what to do with deployment. I knew they had a lot of reserves, so I didn't want them getting in behind us. Thankfully they didn't have a bunch of indirect fire to wipe out our infantry. First turn they didn't want to over-expose themselves. We were able to move out and cause some real damage. Also, perfectus orders to bullgryns pushed out reserves... a lot. So their terminators and magnus came in, but maybe not in the best position they'd hoped. The terminators have good shooting, but the tanks weren't the optimal target. Their psychic powers are very good. But, Magnus whiffed his rolls to do any real critical harm when he came down. And, he came down immediately in front of our whole army. BBQ time. The banesword fulfilled it's purpose this game. Summary So, with 4x player teams, I think the other half went 3-2 as well. Looking at the overall results then, we're down a bit to 91 teams this year. We came in at 256 battle points, or 16th place in gameplay alone. That's much higher than usual for us. Big win. Some years we're near the bottom. Some we are in the middle. In appearance we got 116/125 points. That puts us tied for 6th with three other teams. Get those decals on there! Work on those blends and glazing! On theme we 100/100. Tied with 4 others for first on that. I really enjoyed making the army list, operations order, krieg costume, and wax seals. Put in a lot of work there, and we got recognition on it. In display we got rank 5 in which points are awarded, and a team can be invited to the showcase. Tons of work here, and very happy we got the invite. In player theme we got 29/30. This is just other teams ranking us. In total hobby score we got 250 points, putting us at 3rd place in hobby alone. And, actually there was a tie for first place. I thought we were well out of our league, but the judges were really kind. For overall/combined scores then we got 5th place. Super excited for that. Last year we were wild that we got 29th place. Didn't come home with any awards this year, but we were super close to best display, best appearance, and best imperial. The appearance score of 116/125 made all the difference. I think we were lucky in gameplay - realistically getting to grips with what we know, what we don't know, and what we don't know we don't know... we'd need to do tournaments at least every month. I think we're very far away from reliably winning more games (not to say we shouldn't try). Epilogue Afterwards motivation has remained high so far. I haven't sworn off the game, as happens after some lopsided tournaments, or skewed edition rules requiring building a completely new army. For now I like the idea of continuing to work on the display board. I think it'll be fun to take out to other tournaments, though it might be a bit much to show up in costume with a zeppelin to a local tourney. I want to cut the board up a bit, and add some real changes to the layout - do what I my actual vision of the thing was before time ran out. Doing more tournaments might also help me get to know some of the local players. I'm not part of any groups and see familiar players once every 9-12 months. I've got a lot of ideas for the next board, but without seeing the tyranids yet... I'm just not sure what the story is going to be. Well, one teammate has 10,000pts of orks so we could just to orks. But, organizing the team is always difficult. Would hate to start in on building a 15sqft board if it turns out we don't have 4 players. When I was young I had time but no money. Now I have money but no time. In any case, I can probably start sketching out the board now. If it doesn't go, it doesn't go.

After the absolute kicking I received from Ted's Chaos Knights, I was eager to temper myself against them once more and see if I can beat them - he's the only person in my club to beat my Blood Angels so far, and they won't stand for it! The last game was an absolute whitewash, something like 40 - 95, and so I wanted to approach this one a little better, and using basically the same army I used before. We tried to set up the terrain more like GW's tourney maps, with the 4 large obscuring pieces in the centre and then the smaller pieces round the edges. BA List 2000 Blood Angels Arks of Omen (Elites): Captain on Bike - Warlord (gift of foresight), relic (Indomitus), angel exemplar (artificer - mantle), thunder hammer, storm shield (-3cp) Sanguinary Priest - pack, selfless healer 5 infiltrators - medic 5 infiltrators - medic 5 sanguinary guard - 2 fists, 3 swords, 5 inferno 5 sanguinary guard - 2 fist, 3 swords, 5 inferno sanguinary ancient - fist, inferno, wrath of baal (-1cp) Death co - 5 inferno, 2 fists, 3 swords Death co - 5 inferno, 5 swords 10 Vanguard Veterans - 10 storm shields, 1 thunder hammer, 3 fists, 3 swords, 3 claws 3x MM Attack bikes. 5 Assault marines, 2x melta, eviscerator, serge with inferno, thunder hammer. 5 Assault marines, 2x melta, eviscerator, serge with inferno, thunder hammer. Whirlwind 3 eradicators, heavy, MMelta. Chaos Knights - iconoclast (+1A and AP in 1st round of combat) Knight Abominant - volkte thing, gift of the dark master, 6++ relic, winds of chaos Knight Desecrator relic laser gun, 5++ feel no pain when awakened trait 7x Wardog from left to right in below pic: Undivided melta gatling nurgle melta gatling undivided wardog claw+sword Slaanesh beguiling wardong claw and sword undivided claw and sword Tzeentch with dual autocannons Deepstrike one with gatling and sword in reserve. Mission Scouring (3vp for perfoming an action on an objective) Secondaries: BA: Behind enemy lines; bring it down; banners Knights Ruthless Tyranny; Storm of Darkness; Grind them down I started out by hiding everything in the large obscuring ruin, with one unit of infiltrators guarding my left flank, and the whirly on the right, eradicators and assault marines started in reserve. The knights won the roll off, I chose to forlorn a DC unit out front to try and bait him to charge them and move closer to me, maybe this was a mistake, but it was a 115pt lure. Tower defence CK Turn 1 movement. CKT1: The knights all moved forwards, very little could see, some stubbers shot at the DC, causing 4 wounds, all failed saves, then they were charged by a wardog and wiped. One starts the warpstorm, one starts the mission primary and they're all in dread range for 8. 8-0 to knights. BAT1: Death co go into assault doctrine. The attack bikes drove out to target the autocannon armiger, 4 hits, 4 wounds, dead armiger, great shot! The second unit of DC popped out to try and charge the slaanesh dog on the objective, but inferno pistolling the one that killed the other DC - the inferno pistols did about 4 damage, and the DC had to charge that one threatening my lines instead, killing it. In retrospect, I could have gotten a SG unit out to target this one also, and send the DC into the slaandog to try and net 2 melee kills from the start. One unit of SG jumped left to that objective and raised a banner, the infiltrators raised the banner on my home objective and a SG started the mission secondary on it. 4 for bring it down, 3 for the mission. 8-7 to the knights. CKT2 On 3 objectives for 12, big knights move forwards and everything shoots and wipes the attack bikes. Bikes are within banner range, so 1 manages to fire the MM into the central wardog, bracketing it. central bracketed wardog charges the DC who manage to only lose 3 models and punch it hard back. Deepstrike knight comes in near the SG on the left objective and peppers them killing 2, fails charge. Abominant stands on central objective and gets off the fnp. then starts to curse it. Storm completes (4) and They start the storm again and do another mission objective (3) and have the guaranteed 5 for 24pts total. 32-7 to knights. BAT2 On 2 objectives for 8, 2 for banners. I think this is the turn I have to do something or lose the game, so I go all out I also learned that the 4+ max to hit thing on the knight is only after it's activated, which it isn't yet, so I need to do some serious damage before it kills 5 models. Vanvets into assault doctrine and jump out to the aboninant, along with the captain and ancient. Priest jumps to the left hand SG unit and brings one back, they have strung out to be in melta range of the deepstrike dog and be revived by the priest. SG2 jump out to charge the melta/gatling wardog and kill it. I forget the mission action. Left hand infiltrators guerilla warfare out of there. Death co melta the dog they're in comat with and kill it, eradicators some onto the right flank and shoot the slaandog who pops the 4+ invuln and they do maybe 4 damage. Assault marines drop in behind cover in their dz and ASM2 drop in 92 from the slaandog, and their meltas don't do anything. Left SG1 charge the deepstrike dog and knock it down to 2w after it popped the -1D strat - acceptable as long as the -1d doesnt go on the abominant. Vanvets, captain and banner charge into the abominant, the hammer doesn't do great as my rerolls are useless, but between them they do 13 damage, almost bracketing it. Abominant attacks back splitting between captain and ancient. I get lucky and it does 3W to the ancient and 4w to the captain after the mantle. I stupidly used my CP earlier for a reroll, and should have kept it for Angels Sacrifice here. I get 4 for bring it down, 2 for grind, 4 for behind enemy lines for 18. 32-27 to knights. CKT3 2 Objectives. Now he's down to 3 wardogs and losing board control. desectrator moves to bail out deepstrike knight from the SG, kills one eradicator then charges and wipes the SG, consolidating onto my left objective and starting storm (so he can't move next turn). Slaandog goes after the assault marines within 12, charges, and kills 4, wounding the serge. Serge hammers back for 3D. Nurgle gun knight shoots the eradicator and fails, then charges the SG2. It's bracketed, but uses a dirty strat to turn each hit into 2(!)mw, wiping the SG. Abominant cannot cast the 5++ as it's warp storming, which then completes for 4. I then attack with the ancient doing 2 damage, the abominant attacks and I spring angels sacrifice, and make him put everything into the 1W ancient who unsprprisingly dies to save everyone else. The captain smacks a flat 9 wounds through then the VV's finish off the abominant...which then explodes, doing 3 MW to the captain, killing him, and 5 to the VV's killing 2.5. 4 for storm, 3 for tyranny. 3 for grind. I get 4 for bring it, 50-31 to knights. BAT3 1 Objective as the obsec nurgle dog consolidates onto the centre one, 1 banner as the desecrator knocked mine off. ASM1 serge falls back behind LOS blocking ruins, ASM2 jump onto the opponent's right objective near the slandog and mission primary for 3, the eradicators move towards it as it's already -1 to hit anyway, and melta. Infiltrators appear back on in opposing DZ guaranteeing BEL. Priest jumps over, heals and revives a vanvet, who then charge the nurgle dog. which survives on a few W. Infiltrators 2 advance towards slandog objective. Erads wipe the slandog. 2 for bring it, 4 for BEL. 50-44 knights CK T4 2 objectives, no mission secondary. Warp storm completes, deep strike dog pops into the sky again. Big knight can't do anything. vanvets finish the nurgle dog. 4 for storm, 0 for the tyranny. I max bring it for 1. 57-45 BAT4 3 Objectives for 12 and 1 banner. ASM2 jump towards opponent's right objective to take it t5. erads move onto opposing left objective and banners. Priest heals and restores a vanvet, then does mission primary. whirly moves out as a distraction and to block the deepdog from getting near my duds in the middle. infiltrators 2 advance onto central objective. Infils 1 move around and shield the asm1 serge from a potential deepstrike from the deepdog. 15 primary, 1 banner, 4 for BEL makes it 54-67 and I take the lead. CKT5 Deepknight cant land anywhere useful due to infiltrators, so settles for the whirlwind, but being majorly bracketed he does nothing, big knight fails to do anything, and stays on the objective so I can't banners it. 0 for tyranny. 54-67 to BA. BAT5 No point going for kills as I've maxed BID. 12 for primary, 2 banner. vanvets jump onto opposing right objective and banners it. ASM2 jump onto it and perform the mission primary, erads put up a banner on opposing right objective. ilfils banner the central objective. 3 for mission primary, 4 for BEL. put the score on 54-86, going to 64-96 to the BA. We'd actually recorded the score as soemthing like 78-91, so I've messed up somewhere in the retelling and it was a bit closer, but the BA still won through in the end! Knights t3 assault phase, after killing the ancient, but before the abominant exploded. End of my T3 End of the game

Got a match in over the Holidays and was very excited to tryout a Behemoth build with a full unit of Melee Warriors. Another great match that was very back and forth, which for me, I wouldn't have any other way! Hope you all had a great holiday and got a chance to get some hobby time in. I'm working on a narrative campaign that will provide a switch of the style of games we showcase and also give a exciting story to follow along with. Tyranids Vs Salamanders Matched Play 2000 Pts

I thought I'd kick off some tactical discussions about the new codex - tentatively under the [Hivemind] heading (to maybe make them easier to find?) to help us get the most from the codex and win more games! This topic will cover general secodnaries for Tyranids, and also their new specific secondaries - let us know what you're taking, how well it's working, and how you're building your army to maximise these secondaries. Tyranids Specific Secondaries Summary: Synaptic Insignt (Direct copy from GT: Nachmund) - No Mercy, No Respite Kill 4, 3+ wound models in your turn with synapse creatures to get 3VP, max 12. Cranial Feasting - Purge The Enemy Kill characters and unit champions in melee with tentacle face beasties Spore Nodes - Shadow Operations Perform action with a Troops Unit within 6" of opposing DZ, 4VP each time. ------------------- My thoughts: Spore Nodes: Of these, this would seem to be the easiest to complete, with the others requiring specialised units (or luck) and to kill stuff in combat. Nodes competes with things like banners, nachmund data and homers. For us, this is strictly a better homers, and reduces the ramdom roll for nachmund data. If you were doing either of these, you can probably switch to nodes and have a lot of success! Feasting - to max this you need to kill the warlord in melee, get a reroll, then kill eight (yes, eight!) other characters or unit champions - all with tentacle units/genestealers. This is a very hard ask for me - the only instance I can think of picking this over assassinate would be if my opponent was fielding MSU (10+ weak units that all need to be in buffing range) and I was running a genestealer themed army. Synaptic Insight - If you have a shedload of synapse, then this might be doable, though it's also really dependant on your opponent's army, which is the downfall. If 2W models counted, but you needed to kill more, this would be ok, but against marines, unless they're running a pure gravis army, you'll struggle to score. If you're facing a buggy list, for example, you need to kill 2 buggys get get 4 synaptic tally, which is 4VP, which is better than the 2VP you get via Bring It Down...however BID can be completed by anything. How often are your synapse creatures going to be killing large models? Maybe this will change with the new heavy venom cannon, and a psychic heavy army might do wonders here!

“Look not upon the Gods, hear not their honeyed words, and speak not unto them in prayer or worship.” -The Three Edicts of Uridimmu, Lord Executor of the Sāqīqu dynasty, Slayer of the Seven Divine Kings, God-Killer, He who has walked in the Space Betwixt, Void Touched, Arch Misotheist, and he of a thousand thousand titles. “Welcome to the ten thousand Satraps, Imperial! The Sāqīqu dynasty extends its warm welcome, asking that you only obey the edicts as laid down by Uridimmu…” -Automated message, broadcast along the border system of the Satrapies of Uridimmu. Broadcast in Low and High Gothic, Anglic, Frankish and Binary. [iNLOAD ACCESS GRANTED] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ “You prattle on about your Gods, those bloated four cancers that squat in the cursed flows of the Immaterium. So determined to illuminate the rest of your squabbling species with this so-called Truth. You and your mewling Gene-Father disgust me Word Bearer, I have crushed civilizations far more mighty than yours, swam in the blood of whole species more worthy of my respect. Uridimmu is coming, and he shall hurl you and that pontificating Primarch back into the abyss.” -Belus, The King who has No Equals in all the Lands, Annihilator of Tyrants, the Death that came to Xanadu, Grand Satrap of the Lagash Cluster and the Numinous Reefs. Addressing Xanu Corraith, Dark Acolyte of the Word Bearers on the despoiled shrine world of St Runill’s Repose. Belus, Grand Satrap and close confidant of Uridimmu, commander of the Burnished Ten thousand. ‘Out of the dark did I hear the march of a great number of armoured feet, and thus the Burnished Ten thousand did appear. Their deathly visages hidden, and in their cold red eyes I saw only the promise of death.’ Canticles of Null, repressed Heretical Work. ‘The Daīrīu, the mailed fist of Uridimmu’s legions, and a backbone of a thousand thousand conquests in his name..” -Beyond the Rim: Tales from the Edgeworlds, Memoirs of Maria Von Syle, Rogue Trader. ‘Seven times did the accursed heads of the Hydra attempt to establish themselves in Uridimmu’s demesne, fleeing their failed treachery, and seven times did the Daīrīu of the Burnished Legion hurl them back.’ Triumphs of the Sāqīqu, Apocryphal work originating from the Endworlds, estimated to be written M32.64. ‘Every kilometer along the Royal Highway is marked with a burnt and scarred suit of once shimmering blue power armour, impaled upon adamantium spines. Their armour ranges from ancient Crusader pattern plate, all the way to the sleek lines of Maximus plate. Each suit representing a Legionnaire of the accursed XX, slain as they fled into the Endworlds to escape the Scouring. Belûs informs me that these grim milestones stretch for almost a thousand kilometers, and though I do not weep for these traitors, the thought of the equivalent of an entire Chapter so dismissively annihilated, chills my blood.’ -Beyond the Rim: Tales from the Edgeworlds, Memoirs of Maria Von Syle, Rogue Trader. ‘Those that have burnt the Temples to Ash’- The Seventeenth Pirru of Daīrīu, members of the Burnished Ten Thousand, led by a Guzalû Oh wow, it's been a while but I am back now, and have hopped on the 9th edition Necron train, with a dynasty that is a little more cosmic horror and mesopotamian, than space-egyptians. I’m also collaborating with Apologist and co in his fantastic Endworlds project, so expect to see some more crossovers soon….and of course welcome to the Ten thousand Satrapies….

+Queryinput: [Astarteschapter:valuequery] 333+ +Dataloom spooling+ +Cognomen: Gatebreakers+ +Statusvalue: Chapter Inperceptus. Primary records archived/absent. +Query: [Recquisition secondary records?] TRUE+ +Dataloom spooling+ +Secondary records ingress granted: +Authvalue: Inquisitrix Barbari Kills. [...]tenuous nature of their position has been further exacerbated by galactic drift, poor record-keeping and their roving behaviour. [REDACTED]uplies from within the Imperium became lost en-route, found no-one authorised to receive additional equi[CORRUPTED]teriel, or – latterly – emerged in an area of space where Andocrine no longer sits. [CORRUPTED]fed a vicious cycle: low on supplies, the Chapter adapted to become more dependent on roving and raiding, and thus their few established suppl[CORRUPTED]dwindled. By the opening of [REDACTED], the Gatebreakers had become listed amongst the Chapters Inperceptus – a status of inability to be contacted. Suspected by the Adeptus Terra to be lost or destroyed, their heraldry and Chapter number were reserved, as occasional reports from Rogue Traders and the like brought legends, if not confirmation, of the Chapter's continued existence.[...] +++ 'Lost, then?' A smirk. 'Not so. More... misplaced.' A pause. 'You... are authorised?' A further pause. An electoo. A nod. 'A whole Chapter?' 'Very much so, Archmagos. After all, we can't be sure if Chapter 333 still exists.' +++