Hello again! I posted a battle report when I went to the RTT at Redcap's Corner in Philadelphia at the end of October and people seemed to enjoy it, so here's my recap of the three games I played at PAX Unplugged yesterday.

Background: myself and others signed up for a matched play 3-round tournament, but we arrived at PAX to find the TO had dropped at 11:00 PM the night before, so we just put our heads together and did pairings with pen, paper, and dice. The "tournament" ended up going about two rounds before enough people had to drop out that we just switched up and played with new folks for round 3, since there wasn't ever any swag or store credit to play for anyway, people just wanted to have fun.

That having been said, I still played three games and won all of them, so I figured it's still worth writing up battle reports.

My List

Kaldor Draigo with 10 Terminators

3x Brotherhood Librarians, each with 5x Terminators

Grandmaster in Nemesis Dreadnight with Sigil of Exigence

5x Strike Squad

Vindicare Assassin

Callidus Assassin

Kaldor remains a top-tier delivery system for the Terminator brick, since he has a once-per-game 3" charge bonus out of deep strike, so he always goes into reserves. Everything else starts on the table. The Librarians combined do an average of 12 mortal wounds per round, which really adds up over the course of an entire game, as do the fact that all 4 Terminator squads have a built-in apothecary, so in some games I stood a lot of models back up over 5 rounds. The GMNDK with Sigil is a very decent tank and monster killer who is surprisingly hard to pin down until I choose to commit him. The Strike Squad are 5 idiots that sticky objectives, I think I shot their guns once the entire day. And the Vindicare is a brutal character murderer, while the Callidus is a fantastic action monkey.

Game 1

My opponent was running a custom kit-bashed Space Wolves army in the Stormlance detachment. I cannot overstate how amazingly cool their models were. They had custom lore for their chapter, a werewolf-styled army based on the idea of removing the flaws from the Fenris gene, it was just really awesome. That having been said, they had only played a few games of 40k and this was their first "RTT" and indeed their first 2k game, so it wasn't actually that close.

Their List

Arjac Rockfist

Bjorn the Fell-Handed

Canis Wolfborn

3x Cyberwolves leading 3x Fenrisian Wolves x5

Iron Priest

Logan Grimnar on Stormrider leading 3x Wolfguard Cavalry

Murderfang

Ragnar Blackmane

Wolf Guard Battle Leader in Terminator Armor leading 5x Wolfguard Terminators

2x Wolf Guard Battle Leaders with some enhancements leading the other 3x Wolfguard Cavalry

Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf (I think this one was with Grimnar - I can't remember exactly what was attached to what, there were so many Goddamn wolves)

Space Wolves Venerable Dreadnought

5x Wulfen

We were doing Mission G - Sites of Power, Chilling Rain, and Hammer and Anvil deployment. The terrain wasn't exactly GW standard, but there was what I would say was a fair amount of it, and so I was able to deploy everything more or less hidden. My opponent kept one of the Thunderwolf Cavalry units in reserves and otherwise put everything on the table as well. They scouted the Fenrisian Wolves straight forward to start establishing board presence.

I got top of turn, which is never what I want as GK, but we make do when we have to. My secondaries turn 1 were Assassinate and Investigate Signals. I routinely deploy the Callidus in a no-man's-land corner turn 1 precisely in case of a turn-1 Investigate Signals, so I used her and one of my units in my own deployment zone for 4 VPs on that, turned Assassinate into a CP, and did basically nothing with my turn because moving up aggressively against an army with advance and charge seemed like a poor decision.

My opponent advanced basically their entire army forward, moving the three dreadnoughts up aggressively on the bottom flank, Logan Grimnar's cavalry up the top, and a smattering of Fenrisian wolves across all three lanes. They left the Terminators on their home objective. They had no shooting to speak of, and their secondaries were impossible for them to score, so they discarded both of them for a CP.

At the end of their turn I picked up my three 5-man Librarian squads and the Callidus.

Turn 2 I popped off, and hard. I drew Capture Enemy Outpost and Tempting Target. My opponent chose the top objective with Logan, his cavalry, and about a dozen random wolves on it as my tempting target, so I shrugged and decided that was going to be a CP at bottom of turn. I moved the GMNDK up the bottom flank, dropped the 3 5-man Librarian squads all within smiting range of the 3 dreadnoughts, and put Kaldor and his 10-man into a handy bubble that had opened up in the enemy back lines, for a charge into the Wolfguard Terminators on their home objective. At the end of my movement phase, my opponent rapid-ingressed their reserve Thunderwolf Cavalry into my back line.

The Vindicare took a shot at one of the many, many characters not named Logan Grimnar and popped its head off. The Librarians went hard and killed Murderfang with their vortexes of doom, while the GMNDK hosed up an entire unit of Fenrisian Wolves and their Cyberwolf leader with his incinerator and psycannon, then nailed a 9" charge into Bjorn and dropped him in the Fight phase with a combination of 6-wound Tank Shock and daemon-hammer smashing. Draigo got his once-per-game 6"-out-of-deepstrike charge into the Wolfguard Terminators and wiped the whole unit, leaving only the leader characters, securing me Capture Enemy Outpost. Arjac Rockfist and the Wolf Guard Battle Leader were able to drop Draigo on the clap-back with Rockfist's free Epic Challenge and then spending a CP for another one.

At this point my opponent was feeing pretty dejected having to pick up so many models so quickly, so I encouraged them not to quit, because Warhammer is a game about points, not models, and they still had more than half their army left. For their turn they drew Storm Hostile and Behind Enemy Lines. I helped talk them through game-planning them, so they moved their Thunderwolf Cavalry onto my home objective to get Storm Hostile and then advanced a unit of Fenrisian Wolves into my deployment zone for the full score on Behind Enemy Lines. They turned a fair chunk of their units in the middle around to run back and try to deal with my Terminator brick on their home objective. I chose not to Mists them away, both because I was fine tying up a good chunk of my opponent's forces in their own DZ and because I frankly wanted to give them the opportunity to kill something. Playing GK can be frustrating and demoralizing and I feel bad that my opponent's first 2k game was into my sweaty comp list of them. >_>'

End of their turn I picked up the Callidus, the GMNDK, and 2 of the Librarians. The third Librarian was tied up fighting the Thunderwolf Cavalry that had taken my home objective - my opponent wanted to get that unit into combat, but still wanted to get Storm Hostile, so I taught them how to use the charge phase to base-block themselves and be able to string their unit out to still touch the objective behind it.

Turn 3 I drew Assassinate and Behind Enemy Lines. BEL was more or less free, so I focused on dropping my two teleporting Librarians into range to smite Arjac Rockfist and the Wolf Guard Battle Leader to death. I had the Librarian unit that was fighting the Thunderwolf Cavalry fall back toward the center objective, while the Vindicare tried and failed to one-shot the cavalry's Wolf Lord (tough little bugger lived on one wound). My GMNDK soloed the Venerable Dreadnought, again with a combination of Tank Shock and the daemon hammer doing good work. There was some more random combat, the most important fight being one of the Librarians leading his 5-man squad into a 9" charge into the Wulven on my opponent's home objective and wiping them out.

For my opponent's turn 3 they drew Extend Battle Lines and Assassinate. We talked them through getting Logan Grimnar's unit back from no man's land to try to kill my units off of their home objective, since Extend Battle Lines requires you to hold your home objective, and they were able to get the unit into combat, but my surviving Terminators from Draigo's unit plus the Librarian's 5-man managed to keep enough models on the objective to hold it, and all of my characters lived, denying both secondaries.

At this point we were out of time for round 1, so we talked through the remaining 2 rounds, making some very, *very* generous assumptions about what they would have left and how they could achieve the secondaries they would draw. We called it in my favor by a very slim lead, though it was obvious that if we had actually played out those two turns the lead would be far less slim.

Win 61-58

Game 2

My opponent this round had only about 2.5 hours before he needed to dip, so we went in hard and fast. He was running Death Guard, so we were both very excited for this matchup for lore reasons. Because he had to leave immediately after the game I wasn't able to get his list, and he was a latecomer so he wasn' t on BCP, so this is from memory and may not be 100% accurate.

His List

Typhus

3x Biologus Putrifiers, 2 leading 5x Plague Marines, 1 leading 10x Plague Marines

Foul Blightspawn leading 10x Plague Marines

3x Death Guard Rhinos

3x Plagueburst Crawlers

3x Deathshroud Terminators x3

We were doing Mission N - Priority Targets, Chosen Battlefield, Dawn of War. We forgot about Chosen Battlefield when setting up the objectives, remembered it afterward, and said "eff it, it's fine" for time reasons. I also lost the score sheet for this game, so this reconstruction may be a little bit rougher.

My opponent put all of the various Plague Marines into various Rhinos, put Typhus and the three units of Terminators in deep strike, and infiltrated the Nurglings up into hiding on the center objective. He chose fixed objectives - Deploy Teleport Homers and Behind Enemy Lines. He put his six big tanks more or less on the line, though he did have one PBC start on his home objective to sticky it. I deployed everything behind terrain, though it was a bit sparser on this table and so he was able to draw LOS turn 1 from some of the tanks.

He got top of turn, so he drove everything more or less aggressively straight forward to get bodies onto objectives. He fired the PBCs and one of the Rhinos at my Strike squad and one of the Librarians 5-mans, but a 2 save in cover is a hell of a drug, and I took only one or two random wounds. The Nurglings deployed teleport homers in the center. At the end of his turn I picked up the GMNDK, the Callidus, and one of the Librarians 5-man. The other two Librarians were on the right flank and were within vortex distance of the Rhino he'd driven onto that objective, so I decided there was no need for them to teleport. I left the Strikes on my home objective so it would get stickied.

On my turn I drew Behind Enemy Lines and Storm Hostile Objective. I put the GMNDK behind his lines, hidden from everything but the leftmost PBC, and stuck the 5-man Librarian straight onto his stickied home objective for the second half of BEL and to nab Storm Hostile. I advanced the Strikes up into cover to maybe eventually do something about the Nurglings in the center. The Librarians in the bottom right flank went hard and smote the shit out of the Rhino on the objective, blowing it to pieces. The 10 Plague Marines and 2 Biologus Putrifiers inside miraculously survived without a single mortal and tanked some random anemic shooting from the 5-mans. The Librarian on my opponent's home objective got a 6 on his vortex and smacked the left PBC real hard, going from full wounds to only 1 left. I thought I had it buttoned up with the GMNDK, but Nurgle intervened and gave the PBC some incredible saves, and I didn't stick the 9" charge.

Turn 2, my opponent ran the two 5-man Biologus units into my Librarians, Grenading them and then charging them. He turned the middle Rhino around and ran it back to his home objective. I showed him how to stop it 9.1" away from my unit on the objective so I couldn't Mists away, then deploy everything inside for a 6" charge, since that has been ruled not to count as ending a move for the purpoess of reactive strategems like Mists, Squad Tactics, etc. He drove the left-flank Rhino straight toward my home objective and got the 10-man Foul Blightspawn out. Last, he put the center PBC onto the right objective.

He put a bunch of guns into my Librarian 5-man on his home objective, killing them without actually having to pull off his charge. My Strikes also died to grenades shooting. However, he was less successful against the two Librarians 5-mans on the bottom right flank. They were able survive getting grenaded, charged, and dunked on, and clapped back hard, picking up most of each 5-man Plague Marine unit.

At the end of his shooting phase, he realized he had forgotten his reserves, which was a painful misplay, but we agreed that the game state was too far advanced to rewind it and there was too much new information for it to be fair to just put the Terminators out.

Bottom of his turn I picked up the Callidus and the Strikes. The GMNDK was fine where he was, and the two surviving Librarians were engaged, so they couldn't teleport.

For my turn 2 I drew Defend Stronghold and Engage on All Fronts. I stood one Terminator back up in each 5-man, scooched the Vindicare back just a little bit to ensure he would be in the bottom left table corner, popped the Callidus up into the top left corner, and did a quick measure and confirmed that my two Librarians were inside the bottom right and not too close to the center line. I dropped Draigo's unit right in front of my home objective, between it and the 10-man Plague Marine Foul Blightspawn unit. The GMNDK ran up to just outside engagement range of the 1-wound PBC. At the end of my movement phase my opponent paid the 1 CP to rapid ingress some of the Deathshroud Terminators next to the 10-man Plague Marines.

Naturally, the GMNDK failed to kill it with shooting, beause units with exactly 1 wound left are morally obligated to be as annoying to kill as possible. The Vindicare called his shieldbreaker round and popped the head off the Foul Blightspawn, removing the 10-man's Fights First. Draigo's unit actually took out a huge chunk of it with shooting next. Neither of the Librarian units shot because they were still engaged, but they were still able to Vortex, and the two of them blew up the PBC my opponent had moved up onto the right objective.

I put Draigo's unit into the Deathshroud Terminators rather than the remains of the Plague Marine 10-man, and picked up the unit handily. The two Librarians tanked the remaining melee of the two 5-man Plague Marines without a single wound and then murdered them. The GMNDK walked forward 1 inch and finally crushed the 1-wound PBC with demon hammer strikes.

On turn 3, my opponent put his shredded 10-man Plague Marine unit back into their Rhino and advanced it hard onto my home objective to try to deny me Defend Stronghold. However, the move ended within 9" of Draigo's unit, so I popped Mists for a 6" move and got 4 Terminators onto my home objective to hold it. On the right flank, he moved the one surviving PBC into a better position to shoot my Librarians, as well as driving the Rhino that had reversed course for home up toward the right objective. He put one of the two Deathshroud Terminator units on the right objective, just touching it, and put the other one plus Typhus into the bottom left corner for Behind Enemy Lines.

Some shooting happened, mostly inconsequential, though the Deathshroud Terminators in the bottom left corner did murder my Vindicare. He declined to declare a charge from the Rhino into Draigo's unit, knowing that I would probably just punch it to death even wounding on 5s.

End of his turn, I scored Defend Stronghold, and picked up the Callidus, since I was happy with where everything else was at.

On my turn 3 I drew Overwhelming Force and Secure No Man's Land. At this point my opponent was very short on time, so I did just enough to get both my objectives - I moved the two 5-man Librarians up onto the right objective, Vortexed the Deathshroud Terminators on it to death, and moved the GMNDK back onto the left objective. We then did a quick talk-it-out, agreeing that the game was mine, noting that missing the deployment opportunity for the Deathshrouds and Typhus was a rough mistake. However, we had a lot of fun and the matchup was so much fun, pitting these mortal enemies against one another.

Win roughly 60-40 (do not check this math, it is not Good Math)

---

Game 3

At this point the "tournament" was kind of falling apart and a gentleman who had been watching my game with my Death Guard opponent asked if I would like to play him, so I accecpted and we squared off. He was running Synaptic Nexus Tyranids. I had never once played into Nids, but had seen them played on stream many times with Art of War, so I had a little idea of what I was getting into. My opponent, meanwhile, had played Grey Knights before, so while I felt I was at a slight disadvantage knowledge-wise, I was happy to not have to explain all of the various "gotcha" things again. He was also an amazing sportsman and very carefully went over what everything in his list did for me.

His List

Deathleaper

Hive Tyrant with Synaptic Control

Neurotyrant with Power of the Hive Mind leading 3x Tyrant Guard

Winged Tyranid Prime leading 10x Gargoyles

10x Hormagaunts

20x Termagaunts

5x Barbgaunts

Exocrine

Malaceptor

Mawloc

3x Neurolictors

Norn Emissary

Ripper Swarm

3x Zoanthropes

We played Scorched Earth, Sweep and Clear, and the Search and Destroy opposite corners deployment. I deployed extremely conservatively, putting everything but the Callidus and Vindicare in total cover. He deployed with most of his important pieces hidden, but with the various flavors of Gaunts on the front line, one of the Neurolictors in the top left corner, one in the middle, and one in the bottom right. He had his Mawloc and his Ripper Swarm both in reserves. His Norn picked the center objective as its "eff you this is mine" objective. The center objective had a very tall but thin obscuring ruin tower on it, measuring perhaps 2"x2", which made holding it a matter of standing on the very edge of the 3" control bubble.

I got top of turn, which I was *not* happy about, but a general goes to war with the army he's got. Turn 1 I got Area Denial and Assassinate. As it turns out, Neurolictors are not characters, and all of his actual characters were beyond the capacity of the Vindicare to one-shot, so I figured Assassinate would turn into a CP.

I Advanced my Strike Squad their auto 6" up onto the center objective for Area Denial. His Neurolictor in the middle was juuuust outside 6", so that was going to get me 5 points. I positioned the 3 Librarians such that one could drop a Vortex on the middle Neurolictor, one on the top left, and one on both. Both Librarians with only one target dropped 3 or 4 wounds, so I decided to commit to killing the top left, since that was going to be the hardest objective for him to reach otherwise, and naturally my third librarian rolled a 6 and did enough wounds to have one-shotted the Neurolictor at full health. The Emperor giveth and the Emperor taketh away. XD There was no other shooting of note, since we were both playing very cagey.

My opponent's first turn he pulled Overwhelming Force and No Prisoners, so he advanced the vast majority of his army, with the Termagaunts and Hive Tyrant heading for the bottom right objective, the Hormagaunts and Gargoyles Winged Prime heading for top left, and the Norn, Malaceptor, Neurotyrant, and Zoanthropes heading toward the center, with the Exocrine and Deathleaper hiding in the back and the Barbgaunts sitting on his home objective where they would stay all game. He was able to see my Strike Squad around terrain just enough to put shots into it where it mattered. He carefully stayed outside 9" so I couldn't Mists them away and just barely managed to kill them, getting the 3 for Overwhelming Force and 2 for No Prisoners.

At the end of his turn I picked up the Callidus, 2 of the 3 Librarians, and the GMNDK. My next turn I drew Extend Battle Lines and Tempting Target. He chose the bottom right objective with 10 Termagaunts on it for my tempting target, and the area around it was screened quite well, so I wrote that off and just dropped a 5-man Librarian squad onto the now-clear top left objective for Extend. I put the other Librarians in Vortex range of the center Neurolictor and was able to clean it up. The GMDNK I dropped back behind cover, as well as moving the Callidus and Vindicare to completely screen my deployment zone. His board presence was at this juncture so overwhelming that there was nowhere for Draigo to come in and be useful, so for the first time ever I held him in reserve until turn 3.

On his turn he got Capture Enemy Outpost and Secure No Man's Land, which was an auto-complete with the Norn sitting 2" from the center at the start of the turn and his Termagaunts already on bottom right. My deployment zone, as I mentioned, was screened out completely, so he turned Capture Enemy Outpost into a CP at the bottom of the turn. He advanced the Gargoyles Winged Prime and Hormagaunts farther up toward the left objective, the Norn straight onto the center backed up by the Neurotyrant, the Hive Tyrant Termagaunts Malaceptor around on the bottom flank toward my DZ while keeping the bottom right objective guarded, and moved Deathleaper and the Zoanthropes up a bit more. He was able to see a few random Librarians and 5-mans, but 2 4 with Truesilver Armor and cover is strong as hell and I was able to tank the vast majority of the shots. What he killed I stood back up on my turn. There were no charges. At the end of his turn I picked up the GMNDK and the two 5-man Librarian units that weren't on the top left objective.

My turn 3 was here. Draigo would have to come in somewhere. I drew Storm Hostile Objective and Defend Stronghold. A 5-man Librarian unit is OC 17 - 2 for each of the 5 Terminators, 1 for the Librarian, and then an additional 1 per model from the Terminator Ancient. This just barely beats out the Norn's 15 OC on its chosen objective. With that in mind, I paid the CP to 3.1" deep strike one of my Librarian units onto the center objective and take it from the Norn, who was on the other side of the tall tower. The GMNDK and one Librarian unit I sent down south to clean up some of the Termagaunts and block the Malaceptor, while the other Librarian unit that was sitting on the top left objective moved out of cover enough to be able to Vortex and shoot into the Hormagaunts and Gargoyles. Since I had no choice but to bring Draigo in this turn, I just plopped him down in my DZ with a 6" charge into the Gargoyle unit. I again used the Callidus and Vindicare to screen out my DZ against the waiting Mawloc and Ripper swarm.

The GMNDK cleaned up a ton of Termagaunts with his incinerator and put some random wounds on the Malaceptor with his psycannon, but didn't hit any charge. The Librarians did good work, dropping Vortex mortals into the Malaceptor, Gargoyles, and Hormagaunts, and random shooting cleaned up the Gaunts. I abstained from firing Draigo's unit because I wanted the charge into the Gargoyles to a) clean them up and b) get Draigo's unit that much closer to the center to threaten the Norn. He made his charge and wiped the rest of the Gargoyles and the Winged Prime.

On my opponent's turn he pulled Deploy Teleport Homers and Assassination. He called Shadows, but I got lucky with my battle shock tests and only flubbed it on the Vindicare. He stayed mostly stationary this turn, since he didn't want to move anything off of the objectives he already controlled. He attempted to deep strike his Ripper swarm into a tiny bubble in my DZ for Homers, but I called an Overwatch with the Callidus and flamed it to death. Between that, and not being able to kill any of my characters this turn, he ended up with 0 VP on secondaries this turn. He brought the Mawloc in and used its ability on arriving from deep strike to put some random mortals on Draigo's unit and the 5-man Librarian unit on the center objective. Draigo actually failed his battle-shock test against that, but my opponent was putting most of his focus into the 5-man Librarian unit on the center objective, who were not battle-shocked and thus were able to use Truesilver Armor and cover to tank a huge amount of shooting with only one model lost. He also tried to shoot my GMNDK, but I popped Sigil of Exigence and stuck it in the bottom right corner behind obscuring terrain, setting it up for a charge onto the bottom right objective on my next turn.

At the end of his turn I scored Defend Stronghold, picked up my Librarian off of the center objective, Draigo's unit, the Librarian on the bottom flank, and the Callidus. For my next turn I drew Investigate Signals and Engage on All Fronts and stood some Terminators back up.

His DZ was still screened to hell and back even against 3.1" deep strike, so I resigned myself to 3 table corners for Engage and Investigate. I put the Callidus in the top left corner, Draigo's unit in the bottom left, and a 5-man Librarian unit in the bottom right, where they could Investigate but the Librarian could still drop Vortex mortals on the Malaceptor. The top left Librarian unit started burning that objective - a risk on my part, hoping I could clinch the bottom right objective before my next command phase. The final 5-man Librarian unit went to the bottom flank, but within Vortex range of the Mawloc. Those two Librarians were able to drop the Mawloc with very lucky Vortex mortals and some shooting, as well as a shieldbreaker round from the Vindicare.

The GMNDK rushed out, killed the last of the Termagaunts, and charged into the Hive Tyrant. The Malaceptor was just inside of Heroic range, however, and made its charge in. A furious melee ensued, with the GMNDK ending up on 2 wounds and failing to kill the Hive Tyrant due to some brilliant saves from my opponent. I still scored 6 on Investigate Signals and 3 on Engage, though, so it wasn't a bad turn.

My opponent proceeded to draw his own Investigate Signals and Extend Battle Lines. Secure was an auto-complete. He judged that the 1 CP from discarding Signals would be more valuable than the 2 VP to be gained from wasting the Exocrine's shooting, since that was the only unit of his anywhere near a table corner. Most of his units remained stationary or shuffled a little bit to get the GMNDK in his sights. However, the dice tell stories, and it survived the entire shooting phase. He called a charge with his one remaining Neurolictor, but I got an astoundingly lucky Overwatch with the GMNDK's incinerator and psycannon and killed it before it could engage. Then, since it was his turn, the GMNDK activated first in the fight phase and dropped the Hive Tyrant. The Malaceptor finally finished it off, but he did such good work that day!

End of his turn I picked up my two Librarians that weren't burning an objective, the Callidus, and Draigo's unit. My final turn I pulled Overwhelming Force and No Prisoners. I quickly analyzed the situation. There were three valid targets for Overwhelming Force: the full-health, FNP 5 , more-wounds-than-God Norn, the unit of Barbgaunts that had spent the entire game sitting on their home objective, and the Malaceptor, who was looking a little ragged after taking a bunch of random Vortex mortals and shooting. I dropped the Callidus 9" away from the Barbgaunts into my opponent's DZ, put one Librarian squad and Draigo's unit 9" away from the Malaceptor, and paid the CP to 3.1" deep strike my other Librarian squad into the center of the board where they could Vortex either the Barbgaunts or the Malaceptor. I moved the Vindicare to be able to see the Malaceptor, but then he failed to wound. The poor man didn't have a ton of useful stuff to do this game.

From there, the dice fell more or less exactly as I needed them to. The Callidus picked up two of the Gaunts, the shooting from the center Librarian picked up two more, and then the Librarian blew up the last one with Vortex. On the bottom of the map, the Librarian put more mortals on the Malaceptor, and then both he *and* Draigo nailed their 9" charges into it and put it down, giving me 5 on Overwhelming Force and 4 on No Prisoners.

My opponent pulled Area Denial, which was an auto-complete by the Norn, and another secondary that for the life of me I cannot remember but that he did not or could not score. We had some token shooting but nothing decisive or impactful.

After an absolute barn-burner of a game we tallied up the scores and found that I had won by a very narrow margin. If my opponent had pulled some better secondaries it very well could have gone the other way.

Win 81-70

Final Thoughts

I am by no means the Best Player In The World but after an RTT with GK where I went 2-1 and now this series of games I feel pretty confident with them. Their shooting is poor as hell but Librarians are an absolute God-tier unit, and having built-in Apothecaries in Terminator squads is incredibly powerful. Considering that Paladins cost 15 points more per squad for 2 extra mediocre weapons and BS/WS 2, and do not get apothecaries or lethal hits on the charge, I really do feel that they don't bring enough value for the additional cost and are overall less durable even with the -1 to wound. I stood so many Terminators back up across all the rounds of my games, it's not even funny.

Draigo remains a linchpin unit for me. A 6" charge out of deep strike with a 1 CP reroll is astoundingly consistent and the unit will absolutely crush many targets under the weight of 40 S6 AP -2 DMG 2 attacks hitting on 3s with Lethals on the charge. That's also before you get to Draigo himself, whose profile is not outstanding but is still very respectable at 6 S8 AP -4 DMG 3 attacks on 2s with Lethals from his buddies.

The general consensus seems to be that the GMNDK is overcosted for what he brings, but I am going to respectfully disagree. His shooting is not great (the heavy incinerator is OK and did great work against the Fenrisian Wolves and Termagaunts, of course), but his melee into vehicles and monsters is genuinely good. Hitting on 4s with the daemon hammer sucks, but the rerolls to hits, wounds, and damage means that you are consistently getting 3 AP -3 DMG d6 1 attacks through to the save, and this is usually after you Tank Shock with 16 dice, which I have found often hits the cap of 6 mortals. Finally, sticking the Sigil of Exigence on him means you can play him quite aggressively, move-blocking or threatening an entire flank, and if he gets shot at by something real you can teleport him away into a safe position that hopefully sets him up for an easy charge on the next turn, like a free Rapid Ingress. Yes, he's a little squishy, but a 2 4 T8 W13 model doesn't exactly die to a stiff breeze. It's about positioning and judging the correct time to try to trade up.

The Strike Squad is 5 idiots with sticky objectives, they do exactly what they're supposed to do and die for VP.

The Callidus is an incredible mission piece and remains an auto-include in most Imperium lists for a reason.

The Vindicare was not able to shine as much today, but there were a few clutch moments like removing the Fights First from the 10-man unit of Plague Marines. He is probably going to remain in most of my lists because he is relatively cheap, Lone Operative is good, it's very nice to have a piece you can just leave in your DZ all day to screen it out, and he is genuinely threatening to many lower-wound characters, and the psychology of that is often useful. (He also one-shotted three Coldstar Commanders in my last RTT with some lucky dice, which is anecdotal as hell, but I love him for that.)

In future more casual games I want to assemble and paint up my Castellan Crowe and 10-man purifier squad, and I may bring Paladins again and swap the Strikes for Interceptors. I also want to get a Land Raider Redeemer. None of these are what I personally feel are the Most Competitive Choices (though Crowe and Purifiers is very strong into infantry, we do not need help killing them), but I definitely want to play around and have fun trying experimental stuff. For RTTs, though, I think this is definitely the list I'm bringing.

If you have actually read this entire monster, thank you so much, and I hope you enjoyed it!