Hello everyone! Matt over at Dice Check here doing a new series interviewing the pros of Warhammer 40k. From top players of their faction to the heavy hitters, there’s a lot of players out there that people follow to really learn how to play their armies or try to figure out their thought process when it comes to 40k.
We’ll be interviewing other top table players in the future on other various topics, so stay tuned for more insight into the 40k competitive scene.
So without further ado let’s introduce the man, the myth, the legend – coming from the Art of War team: ALEX MACDOUGALL
Introduction: Macdougall ended up placing #135 in the most recent ITC season primarily running Forces of the Hive Mind taking 4th place at the LVO 40k Champs and hitting #1 in the ITC for Forces of the Hive Mind. Being a coach for Art of War to help people learn Tyranids, if you want to know about the bugs Macdougall is your man.
Q: First off, Congratulations on your 4th place finish at LVO. That’s a huge accomplishment and even more so knowing that you’ve only played at 7 events all of last season with 4 of those being RTT’s. What was your mindset like going into LVO and how did you feel making it so far?
A: I definitely was unsure about the whole thing coming into the event. I really hadn’t been to many events at all. And certainly no big ones. I wasn’t sure what level of rust I was going to have going in. I was pretty much relying fully on being extremely familiar with my own rules and seeing how far that could get me. I knew I was coming in with the strongest Forces had ever been at LVO though and my goal was set to at least go 5 and 1.
Q: Let’s get the prologue over with, what brought you into playing 40k and why Tyranids? Did you think you were going to become a respected professional player? Tell us about the man behind the Art of War jersey.
A: I started playing a little over 20 years ago on the recommendation of a friend who just loved sci fi like I did. His sales pitch was essentially “Hey you love Starcraft. Why not play it with models?” So I chose Tyranids because I played Zerg. Pretty simple choice in my mind. The idea of being a pro coach and player is still wild. This kind of stuff just didn’t exist even 5 years ago. Being at the forefront of something this new is very exciting.
Q: I love the bugs, they’re my favorite army in the game and up until the Leviathan and Cusher Stampede updates it was kind of a slog running them. How did you feel when these massive changes to Tyranids came in that brought them more up to speed with what was going on at the time?
A: It took a bit for me to wrap my head around having real rules. Having been a nids player for 2 decades and most of that time Nids not being particularly good it was strange to look at what I had and realize it was better than others. Nids is a toxic relationship at times. Luckily for me the rules in Leviathan allowed me to use some of my favourite units again. Once I had taken it all in it was definitely a sigh of relief to not have to punch up every game.
Q: LVO had a massive showing of Tyranids and so I was super excited seeing that you were attending, what was your reasoning behind taking a more traditional Forces fo the Hive Mind build instead of going for a Crusher Stampede list?
A: It was mostly playstyle. I know a lot of Nid players love the monsters and that’s what drew them into the faction in the first place. For me I’m a horde player. I love tons of bodies and swamping people. My favourite Fantasy army is Skaven. So Crusher didn’t really appeal to me anyway. From a purely gameplay perspective I also just deemed the forced list a stronger overall list. Now after being pushed right to the limit by David Gaylards Stampede I’m not so sure. But it all worked out in the long run.
Q: Major’s are a huge siphon of energy and Forces of the Hive Mind lists traditionally run a lot of models that you have to move around the board and for playing 9 rounds of 40k, do you tend to have a thought process of “can my body and mind survive playing this for 27 hours?” and how do you tackle that?
A: I do not look ahead at the coming pain ha ha. I have been playing 100 plus body armies for almost 4 years now so I am very used to that slog. It absolutely factors into performance though and there really isn’t much you can do about it. Eat as best you can. Try to get good sleep. I was certainly suffering by the shadow round and onward. It’s an extremely detail oriented and mentally taxing army to play.
Q: When coming up with your Tyranids lists, what are your go to’s for figuring out what you want to bring? In the list building process, what questions run through your mind and how do you tackle them?
A: One of the main things when building for Tyranids is to ensure the army can score well on secondaries and primaries. Up until recently there wasn’t really a list that could just blow the opponent up so you won by playing hard for points. Even now Nids biggest weakness is that it’s still not a durable army. So my composition usually meant my units could either do damage from safety (Hive gaurd), be fast enough they could outrange threats, (swarmlord double move or advance and shoot devourer gaunts) or do damage from reliable deepstrike. The rest of the list is usually the bare minimum to accomplish the missions
Q: The new GT missions are now out. With not being able to soup subfactions like Leviathan and Kronos, missions being changed, point hikes for Tyranids and lack of mission secondaries, how are the bugs looking to you right now?
A: Luckily the list is almost untouched. The units I had been using before for ROD and engage still work as 5 acolyte units still count for all those things. My lists had already only had 2 detachments with how valuable CP are for the army and that means the sub faction lock isn’t an issue either. So the list largely stays the same while other armies took a hit. So other than understanding what I’m supposed to do to beat Tau it’s looking pretty rosy for the bugs still.
Q: The new Genestealer Codex is a banger, how much did it change up the way you’re running Forces of the Hive Mind now? I saw that you went more heavy into the GSC codex and dropped Genestealers from the Tyranids patrol detachments. Could you shed some light on why?
A: Essentially GSC gave me all the combat I could ever need with a much more modern datasheet set. Clearly purestrains are a massive cut above regular Genestealer for a single point more. And GSC also gave them the tools to have the speed I needed without having to pay 240 for swarmlord. Pre game move and 3d6 out of Deepstrike being 2 15 point upgrades is definitely a discount. It really is just a case of having a book designed with ninth in mind as the old 8th GSC book had stratagems and rules that really only made sense in 8th edition when we had access to 18+ CP a game l.
Q: Alright Alex, I don’t want to keep you here for too long so how about you give us a nice plug on where people can find you all over the internet?
A: You can find me all over the internet for 40k competitive things where I will always try to be positive and supportive. Specifically though you can find me as a coach for The Art of War 40k where you can get all your coaching needs. I will once again be on Play On Tabletop this year running whatever I think is the slickest Forces list at the time and also the newly named Best In Tabletop Network Discord.
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