Hello all, Jason here to talk about my experience at the Broadside Bash this past weekend and go over my results as well as my thoughts on the current Warhammer 40k tournament meta.
As you’ve already read with Pablo and Reece’s write ups, the Broadside Bash was a blast and broke attendance records for the number of Warhammer 40k players due to the adoption of the ITC format as well as the chance at a mini vacation in sunny San Diego for those attending from out of town. I went into the event with variation of my Adepticon Astra Militarum/Champions of Fenris/Inquisition army that was scaled up to 2000 pts. Though I did not go into the event with any high hopes of actually winning the thing, I do believe the list is competitive enough to hang with some of the other mid-power level armies and perhaps get lucky against the real alpha level lists. My list is below for those of you who are curious about what I ran.
Astra Militarum CAD
Company Command Squad – Lascannon, Kurov’s Aquila
Ministorum Priest
Platoon Command Squad – Lascannon
3x Infantry Squads – Melta Bombs
2x Heavy Weapon Squads – Autocannons
Veteran Squad – 3x Grenade Launchers
Vulture
2x Wyvern (Separate Units)
Stormlord
Void Shield Generator
Champions of Fenris
Rune Priest – Level 2
2x Servitors (my elite tax)
5x Thunderwolf Cavalry – 5x Storm Shields 2x Power Fists
Inquisitorial Detachment
Ordo Xenos Inquisitor – 3x Servo Skulls, Psychotrope Grenades
As you can see, nothing too crazy with the main gimmick of the list the Company Commander giving preferred enemy to the occupents of the Stormlord, the Stormlord, and any Astra Militarum units within 6″ of the Stormlord due to the Kurov’s Aquila wargear item. If I got lucky the Rune Priest would also Prescience the tank making it much more effective than it’s usual BS3. Let’s recap the games!
Day 1 Game 1 – Khorne Daemonkin with Daemon Allies
I played a fun game against a member of the team Rage Quit Table Flip, a team known for their hard drinking and even harder manhoods. He had one of those fancy new exalted flamer units with a herald and 10 Flamers that would be deep striking with their crazy shooting abilities. OUCH. Luckily for me I drew the first turn which gave me two turns of shooting his units before the uber Flamer unit came in and was able to kill a couple units of his dog units and whittle down his Khorne Lord and Fleshhound unit down enough for my Thunderwolf Cavalry to charge in and finish them off. When the Flamer unit did come down it had lost most of it’s support and though it did manage to blow up my VSG I effectively shot him with my entire army including my Vulture that came on the top of 2 and was able to chew threw it’s entire 32 wounds even with Endurance and Cursed Earth cast on them. I was able to table John and scored a first round win against a very fun opponent.
Day 1 Game 2 – Raven Guard Formations with Skyhammer
Round 2 I drew my old adversary Anthony D’Amore from the Left Coast Corsairs and his absolutely brutal Raven Guard drop army, you know the ones that all come down turn 1 and can assault and junk? For good measure he brings a Skyhammer because why not? I was absolutely worried about this game and his ability to deep strike and assault my entire army with power weapons, power fists, and melta bombs (not good for the Stormlord) so I castled up in a corner and gave him first turn since he wouldn’t need to start the game with any units on the board anyways. I made a huge mistake a left a space behind the VSG and the table edge and he dropped right behind it without scatter with a drop pod containing melta guns. Luckily for me he promptly rolled a single hit with his melta guns despite re-rolling for his doctrines and only took a single shield off. This protected me from his drop grav shooting from the Skyhammer and really was the only reason I wasn’t tabled turn 1. When his Vanguard units from the formation dropped and charged my blob squad bubble wrapped around my tanks I rolled the ‘6’ for the Psychotroke grenades which killed off a lot of his own models. Due to that I was able to hold his units up for a turn before the Thunderwolf Cavalry were able to counter charge into them and wipe them out. After that it was just about targeting and eliminating his ranged units with my firepower. This was one of those games that I did not enjoy winning. I won almost entirely on my good luck and Anthony’s bad luck. He was definitely the better general and should have wiped me by turn two. Oh well, a wins a win and I was now in good position for a top table.
Day 1 Game 3 – Daemons and Chaos Space Marines
On game three I drew the eventual winner of the tournament, James. Me and James are friends so even though I knew he had a tough list I looked forward to playing the game. Well, that was before learning of all the tricks his list was capable of. Basically James had a giant Flesh Hound unit with a bunch of Chaos Space Marine Sorcerers on bikes as well as Fateweaver and a Nurgle Daemon Prince. The unit would psychically buff itself to an almost un-woundable level and then just multi charge your whole army and wipe you. Fateweaver and the Daemon Prince run around and remove T3 models somehow through psychic powers and summon more Daemons just in case you are putting up any kind of resistance. I did my best even with seizing the initiative and having an extra round of my considerable firepower blasting his army and James really did try to make it as fun as possible for me but I was tabled by turn 3 and going against this type of list definitely left a sour taste in my mouth.
Day 2 Game 1 – Tau with double Y’vahra and Triptide
Going into day 2 I saw that I was paired with my old friend and nemesis, Nick Card. Me and Nick have played each other in almost every tournament we’ve both attended and I looked forward to the challenging game that Nick brings every time. Unfortunately, Nick was not able to make it out for day 2 but I was pleasantly surprised by the jolly fellow who would be my opponent in his stead. My joy turned to dread when I noticed the two Forge World Y’Vahra suits, a Riptide formation, a Stormsurge, and a Buffmander with drone support. OH MYYY. The game actually started off pretty well for me, with a seize roll and a dead Stormsurge due to the Stormlord’s 30 twin linked S6 AP3 shots (Prescienced). It just went downhill from that point. The VSG was taken out on the bottom of turn 1 and unfortunately for me I did not get a single shield back online before the Y’vahra’s that jumped into ongoing reserves turn 1 game back in on turn 2 and double flamed and blasted most of my army off the board. I did my best to play to the mission but against so much armor 2 and overwhelming firepower and my own diminishing forces I was wiped off the face of the board.
Day 2 Game 2 – Fenrisian Wolf Star with Wolf Librarian Formation
Going into the last game for the tournament I was determined to finish the event with a winning record, 3-2. My hopes for this faded as I saw I was matched up with Chris Cole and his 85 model unit of Fenrisian Wolves, Space Wolves Librarians and Chaplains on bikes, and Azrael to give the whole thing a 4+ invulnerable save and 5+ Feel No Pain. YIKES. Chris graciously gave me the first turn (though he was seizing on a 4+ due to Azrael’s special rule and the Stormlord giving him a +1) and I was able to start whittling away at the giant unkillable unit and though I did my best I wasn’t able to kill enough before the multi-charge started and I started taking units off the board. DAMN SON.
So there you have it, I ended with a gentlemanly 2-3 final score and though I did not have a bad game throughout the tournament in terms of my opponents I was very disillusioned by the types of lists that I had to play against. At some point the tournament system has turned into an escalating ‘how can I make this unit invincible’ and the sheer amount of lists that effectively take your opponents out of the game. The mentality that I am seeing now is the same as Magic Card players where you try to create a combinations that your opponent cannot counter. The difference between doing that in a Magic game and a 40k game is that the Magic game will be over in a couple minutes where the 40k game will slog on for 2+ hours of frustration and mounting disillusionment when facing these types of lists. I understand the desire to win and to win by taking these types of lists but I don’t feel they are healthy for survival of the tournament environment.
Well that’s it, thanks for reading and beware those invincible deathstars!
Conclaves need to go
Rerollable 2+ saves and invis nerfs help reduce Death Stars however it’s obviously not enough.
I think the new faqs do a decent job at cutting down on conclaves and chaos demons somewhat.
Being limited by Mastery level on the number of spells you can cast and not allowing the same unit to cast the same spell or for things like curse earth no longer stacking. Helps reduce these types of Death Stars.
Formations no longer sharing rules (I know ITC never allowed but some tournaments did) also reduce this issue.
I think the faqs will do a good job shaking up the meta.
With the ITC quarterly changes in June I foresee the ITC fixing a few of the new issues the faq brings out.
Overall I think the faq is a good meta shakeup.
You also have nerfs to fmc and gargantuans toe in cover and I don’t think people realize how big a nerf forcing gargantuans call out all thier range targets before they are resolved will be. They are going to end up with a lot of wasted shots or not allocating enough shots to other units to wipe them out. There are a ton of changes that will cut down a lot of the above lists you faced.
We already limited conclaves and such to mastery level in the ITC, so for us, that was already the case.
But yeah, I like most of the changes, honestly.
Most the changes are positive but it’s a faq, which are slight changes but don’t address core issues with the game of making mathematically unkillable units with little risk. Also hurts one of the major counters of running the cullexus took a huge hit. But if you can’t beat them join them I guess
Just wondering what do you think is the core issues?
Nearly all the lists the above poster lost to are different.
Fmc and summon spam.
Gmc and mc spam
space wolf thunder hammer deathstar.
Most of the above was nerfed in some way in the faqs.
I agree slight changes.
The ITC further chips away at 2+ reroll and invis shenanigans.
The ITC has its June quarterly vote coming up so if you see an issue with the game After the faqs are all out then we can vote to adjust it.
Right now without further clarification I can see the ITC voting to allow.
Detachments from the same codex or supplement for that codex being allowed to embark on each other’s transports during deployment as if they are the same detachment.
I think this is the intention of the rules team it’s just unclear at the moment.
The combinations are a bit ridiculous. I kind of miss things being more tactical and strategic… Nowadays the game is practically over before you roll the dice
I do miss the days when a twin linked S8 AP4 Autocannon was an atrocity.
Wow no mention that he played the list illegally?
How is that list Illegal now?
Oh you mean the Daemon list? Yeah thats probably illegal unless he had small KDK-detachment where he took those Flesh Hounds from.
No he would exchange the gift for the book and have 2 artifacts on 1 character
lol salt
Yesh lad
He is the saltiest of sailors, but who is to blame him nothing is more soul crushing launching 60 attacks and dealing 3 wounds over 3 hours
try warmachine its better than 40k lol
Why are you here! lol
Shoo
What was in that daemon list specifically?
He is the one that won the tournament. It was a gigantic Flesh Hound unit with the CSM Librarian Conclave, Fateweaver, and a Nurgle Deamon Prince. He had a couple wiener deamon units that deepstrike in and then summon, etc.
That jolly Tau player from day 2, game 1, is Alexander Villagra, my teammate from West Coast Arsenal…. We don’t mess around, bruh. When he told us he beat you, I said, the rawdogger just got rawdogged.
I feel like a big fix that could be done is to downgrade all battle bros to allies of convenience? That would stop a lot of the IC’s from several armies joining together to stack a ton of special rules.
Considering they just got rid of battle brother transports and IC special rule sharing from units I think a bit of it was cut down in the faq.
I still want to see how all the final faqs turn out but it’s a decent amount of cutting down on Death Stars.
Yeah, a Revised, toned down battle bro chart would fix most of the min/maxing combos as well as helping to get some Strategy and fluff back
There is no small micro adjusment or FAQ who can fix this. The big problem is that 40k from the designers from the start are not suitable for hard core competitive tournament play.
If you want that go play warmahordes.
Warmahordes is nearly as bad. Hence all the warmahordes undetectable list threads and underdog threads.