Try Hard Week 5 Pre Match Commentary

I have been remiss in not providing my usual scathing assessment of my fellows chances and, for that, I am eternally apologetic. I know my scribing is all that keeps some of you going in those dark and lonely nights. I shall not fail you again.

This week the mission is nice and simple – Take and Hold with sticky objectives. Benefits to armies with more units on the table but not a big one.

Also more “incredible” AI art.

Let’s get to it!

Chris Vs Harry – Guard/Tsons

Harry and Chris have already played this match up, with similar lists, and it was a close victory for the massed armour of the Imperial Guard. Can Harry learn from his mistakes? Can he keep Magnus alive? Can he make Chris cry, turning off 2+ armour saves and killings Dorn’s with S4 flamers? No, No and Yes.

I honestly haven’t seen Harry pilot his Tsons so I mostly just imagine him giggling and pushing Magnus in people’s faces, while pinging off Doombolts and then getting sad as he slowly dies in response. I apologise if that isn’t accurate Harry but it brings me joy so I don’t plan on modifying that imagery.

Without any indirect fire, post list change, I think this actually favours Harry, if he can play a precise, focus fire, based game.

Chris has dropped an Enginseer so the Stormsword has no 4++ and being able to turn off the saves on that bad boy, or just doombolt it, might be tempting. But that will likely leave Harry open to savage reprisal, which Tsons can’t afford. Alternatively if he can take out the Tank Commanders that mitigates Chris’ output significantly. Tsons piloting takes careful, precise target priority and play.

Harry is also bringing a Brigand, which makes me want to vomit, based on the lovely Tsons synchronicity, and for that reason alone I am backing Chris to win 70-60.

Sam Vs Ben – Custodes/GK

So my list is, to steal a word from Gary, regarded.

I think I can make a workable Custodes list but this is not it. And it is entirely my fault for trying to most unsubtle, dumb way to play. I will pay that debt in full.

To combat my limited list capabilities Ben has assisted by no longer caring for his lovely, teleporting silver boys and I feel his motivation for victory might be lacking.

While I can dance around stickying things with my Venatari bricks he can also dance around, but better, doing the same thing, with any of his units.

His Librarians can now to very dirty things to my Banana Boys – something they have largely been immune to so far this edition, and it will be very difficult to screen that out. I have been brought low, to the level every other pleb, and have to manage that….by murder.

Murder is always the answer right? Just kill his stuff before it kills me.Ben also has a very low unit count and my Venatari can reliably delete anything except the Paladin brick. Although I have just noticed there is no Voldus in there anymore so he will be relying on Mists to keep them safe. Fucking Mists.

Some quick napkin math suggests, even on my Golden Waaagh turn, a brick of Venatari only kills 5/6 Paladins on the (9″) charge. My conclusion from this is that I therefore use both bricks and nothing can go wrong.

I will have to tempt Mists out to force the Paladins to fuck off and kill something else, is my guess. Hope for Draigo to fuck up a 5″ charge and then smack him and the Librarians in the face. Problem solved.

I have a bad record into Ben so I will likely slip him some GHB and barely get the win 85-80.

Leo Vs Gary – CSM/CK

Leo has methodically crafted his list to achieve something beautiful – the point and delete. 3 Forgefiends, 2 Predators, 1 Vindicator and 3 units of full Lascannon Havocs. All with access to easy sustained/lethals. Ouch.

My guess is he can reliably kill five wardogs a turn, if they can see them of course, which is more than enough to pass the stat check of Gary’s army. However if Gary can get his Karnivores and Lancer into Leo’s line it could all fall apart quickly. The counter to that counter is Leo’s Warp Talons nipping around scoring secondaries.

I feel like Leo’s list is basically the hard counter to Gary’s but Gary is extremely well practiced with his list so I wouldn’t count him out. If I was running Leo’s force I would accept dropping behind on Primary for two turns, keep the Warp Talons, Legionaries and Plague Bearers safe, to reclaim stickied objectives, and focus on spilling the blood of the tainted walkers, catching up later.

Leo will suffer getting double charged quite a lot in this game and his Havocs are extremely fragile against the Wardogs so positioning will be key.

My heart says Leo and my head says Gary. I’m going to go mental and bet on Leo’s first League victory. If this happens we will obviously have to riot. And by riot I mean take the rubber protectors off the chairs at Legion.

Luke Vs Rob – Votann/Admech

This is an odd one – I don’t think Rob has much in the way of stuff that effectively trades into Votann but he does have a lot of it.

Breachers obviously are going to have to do the legwork here but pretty much all off Luke’s army kills them effectively, in response, and then Rob is left with chickens and Skitarii, which will get ground into mechanical dust, slowly but surely.

If Rob can focus on the slowing that grind down he could get the victory, just through sheer OC and mass of bodies, as well as more units to effectively score secondary.

I believe Luke is currently undefeated with Votann so I am going to back our boy from the Try Hards to pull out a bloody victory here – 80-60.