The time has come, and all my scrimmages and practice games will be put to the test: It’s the Clever Kobold’s inaugural GT! This was a tournament about an hour away from me, and at a store I’d previously attended some RTTs, so I was somewhat familiar with the field. My list, seen below, was meant to do one thing: Grind Death Guard to a pulp. It was inarguable that Death Guard was among the top 3 armies in the game in the current format, and I felt it was wise to hedge against this matchup; there was an expectation by me that the event would have ~10 potential Death Guard players, so this choice just made sense. In order to do so, I built around my favorite detachment with Admech’s brand-new unit, the Servitor Battleclade in Data-Psalm Conclave.
Why DPC, and why max Battleclade? For starters, DPC matches up extremely well into 2 and 4 wound Toughness 4/5 bodies. Between the strength of Fulgurites and Corpuscarii, the vast majority of my units have a target they can comfortably wound on 3s with no damage falloff. Furthermore, armies like Death Guard have only a few units that could be considered undercosted, and those matched up pretty terribly into exactly Fulgurites. Coupled with Breachers & Disintegrators for fire support, this detachment always looked alright on the surface, but there was quite literally not enough playable picks to fill out a list, and make it worthwhile vs Haloscreed.
That was until Battleclade. Sporting an absurd rule in Action/Advance/Shoot, 29 3+/5/-1/1 attacks if played correctly on the charge, and 9 models to avoid +2 with blast, this unit is a profound kick in the teeth for any army worried about Admech’s secondary gameplan. They score well, punch far above their pay grade, and are functionally the fastest unit with the Cult Mechanicus keyword outside of a transport. This was the final cheap, surprisingly-hard-hitting MSU the army needed, and the above list was sure to grab some eyes at the tournament! The only change made was a swap to Volkite for the Dominus, last-minute, as its math was superior vs Terminators.
The tournament itself posted lists after lock-in on the Thursday before the event, and to my chagrin only 5 players were bringing Death Guard, with an equally-alarming 5 players on Knights. We’ll cover the Knight matchup in the second part of this series, but suffice to say my match-up is not fantastic.
Still, I arrived at the event eager and in one piece, and was met with a sight that would only be beautiful to an Admech player on 35 Electro-Priests: A fairly stock Mortarion’s Hammer list with a double Battle Cannon Despoiler allied in on Linchpin. This game was defined by Cawl and the big brick of Fights First Fulgurites that were hidden in the main L Ruins. Carefully cheating out, I managed to bait his Deathshrouds out on the second turn, trading away some Battleclade and Infiltrators as he took both side objectives, but between Cawl and Breachers I managed to stick the center, pushing into his lines and tying up 3 of his vehicles. The standout point of the game was seeing 3x5 Corpuscarii make a mad dash towards the Despoiler, given they wounded it on 5s, chunking half of its health in a single turn between shooting and combat, the behemoth going down to my last Disintegrator. This game was pretty much how I’d drawn it up, and while he lacked things like Plague Marines and the triple Drone, it invigorated me to see my plan of stomping Death Guard go exactly as planned. 95-24, Admech going first.
Game 2’s pairings were posted after a brief lunch, and I nearly dropped my pizza to see that my second match was also against Death Guard, this time Virulent Vectorum led by Mortarion himself, on Supply Drop. This was the list I expected, with the proper triple drone and a nasty Plague Marine brick pivoting in and out of a Rhino. Still, while he did manage to sticky 2/3 of the midboard objectives with an infiltrated block of Poxwalkers, jailing me from taking center primary, he squandered his turn 1 by playing far too cagey, and allowing me to toe forward with my threats. This was a Battleclade game, who scored me almost 20 Secondary Points on their own, making superb use of their special rule and chunking out drones with the embedded Heavy Arc Rifle. Despite the Rhino surviving on a single wound following the volley from Breachers in Rapid Fire range, and dealing a total of 0 damage to a toed-out Drone with a Disintegrator, my opponent’s unfamiliarity with my list was likely the thing that clinched this game. This entire tournament I explained the profiles of my models to every single opponent, with Breachers and Disintegrators being the only two sheets that were known at face value. Nobody internalized the fact that Fulgurites hit like Incubi, or that Battleclade hit far above their pay grade for 60pts. Once I sunk my Callidus in the midboard and stalled any hope of fighting back against my Fights First block into Morty and Typhus-led Deathshroud, it was over. 85-33, Admech going second.
I want to take a brief moment to talk about my deployment. philosophy, and why the list actually works, in spite of our main hammers being fragile 6” move dudes with no Advance and Charge access. On GW terrain, the ability to hide 5 models on 32mm bases 1.1” away from flat L Ruins is extremely useful, as you both block out the terrain from being encroached-upon from the front, and protect your Priests from oncoming damage. Turns 1 and sometimes even 2 can just be staging-focused, deploying Battleclade far enough to the front they both act as a screen for things like Kataphrons (the least point-efficient model in the army), but also to advance onto an objective. The amount of easy Turn 1 Establish Locus, Cleanse, and similar I drew scored by Battleclade cannot be overstated.
This is a punishing army that is fundamentally about shifting around not just glass cannons, but glass nuclear warheads. 5 Fulgurites hit like 3 Custodes, for less than half the points, but actually getting them into combat where they can trade up is why I played so many practice games—it’s tough! Still, if your aim is to beat MEQ armies, and you like or own enough Electro-Priests, this list is, in my eyes, your best bet in Admech. Things that manage to hit, hit much, much harder than they should.
Now this was a nailbiter, with my game 3 being right into the meat grinder against Beastslayer Space Wolves, with all the stock tools on Purge the Foe. Named characters galore, 50 Marine bodies all aiming to chunk down character-led units, and enough MSU wolves to screen out the backline. Both of us are unfamiliar with the matchup, and because of that the early turns are defined by some mild blunders. I decide to charge in my Infiltrators to clear out his wolves, to which he Heroically Intervenes and uses them as a springboard to get onto the objective, and an extra 5” up the board. He charges Cawl and my Servitors which were doing their best to hold the center objective, being Heroically Intervened against with my Fights First Fulgurites. He loses nearly half of his 20-man Chaplain-led unit, but it would have been more if not for the terrain.
This table was one of my only complaints about how the event was run—they needed 16 tables, so I understand that not all the terrain can be stock, but in a melee mirror 1-2” thick Ruins were a clown show. Blood Claws and Priests grew Mr. Fantastic-esque stretchy arms alike to hit through absurd angles, and as the blood settled, the game was decided by a mix of challenger cards from me, and Logan Grimnar overcommitting with the rest of his force in the midboard scrap, doing literally nothing of note before dying to Disintegrator fire. Great, close game, defined by secondary draws and navigating goofy terrain. 82-68, Admech going second.
Hey, wait, did I just go 3-0 for Day 1 at a GT…with the second-worst Admech detachment by winrate? Certainly, this detachment is favored into MEQs, but I was thrilled to see it work out as it did! GTs are of course 2-day tournaments, meaning there’s another installment upcoming that will cover how I carried on with this 3-0 run…but being in the 3-0 bracket, it might involve some Knight matchups. Ominous foreshadowing aside, going 3-0 for Day 1 is a fantastic achievement for the little Electro-Priests that could, and I hope it goes to show you can do well even with the sillier detachments of a lukewarm army.
That’s a wrap on part 1 of my GT coverage! I fully intend to continue attending tournaments with this list, especially once the meta changes, and it’s always incredible to see your planned skew go so demonstrably well. The new unit, Servitor Battleclade, is just as good as I thought it was in previous articles, and I wonder how else we might see its usage evolve? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
