Warhounds 2 Warmasters

A Twisted Tale of the biggest UK AT event of the Year

Having realised early on that we had more interest within Twisted Titanicus than there were places on the 3 man teams allowed, we had made the decision to run two teams: one captained by our fearless leader Jim and one to suffer under the tyranny of me. Poor sods.

My regular weekly opponent Alex was drawn into the fold and community favourite Simon aka ‘Badger’ also joined the party. We were now gathered and would indeed be venturing forth.This year did not have any restrictions on Allegiance, so we were free to run our lists Loyalist or Traitor.

I had originally settled on a very gamey list I played at some of the more competitive events last year. Then I had a wobble. Then I settled on a new list. Then I had another wobble. I eventually settled on a list that I would need to make and paint three titans for. In less than a week. Awesome.I finished painting two nights before we were due to head down – which barely even counts as a rushed job, by my estimations. Alex and I played a final test game to fine-tune his own list (a terrifying Traitor Astorum double Ferrox) and then it was time to pack the car and set off for sunny Bournemouth. Spoiler: it was not sunny. But it was Bournemouth.

Having travelled down the day before with Alex and having helped set up tables, a decent chunk of the attendees met up at the 5-Guys for some of the pre-Beachhead festivities. It was good to spend a little time with the community away from the tables and I like to be able to put names (and accents) to faces as it can go a long way to helping me understand where someone might be coming from when chatting on the various fora and discords around the hobby.

We moved on to the local Wetherspoons and chatted some more before Alex and I called it a night, making our way back to the Moroccan-Themed sauna I had ended up securing for our weekend. What followed was an abysmal attempt at sleep, interrupted in part by pre-tournament anxiety but mostly down to the rats in the walls and some enterprising persons loudly selling wares of one type or another that were certainly not legal or sanitary just below the apartment windows.

After coffee and a short walk to the BiC, Alex and I found Simon and as a team got to queuing. After only a short wait, we were allowed in the building and were among the first registered for this year’s Adeptus Titanicus Beachhead tournament. Before I knew it, Mr Peake was runnig through an introduction and then Round 1 was open! I found myself a table and then waited for an opponent to arrive.

Game 1

I felt it best to wait for someone else to join my table and choose to face me as I had taken a very competitive (read as: oppressively powerful headache-inducing – fit to see a table only at the most competitive events) list comprised of a Gryphonicus Ferrox, all Reavers with Sub Motive Reactors, and a Psi Titan. Oh, and a Vortex Missile because Simon recommended it and frankly, if you are running the rest of this list, you can only be damned once so why not?

As it transpired, my first opponent was Emma and her awesome Custom Legio. I enjoy the fact that Emma has spent a decent amount of time figuring out the lore for her Legio and her list and even playstyle reflect that. When Emma explained she had only played 6 or 7 games of AT before this event, I asked if she was sure she wanted to play this table – my list was NOT friendly and I’m certainly not a new player.

With a brilliant composure, Emma said she was sure and we set to the game – I didn’t know if it was bravery or madness, possibly both, but I immediately respected and liked Emma.

I took Salt the Earth – largely because I wanted to get it out of the way – and Glory and Honour as a Secondary. Emma took Seize the Quadrants and Stand Tall.

There were a number of glorious moments in the game: Emma sabotaging my Princeps out of a Charge and a Warhound with C-Beamer that she was able to keep alive through arts mystical and magical – always on the edge of death.

As the last turn rolled around, Emma’s last titan was destroyed and she philosophically reflected that it fit her Legio’s lore as that element of it had been decimated. Anyone that can be tabled 40-0 and still remain that positive AND to have had a genuinely enjoyable game is a huge part of why I love the AT community.

Result: Win 40/0

Game 2

As the draw for game 2 was announced, I was pleased to hear I had drawn Stu. For those that aren’t aware, Stu is largely regarded (for good reason) as the best AT player in the UK (probably the world) with the most competitive event wins and a mind that can take just about any Legio or Maniple and find a way to build a list that not just works, but sings. I’d wanted to play Stu for a long time, but we hadn’t drawn each other at previous events. Stu had an absolutely insane Defensor Extergimus list that, given licence, could throw out 100 Apocalypse Missile shots before the end of Turn 1. Suffice to say I did NOT feel particularly bad about my list with this opponent.

We both took Hold the Line as our Primary – I was fairly comfortable that I could kill his only Warhound and the Warlords were too slow to give much odds of getting to my table edge if I could Quake them for a turn or 2. Stu took Stand Tall and I took Prio Assignment.

The firepower of Stu’s list was insane – I opened with Vox Blackout. Stu played to maximise the generous cover of his deployment. I collided two of his Warlords with an Antipathic Tempest – with little damage done – and followed up with the Vortex Missile that succeeded in disabling one of his Warlord’s carapace missiles.

As the turns moved on, Stu’s canny use of Forward Observers and cover kept his incoming damage manageable but my engines were falling. I eventually managed to get my Princeps into position for him to use his trait, Reckless Maverick, to re-activate and jump into Stu’s deployment and behind one of his Warlords.

As the combat phase began I was able to crippled and then kill the Warlord – 10vp – only for it to take my Princeps down with it! I wouldn’t be denying Stu his Hold the Line it seemed.

Stu eventually finished off my Psi Titan and was left in control of the table with 2 Warlord Titans that were end of track damaged and feeling worse for wear. Was it enough?

Whilst we initially thought we’d played to a draw, when we calculated Stu’s surviving points (half for end of tracked titans) he was below the threshold to score 10 and only managed 5.

Result: Win 35/30

Game 3

To say I went into game 3 in a bit of a daze is an understatement. I drew Gareth and his Laniaskara Ruptura. A Legio and Maniple I am MORE than familiar with, it is one of my favourites to play but only at higher point games.

I took Honour Thy Forebears and Deny Them. Gareth took Hold the Line and Matter of Honour.

The dice were not in Gareth’s favour and once his titans were Quaked into a crawl, I was able to pick them off one by one.

He did take my Princeps down in the immense explosions set off by his Warbringers – denying me 10vp – but the Psi Titan’s enhanced Strength vs his Corrupted titans meant those that weren’t outright killed were crippled.

The smoke settled and Gareth’s titans were all destroyed.

Result: Win 30/0

Day one of Beachhead had started off well and every game had gone according to plan – or at least one of the plans, there is a very real risk of overloading on planning and psyching oneself out – I had 3 ‘plans’ for each scheduled game, based on what type of list I might face. This had initially seemed overkill but the amount of preparation no longer felt excessive or wasted, it was paying off.

After the success of Day 1 (and the Victory Pints after each game) we took some time away from the tables to grab some food and a few beers with lots of folk within the community. Tales were told and new words were learned and a good time was had by all – I really enjoy putting faces to discord handles and getting to spend a little time with a whole group of folk that share the hobby-love.

After arguably a few too many spicy vimto, we repaired to the sweat-box for some well earned rest. After such a busy day and a few drinks, sleep was much more forthcoming this time!

Day 2

After arriving at the BIC and getting some food down ourselves, we eagerly/nervously milled about as we waited to hear the penultimate game draws. Very few players (five, in point of fact) at this point had won 3 straight games, which meant that at least one of Twisted Spear would be playing someone that had lost 1 of their Matches the previous day. My money on the top scoring person from that group was on Stu – I didn’t fancy my odds against his list a second time.

As the draws came through – I found myself genuinely concerned as I had come up against a favourite opponent of mine, James. His Interfector had spent the previous day tearing apart some very competitive lists and I was all to aware of the potential here as James had spent some time detailing it for me at an event last year, in which we had agreed to one day pit my Legio Vulpa vs his Legio Interfector to determine the top Melee list (in our opinions).

Game 4

I knew that this game was going to be a steam-roll, but I didn’t know in which direction, and so I used the easiest objective I could reliably secure: Push Forwards. I balanced this out with one of the harder to maximise secondaries, Engage and Destroy. I figured I was going big or going home at this point. James took (I think) Asset Protection and Deny Them.

As we each setup our forces, I was exceptionally careful about ensuring my Line of Sight limited James’ deployment options for his Direwolf. An Interfector Dire-Bomb is much more trouble than a regular Dire-Bomb as it can cause all kinds of issues for taking orders once within 8 inches, not to mention it being stacked with corrupted to make it a melee monster AND significant problem for my Psi Titan. I split my forces between the deployment zones and hoped that I had gotten my signt lines correct.

Turn 1 opened as expected – James burned Warp Displacement to get his Direwolf into a charging position and then launched him at my Reaver titan. The Dark Gods were either focussed elsewhere or James had not been generous enough in his sacrifices before the game, fully half of his attacks whiffed and, whilst damaged, the Reaver survived.

I activated the Psi Titan and dropped Antipathic Tempest between 2 of James’ Warhounds, doing little material damage but Quaking both. As James advanced with his combat Reavers on the other flank, I moved the damaged Reaver behind the Direwolf and prepared to inspect Daemonic Prostate with the less-than-dextrous ChainFist.

The rest of the movement was positional – as we moved into the Combat Phase, I just had to hold out hope that I could hold my voids up with the Princeps and Vortex Reaver facing off against James’ Reavers. I took a lot of shots but my voids held. In response, the Sinistramus Tenebrae reached out to caress the flank of James’ Reaver that had moved forward and into the open within arc. 3 Str10 shots automatically hitting into side arc with a further +2Str against Corrupted Titans left little doubt as to the Reavers future. He was left with 2 critical to his body and almost end of track on his structure. As his void shield generator flickered and failed, a Quake Shell sped in and added to the damage. As the Reaver struggled to stand, a swarm of Apocalypse Missiles begin to land unerringly on the body, pushing the Reaver passed it’s endurance and tipping that flank heavily in my favour. Back on the flank with the Psi Titan and the would-be-Proctologist Reaver, a large number of hits were made to the Direwolf’s body and he proceeded to collide into his killer and then fall into him, taking him down into death in the end.

Turn 2 saw James’ remaining Reaver dispatched by my Princeps charge – made possible through Reckless Maverick. My Vortex Reaver moved up and took aim at the Warhound threatening my damaged Reaver and Psi Titan – removing him in the Combat phase with the Vortex payload and freeing my entire lineup to begin moving up-table and mop up James’ titans.

As we moved through the turns and James continued to claw at my Titans whilst minimising his own damage, it became clear that he might be able to still score decent points. As the final round finished, 1 heavily damaged Warhound remained and he was closer to the objectives than my Reavers.

Final Score: 40/31

Coming away from that game, I began to pay VERY close attention to Alex’s game. If I understood the current table correctly, there was a very good chance I knew whom I would be playing next and they were not an opponent to take lightly.

When the draws came in, I was not too surprised to find myself matched with Janne of Empyrean Union. This was the team that I had pegged to win this year and I was absolutely blown away that we would be trading blows on the top table.

Game 5

Meeting Janne for the first time, the first thing I noticed – aside from the most glorious beard in the AT community – is the level of consideration and confidence in his choices. Janne understands AT in a very complete sense. After 4 games played, Janne had only lost 4 engines over the weekend and with 2 wins against my teammates across the Twisted teams to his name, this was going to be an exceptionally difficult game.

The Legio Damicium Regia maniple I was facing was a very tough proposition. The list contained none of the corruptions one might expect – which meant the Psi powers wouldn’t be experiencing a boost as they had in Game 3 – but every engine instead did have the wargear ‘Secondary Plating’ which would down-grade the first Critical Hit received to a Devastating Hit instead. This was going to lend each engine a Hail Mary against the Psi Titan as it effectively meant the Sinistramus couldn’t kill a Warhound in a single shot.

Janne took Hold the Line and a secondary I cannot recall – the game was that intense – and I took Asset Protection and the secondary where I chose 2 targets (Jannes two Warlords) that had to be killed by my specific engines, my Princeps and Psi.

At this point, I’d like to caveat that it was a VERY busy weekend with 4 games if AT behind me, more pints than I would like to admit to and a great deal of socialising – I was, frankly, exhausted. Mistakes were made.

Janne is a stickler for certain elements of the game – of which I approve – and so we rolled off and then chose which table edge to deploy from. This is a nicety that in honesty has never been observed in any game of AT that I have played at a tournament. As we deployed according to Strengthened Flank, I was grateful for the lower levels of cover on this table than I’d seen most of the weekend.

Turn 1 opened as most games involving a Psi Titan that hasn’t been Concealment Barraged – I dropped Antipathic Tempest amongst Janne’s tightly packed, advancing Warlord and attendant Hounds that were set on my Psi Titan. Quaked, Concussed and Collided – a recipe of madness. No catastrophic damage, which is unusual for Warhound bumping into Warlords, but the generalised feeling was ‘ouch’.

Moving through the phases, Janne stripped shields and started to track damage on my Vortex Reaver and I cored out the body of one of his Hounds with the Sinistramus – but as he was within 3 inches of a Warlord and shield-sharing, I was unable to finish him off. I finished the combat phase with dropping the Vortex amongst the Quaked cluster of Titans mid-board and hoped that damage would keep racking up.

In the End Phase, I had positioned my Titans to claim each objective and move them all to a point that was inside claiming distance of the Psi Titan – without intervention, he would now be able to sit and shoot all game whilst securing me 25vp IF he survived.

With the Vortex wreaking merry-hell about the mid-board, Janne struck back and destroyed the Vortex Reaver and removed the voids on my Princeps before he could use his Charge move to duck into a Concealment Barrage I had placed in the Strat Phase. As the rest of my Movement activations finished, I reactivated the Princeps using Reckless Maverick and charged into Janne’s Warlord Titan, his target for the objective. I did damage, but nowhere near enough and I was now in an incredibly difficult position – moreso when Janne moved the Warlord I had just repeatedly hit outside of melee range as his final movement.

Janne’s Warlords were at this point hot – one of them redlining – but he managed to roll well and juggled his repairs to keep his engines in the fight and maintain the level of fire he was delivering. My own rolls were fairly abysmal and my Princeps was going to have to rely on fate to survive.

At this point, I made a fairly Big mistake and shot one of Jannes’ Warhounds in the body with the Sinistramus – having confused the Warhound with it’s package- when it was already end of track and 2 criticals on the legs. On this table at this event, this was potentially enough of a mistake to cost me the game – especially when I rolled low and the Warhound survived.

Janne began directing firepower at the Psi Titan but for once I made a series of magnificent Shield rolls and he remained unscathed. My Princeps took fire from a heavily damaged double VMB hound and Janne’s Warloed and though he survived, his body was severely damaged and his reactor was overloading – I was soon to be reduced to 2 Titans on the board.

In the End Phase, Janne’s Warhound that I had lasered the body of but failed to kill took further damage but remarkably survived – denying me breathing room. I moved all of the objectives into a grouping behind the Psi Titan, a dragon’s hoard of objectives that he would fight to the death to keep.

As Turn 3 began, I realised the game was probably about even – I had an undamaged Reaver that was moving up to support my Princeps (and move into Janne’s deployment area to deny him Hold the Line, when the time came). I stepped up attacks, whilst I still had any Titans with which to attack!

I managed to get my Princeps behind Janne’s Warlord – knowing he was almost definitely going to explode in the Damage Control phase – and dropped yet another Antipathic Tempest to keep mobility to a minimum. Whilst the damage was negligible from this attack, it was forcing Janne out of firing arcs regularly and making him commit more and more reactor rolls to boosting for movement and turns – which was keeping the Warlords Orange and slowly adding damage to that location.

In the damage control, my Princeps exploded, taking the damaged double VMB hound with him but barely making a dent in the Warlord he had died trying to destroy. Janne suffered damage to both Warlord’s bodies but continued to endure, I was starting to appreciate the genius of this list and the ways it could survive what no other Regia would.

In the Combat Phase, I had to finish the doubly-damaged Hound before it could activate. The Sinistramus tore through the Warhound and continued into the Warlord behind it – racking up up further damage to the body. Janne directed one Warlord against the Psi – dropping him to a single active Void shield – and tried to destroy my last Reaver with the other, doing an ungodly amount of damage to his legs but not quite finishing him.

As the final turns moved at an accelerated pace, Janne continued to to duel his Warlord with my Psi but his shields held firm. The was unable to secure the kill on the Warlord as it suffered a meltdown in the Damage Control phase. I limped my damaged Reaver out of arc of Janne’s surviving Warlord.

The final turn was quick, I moved my damaged Reaver further up to Janne’s table edge under Full Stride and then, stupidly, set the Psi to finish the remaining Warlord with a Sinistramus shot to the critically damaged head location.

This was stupid as I had confused the 2 Warlords and somehow come to think that this Warlord was the Psi Titan’s target for the secondary (having already failed both elements of that Objective). Killing this Warlord did nothing but risk it destroying my heavily damaged Reaver that was currently in position to deny Janne most of his Primary.

As it was, the Reaver survived the resulting explosion – JUST – and was close enough to Janne’s table edge to drop him to 5vp on his Primary. Whilst I cannot remember his secondaries, it didn’t matter as I had secured 25vp through my Primary and after close to 15 seconds I realised that I had won the game.

Coming away from that table, I was tired and a little shocked. I had come to Beachhead for the first time and I had won 5 of 5 games. I maintain that Psi Titans are too powerful for play below 2000pts games – some community moderation is being discussed, including a wonderful suggestion that they should be treated as a Legio themselves and grant the opponent 2sp, which feels both fluffy and appropriate.

That aside, I had done weeks of playtesting, considered the event pack as to which map warranted which objectives – even so far as to consider which objectives to take vs specific types of lists. We certainly went in with a plan and we certainly practiced but ultimately I had had to throw some of those plans out and play it by ear as soon as I drew Stu in round 2! Coming into Game 4 I had to completely adapt to face James’ Interfector list and I had to do the best I could with the objectives I was left with vs Janne. I played 5 amazing games of Adeptus Titanicus against 5 fantastic opponents – it was an absolutely fantastic weekend and anyone reading it encouraged to attend next year, Maximal Fire outdid themselves with this one.

All that remains is for me to offer a huge thank you to Maximal Fire for hosting (and giving me shiny trophies), my opponents for the games, my amazing teammates across both Sword and Spear and to all the attendees – it was a pleasure to spend time with everyone.

On to the next event!