Warhounds 2 Warmasters

Warhounds2Warmasters Training Sessions (aka the AT Jay-cademy)

A year has passed and I’ve slowly gotten used to accepting my place within the AT community – I’ve done well at a number of events and have a decent number of trophies at this point. I still feel there are several ‘better’ players around that I have done well against purely through luck or having a list on the day that was favourable vs the opposition. Which is fine – I’m now familiar enough with most maniples and Legios to be capable in any game I play and I’m certainly familiar with a host of some of the more… spicy combinations.

So, Beachhead 2025 is upon us and this is a different beast entirely to the 2024 competition that saw Alex, Simon and I take first place.

This year the competition has no team element, it’s a free-for-all and is set in the Dawn of Heresy era: no Psi Titans, Vortex Payloads, Corruptions or Warmaster Titans. The Battlegroup size has also increased to 1950 which is an odd points level – but I suppose it means Maximal Fire can maintain they don’t run 2k events 😊.

It was probably around October 2024 that I decided that I didn’t want to ruthlessly drill games with an S Tier list with a narrow and stressful focus on wanting to manage 1st place again. I didn’t want to approach this Beachhead with the same aim as last year – to arrive with a dick-kicking list and try to place as high as possible.

This year, I wanted to find a balance. I wanted to find a strong list that would do well, reward good play and with a little luck see me into the top half of the placements. Further than this thought, I also wanted to help others to get in some practice, hone their lists, their play and to have them be able to step into Beachhead and hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls and mistakes that can often take place on the tournament scene. If they could arrive without the anxiety of an untested list and a little less hindered by analysis paralysis – which invariably comes from jumping through so many mental hoops in a short space of time – then I’d be satisfied.

Support to other players has ranged from sharing list-building theory, one-on-one list-building feedback, practice games and a couple of weekends where my house was converted into an Adeptus Titanicus gymnasium where we played and talked and played some more with a variety of lists.

I’ve watched lists evolve and players learn new tricks and it’s been an absolute pleasure. We’ve covered marrying up objectives to deployments and/or an opposing forces composition, stratagems and when to use them and when to save them. We’ve gone over targeting and activation priorities and various uses for/against squadrons. It’s been a couple of months of deep, deep AT-think and I’ve enjoyed it immensely.

To those that came by to the house, met up with me at a club or have spent time with me on their Beachhead prep in DMs or on my Warhounds2Warmasters discord: Thank you.

Thank you for the conversations and in helping to create an environment where one nerd’s obsession with tiny, stompy robots became the baseline environment for just a little while.

What did I settle on? I’ve written a separate article for my Legio Damicium project. Playtesting left me unhappy with the initial weapons loadout and so a last-minute revision has seen that list now sporting Graviton Ruinators. Three of them. A distinctly off-meta weapon but I don’t care. They look great and I think I can leverage them using a Damicium Extergimus to good effect. We shall see.

For anyone in any doubt that I am a man of my word and have indeed tempered my list, I’ll share a few of the Spicier lists that I discounted on the basis of not wanting to be ‘THAT guy’:

Extergimus Maniple: Crusade Legio with Tracking Gyros, Diabatic Missiles, Opening Salvo and Towering Exemplar

Double Minimum Corsair Maniples: Crusade Legio with Blind Missiles, Noble Lineage, Elite Magos and Marked for Death

Extergimus Maniple with 2 Support Warhounds: Legio Tempestus aka Combat Dropping Objective play

Double Reaver Extergimus Maniple: Gryphonicus

Regia Maniple: Krytos

As it stands, the lists are now submitted and aside from a few last minute painting tasks all that remains is for us to travel down to Bournemouth and begin what is the largest (so far) Adeptus Titanicus tournament on the planet.