Vanguard of the Ordained Maw - Relearning GSC

[TrawlingCleaner]

I recently completed a 3rd Ridgerunner for my Tourney list, I'm slowly getting there!

 

 

 

And also finished another 6 bikes which brings me up to the 10 I need for the list, I would like to go back and tone the highlights down a tad though

 

 

 

 

Working on the big man himself too, he seems to have found a friend

[Dosjetka]

You're a busy bee, that's for sure! Great work on the most recent additions; looking forward to seeing more in the near future! :D

[TrawlingCleaner]

Thank you Dos! I've still got the Patriarch to finish, 2 Goliaths, 10 Acolytes and 5 Metamorphs to finish for the 27th of November, so expect plenty more updates soon!

[Brother Nathan]

some nice things in here. particularly like the sentinels, ork conversion?

[TrawlingCleaner]

Thank you Brother Nathan! The Sentinels are just Ork Killa Kans that have been de-orkified and added some GSC/Imperial bits. The most time spent was the scrapping of the Ork Teeth effects on the front

 

 

 

I was going to paint the Patriarch last to reward myself for getting through my 1500 pt list but as he's needed for Saturday and is a centrepiece unit, I didn't want to rush it

 

 

 

Obligatory dead/dying space marine + a bit of irony that an IF is crushed by a wall:

 

The leadership of the cult so far:

 

 

I also got the two Goliath Trucks done which rounds off the Wheels aspect of my list:

 

 

10 Acolytes, 5 Metamorphs and 5 days (evenings) to do them in. Loads of time

[dracpanzer]

Nice work!

[Rogue]

How's it looking? Everything painted in time?

[TrawlingCleaner]

Nice work!

 

Thank you dracpanzer!

 

How's it looking? Everything painted in time?

I got all the painting done last night and also go all their bases magnetised ready for transport! I'll be getting an army shot when I get home from work

 

 

I didn't get as many practice games in as I wanted but that's what the first 2 games of the tournament are for, right?

From the practice I did get in, I made a couple of small adjustments to the list, mainly to make the Acolytes more lethal and give the Neophytes a bit more utility:

 

HQs:

Patriarch (Warlord), WLT: Shadow Stalker, Relic: Amulet of the Voidwyrm = 135 points

Magus, The Cult’s Psyche, WLT: Focus of Adoration = 85 points

Primus, Heart of the Creed, WLT: Alien Majesty = 85 points

 

Troops:

10 Neophyte Hybrids, 2 Grenade Launchers - 70 Points

10 Neophyte Hybrids, 2 Mining Lasers - 80 Points

10 Acolytes, 3 Heavy Rock Saws - 110 Points

10 Acolytes, 3 Heavy Rock Saws - 110 Points

5 Acolyes - 40 Points

 

Elites:

5 Hybrid Metamorphs, 5 Lashwhips and Rending Claws - 55 Points

Sanctus, Sniper Rifle, Gift from Beyond - 65 Points

 

Fast Attack:

2 Scout Sentinels, 2 Multi Laser, 2 Sentinel Chainswords - 74 points

10 Atalan Jackals, 1 Power Axe and shotgun, 2 grenade launchers and knives and 7 shotguns and knives - 135 points

3 Achilles Ridgerunners, 3 Heavy Mining Laser - 210 Points

 

Heavy Support:

Goliath Rockgrinder, Heavy Seismic Cannon - 95 points

 

Dedicated Transport:

Goliath Truck - 75 points

Goliath Truck - 75 points

 

An extra saw for the two 10 man Acolyte squads and changed the two Neophyte squads to be one with 2 Mining Lasers and one with 2 'nade launchers. The squad with nade launchers can drop in and do ROD in cover or can go after smaller infantry units.

Edited November 26, 2021 by TrawlingCleaner

[TrawlingCleaner]

The money shots as promised, although a good few days late

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had an absolute blast at the event although my back, knees and my voice were all feeling it on Monday. Where GSC sorely lack in consistency and generally not being , they more than make up for with: "I've not played against GSC before/ a year or two" or "GSC are trash tier right?", while I made sure to keep my opponent aware of any "Gotchas" I had, I was honestly kind of relying on taking opponents by suprise either with speed or gimmicks. I went with the hope to have fun, get one win and to play against my mate who had come with me

 

 

Game 1: Kroot army
This army looked amazing, my opponent had converted any normal tau units using kroot bits, they had pathfinder kroot with bows, vespids kroot with wings, a commander on a armoured krootox(?) With fusion blasters.
This game was super close, drones on broadsides just wouldn't die. In the end I had to repeatedly tag the broadsides to stop them from shooting. The 10 man Jackal Squad bullied unit after unit on the right flank and held their own
The end result was 77-69 to me

 

Game 2: Custodes
This was definitely a game where my opponent underestimated my army a bit. Turn one they pushed their bikes, 2x squads of Sagittarius guard, 1x sword and board squad and a character up the left flank to about 14" away from my deployment. With all of their firepower they only managed to kill one Goliath truck, in my turn one of the Acolyte squads, metamorphs and the rockgrinder pushed hard into the bulk of the Custodes. I killed one bike and two Sagittarus guard with shooting and strung my bikes out on the right hand side to hold two objectives. My Acolytes and rockgrinder  both charged and swiftly bounced only wounding a bike, and killing 2 of the sword and board, leaving 2 metamorphs alive.

Their turn 2 makes the jetbikes fall back and everything else piles into the rockgrinder which I force explode and manage to only kill  one of my Metmorphs but deal 2-3 MW to all of their units around. My turn two is the ridgerunners opening up into the bikes and wiping them and my Wave 2 screams in with another 10 Acolytes and the Patriarch.

The rest of the game goes pretty quickly , I've taken the mid board firmly and don't let go of it. The bikes on the right flank bully sisters of silence and Voidsmen for 2 turns straight before Valerian and Aleya wade, in holding a good 3rd of his army at bay for 4 turns. 79-59 to me

 

Game 3: Death Guard

I flew too close to the sun and came up against a very tough DG list including a Volkite Contemptor and Leviathan. I've not come up against a Leviathan dread before and certainly not one that explodes with extra hits from a Warlord trait DG are incredibly tough and nullify my Rock Saws which was a bummer. In hindsight, I should have let the Deathshroud etc just take the centre point and pushed everything to the outside of the board. Instead I tried to push DG off a central point that had 5 Deathshroud,  poxwalkers, smelly flamer and a demon prince. In the end it was 100-32 to my opponent. The Volkite contemptor actually one shot my Ridgerunners which was the only game they all died.

 

Game 4: Drukhari

Another tough match up here, DE do everything GSC do but way better and for cheaper. A couple of cautious turns from us both but in all honesty, I should have been more aggressive and tried to take a flank. Instead I castled up Turn 1 and 2, allowing the boats to hem me in and dump their payloads. The incubi killed the bike squad incredibly easily and but the rockgrinder killed the Archon in return. The Dark lances popped most of my vehicles and I was too hemmed in to get onto objectives. Apart from the Incubi and a couple of boats, I didn't killed much in this game. Game ended with91-22 to my opponent with only a Ridgerunner and a rockgrinder alive.

 

Game 5: Necrons

This was against my mate and his Necrons that I had gotten practice games against, we knew most of each other's tricks but had both picked up a couple of new ones in the 4 games before this. Turns 1-3 involved a lot of trash talking and laughs. We both agreed to send out a champion each to have a duel in the centre of the board with my Patriarch getting walloped. I thought I was losing hard but hadn't counted up my No Prisoners points yet. At the end of T3, we both went quiet  and realised it was actually super close. T4-5 involved the two of us breaking out all the plays we had to try and eek it over the line. It ended officially on 83-73 although we realised after submitting that Wraiths can't Retrieve Octarius data as they are Beasts and you can't do an action after advancing which would have left it on 75-73.

 

WWLLL, I went with the intention of 1 W and got 2 instead. A great weekend and throughly recommend Fun and Fluff if you're ever in London when it's on!

[Rogue]

Glad to hear you outdid your expectations, and sounds like a fun game to finish on, even though you lost in the end.

 

The army looks great, too. I really like the way the vehicles and bikes are grounded in the base, with the dust on the tires and chassis. Nice effect, and works well against the blue robes on the infantry.

[TrawlingCleaner]

Thank you Rogue! All of the games were definitely a struggle for my units to actually consistently do damage, the Patriarch was the biggest let down honestly. I'll be playing about with lists until the codex comes out as I definitely want to take the Abominiant for a spin!

 

I finished a Iconward on Friday and have some Neophytes almost finished too. I'd like to get a much done as I can before the codex drops so that I have a variety to try everything out!

 

 

 

 

The Hero Ball so far:

 

Edited December 6, 2021 by TrawlingCleaner

[TrawlingCleaner]

Happy New Year my many armed brothers!

'21 was very good for my productivity, as well as 3 other army projects I painted about 2.2k of GSC. I'm really looking forward to the new codex and am continuing to plow on with painting units so I have options for the codex drop.

Speaking of options, I got my mitts on the new Saboteur and also painted up some shotgun Neophytes at the start of this year:

 

 

 

 

 

 

More shotgun Cultists and some Seismic cannons are up next as well as a Biophagus!

[brother_b]

Inspiring ty buddy for posting this and let us know your thoughts when you take the cult out to battle.

[TrawlingCleaner]

Thank you brother_b!

I'm very excited for the new book, I'm hoping to get some Seismic cannons and shotguns done for the release!

 

I've gotten most of the way through a Biophagus, I'm going to touch up the armour and the lab coat as they're too patchy at the moment. Everything else is done:

[TrawlingCleaner]

A productive weekend for me as I managed to tidy up the armour of the Biophagus, paint 4 Familiars and also a Rockgrinder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've preordered the new codex too, I'm very excited to get my hands on it and figure out which way I'm going to take my cult. From reviews of the book and Battlereports, it's looking to be such a vast improvement and I'm so pumped for it! Looking forward to it's release

Edited January 10, 2022 by TrawlingCleaner

[TrawlingCleaner]

The Day of Ascension is here! Our time is now!

The new codex is fantastic, the options are rather vast and pretty much every unit has a place. I couldn't have asked for more!

I managed to get a quick 1K game in on Saturday vs some 'crons and it was great practice, giving me lots to think about. As I play the army more with the new book, I'll be testing every unit and weapon I can to see what fits for me and the Ordained Maw.

 

On the back of more options, I got a Locus and another 10 Neophytes with shotguns done:

 

 

 

[TrawlingCleaner]

Over the weekend I attended a small 10 man, 1K points tournament at my FLGS. There were 4 rounds, 15 mins for setup and 1hr 15 mins for each game. We can only score Primary points. Deployments are always quartered with 5 objectives in an X formation.

1hr 15 is not enough time to get a full game in unless it's a very handy victory I think.

Before this weekend I had only played 1 game with the new codex so this was definitely a learning curve! Fitting everything I wanted into 1K points was actually a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. My list was:

 

Rusted Claw

Primus (Warlord) - Hand of Abberance - Entropic Touch

Magus - Might from Beyond

 

10 Acolytes - 3 Rock Saws - A Trap Sprung

5 Acolytes - 1 Rock Saw

10 Neophytes - 2 Seismic Cannons

10 Neophytes - 2 Grenade Launchers

 

5 Abherrants

 

5 Jackals - Grenade Launcher

1 Ridgerunner

 

Rockgrinder - Seismic Cannon

 

Goliath Truck

 

Game 1 vs Custodes:

This was my first game vs New Custodes and suffice to say I was a little worried going in. My opponent's list was:

Shield Captain with a Warlord trait that makes him autohit with all of his attacks?

Banner with the -1 to hit Core in 6"

3 Allarus Terminators

2x3 Custodian Guard with Spears

Telemon dread

 

With a small board size at 1k points I was worried that the Telemon would just push and kill pretty much anything it touched. My Opponent was quite young and was new to 40k. I was helping him play as much as I could while also trying to remember all of my rules as well as his. It was taxing to say the least!

I pushed hard and kept a couple of units back to hold my back objectives and screen out the Allarus. Turn 1 was a lot of plinking from both of us, Rusted Claw on Vehicles reducing damage by 1 really stacks up quick!

 

Turn 2 starts and my opponent  still stays on 2 objectives and still plinks at stuff, my Goliath on the middle point is heavily wounded from the Telemon, but it doesn't die. He tries to charge with both Custodian squads, the Captain and the Banner but only succeds with the banner. The Goliath dies but explodes dealing 2 MW to the Banner and I don't lose any Neophytes. Nice! In my turn I push the Rockgrinder, Abherrants and Primus up into their deployment zone ready to charge the Custodian Guard and Captain with the Telemon looming behind them. My 10 man Acolyte squad dropped in behind the other 3 man squad on the right flank. In shooting, I chipped some wounds off the Telemon, killed the Banner, killed a couple of the right flank Guardians and charged with the Saws into the remaining Guardians, Abherrants into the left flank Guardians and the Grinder into the Captain. The Primus failed his charge. The Abherrants killed the Guardians with ease, as did the Acolytes, the Grinder did 6 out of 7 wounds to the Captain.

 

Turn 3 starts and we only have 20 minutes left so it's a bit rushed. The Telemon kills the Abherrants with shooting and then combat, the Allarus are forced to come in basically in his deployment and fail their charge into my Saw Acolytes. The Captain and the Grinder both don't do any damage to each other. I plink some wounds off the Telemon and the turn ends. The game ends 40 to 25 to me (all total points include 10 points for being painted)

 

Game 2 Vs All Gravis Salamander Army:

Gravis Captain

2 5 man Heavy Intercessors

5 Aggressors with Flamestorm

5 Eradicators

 

I deploy with everything either out of line of sight or very far back, I can move a lot quicker than he can and with a lot more range generally. I've played against Salamanders a lot and also a (Imperial Fist) Gravis only army so I have a pretty good idea how this works.

 

Turn 1, he gets first turn and pushes aggressively with everything. The only thing in range were a squad of Heavy Intercessors that move to get line of sight onto my Jackals and kill 4. He's made a big blob of Aggressors on the middle point.

I push hard with my Rockgrinder, Primus and Abherrants with the last Jackal. I know my opponent has a strat to force me to target a specific unit if it's the closest so I bait it out by targetting the Eradicators who are just behind the Aggressors. As he'd started out with only 4 CP, I was hoping to get him to use it all up by the time I wanted to Deepstrike so I didn't get Auspex scanned on the Acolytes. I kill 3 out the 5 Aggressors with some very bad rolling on my part and also killed 2 Heavy Intercessors that had pushed up on my left flank.

I turn off Overwatch for the Aggressors so that they can't flame my Abherrants but he uses the Overwatch for a nearby unit from the Eradicators, I had thought that would require him to pay the CP for Overwatch but as we were pushed for time I didn't try to look at FAQs. I lose 2 to melta fire, make the charge with the Abherrants and the Grinder and kill the Abherrants handily.

 

Turn 2, he deals 54 damage to the Grinder with Eradicators and the intercessors on the left flank take my left hand objective as my Goliath isn't obsec. The Captian charges the Abherrants, kills them and then Consolidates back through a Ruin to hide. My 5 man Acolyte squad comes down 8" away from the captain and just outside of 12" of other units so I don't get Auspexed. The Primus pushes up to the other side of the wall to the Captain, my Neophytes jump out of the Goliath and the Goliath pushes all the way up the left side of the board. The Neophytes blast the Heavy Intercessors down to one man and the Ridgerunner kills an Aggressor and leaves another on 2 Wounds. The last biker charges the Eradicators in a hail mary to tie them up and actually survives combat. The Primus and the Acolytes charge the Captain and the Primus over kills him by about 4 wounds.  He only in Death does Duty ends the Captain and kills the 5 Acolytes then tries to revive him with the Vulkan strat and fails, he now has 0 CP. The Neophytes on my left flank charge the Last Heavy Intercessor and only deal a wound but only lose one in return.

 

Turn 3, He can only plink at the Goliath on the left flank and does 1 damage with a back field squad of heavy intercessors, kills the nade' launcher Neophytes with the right hand Heavy Intercessors and also kills the Jackal with the pistol shots from the Eradicators and uses the CP he regened to reroll a wound roll to kill it. I drop down the 10 Acolytes 8" away from the Eradicators and push the Goliath up with them. Both of my back two points are safe as I finish off the Intercessor with an embarrassing Autopistol. The Primus moves up the right hand flank to try to clear the full strength Heavy Intercessor. As expected, the Saws wipe the Eradicators but unexpectedly the Primus wipes the Heavy Intercessors easily with another 3 saves he had to make on top.

 

Turn 4, he has 1 Heavy Intercessor unit left on his rear left objective, they jump off their building and charge the Saw Acolytes and kill a good few and get wiped in return. The game ends with me on 55(max) and him on 45

 

Game 3 Vs Death Guard

His list was:

Lord of Contagion, can only be wounded on 4+

Plaguecaster

Foulblightspawn, always fight last Aura

 

7 Plaguemarines

10 Poxwalkers

 

5 Blightlords

 

Myphitic BlightHauler

Bloatdrone with flamers

 

 

Turn 1 we both deploy aggresively, I push most of my units up, keeping the Ridgerunner, Magus and 'nade launcher back. Grinder goes up the left flank and Goliath goes up the left with the bikes. I plink some wounds off the Blighthauler and not much else. The Bikes charge and slap the Hauler for 2 wounds. In his turn he plinks some wounds off of the Goliath and destroys the Goliath with the Bloat Drone. The Blight Lords charge the Seismic cannon Neos that jumped out of the Goliath and killed them easily, consolidating into my Magus who does a mortal wound back to them. The Characters kill the bikes in combat.

 

Turn 2, My 10 man Acolytes drop down in his back lines, 8" away from his rear right objective that has 7 Plague marines on. The Primus, Abherrants and Grinder all come across the board to the middle blob of characters, termies and machines. The Grinder and Ridgerunner deal with the Bloatdrone. The Abherrants charge the Lord of Contagion and the Blightspawn and the Plaguecaster intervines in, the Primus and the Grinder charge the Blightlords and the Acolytes charge the Marines. The Primus kills 3 Blightlords and the Grinder deals 2 wounds to another. My Abherrants actually survive with 2 and kill the Blightspawn and the Acolytes kill 5 Marines out of 7. In his turn the Hauler shifts up to deal with the Ridgerunner but misses entirely. The Abherrants are killed with a Smite and the Plaguecaster charges my Grinder. The Primus kills the other 2 Blightlords and moves towards the Lord of Contagion. The Acolytes finish the marines.

 

Turn 3 and running out of real time, I drop in the 5 man Acolytes in the centre and threaten the LoC and the Primus moves to be closer. The Ridgerunner does another couple of wounds on the Hauler and the Acolytes move towards the centre to try and help take out the LoC. The Primus charges in alone to the LoC as the 5 man squad dropped in 6" away to hold the objective. The Grinder finally kills the Plaguecaster and the LoC and Primus take a chunk out of each other but both surviving.

The Hauler kills the Grinder and the LoC kills the Primus.

The Game ends 45-35 to my opponent

 

Game 4 Vs Space Wolves:

His list was:

Wolflord on TWC - Armour of Russ

Arjack

 

2 5 man Blood Claw squad, 1 had a special axe

 

1 5 man WG squad with Jumpack

 

3 TWC

 

5 Fenrisian Wolves

 

1 Redemptor with Gatling

 

Turn 1, We both deploy aggressively and I need to deal with the Dread before it can start hitting my vehicles. I push hard up both sides, my left flank has the Grinder and the bikes the right flank has the Goliath. I kill the Fenrisian wolves and deal some damage to the Dread. He pushes up hard too with his TWC charging my bikes and the Wolf Guard charging my Goliath on the right. The Wolf Lord follows up behind. The Goliath only takes 2 wounds from Thunder hammers and lightning claws. Nice!

 

Turn 2, I bundle my Seismic cannon squad out and push onto the second objective leaving the Goliath in combat with the WG. The Primus, Abherrants and Rockgrinder move to take on the TWC. The Grinder, Ridgerunner and Seismic Neos detroy the Redemptor and the Abherrants charge the TWC. I roll 16 hits as they had Might from Beyond on them and got 15 Wounds. The TWC were absolutely flattened. The Primus charged the Wolf Lord and got promptly splattered . Arjac dropped in next to the wolf lord and they charged the Abherrants and wiped them incredibly easily.

 

Turn 3, I drop in the 10 man Acolytes 8" away from his rear left objective and the 5 8" away from his WolfGuard. The Grinder, 'nade launcher Neos and the Ridgerunner all shoot into the Wolf Lord and with a healthy mix of missing most shots and good saves the Wolf Lord lives on 3 Wounds. The Seismic Cannon Neos in the centre kill 3 marines from the right hand rear objective. The Grinder charges the Wolf Lord and Arjac intervines, with a massive whiff of a turn the Rockgrinder only does 2 wounds to the Wolf Lord and is promptly smashed. The Wolf Guard finally kill my Goliath after 4 whole combat phases, my 10 man acolyte squad charge and kill the Blood Claws. In His turn, Arjack tries to clear off the Neophytes in the centre, the Wolf guard kill my 10 man squad handily and the Wolf Lord charges the Ridgerunner in my backfield.

The game ends at 40 - 35 to my opponent

 

Final result: 2W 2L - 4th overall

 

What did I learn?

GSC Vehicles with the Rusted Claw trait are actually very survivable, -1D is incredibly good!

Abherrants are a glass cannon, even with Bestial Vigor strat, they'll still go down quickly.

If you need a character that can be a beat stick, the Primus is your man. I was worried going in that the Primus wouldn't do his job and that I should have taken a Patriarch. I actually think a Patriarch in most of the situations wouldn't have done as well.

 

More games to play with this faction and more to figure out, although with the impending Craftworlds book my time with GSC may be crimped somewhat

[Rogue]

Thanks for sharing all that. How did you get on with utilising Crossfire?

[TrawlingCleaner]

Thanks for sharing all that. How did you get on with utilising Crossfire?

With such a small game size, I basically had one or two units to focus fire a turn which meant getting Crossfire on that target was actually relatively easy. I did struggle getting Exposed off on them, I didn't realise until after all the games but I could have used the Jackals to get Exposed off with "Pack Tactics" if I really needed it. Although most of the time, that would be a one time use as they are reasonably fragile.

 

While generally it doesn't boost the melee units, Crossfire is such a useful tool for our shooting units that makes even Neophytes swing above their weight class. I'm excited to play more with them!

[Rogue]

That's really interesting, because I found the complete opposite - crossfire really didn't do much for my neophyte units, but was a massive support for my combat troops. I think I played at least one of Covering Fire or Coordinated Assault every turn.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing how you get on with neophytes over your next few games, because I think I must be missing something with them.