It’s been a week since the 11th Edition of Warhammer 40,000 saw its points made public, and I have to say, from my dozen or so games pre-launch, and half-dozen post-launch, it’s shaping up to be one of the best. 11th so far takes much of 10th’s strong suits, and adds back complexity lost in the shuffle to become ‘simplified, not simple’—the tagline of 10th. Unfortunately for a lot of players, it was a bit too simple, and while I personally disagree, 11th seems set on pleasing both those grumbling players, and fans of 10th alike. What’s more, given I’ll be attending the Goonhammer Open in Maryland this July, my goal of 2-3 RTTs til then is well underway, and I had my very first this past weekend!
Wanting to use tools I’ve never put on the table, and rather excited at the prospect of seeing whether I was right about Explorator Maniple, my aim was to get Top 4 at this ~20-player event, and cut my teeth with a Detachment I’d played a total of 0 games with, in 10th. How’d I do, and why’d I choose that Detachment? Let’s get into it!
First and foremost, some background: In 10th, I was deeply-entrenched in my play of Data-Psalm Conclave, and in fact it’s what I became known for within the community. Of course I played Haloscreed Battleclade for teams events, and tested a few other builds like SHC and Rad, but I was predominantly a fan of jamming as many Electro-Priests as possible into my list. The only Detachment I never played in 10th was Explorator, because it was profoundly terrible, being ranked in the bottom 5, often bottom 3 Detachments in the entire game. So, why am I playing it now?
For starters, the Detachment rule is just a slightly-better Combi-Lieutenant, selecting an Objective each of your Command phases to mark, and providing re-rolls of 1 to wound while attacking something on it, or with something on it. In 11th, Objectives make up a substantially larger portion of the board, and moreover, are the main way you receive real cover. Not just that, but changes to the Charge sequence make Reactive Safeguard far more powerful, and Artisan is perhaps the best 10pts you can spend on an Enhancement in 11th. Pairing all of that with Lords of the Forge, and you suddenly have a compelling basis for a transport-focused list!
This list is about two things: Boats & tricks. We have reactive movement from our action-doer Raiders, the Callidus for Vect and uppy-downy, enough beef from boats by way of a reembark, and plenty more. Better still, if we’re facing a shooting army, we can threaten Cached Acquisition to sticky an objective on death, keeping our Primary scoring high. Both of the best strats available to Explorator are reactive, and that means they’re worth more in your pocket, threatening your opponent, than in actually using. They need to plan around you getting back in boats, they need to plan around you stickying on death, etc. You force your opponent to plan around your tools, and all the while Lords’ strats pick up the slack. You give them enough to think about that they overthink, and that’s part of how you eke out advantage. Some minutia on the list: We’re splitting our Plasma Destroyers 2:1 between flamers & phosphor, because sometimes the range is relevant, and Vanguard lack an Arquebus so we can max out on 3A for [LETHAL HITS]. Everything is considered here, perhaps even overthought, and all the Autochickens & Phosphor Destroyers were built, painted, & varnished the Friday beforehand. So, how did things go?
Game 1 was against Sisters, in a Priority Assets mirror. His list was fully tricked-out to beat melee armies, playing Hallowed Martyrs with big double-led bricks of Sisters, and MSU Arco-Flagellants. Going off of the lists, I felt reasonably favored, as I had far more chaff to do actions available to me, which meant there’d be little issue maxing Primary and mostly needed to worry about Secondary & lethality. We ended up trading flanks, with me being able to catch out a Castigator turn 1 via my Fusileers, and tap the second on the following turn; in turn, his brick of Paragon Warsuits took the other flank and moved into the center, eventually being the only things left on the board, outside of an out-of-position brick of Celestian Sacresants. The game ended 100-67, with the main difference being one of Primary. If you’re going to play Priority Assets as your Disposition, you absolutely need some good action pieces.
Game 2 was against Drukhari, running Skysplinter Assault+Kabalite Agonysts, with a very standard (albeit strong) list. Tons of Venoms, double Archon, and a big brick of Hellions all set to complete Recon. Part of the issue with the Priority Assets into Recon is that, by virtue of having a ton of 5-model units on 25mm bases, he could place a single bait piece toed in outside of a central ruin corner wall, and I would need to trade down to kill it. Sure, I would have a more dominant Primary scoring plan, but it would be a challenge for my army not to fully perish in the process. I want to make special note, my opponent for this game was a known Teams GT competitor from MA, and a delight to play; intent was addressed in every action, and it was closer to chess than the smash-and-grab you’d normally see at the start of an edition. I’ll be taking some lessons from this game, including acquiring some dowels to establish maximum threat distance for intent, something that kept us both in the game until the final turn. Ultimately, it came down to too slow of a Primary start for my opponent, his Hellions missing a 6” Heroic Intervention, and some absolutely backbreaking usage of my Archmagi. Another perfect 100pt score by me, with my opponent trailing at 80. I was feeling good.
Finally, game 3. I was in the 100/100 bracket, and the only player at the event to max score in the first two rounds, so my opponent was going to be the second-highest scoring player overall (barring byes). He ended up being on Chaos Space Marines, specifically Veterans of the Long War+Murdertalon Raiders, to get Purge the Foe access—frightening stuff. Not to spoil things, but I made two critical errors in this game that cost me first place at the event, which in retrospect I’m still kicking myself over. The mission was Vital Link, which required I complete actions on the central objectives, to build markers that scored cumulative points for holding each turn. I could have spent 1CP to perform this action with Thulia, who I traded for a Predator-and-a-half, or disembarked with Fusileers/Vanguard, and held up the CP to deny the charge given it was an obvious Acquisition Marker…but I performed it by toeing in my Autochickens. Against an army with two scary Chosen bricks, losing my best source of D3 early on was devastating. Looking back, there were so many obvious paths to victory here, and I lost by scant few points, but despite this being sloppy play on my part there’s one more embarrassing facet I’ve yet to mention: I never fired my TL-409. Not this game, this event. I paid 30pts to do nothing, and with this being my first IRL outing with the list, it slipped my mind and was stuffed into a sufficiently-deep memory hole amid tons of Admech bookkeeping. In spite of my blunder during game 3, and functionally running a 1970pt list, I still ended up with a solid 3rd place, something I shouldn’t be mad at…but good lord, winning my first RTT of 11th would have been sweet.
Insult to injury, I had a game scheduled with a friend the following day, and you know what he arrived with? CSM, Veterans+Murdertalon. I did manage to win this game, by playing far cagier with my chickens and flexing the strength of my transports, and I know I could have won that RTT finals as well. Lesson learned, play the Purge matchup sloooooow.
On the whole, Explorator feels great! This is a Detachment that can handily win an RTT, and I think topping a GT isn’t out of the question either. It has impressive tools to beat most Dispositions, and if you look at it more as a 1DP option to Lords’ 2DP, it looks a lot better. After all, at worst it’s just a Combi-Lieutenant as a Detachment Ability. At best, you have things like Artisan (a truly insane Enhancement for 10pts), reactive re-embark, sticky on death, and more! I’ve got another RTT this coming weekend, as I gear up for my first big GT of 11th in early July, so it should be an exciting time! This is a Detachment, and a list, that I believe can win RTTs, and top GTs—I need only prove it.
Have you gotten a chance to play 11th Edition competitively so far? What other underrated Detachments/units are you excited about? Are there any changes you’d make to my list? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
