Try Hard Week 4 Round Up with A Sprinkling of Casual

Three of the four games this week have been played (Harry selfishly prioritised wedding and honeymoon) and I have had my first three outings with the Custodes Codex, exciting and devastating times for everyone.

Harry and Leo will catch up later and I will dedicate three weeks of research and background checks to really deep dive on it.

Also because I forgot to do any of this writing at the weekend I also have a Casual League write up at the bottom (as that is where it deserves to be).

Gary V Sam – CK/Custodes – The Ritual

Fucking Ritual – I chose the missions and have a strong resentment at Past-Sam for thinking this makes a good choice. If you are going to run a league at least sneak in missions that aren’t actively terrible for you!

For those that don’t know I changed my list, post Codex, to lean heavily into a double brick of Venatari. This allows me to take advantage of an enhancement to redploy or reserve them both after T1 is rolled as well as their free rapid ingress. It is a very smooth brained approach but I am a smooth brained man. It hits real hard. However this means 800 points are tied up in two units that now die much easier than they used to if you don’t actually make a key charge….

I got T1 against Gary, which is not great for me but hey, I get to run directly at his face, make two important charges, kill a couple of Dogs with Caladii and see what happens. I can’t really hang back against CK as they are faster than me so it feels like it will be a quick game whatever happens.

I believe I kill 1 dog with a Caladius and made a sad charge with Venatari into one more, killing it. Missing a charge with the other brick and sitting in NML with their golden dicks in hand.Gary thought about deploying the Lancer on the line but made the more strategic, and cowardly, choice to play it safer. I think the odds of me killing the Lancer T1 were reasonably good if he had deployed aggressively and could have been game changing, as it would cause me no end of headaches throughout.

Not having 4+++ vs mortals was brutal here – the Lancer having Tank Shock for free every charge and being able to use it again elsewhere meant I was CP starved trying to keep guys alive and unable to interrupt. I basically melted wherever I was charged. In hindsight I should have allowed the melting and saved the CP for Interrupt so lesson learned.

I missed quite a lot of charges in the game but even if I hadn’t I believe Gary would have played differently enough to secure the win. I blame the Codex obviously.

Three games into this list and three losses – I have made a huge mistake with this list for the rest of the league games but it is teaching me things.

Gary is obviously a cunt but we could have wrapped this game in an hour and instead had a lovely long flirt. Would play again.

Ben V Rob – GK/Admech

Master Benjamin continued the long tradition of GK’s scoring max primary and still losing. Well done sir. Unfortunately Rob also scored max secondary but had the bodies to maximise The Ritual fare more efficiently than Ben.

A tough mission for a small, elite army versus a large garbage one and I think it helped put the nails in the coffin for Ben’s love affair for the knights in silver.

Rob had also visibly contracted AIDS by this point so, while we will miss him and his Tau, it is a damning indictment on Ben that he couldn’t take advantage of his opponent in a weakened state.

Chris V Tony – Guard/Necrons

I fully expected a Tony victory here, due to the nature of the mission and a passionate desire to see Chris defeated.

Turns out not only did Chris smash the Necron forces but actually bullied Tony out of the hobby and league completely due to the slaughter. Powerful stuff.

Somehow Chris managed to make me and Ben look like fools, a small, tough, elite army smashing both Primary and Secondary. I doff my cap to you sir, begrudgingly.

CASUAL LEAGUE ROUND UP

Andy V Phil – Ultras/CSM – Supply Drop

Andy told me of visceral reaction to not only outing our special relationship but also backing Phil to win here. He didn’t sleep for three nights, plotting Phil’s downfall with a perfectly calculated plan. The branching possibilities were all covered and executing the massacre would be merely a technicality. Then he deployed in the total wrong part of the board for the disappearing objectives of Supply Drop.

Phil was chasing the top dogs in the league and was a perfect gentleman, allowing Andy to deploy like a backwards-man. Gently reminded that he was holding the wrong objective T3 Andy was paralysed with fear and indecision. All was not lost however. I winked at Andy from across the room and this instilled a calmness in him not unlike the state of nirvana.

Now fuelled by the passion of a lover and the rage of jilted wife Andy consulted the Codex Astartes and tabled Phil, pulling victory from the jaws of defeat!