The day had come for my first 40k RTT since 7th Edition, and I couldn’t be more excited! I managed to snag a slot for the Clever Kobolds’ April RTT this month, and I ended up bringing the list I spoke about in last week’s article; to summarize, it’s fairly standard Haloscreed, with a few extra instances of Battleline including Manipulus with Inloaded Lethality. This is about as stock as a Halo list gets, barring the inclusion of breachers, and I was excited to give it a go in a more competitive environment than scrimmage at the store. I want to use this experience to help teach you how to approach the more competitive side of the game, as I get better (fingers crossed) over time.
For those that have never attended a 40k tournament, an RTT is the smallest of the ‘official’ tournament structures, usually being a 3-round, 1-day event with tiebreakers done via total points scored. I began my day by driving down to Clever Kobold, about an hour away from me, black tea in hand, and an extra charger in my bag. Given I was going to be sourcing rules from my phone, it paid to have ample means to charge it throughout the course of a busy day.
Rounds for this RTT were shorter than my usual fare, when I was grinding AoS, being 2 hours & 45 minutes, rather than 3 hours. This differential would bite me later on, but given I’d practiced with my list beforehand, I at least knew my profiles well, and had dice set aside for repeated attack sequences. Round 1 was against Hammer of the Emperor Guard, with paired Leman Russes, Dorns, and triple squads of maxed Mortar Teams. This was a list skewing away from the standard jail-horde Guard lists, and towards dealing with pesky high-mobility forces. Worse still, we ended up with Purge the Foe and myself playing horde and tons of 3-wound Leaders. In theory, this was to be an uphill climb.
I ended up going first, however, and immediately shot into position, wiping out two squads of infiltrated Ratlings, and using them as a springboard for my Ruststalkers. Sadly, a turn 1 charge into an exposed Enginseer did nothing for 4 Infiltrators of my own, but as the game crept on, the fact he had little way to draw a bead onto my tanks without exposing himself to 2 of them meant I was winning the tank fight, with help from Haloscreed’s Stealth on my Disintegrators. The game ended with a concession at the end of Battle Round 4, with my opponent left without enough chaff to score secondaries, even though he finally managed to crack my tanks.
This game was a great lesson in playing to my outs, as a game into 1. Tons of Indirect S5 firing and 2. Purge the Foe should have spelled disaster for a list like mine. That being said, the fact I went first, cleared a few of his objective play pieces, and forced him to trade with tanks meant that I had the edge. Additionally, in every game today, I tested a greater degree of Strategic Reserves than normal, leaving 1 unit of Ruststalkers, my Manipulus Vanguard, and Skystalkers off the board turn 1. Because I could place both my Vanguard & Ruststalkers, I could ensure a 7” charge out of reserves, essentially building my own flank where it was needed. Critically, this required me to actually keep a flank open, so an abundance of screening would be devastating…more on that later. After Game 1, I ended up having lunch and meeting up with a few friends I’d not seen since college, and before long, it was onto the next round.
Round 2 is a lesson in 2 things: Keeping an eye on the clock (and properly checking it when not your turn), and sticking to your guns. I’ll be honest, this was my game to win, and the more I look back on it in retrospect the more frustrated I am. Let’s take a quick look into why.
First and foremost, my opponent was playing a fairly stock Ultramarines Stormlance Task Force—fast, hard-hitting, and packing both Guilliman and Marneus Calgar. In addition, as we spoke prior to the kickoff of the game, he was taking a Librarian+Sternguard brick that ended up out of position, with myself acknowledging this, and getting a turn 1 charge with some Ruststalkers, clearing 4 Sternguard & the Librarian. He charges in, and starts clearing Battleline, but as I counterattack, the game’s looking up. This was Linchpin, meaning home objectives were vital. Rarely did I have good shots with my tanks, and I should have been more keen to trade them away; I managed to collapse much of his right flank, but then a few slights occurred. First, after moving Marneus, aware of my ability to reactively move, or Overwatch, he asks for a take-back. I relent, a judge arrives, and we roll off. He can take-back. Then, in the same breath, when I point out that I’d had two Vanguard models shifted from the objective as things moved about the table, he insists they remain. This, which absolutely tanked my Primary score, on top of a very unlucky Guilliman reviving onto my home objective (and then not dying to 10 Ruststalkers) sealed the game up, and gave me a scent of one of Warhammer’s worst feelings: Defeat, seized from the jaws of victory.
This game went into overtime, on top of everything, and wasn’t an especially pleasant experience for me, although I made sure to remain respectful (as anyone should, in this situation). Ultimately, sometimes that’s just how things go, and rolling with the punches is vital to remaining mentally locked-in when a tournament is going on. That being said, I would be lying if I said I didn’t enter Game 3 a bit flustered, with my models strewn about their trays, unable to re-rack due to the overtime, and my head still churning from the mild sharking that had occurred.
That being said, little feels better than to end on a fantastic game with a great player, and it goes to show that losses can feel just as satisfying as victories. I ended my run playing against Combined Arms Guard, with a brutal list of triple Taurox, Triple Kaskrin, and CP-generation aplenty by way of Ursula Creed. With him going first, I got decently boxed in turn 1, as any Jail Guard list goes, but luckily my hefty chunk of anti-infantry firepower cut through it. The problem of course, though, came down to this being a 6-objective Take and Hold…against Guard, which can readily boost their unit OC into the 20s. Primary slowly slipped from my hands, as even my Vanguards’ 2 OC with a -1 debuff couldn’t cut through the ample control of Krig & Kaskrin, and the map’s layout meant it was exceptionally hard to get a double-bead for any 2 of my tanks into 1 of his. Of course, quite a bit of the game came down to an inability to leave my deployment zone, as was the intent, but even still it was a delight to face a courteous player who still came prepared to win.
Not to mention, this was the first army I’d faced that day which was fully painted! This RTT automatically applied Battle-Ready to every army, but the thought absolutely counts when it comes to bringing your A-Game, both in skill but also in terms of hobbying.
As it turns out, the reason I’d faced this player, who ended up winning the event overall, was because I was the highest-scoring 1-1 at the end of Round 2…so that counts for something I suppose! Ultimately, I had a great experience getting my boots wet back in 40k, and while I still have a few points of adjustment (namely, getting back into tankfight theory, and proper screen management), I’m fairly happy with my play. Bringing a ~50% winrate army to an event like this isn’t playing to win the whole thing, on my account, but rather to have an enjoyable time.
I’ll be playing in a few more RTTs in the next couple of months, and if this one is any indication, I may be the only Admech player active in the greater Providence-Boston area! Jokes aside, the sheer number of people I met who’d had <3 total games against Admech in 10th was substantial, and perhaps it might behoove me to utilize that surprise factor going forward.
Via Games Workshop
Until next time, that’s a quick recap of my first RTT in quite some time! What are some of your best tournament stories? Are you seeing a similar dearth of Admech players in your scene? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments below!
