It's been a long time since I've gone to an event quite the size of Games Workshop's U.S. Open Series in Austin this past weekend. As always, I go into the event excited to see all the beautiful armies, familiar faces, and the various attempts at hilarious grim-dark cosplays.
I'm proud to say that I've leveled up substantially since my last attempt to play at an event of this size, so I was ready to rumble. Unfortunately, my newfound knowledge comes with a burden. I know that by bringing pure Harlequins and not having the Craftworld's indirect fire that I'm playing this event on hard-mode. It's what I'm more familiar with, and after the Balance Dataslate dumpstered my cheeky Drukhari/Harlequin build, going back to what I know seems safe.
I finish the event 3-2-1
I decided not to play Sunday because I don't particularly care about the ITC season that is about to reset, (and I desperately wanted to see my newborn at home).
I think the biggest test of a budding player in any competitive setting is the ability to look back on your losses and say, "What could I have done better/ Why did I lose?" Instead of covering every single game and gloating about my wins, I find it a little more valuable to walk you through my losses. A common theme that can be traced back to these losses: I'm wildly too nice in gameplay, and it's not my place to play my opponents army for them.
Loss number 1, Round 2, James - Sisters of Battle - Retrieval Mission
There's a mix of bad choices to be had during this round but I want to boil it down to 3 major mistakes.
1. Picking bad Secondaries
My secondary choices were atrocious this round and I punished myself a lot by taking the ones that I had. James was playing a mix of Argent Shroud shooting, backed up by some great Bloody Rose combat forces. This meant that he had the range and the speed to pick the engagements and find me wherever need be. I chose Stranglehold, R.O.D. and Assassinate. I actually like Stranglehold as my pick here since the middle was devoid of terrain so finding and tagging him off a point seemed easy enough. The ones I don't like are Retrieve Octarius Data and Assassinate, both of which force me to overextend. In hindsight I should have chosen Raise the Banners High and To the Last. This would've allowed me to play more on my terms and force my opponent to overextend instead of me having to.
2. Reminding my opponent to Retrieve Octarius Data multiple turns/ produce miracle dice
This is the first instance of my generosity getting the best of me. Most of my gameplay and learning has stemmed from the amazing community and team out of Ettin Games. We always communicate well, play to intent, and remind each other of secondaries and army abilities. While this is great in the local setting or while playtesting, I've come to realize it's terrible in the higher level event setting. While discussing this with some teammates they've assured me that this is still the right way to play and are the right things to do. However, I maintain that it's not with one soul example in mind: "Would you tell your opponent the most optimal move in chess?" Most, if not everyone, would agree that in a competitive setting it's unwise and also not your place to play the game for your opponent. Round 5 will teach me this lesson all too well.
3. Overextending into an alpha strike
None of this is to say my opponent didn't deserve this win, at a key point in the game he identified an opportunity I left him, and took it. He said out loud, "I think I need to Alpha Strike you," and proceeded to do just that, crippling me beyond repair. What I did wrong here was overextending because my secondaries wanted me to. My thought process was to back up my midboard push with reinforcements. His miracle dice were not showing a guaranteed charge at the time and I had top of the battle round. The problem with this thought was he still had Zephyrim in deepstrike and a whole shooting phase to kill a unit and get an extra miracle dice, which is what happened. This gave him the charge onto two bikes on my back objective and lost me my own back field.
Loss number 2, Round 3, Cameron - Blood Angels - Surround & Destroy
Okay Blood Angels, I can beat Blood Angels. One of my dear friends & teammates, Brandon, plays Blood Angels and, between him, studying and listening to Jack Harpster swear upon how good they are, I feel pretty ready for this matchup.
I'm very aware of Sanguinary Guard being able to intervene 6", me being forced to fight a character through Angel's Sacrifice, and his +1 to charge/ +1 to wound in melee. You beat Blood Angels by avoiding the engagements they want and shooting them, luckily I'm tailored to do just that.
What you're never ready for is to be the most mobile army in the game, and your opponent somehow be more mobile. My niceness and inability to bring myself to call a judge costs me big in this game and this opponent was unfortunately a serial model mover. Consistently I had to bring up my concerns about him not measuring, and just picking up models and placing them at what his interpretation of 12" from his starting position was. At that point it's too late, models have been moved, and it's nearly impossible to go back to where he once was. This allowed him to frequently be exactly where he needed to be and my premeasuring to be flawed, getting me to the point of being so frustrated I just shut down. I know now that I should have called a judge and that I need to take each opponent with a grain of salt because just like me THEY ARE TRYING TO WIN, and unlike me may take any edge I inadvertantly give them by being the "cool dude" I always try to be in my gameplay.
I lose 61-89
I'd like it to be known at this point that I love Warhammer 40K. I'm not lamenting my tournament experience at all and I do genuinely believe that this article is in service of a valuable lesson. You don't need to be a jerk or a rude opponent, but being overly nice does lead to you being taken advantage of in a competitive setting. Neither earn you a win, as my next opponent and I will quickly find out.
Tie, Round 5, Jose - Space Wolves - Vital Intelligence
After helping my new opponent set out objective mats and chit-chatting, I do my normal speech about my army. I cover what relics are on who, what the Domino Shroud does, and how much of a murder-hobo my Warlord Troupe Master is. We start deploying and I have a general idea of where my Shadowseer and army are going to be. I deploy them defensively and cut my angles well as you can see. My drops are pretty fast, with my opponent being wildly methodical and premeasuring. Besides him being on a high-profile team, this is my next indication that I need to play tight and that Jose means business. This leads us into our first of many "incidents" as I'll call them henceforth.
1. The Chess Clock Weirdness
I'm actually very comfortable on a Chess Clock. It's almost exclusively how I play and practice at the shop, and Is extremely helpful for tracking your personal progress. I had no problem with my opponent pulling one out, (I had one on me but being in the 2-2 bracket I figured there's no point in presenting one), the problem I had was *when* he pulled out the Chess Clock. My opponent decided to set us at even time and start the clock AFTER deployment. The reason this didn't sit well with me is just how long my opponent took on deployment comparative to how much time I had spent. Setting both times at the same times seemed incorrect. I brush it off and feel fine with it since Games Workshop events use such long round times to begin with.
2. Don't Forget to Banners / The Troupe that Never "R.O.D.ed"
My opponent goes first and positions himself with a wolf in the midboard for Oaths of Moments, pulls his forward deployers onto multiple points, and advances forward with the rest of his army and Dreadnoughts. There's no shooting to be had due to the Shadowseer's range debuff and how conservatively I deployed my army, so Jose ends his turn. I look down to score up his turn and say, "oh I assumed those 3 infantry units you moved onto points were supposed to raise banners," to which he replies, "Oh yeah, my bad". Me being the nice guy I am I allow him to say he raised the banners as that was obviously his intention.
Fast forward to my Turn 2 where, after some mishaps, he kills all but one troupe and doesn't consolidate into said troupe. I use this on my turn as an opportunity to take that 1 troupe, move it into position, and announce that it will be Retrieving Octarius Data. I then move to my psychic phase, (which isn't anywhere remotely near this troupe), and roll for Webway Dance. The power succeeds and I move to shooting. It was in that moment that I looked down and asked Jose "I just remembered you have a strat for a 6" Heroic Intervention with any unit, do you mind if I move this lone troupe just outside of that 6"?" It was as if the judges Spidey-Sense starting tingling as 1 judge had come over at this exact moment. Jose responds that "It's a game for points and every move matters" and that he won't allow me to move out of the Heroic's range. After some back-and-forth and me posturing that the game state hasn't changed enough for it to matter, the judge rules against me, and that Troupe dies a horrible death.
3. My First Ever 'Gotchya' Moment
Rewind back to my first turn's movement phase. I start to pre-plan my movements meticulously, and ask Jose about the defensive profile of his Librarian. Being able to disembark after the transport moves, my warlord is a prime canidate to take the Librarian out and cripple my opponent's ability to get cover wherever he wants. This would make the rest of the game much easier for me. I'll be able to leave combat and get back onto the boat before he can fight, and I have a strat for increased damage, meaning I'll be hitting on 2's, wounding on 2's re-rolling and that along with increased damage on the 6 attacks I would just need him to fail 2 saves. Jose tells me that the Librarian has the Armour of Russ, and after I ask him what all it does he tells me "it's what gives the Librarian his 4++ Invulnerable save."
For anyone who knows what the Armour of Russ actually does you already see where this is going. For those who don't, it also allows him to select a unit in range to 'fight last', meaning Jose will get to intervene with his wolf guard and nuke my Warlord. I dedicate to the movement based on his information assuming the Armour of Russ is basically the Armour Indomitus, make my charge, and Jose kills my Warlord in cold blood. I question him about the play and tell him that it really didn't seem necessary to lie, and that had I known I wouldn't have dedicated to the line.
4. Recovery Mode
At this point I'm determined to score as high as possible. This starts by me not telegraphing any of my plays. I've told him enough of my tricks and it's now on him to know the rest. He tries to fallback with his Eradicators so I pay 1cp and consolidate back into them. He tries to charge onto my back point and kill my last Troupe Master, thus having 2 models to my 1 bike that's on the point. After making the charge, but before he fights, I use the Domino Shroud to leave combat and stay on the point. Jose was upset and said, "I guess that makes us even for the Librarian thing" and I made sure to reply, "the difference is I told you what this relic did earlier". The objectives being 'sticky', (meaning if you hold it in your command phase you continue to hold it until your opponent takes it from you), means the home objective is still mine and I can kill my opponents models off of it with ease my following turn.
I proceed to make the most of my bottom of 5th turn advantage, and even manage to take 1 of my opponent's banners down by moving Objective Secured Troupes onto it and charging my boat into the unit on that point so he couldn't Heroic into my Troupes. I complete a 3rd R.O.D. and we score up the game.
We Tie 88-88
Jose wasn't happy about this. He recounted the score 4 or 5 times and lamented many of his plays. I, however, was elated. I recovered so well and gave him close enough to the "loss" I felt he deserved. For all his "Gotchya's" and bad sportsmanship he still hadn't earned a win.
I walked away from this event having learned that the pendulum favors the reasonable but competitive player. If anyone takes anything away from this article it should be that Warhammer is first and foremost a gentleman's game that is meant to be enjoyed. There shouldn't be any dishonesty or foul play, but on that same token being nice and giving your opponent every little inch is not a winpath. We all payed money to be here at the end of the day and it IS a competitive event.
So once more I posture the question to be considered: Would you tell your opponent the most optimal move in Chess? After this weekend, I wouldn't.
